English With Juvies

After an incredibly disappointing week with no volunteer placement and wasted time going from meeting to meeting while frustrated, if exceedingly kind, Thais tried to figure out how to put four reasonably well educated American adult volunteers to any use, Adam and I were finally assigned a placement on Sunday evening when as we returned from a relaxing island weekend. Our task-- to teach English to 14-18 year old boys in a juvenile detention facility. While it may sound intimidating, Adam and I were incredibly pleased to have a placement and intrigued by the different challenges we would be facing. My guess was less snot, dirt, cuddling and songs, more attitude, edge and apathy. We spent Sunday evening racking our brains for activities that might engage teenage criminals, a task that is perhaps even further out of my range of experience than teaching 50 preschool students. In general 16 year old boys are as much a mystery to me now as they were when I was a 16 year old girl. At least I have had kids in preschool and so far, and with continued good fortune, I have and will continue to avoid first hand parental experience in juvenile prisons.

Adam quickly zeroed in on the need to appeal to male adolescents’ attraction to competition and we have been devising games, with candy as rewards for the successful teams. Fortunately, the effects of the sugar high is someone else’s problem. We have taught them greetings, numbers, calendar words, fruits and vegetables, always in the context of some team competition. I came up with the idea of playing music from our ipods and have a competition to see how many words each team could identify. Choosing songs appropriate to this activity was a tall order. The songs had to appeal to 16 year old boys (my ipod was useless, but thankfully, we had Maya’s), be devoid of swear words and be clearly enunciated. Good luck. We settled on “Celebration” (they all got “Yahoo”) and “Respect” and “Cha Cha Slide.” It didn’t take long before I had all of the boys up and dancing to the simple and clearly communicated cues of the Cha Cha Slide (two hops this time..slide to the left…) These Thai juvies had no idea that we were unwittingly preparing them for the American bar mitzvah circuit. Fortunately for Maya and Emma, their placement is several kilometers away because they would have been mortified beyond belief. No worries, even though Adam was subtly averting his eyes and pretending to no avail not to know me, the students seemed to have a great time, as did I.

I have worked with adult prisoners and I was prepared for a somewhat similar experience. This is not at all what we got. If I had not been told that there kids were delinquents, or had failed to notice that we were surrounded by locked gates and barbed wire, I would have never known. These kids are polite, well-behaved, eager to learn and an absolute pleasure to teach. Most of them are covered in tattoos at least one of which is a swastika, but they just don’t seem remotely menacing. In the week we have been there, we witnessed one brief, if aggressive, fight. However, instead of the other boys joining in, they helped break it up and restore calm. Hard to imagine a similar scenario at juvenile hall in Los Angeles. But, again, I have never been, so what do I know.

I have noticed many things about these boys that distinguish them from their American counterparts. First, they appear extremely respectful to their minders, as well as each other. Perhaps it is the Thai custom that requires people to greet each other by bowing slightly with hand in prayer pose that sets the tone of mutual respect, but it seems genuine to me. The competitions with the language games are genuinely good spirited and they all help each other along—even if they have something to lose. Their meals together are another interesting sight. Before anyone sits down, they work together to carefully and neatly set a table that would put most American families’ dinner tables to shame. They then do a brief ritual which appears to be some combination of prayer and military chanting, and then eat quietly and clean up as just as efficiently. Adam and I were particularly amused that we were placed between the healthy kids and the two who were “quarantined” because they had a contagious disease. If we correctly interpreted the translation, they have chicken pox, so no real risk, but humorous nonetheless.

I also love observing how the boys touch each other. They hold hands, caress each others’ arms and faces and seem to really take care of each other. There is absolutely nothing sexual in these actions—if it was I am certain they would do it in a more clandestine fashion given the social climate here. It just seems to be genuine affection between friends without the burden of societal shame they would suffer in our culture for expressing it so openly and physically.

We finish teaching at 11:30, and then stay, have lunch with the boys, have a break for an hour and then teach the staff conversational English. As with most Thais, the staff members know much more English than they are willing to share because they are confounded by the pronunciation and embarrassed to make a mistake and sound silly. Of course, they could not possibly sound sillier than I do in Thai, as evidence by the fact that they break into uncontrollable giggles whenever I try to pronounce a word. Needless to say the “tonal” thing with the Thai language is completely lost on me. I consider myself a fairly musical person, but my brain just can’t seem to synthesize the fact that one word can have five different meanings depending on the tone. Adam is even more useless than me in this department, so at least I look good by comparison,

Overall, Adam and I are thoroughly enjoying the placement. We love the kids and they seem to genuinely appreciate the lessons as they ask each day if we are coming back. I love having a completely different experience than I did in Tanzania. Adam and my divergent pedagogical strengths seems to complement each other and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to work together, particularly because we are back to sharing a small room and bunkbeds with our children and appreciate the time together. We have to rack our brains each evening for activities that will keep them engaged for two hours, but so far, the time has passed relatively quickly with the kids remaining focused. We are not changing the world, but we are happy to participate in what seems like a mutually beneficial relationship.