Blog Post: William & Mary Freeman Intern Fellow Josie Massenet's First Week at Mae La Noi Daroonsik
Global Playground is excited to welcome Josie Massenet as one of two Freeman Intern Fellows from the College of William & Mary who will be working with us this summer! Josie will be teaching English at Mae La Noi Daroonsik Secondary School, one of our partner schools in Northern Thailand. Read on below to learn about Josie’s experience during the first week of her internship.
My name is Josie Massenet, and I am a student at the College of William & Mary. This past week I have been relocated to the Mae La Noi District of Northern Thailand, where I am teaching English at a secondary school. The school, called Mae La Noi Daroonsik (MLND), is beautifully diverse, as it caters to the children and teens from the far-reaching hill tribes of Northern Thailand, even boarding around 150 students who live too far to commute daily. So, while the school teaches in Thai, this is not the first language of many of the students as they also speak the native languages of their hill tribes. This means that some of the students require familiarity in up to four languages, as all the students are required to take Thai, English, and Chinese.
I have been living in a house on the school’s campus with TJ Song, who is also a student at William & Mary. The house is situated behind the volleyball courts and the soccer field, so we get to see a lot of the students during lunch and after school. We are teaching between 20-25 classes per week, getting to go to all the classrooms and working with all of the students at the school.
What I have noticed most since my time here is the difference in the relationships between teachers and students. The students undeniably respect the teachers greatly, but there is also a degree of friendship and approachability between the two that I have not witnessed in the American counterparts. For example, TJ and I were able to experience the Teacher Appreciation holiday, where the students presented gifts and paid their respects to the teachers in a schoolwide ceremony, but we have also seen the students and teachers joking around and speaking freely with one another. There was a night last week where we hosted some teachers and some students over for dinner in our home, and it was extremely enjoyable.
I hope that I am able to explore more of the area, as well as the spirituality norms of the people here. I have never been very religious, but I have a strong appreciation for the ideals of Buddhism. One of the students taught us how to pray like a Buddhist at Wat Baan Mae Pang, pictured below, and it really resonated with me. I cannot wait to share all the new and exciting things I have learned when I get back to William and Mary.
