the ballad of husband's class

Husband is teaching six classes. For those of you counting on your fingers and coming up with 18 hours, please remember that he's also got to do several hours of preparation for every hour in front of students, and also grade literally hundreds of pages of homework a week. It's a lot of work. Watching him struggle really makes me feel for K-12 teachers (yeah, that's you, Sister-In-Law and Aunt), who are in the classroom for so many hours every day.

Husband started the semester teaching five classes. The sixth was added during the third week. That's right, the third week. Husband happened to run into the head of academic affairs while walking through the building, and HOAA informed Husband that he'd be taking over a new class. (Moral of the story so far? Never Leave Your Office.) The class was to start that week.

Husband determined that a room for the class was available, and on the day of class he went down to the administration office to request that the stereo equipment in the room be unlocked for him. (This is standard in music schools in the U.S. too--musical instruments worth thousands of dollars, belonging to students (what are they thinking?) and the university are left lying around all over the place, but that $99.00 stereo the university bought at Best Buy? You need a top-level security clearance to access that, baby!)

No, Husband was told. We can't unlock that stereo cabinet for you because you can't teach in that room. Husband looked down at his master building schedule, which clearly showed his class in that room, and asked why. Well, it turns out that another teacher had asked to use the room during one of Husband's class hours. Apparently this other teacher has more clout than Husband, or else he bribed the schedule keepers, because his request apparently trumps Husband's CLASS.

Husband then asked the schedule keeper to assign him to another room. Any room. No such luck. Apparently EVERY SINGLE ROOM in the building is busy at the time of his class. Would he like to change the time? (Yeah, that's a good idea--change the time of a required class during the third week of the semester. That won't cause any problems for students.) Husband declined. Wasn't there someplace he could teach?

Finally a room was located. It's a tiny rehearsal room, usually used for jazz, with a huge drum set and many amps of various sizes in permanent residence. And a tightly locked stereo, of course.

The time for the class arrived. Husband stood outside the room he was originally assigned, hoping to corral his students and herd them towards the new room using only a minimum of rope. Time passed; no students appeared. A student not in the class came up to Husband and said to him, "Ajarn, I think those are your students." She led him to the edge of the courtyard, where he looked down . There, in fact, was a loose group of students waiting for him. He got their attention and motioned them up; he determined that they were, in fact, waiting for his class; he led them to the new room and taught the class. Without the stereo, though, as no one had come to unlock it.

At the end of class, Husband assigned some homework. (He does like to give homework.) This was met with confusion. One of the students said, "Ajarn, we cannot come to class next week." Husband said, "All of you?" They nodded. Apparently the entire class (and a lot of other studnets too) is going to be absent for at least one day for a university activity. This is not unusual; our students are always missing school to perform in concerts, to go abroad for competitions, to attend master classes, and for other reasons never fully explained. What was unusual was what followed this announcement.

The students asked Husband to reschedule the class! Yeah, what the office people suggested in the first place. So Husband finds a time when they can all make it. This time may or may not be available in their schedules, as I've found out--the Thai way of saying "I can't make it at that time" without offending a teacher is to say "Yes, it's OK" and then just not show up; apparently if they were to say "no" to a teacher, the teacher would lose face, and the teacher/student relationship is important enough that disrupting it by causing a teacher to lose face is worse than confusing your farang teacher by not showing up when you said you would. But we'll see.

Husband went back to the office to find a room for the new time. You guessed it--no rooms available. He's going to teach the next class session in his office (not big enough for a class--they're going to have to sit on top of each other), then revert back to the old time after one class at the new time.

While in the office, he asked, "By the way, why were my students waiting for me on the ground floor?"

Are you ready for this?

The room outside which the students were waiting had ALREADY BEEN RESERVED ON HUSBAND'S BEHALF AFTER THE ORIGINAL CLASSROOM WAS GIVEN AWAY. He doesn't have to teach in the jazz rehearsal room. He never had to teach in the jazz rehearsal room. The office staff knew this when he was searching for a classroom. They thought it was important enough to tell the students, but neither when he originally came in, nor when they helped him find the jazz rehearsal room, did they think it was important enough to tell the teacher!

I saw Husband immediately after this conversation, and all he could say was, "Beer."