aarontendo

This is just silly though right? To suggest that Thailand is some magically amazing (or awful) place that no amount of preparation can get one ready for teaching here just seems far-fetched. Also a lot of us work at schools that actually care and push rigor (*gasp* yes in Thailand!) and as such they don't fall into the overgeneralized zoo-like conditions that your average punter on a bar stool cries about being his workplace. What exactly is the situation in a Thai classroom that is so alien that we cannot prepare for? Unmotivated students? Gee we learn ways to work with that in school of education. High need for differentiation? We learn ways to work with that in school of education. Students undiagnosed with X, Y, and Z disabilities? We learn ways to work with that in school of education.

I really don't know why but it is funny to see people here talking about these salaries. Fellas, if you're working for a public school and whining about salaries then you seriously need your head examined. Those jobs always pay foreigners badly. I suppose one can get into an EP or private school to move up a wee bit. The reality is those jobs aren't unionized, and they'll never really raise your salaries for more experience. Why should they? There's always some fresh of the boat boy willing to stay in Thailand to get his you-know-what wet and accept low wages. Get qualified and move into better positions. This is the way. I did the 40k baht for a year and moved on. People who have been doing this gig for 10 years here and still can't break free of those jobs confuse the hell out of me.

Less to do with the teachers themselves and more to do with the system in place, including apathy from policy makers and parents. We're in an age where members of society simply feel the need to blame others for their own shortcomings. Teaching as a profession will always end up criticized because as a governmental service policy makers can directly make changes to it. In essence, it's a lot easier to blame teachers and to implement "No Child Left Behind" type policies than to get parents to raise their children better. Many children cannot read and write properly, even given every technological advantage and innovation in education, because they simply don't care to and parents do not act as a disciplinarian to them. Schools are also pressure to actually reduce discipline in many cases, as instances of being sent for such are recorded and make a school (and thus principal) look bad. I'll fully admit that there are teachers in the field who might not be the best, and that having a license and degree isn't a guarantee of any quality beyond a simple baseline standard to start or continue to work in the field. However, I feel that many deficiencies in education today aren't necessarily due to the quality of teachers but has much more to do with the number of distractions in kids' lives. It also doesn't help that in places such as America kids aspire to be influencers, Youtubers, and Tik-Tok'ers. I don't know how to teach kids how to sing and dance on a camera, sadly heh.

Teaching is a profession, and any sort of profession has educational and licensure requirements. I realize that Thailand has a ton of teaching jobs that aren't really that professional. I get a lot of use out of my undergraduate and graduate studies when I'm working with my students at my school. I suppose it depends on what one is teaching too. I teach subject matter up through AP and so the material goes fairly in-depth. I still remember years back when I was asked to teach business and economics, and a friend of mine was upset that he didn't get a chance to apply for the job because he didn't have a degree in the subject matter, or hell even a degree for that matter. He then went on to say he could teach it just fine because he had taught "Business English" in the evenings. Cool, I threw him a napkin and a pencil and asked him to draw a simple supply and demand curve. He just told me to "f-off" heh.

I used to know what to do to prevent it but I forgot.