bulletin boards

I suspect Thai education majors spend an entire semester learning to produce magnificent bulletin boards. Their boards feature multicolored geometric borders, 3-D components, and elements that can be removed and used as classroom demonstration pieces.

In reality, these boards have little educational value. The kids rarely look at them. Their main purpose, as far as I can tell, is to gratify the Thai teachers' egos and fuel their unspoken rivalries as they try to outdo each other every month.

Much to our collective chagrin, last month we learned that we, the farang teachers, are responsible for decorating one bulletin board in each of our classrooms by the last day of the month.

My theme for July was "Around the World." The kids were learning fun facts about 13 countries picked randomly by Nummon. I thought making the countries' flags, printing our their names in their official language, and adding a well-known symbol of each country would be easy enough.

False. The flags were extraordinarily time-consuming because the school decided to get ride of the color printer. I made them by hand, painstakingly snipping out the tiny construction paper pieces. And did I mention there are three boards to prepare?

I learned my lesson, and decided the next board would have a few large, simple pieces instead. This month's unit focuses on possessive pronouns. I finished my three boards this afternoon. Pictures to follow...

And 10 points to the person who can name the 13 countries represented on the bulletin board pictured!