"how many classes do we have cancelled today?"
This is the running joke me and my fellow teachers have in the staffroom each morning as the head of English gives us our daily lesson cancellations.
The second semester in Thai government schools (Nov - March) are always very stop-start as the students take part in a lot of activities. This makes lesson planning very hard because its impossible to second guess which lessons are going to be cancelled and you usually only find out about it 5 minutes before anyway!
Whilst some of the reasons for cancellations are understandable i.e. preparing for GAT tests, competitions etc some are not so...
- "students are very tired today... yesterday was loy krathon"
- "students are cleaning car park because we have visit from education area"
- "students will have a concert today"
- "students have to practice thai dancing"
- "students will have a uniform inspection"
Whilst it may sound nice to have all this free time the truth is we still have to stay at school so it just means that we end up sitting around for hours doing nothing. Personally I'd much rather teach!