Teacher's Day

When I applied to be a Fulbright ETA, I had the (I think reasonable) expectation, if selected, that I would be an English Teaching Assistant. Whoops. That ship has sailed. For Fulbright Vietnam, we are expected to be independent or individual "master" teachers. I was given 8 days of teacher training in Hanoi and since then I've been teaching independently. No one has ever observed my lessons or asked to see a lesson plan. I keep fearing this will eventually explode in my face. I'd say it is impostor syndrome...except I am impersonating a teacher. My only saving grace was that I was able to argue my way out of having to give grades (They said students would not pay attention unless I gave grades, but I've compensated by being fun...or at least loud).

Needless to say, like many first year teachers, the first semester was filled with few triumphs and many tribulations. It was hard. Of course it was hard. Sometimes, though, it was rewarding.

The most rewarding part of my teaching so far has been Teacher's Day. In Vietnam, teaching and teachers are regarded highly, much more highly than in America. So, every year, there is a national holiday to celebrate teachers, called Teacher's Day.

This year, Teacher's Day was on November 20th (a Friday) and we got school off! All week, students were super well behaved and did small things. Every evening that whole week, parents or students came by with (huge) presents, flowers, fruit, and money (I got like 75 bucks, which I would have refused but it was in envelopes so I didn't know what it was until they had left).

It was incredibly rewarding for the students to come and show how much they appreciate me- sometimes being a teacher becomes a grind, but when students come to your room in the evening with a giant cake and perform a choreographed song and dance it makes you feel a lot better!

Walking into 10 Physics

10 Math came to visit

Local Primary School I at which I volunteer

10 English

Cake from 10 Math

In culmination, the PTA of CLC (my school) held a giant party on Friday morning. It was huge. While I have been pretty steadfast about not drinking (a huge part of socializing in northern Vietnam), on this occasion, I had no choice.

Typically, at a Vietnamese party, no beverages will be served. Instead, tons of rice wine and shot glasses will be provided. People will come to your table and wish you all good health, and everyone will do a shot. At some point, you should go to every table and wish everyone good health and invite them to do a shot. As you can imagine, at an event with 18 tables, there was a lot of drinking. Women and men who are severely impaired (drunk) can decline shots, but almost no one else can. At such a high profile event, there was no feasible way for me to do so ("I'm allergic to alcohol." "This isn't alcohol, its wine!"). At noon, I was over 20 rice wine shots deep. Not the most fun experience. So, I wanted to go home. 

Nope! Of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the second part of every Vietnamese party. Karaoke! I can't sing (even a little bit- like not at all) and so I usually sing one song and no one asks me to sing again. :) This time, however, we only stayed for 20 minutes and then the English teachers bailed to get coffee and go sleep it off, after all, they (but not I) had to teach the next day!

11 English pretending to be soldiers during Teacher's Day Ceremony

Overall, one of the better weeks I've had in Vietnam. It felt great to be appreciated (I, in turn, have been reaching out to former teachers all year to express my appreciation for all their hard work- I never properly appreciated it before!)

Onward. Always Onward.

Daniel