I’ve got a question. I don’t even know how to start, so I’ll just tell it like it happened in case anyone has a different perspective.

Yesterday around 8:30 a.m. we had a teachers’ meeting at the school in Khon Kaen. I’m a homeroom teacher and teach Thai, 31 years old. Sorry if this is messy, I’m really confused.

Short version: Last week the principal announced a new policy to cut unnecessary activities and focus on intensive teaching according to the learning plans. There’ll be classroom evaluations from the admin team next month. Everyone signed to acknowledge it — there’s even a document with the mechanical pen I borrowed from a friend. Yesterday’s meeting was to prepare for the annual sports day, which usually takes almost two hours to organize. But once the meeting started the principal flipped and told all teachers to help run booths, make games, and add special activities to attract students and the community — totally opposite to the policy announced earlier.

Honestly, I was sooooo confused. So we’re supposed to focus on teaching but also run this big extra-job event? The hard part is that when I prepare teaching materials, unpack lessons, and care for little kids who still aren’t fluent readers — I usually spend about 2–3 hours a day on that. That’s not enough already, but in the meeting we were ordered in front of everyone to fully cooperate.

Can I just say straight up that I can’t handle it? I’m worried it’ll make me look like a teacher who doesn’t love the job or isn’t a team player. Some colleagues nodded and said “we understand, boss,” but others whispered that the principal changes their mind as quickly as the wind and sometimes works against their own policies.

At the end of the meeting the principal smiled and acted normal, like they never announced anything last month. I don’t know if I’m overthinking it, but why do decisions like this make teachers stressed — we have to swap periods, change assistants, and some people live far away and take buses; adding work affects cost and time for teachers for real.

I tried talking privately with coworkers. Some said to follow the principal’s order first and we’ll deal with it later. But I feel like a boss who changes policy often without clear reasons reduces trust. Or am I just overthinking it ㅋㅋㅋ T_T

So my question: if you had a boss who kept reversing policies like this, how would you raise concerns or talk about it without sounding like you’re defying orders but also without getting taken advantage of? I want to keep good relationships with the team and make the principal understand teachers’ real workload, not just order everything and expect us to do it all.

Does anyone have short example sentences or ways to talk — like short lines I could say to the principal in a one-on-one? Or if I want to propose a neutral solution, how should I start? Should I prepare a short written proposal or a small notebook, or tell the principal the actual time teachers need, like “please allow 3 days to prepare materials”? Is that okay?

I snuck away from the principal to post this. I’ll go back to the teachers’ table now. Sorry if I wrote anything impolite.