I feel so special

I didn't tell you guys about how The Village's Christmas Production went. Well, it was super hectic but it was a success. It was a wonderful night with my kids and being able to meet their parents and siblings. I was so proud of them because they did so their parts so well. They're special kids and they did a really excellent job. I was backstage for most of it but the reaction from the audience was really good. Funny huh? After coaching them for months I wasn't even able to see them for real on the day! Haha. It was also nice to hear some parents say their kids talk about me. Hahah in a good way of course.

Today is the day before the last day of school. Almost every class had their own pizza party celebrations. Early in the morning I got a gift of chocolate from my student Madi. A few minutes later Puff came in with a Jim Thompson scarf for me. A little while later Azumi gave me a present too. There was a note and some really cute stuff. At 11.30 I had a pizza and S&P cake party with my drama class students. I ate 2 slice of pizza and a slice of cake.

I went back to my classroom at 12.00 and tada!! My kids had planned a surprise party for me! There on the table was 3 boxes of pizza , 2 bottles of coke, and a huge swensens ice cream cake! They presented me with a card they made themselves and a nicely wrapped bar of soap. So sweeet! I ate another 2 slices of pizza and a slice of that delicious ice cream cake.

Later in the afternoon we had a staff Christmas party. We all helped to prepare the food. We had Indian, Mexican, Italian, French Thai and BBQ. There was beer, wine, soft drinks and gift exchange as well. I got a water kettle and my boss gave me a One Healthy Habit Mangosteen. We also had dancing and musical chair. It was another fun Village party as usual. I'll really miss these parties and people.

I hope I meet nice people like I met at The Village whereve I may be after this.

On my way back home I was already crying in my heart. By tomorrow lunch time I'll be saying goodbye to everyone.

Achis counting the chairs a few hours of the production.

First Pizza and Cake Party

2nd Pizza and Cake Party

Preparing Food and Gifts for Staff Christmas Party

Ready!

I've been talking since forever about the Christmas production. It's finally going to happen today in just a few hours. We had our final, full, run through, dress rehearsal and now the kids are on their way home. Yep, we have half day of school today, holiday tomorrow, and then half day on Friday. Practice went well and I'm really happy about that. Me being backstage wasn't so hectic as the past few times. I'm saying bye to one of my students today because he's leaving early for his break. Some of the kids know I'm leaving while others don't understand when I tell them I'm leaving. They're so sweet. I know in their own way they'll still remember me as I'll always remember and miss them.

Even though I'll be busy, I'm still looking forward to the program. All classes will be performing something and after that there'll be food and then raffle draw! There are so many cool prizes. Basically the parents sponsor, donate, give stuff that will be prizes for the raffle draw. I think the raffle draw is for 2 in Sofitel. One of my students dad is th manager or owner or something. Ooohhh..I do hope I get something! I bought 100 baht worth of tickets = 5 tickets. The last raffle draw I ever joined was at MC and I got a broom! Heheh....

I'll also get to meet my students friends, families, parets, siblings. The hand christmas true is fully decorated the mango trees are adorned with light. The stage is done....we're ready!

Okay the kids (whose homes are too far and will be staying for the rest of the afternoon until the program) are here in the ICT room. We're gonna watch Open Season 2.

Christmas Tree

This is The Village Hand Christmas Tree

Everyone in The Village makes their hand print and then it will be put together to make a Christmas Tree which will be one of the main decorations for our Christmas Program.

ATypical Assembly

It's assembly and certificates are handed out:


Well done certificate TO... FOR...

William - Gold star for reading 80 books.
Edward - Reading an entire book without fidgeting.
Mahe - Knowing it's okay to make mistakes.
Jas - Settling in.
Sashank - Adapting to the new program.
Maddi & Michael - completing homework for the whole term.
New - Improved vocabulary.
Puff & Madi - Enthusiam in PE.

My Dear Students

Sometimes people might get the idea that teaching children with special needs is boring because most of them need routine and everything is the same everyday. It's just the total opposite. Something different happens everyday. They are wonderful human beings to be around and to get to know. To me they are just like anybody else except that to the world they are labled as "special". Well, it's hard to explain unless you get to meet and spend time with these kids. I'm so happy to be able to connect and begin to understand this part of the world that not many people know about.

Anyways, I just want to share a few things about some of my students.

J is having his GED exams on November 19 Mollel and I have been trying our best to help him. He is doing his final exam on mathematics.

A., he loooooooves music. So on mornings that I am on duty to watch the kids I lend him my phone and let him listen to the music. At first he just nods his head to the song, then he snaps his finger and taps his feet, then he gets up and starts bobbing around...finally I tell him to just go to the court and walk around to the music. He loves music so much he can't stay still or stop smiling while he's listening to it. It's so fun to watch him. He doesn't know how my phone works and he asks me "Where is the volume?" You can hardly get a word out of him without talking to him first or sentences that are not rehearsed but here he asked that on his own accord.

Today, I wore a Karen shirt from on o fmy friends at MC. Then E comes up to me points at my shirt and says "nice,nice". She also hardly starts a conversation or doesn't seem to notice these kinds of things and out of the blue she comes up to me and says that. It was such a great start for the day.

Yes, just a bit about a few of my students. I wish I could tell you every funny thing that happens but it isn't the same if you don't experience it first hand. So come and visit The Village! Hahaha.

Pattaya Class

Pattaya Class is one of the two Drama classes I teach. These are the youngest kids I'm teaching this term. I've gotten to know them and they're really great and sweet kids despite the stress at the beginning of this term I've come to enjoy spending my time with them twice a week.

William putting stickers on his mask.

Eilis blow drying her mask.
We're gonna use the mask as a prop for their Drama class.

There are 5 students and these masks are their work of art.
Eilis, the artistic one, made 2 masks.


This helps me keep them under control =)

They get the good job coupon if they receive 3 stars in one class. They can exchange that coupon for a "prize" usually chocolate which they love. If they get 6 stars they get a certificate in assembly. And if they get 30 stars as a class they have a movie day watching what they love most...Magic School bus!

WELCOME TO HOLLAND

by
Emily Perl Kingsley.

http://www.our-kids.org/Archives/Holland.html

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

Colourful Festival of Light

Please refer to Hazel's Post to see what festival The Village has celebrated today. I had a great day. I wish there was a camera that could catch feelings so that I could share with you how I felt. Like click this button and then some aura comes out and you can feel the happiness and love I had.

Now the pictures of my [work] love life...=P

These are shaped by coloured grains of rice!

As Simple As That

As some of you might know I am teaching drama class. I just so happened to be the available one to teach. =)

In the beginning I was really stressed about it. But now things are getting better. I used to dread going to the classes but now I'm actually looking forward to it.

I learned a lesson from myself. Never give up- just try and try until you find a solution. So yeah, now things are going pretty smoothly in both my drama classes.

I like to try to make it intersting for my kids, especially the older ones. So I try to think of some activity they'll like. Today I felt like I ran out of ideas and I went to class thinking that maybe they'll have a boring day today.

But then the kids started suggesting some games we could play. We started off with one game then other students started giving out more ideas. These were the games we played (from what I can recall):

Whoever makes a noise first loses.
Whoever moves first loses.
Whoever smiles first loses.
Whoever laughs first loses.
Whoever blinks first loses.
Whoever breaths first loses.
Who can say the names of bands the most in 1 minute.
Who can say the names of authors the most in 1 minute.

So you see I didn't have to look so far for ideas. The kids are full of them and if they came up with it and its what they enjoy you're in for a great ride in that class.

I was also able to see a whole new side of these kids. For example I have a student who can hold his breath for 1 minute and 4o seconds. Another students who can list 35 band names in 1 minute and also another student who can keep a straight face even though everyone around him is smiling. I could see everyone of them enjoyed and everyone were able to take part despite their differences.

Just the other day I was asking myself if special education is really what I want to do. And now today I have gotten the reassurance that I'm on the right path.

Staff Training Day

The kids were lucky today. They had no school. The teachers had work though. But we were lucky in another way. It was staff training day and the last day for the first half of the term. We started work at 8 instead of 7.30 and since it wasn't an official school day we all got our jeans out of our closets and wore them to work.

First mollel and I arranged our room a little that lasted from around 8 to 10.

During

After

Then at 10 to 12 we had a little seminar/workshop with the manager of Mattson Home - home for special children and autism. The manager and some teachers came to teach us SCIP - Strategies for Crisis Intervention amd Prevention for Aggressive Children. Where we work we face children who sometimes can't control their emotions or get upset and act out. We have to help them and help ourselves as well. So we were taught moves such as

• Touch control
• One/Two person escort
• Arm control by one person or with assistance
• Seated wrap-up
• OneTwo arm release
• Blocking punches
• Front/Back hair pull (what to do when somone pulls your hair)
• Back hair pull release with assistance
• Front choke release
• Back choke release
• Kick prevention
• Two-person take down
• One-person take down
• Bite release
• Back hold underarm release
• Back hold over arms release
• Chair deflection

Practicing the Back hair pull.

Two person take down

Two person take down - face down.
Two person take down -face up

Them from 1 -3 we had the Autism Friendly Classroom Seminar led by one of our own teachers.
It was great as well. Bayu bought the book Autism for Dummies for my birthday and I read it and it really helped me alot. So I wasn't clueless during the workshop. Of course I learned alot of stuff. Everything I learned to day is really precious to me.



I'm really grateful for all these opportunities for more learning. Will try to share what I learned in another post!

Oh the Laughter

Every Thursday morning I'm on duty. I have to be at school earlier than usual and I watch and mingle with the kids. When I was new I found it kinda awkward but now I look forward to it! I get to spend extra time with them and watch them interact with each other. I also get to know the kids from the other classes better.

This morning A* (not his real name) was playing tic-tac-toe. A has [high end] ASD and he doesn't really show much emotion except grinning from ear to ear when doing stuff he loves like listening to music, dancing, computer or movies. Anyways, he was playing with the other kids and then he asked me to play with him. He was just learning how to play it and I was teaching him that if he saw his opponent having two x's or O's in a row he must block it.

The part that really made my day was when he LAUGHED. That's right he laughed, really laughed. He tried brushing my hand away when he saw I was going to win because he forgot to block me and when I put that winning X he shouted "oooh no!" and laughed. Almost 6 months being his teacher and only now I've seen him laugh. Even the other teachers turned their heads to look. I've always seen him smiling his smile but today was the first time I really heard him laugh. What can I say it just made me so happy to be able to see that side of him.

You might not understand how someone's ability to laugh could be so amazing. In my short time of working here I've learnt that we take many simple things for granted but this was one of the most memorable moments I've had here in The Village - I just had to share it.

Say Cheese

I was filling in a questionnaire a few weeks ago and one question asked:
What makes you laugh?
It didn't take me to fill in my answer ---- my students!

They can be very sweet and funny and bring a smile on my face even on the most down days.
I'm so blessed to have the chance to know all of them.

Here is Sweet Azumi.

Meet Sashank! He is falling asleep here.
He is so cute and so funny and everybody at school loves him.

Field Trip

Our class the Hua Hin class went on a field trip today - to Central World. WooHoo! When I was doing my internship, as well as education in college, I thought I was training to be with little kids. I am with little kids but this term I was put with the big kids! It's been great so far, a bumpy ride, but great.

Well, you must be wondering what crazy teachers will bring their students to Central World for a field trip. Well the students and especially us the teachers need a new atmosphere for once and just some general experience. Alot of these kids still need help in social situations. But mainly it's also because they've been learning percentage in math and we bring them to learn about percentage through sales in Central World. So we made a worksheet for them to list items, their original price, percentage off, sale price and VAT.

We just arrived! We stayed from 10.30 am - 2.00 pm

Going up, up and up to check out the prices.

Advise for all. Before you bring a big group to do abnormal things (like bringing clipboards and going into shops to look at prices and jotting them down and not buying anything) contact the main office first to get a permission slip or a tag like I have on my shirt. Then the bouncers won't kick you out! That's what we learned today.

That's my partner teacher Mollel with Tum and New.
In the B2S bookstore they had this Audio Book Room For the Blind. The lady inside was reading and recording what she was saying for future reference.


New, Leo and Mollel

Education is not just in the classroom!

Lunch Time! Pizza Time!
The sign in the restaurant we ate in.

James and I. James is studying for his GEDs.
He's got one exam left. Math. Please pray for him!

James and his Pizza. He taught me how to eat pizza with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Yummmm.

This has nothing to do with the field trip but I put up for RJ and Cathy. This is the back gate of EIS. I was waiting for Hazel in the car after work.