What my name, teacher?

What my name, Teacher?

I've been giving pre/post tests. I try not to take it hard while grading: 20-24 out of 50 is most common, some push into the 30s, many are in the low teens; the worst was a student who marked 12 answers, of which 3 were correct—so, is that technically a 25%? I tell myself it's to mark progress, so low scores are a good thing; the students scoring in the 40s will be harder to keep engaged than the students in the 28s.

I do sometimes wonder about things though, because there is a constant background murmur of Thai. It's like the smell of fish sauce or durian, or maybe the humidity: sure, try to fight it, but if it's that problematic, you're better off going home. Given my American predilections, were I to be cheating and talking with friends about the test, I'd make damn sure to be talking to the smartest people in class. So why are there still so few “passing” grades?

So I'm sitting in the front of the class after distributing the test and instructing the students to write their names and nicknames on top of the answer sheets. There's always a little commotion while they confirm the instructions, and after that subsides I start shusshing them. But there was a greater than usual hum that built into a knot of boys walking up to the front. (It should be noted that boys of this age are the chattiest members of the Thai population.)

One boy, very small and dark, held out his answer sheet.

I was a little confused and said, “That's for you to do, okay? Fill out the boxes.”

He shook his head and held his pen on the sheet. Then he grabbed his shirt.

It took a few seconds for one of his friends to say, “What my name, Teacher, what my name?”

Blink. Blink. Without a perceptible change in the conversation, the room went very, very quiet. What my name teacher? Do I address the speaker—what's HIS name? Do I address the boy asking the question—what's my name, teacher? If I do that, which I should, how on earth do I confront prompting someone to ask, 'what's my name?'

I take too long and the boy is tugging at his shirt. I realize he's pointing out his name, embroidered in Thai script.

Here's the rub: the poor kid has worked up the cajones to come up and ask me to write his name because he can't write it in English, and his friends aren't faring much better. The best he can do is point at his name, because he doesn't know how to ask, “How do you spell Sawarithaporn in English?”

And I'm equally worthless with the Thai, without having a knot of friends to help me say, “what your name?”

Who's ignorant and who's just dumb?

“What is your name?” in a slow, enunciated teacher voice.

A flurry of Thai.

He says something that gets buried under an avalanche of, “He name......!” No telling which of the 15 versions of something incomprehensible to my farang tongue is the boy's name, much less what he's actually saying as he retreats further into himself.

“What? What? ALL OF YOU GO SIT DOWN AND START YOUR TEST!

“Now, what is your name?”

“Patawataromikukowikut.”

“What?”

He repeats it.

{I know I sound crass and as a teacher I should know his name, but this is the second time I've seen him, and most of my other thousand students. As a colleague said, with twenty some classes of fifty-some students, you get to know the good ones, the bad ones, and the prettiest girls.}

“What is your nickname?”

“Nickname So,” he says.

“Okay. Here, write, S-O, like this.”

But he's worried. He points to the board, to his shirt, “Name Pawasuperunpronouncible.”

“Don't worry, So, just write So. And your number. What is your student number?”

Another deer in headlights look, and the pretty one who sits in front whispers to him.