Ceilidh culture in Chiang Mai

Visited Migrant Learning Centre to teach young laddies and lassies (Irvine's term!)

a wee bit about Scotland - the lingo, the moves and a bit about the country.

The students were a bit reluctant to have a go,

but with a bit of 'encouragement' (think brute force)

they joined in and,I think, had a bit of fun.

Luckily for us the room was well air conditioned!

We then hit the shops! Thanks to all the kind

donations from friends back in Scotland

we were able to buy up the duplo and lego

supplies in Chiang Mai. It was a bit of an event,

with at least 9 assistants running around for us

in the shop...more than a bit worried that we were

not able to pay for the rapidly increasing pile of stuff!

Now we are knackered and we are off for a rest

before the next round of "Happy Gordons"

this evening.

Tea with our friend...

Last September our friend visited Forthview

and worked on some inspiring art with our P5 children.

It was lovely to meet him tonight in Chiang Mai with his family.

We enjoyed a meal together.

Earlier we had spotted this sign... do you get it?

Teacher Training in Chiang Mai

Today, we went to Thein Lwin's Thinking Classroom Foundation to teach An Introduction to Scottish Education.

We took our shoes off at the door.

Then we enjoyed a lovely lunch of rice, vegetables, chicken and pototo, fishballs and fruit with the teachers Thein Lwin is training just now.

What did we talk about?

Fiona spoke about Early Education and learning through play. Irvine spoke about Formative and Summative Assessment. Sheila gave the big picture of Scottish Education 1965 - 1991 -2008. Yes, they were all falling asleep on us when we decided to do some Brain Gym and Circletime to keep us all awake.

We were delighted to see that Dr Thein Lwin had adapted a Forthview idea of Language of the Month into Language of the day for his students to share their ethnic languages with each other.

We also enjoyed reading the notes the teachers made during Dr Thein Lwin's training session on Critical Thinking. He has so much to teach us.

Bananas and capes...

It's 11am on Thursday morning. At 8.30am, Dr Thein Lwin phoned to welcome us to Chiang Mai.

"Sheila, can you come and meet my teachers who are training and given them an Introduction to Scottish Education this afternoon?" Nae bother, Thein Lwin....

... so I set off to find Irvine and Fiona who had just finished a lovely breakfast of fish soup and omelette. They were looking at the gardens and pondering flies and flowers. 'Morning folks, at 12 noon we are having Burmese lunch then giving a talk on Scottish Education.' Several Irvine flaps later, when he had finished declaring that he liked and loathed me, he went off to write his notes on Assessment is for Learning for Burmese Teachers. Hee, hee. I'm sure he said I was bananas.

Thought you would like to see these bananas which look nasty and taste divine and cost 1p each. Mmmm....

So Irvine set off to roam the streets of Chiang Mai, muttering about summative and formative assessment and Fiona, Geoff and I set off to find the internet cafe to blog.... and at that point, down came the lovely warm Thai rain.... very unlike Scottish rain.... this is nice, declared Irv....

Chillin in Chiang Mai....

We're here! After a very long 10.5hrs from Amsterdam to Bangkok, we arrived this morning, or was it this afternoon? Very confusing. I think it's 6pm Thai time and 12 noon UK time as I write. We were all very spaced out by the journey. Maybe that's why all 4 of us got into the hotel lift, 3 of us got out and the lift shut and took Irvine away, shouting, "Where am I going?"

We all went off to our rooms in the Amari Rincome (lovely hotel, as you promised Murray and Stewart) for a wee sleep. Irvine tell us he only slept for 30 mins when a woman knocked on teh door of his hotel room to give him the Washington Post. He leapt into his football shorts and hoodie with the hood up because he didn't want to alarm her! Can you imagine the sight, poor woman. Apparently both she and Irvine were bowing to each other saying, 'Sorry! Sorry! Sorry!' I can hear you chuckling Gail.

3 hours later, after the rest of us slept too long but Irvine had read the Washington Post, we head off to the shopping mall. Irvine needs a bag because his water cooler bag won't suffice. He now has a man bag that says 'Camp Inn'! He's very excited because it has lots and lots of pockets but states he will never take it to Easter Road (the football).

We're catching up with you and then off to catch a tuk tuk back to the hotel. Here are Irvine and Fiona on the tuk tuk.

We rang Bobo and we're delighted to know the Pirniehall teachers have arrived safely and have delivered the etchings to Bobo. He is now framing them for OUR BURMA BBOK EXHIBITION, which starts in Mae Sot next week.

It is so so lovely to be back in Thailand.

Here we go!

It's 5am on Tuesday 7 July 2009 and Fiona, Irvine, Geoff and I are ready to go. Our accommodation is sorted though we do fear a communal toilet! Pirniehall are already there in Chiang Mai. Scotland is pouring with rain so not much will change except the rain will be hotter and we'll steam. Getting our cases down to 20 Kg has been fun, with many emails saying, 'Have you got room for jigsaws, 400 toothbrushes, reading books and other unmentionables?' So as Jackie said in her comment on our last post, 'It's bound to be a happening time!' Keep your eye here for July's entertainment.....

Sheila

It's time to go to Mae Sot again.

On Tuesday 7 July, Fiona Vacher and Irvine Wright, 2 Forthview teachers are travelling to Hle Bee School in Mae Sot under the auspices of DfID Global Schools Partnership. They will be visiting Dr Thein Lwin's Teacher Training Centre on the way. This year the learning projects will include Toothbrushing, Games, Governance, Early Years education, and Our Burma Book. Here you can see Fiona and Irvine telling Forthview all about their coming visit to Hle Bee.

Sheila Laing and Geoff Hart will also be travelling to Chaing Mai and Mae Sot with Fiona and Irvine. Sheila is going to be working with Dr Thein Lwin to be training Burmese teachers in Emotional Literacy Education.

Mary Ryan Gillespie, Headteacher of Pirniehall Primary School, is also heading to Mae Sot. On Sunday Mary and 2 of her teachers travel to work in Say Ta Nar school for a week. You can read her blog on http://www.pirniehall.blogspot.com/.

Life in Mae Sot is never quite what one expects however and so it was not a total shock when our friend, Guardian Angel, emailed today to say DK Hotel is being refurbished so they can't give you your rooms!! Many shrieks and screeches of laughter from Scotland later, Guardian Angel set out to fix up new accommodation for the 7 of us travelling ..... we'll phone tomorrow to see how it's going!!

Life's always interesting in Mae Sot....