Thai students and correction fluid

[attrayant]

I've only been in two different schools in Thailand but in both of them, students were obsessed with blotting out mistakes using correction fluid. Back in the states, I can't remember the last time I saw somebody using the stuff... probably it was back in the 70's or 80's when typewriters were in style.

I'm wondering if this is a fluke based on my small sample size of two schools, or if it's universal - and if the latter, where do they learn it from? Do primary school teachers insist on it? The parents?

To me, it actually hampers the learning process if you pretend that you never made any mistakes. Why not just draw a line through the mistake and write the correction above/below/in the margin? That way you can see the mistake you made, and perhaps even learn from it.

I'm curious to hear if this is a nationwide thing. I'd really like to push my students to take more effective notes, instead of just copying everything they read on the board.

[harrry]

Kids in australian schools are the same.

[masuk]

It was banned for a while when they realised the kids were sniffing the solvent, so they changed to water-based.

I hate the stuff. Make a mess on the screen! - just kidding.

[Payboy]

Its all about good appearances - content not so important.

[puchooay]

Used to excess in my school.

When I teach I ban the kids from using it. If I see it on their books or a work sheet I make them write it out again. I can't stand the stuff. It doesn't help that they use too much and then use the other end of the "pen" to blot it.

[Scott]

It's style over substance and appearance is very important. It is used extensively where I work. Students' handwriting must be neat.

[SlyAnimal]

Yeah they always use it at my school as well. I'm not fussed as I used to use it a lot when I was in primary school, (but phased it out during high school/university as it couldn't be used during exams).

Main thing I don't like about it is even they use it in exams I'm supervising. Not that they use it though, but that they don't have their own so keep borrowing it during the exam. The Thai teacher I'm with then sometimes frowns at me, or reminds me to relax when I tell them off for it lol (exams just don't seem as serious over here lol).

[tingtongfarang]

they use it on the computer screen too

[Somtamnication]

One of my p4 students painted his whole desk with it! Will take a pic today and post it.

Another pet peeve are the pencil refills. Drives me nuts.

[ChrisB87]

Ah yes, the fun of "liquid papuuuur" never ceases to amaze!

[culicine]

If it's a problem, kids can either use a pencil, or the erasable pens that can be bought in b2s.

[attrayant]

Yes! Erasable pens. Why aren't they more popular?

And as far as 'handwriting must be neat' goes, I can understand that on a formal report or paper that must be submitted for another's review. But for general note-taking that is only for the student himself? Seems silly.

[Briggsy]

attrayant

I am interested to know how kids in American schools correct written mistakes. Please enlighten me.

[glegolo]

Seriously, is this really a problem for you guys!!! Yes they use it all over Isaan too. As well as teachers use it too. I am surpriced that you even bother to react over this non important thing.

The reason for using it is exactly the very same reason that we used it for during the 70:ies... To correct fault and mistakes and maks it

looks good even though it was corrected.

I have absolutely no problem with it....... "Up to them"

Glegolo

[harrry]

There are two problems in a school environment with liquid paper.

1

It wastes a lot of time where the student is carefully painting the paper.

2

It makes it harder to see what the student is thinking in subjects like mathematics where false tries can give clues as to the student's level of understanding.

In most work I prefer to see a neat line through error (not ruled) and the correction written above or nearby.

.

[Eddy B]

Both parties for and against white-out are correct. When a student whites-out and changes their mistake it looks good for them, for the teacher to cross-out and change the word or parts of the sentence that are wrong is also good. As far as I am concerned the student does the work; shows it to me and I will point out their mistakes. If they come back with the same mistake they will get the red pen treatment.

[puchooay]

Seriously, is this really a problem for you guys!!! Yes they use it all over Isaan too. As well as teachers use it too. I am surpriced that you even bother to react over this non important thing.

The reason for using it is exactly the very same reason that we used it for during the 70:ies... To correct fault and mistakes and maks it

looks good even though it was corrected.

I have absolutely no problem with it....... "Up to them"

Glegolo

Using it is not the problem. It is the way they use it, especially the young students.

They use far too much and then use the top of the pen to smudge it so that it dries faster. It doesn't look neat at all. It looks horrible. They also get through loads of it too.

I have taught kids how to use it properly. How to write with it as you would a pen. Some of them have cottoned on to this.

[Scott]

Some of this is cultural. Neatness is very important in Thailand, at least as important as being correct. Students do not write notes for themselves. Teachers are required to read and correct all the notes taken in their notebooks.

As silly as seems, it is important and the idea of crossing out mistakes is just not how it is done here.

In mathematics exams, we sometimes let the students use scrap paper for doing their calculations, I've seen them use liquid paper on that, even though it is often going to be thrown away after the exam!

I have also sat in on numerous demonstration classes (mostly for Thai English teachers) and have seen the application denied because of poor handwriting. I've seen applicants not get an interview because the application form is not neat.

It may not be important to us, but it is important to them. Personally, I don't pay a lot of attention to handwriting as long as it is legible, but I do get irritated with students who do have neat handwriting, but are messy with the foreign teachers. It is a mild form of disrespect, IMO.

[attrayant]

attrayant

I am interested to know how kids in American schools correct written mistakes. Please enlighten me.

As I said in the OP, draw a line through the error and continue taking notes. Especially in College where the professor talks fast and doesn't stop to make sure 200 students in his auditorium are keeping up with him, no student can afford to waste time carefully blotting out a mistake and waiting for the fluid to dry. You'd be left behind in the lecture if you tried that.

The advantage of this method is that you can look back through your notes and learn from your errors and see what corrections you made (in addition to issues noted below with math and other technical classes).

[attrayant]

I've seen applicants not get an interview because the application form is not neat.

That's actually a good reason, if businesses are truly so anal about the penmanship of their potential workers I can see why it would be important to stress it early on. But if true, it's just another demonstration of superficiality - the classic example of judging a book by its cover (unless the job duties actually require good penmanship - say a lecturer or public presenter).

[mike123ca]

I don't mind it except when they start using it on the chalkboard.

[Somtamnication]

Yes, neatness is important.

My P4 student.

All corrections done and he got 100%!!

[bkkgriz]

I used to have problems with the stuff in my classrooms. I told my students that they are only allowed to use pencils in English class. Problem solved. I hate the mess the stuff makes.

[zeichen]

Why would any teacher let students use Pen on a math exam. Pens are not used in math EVER. As for white out itself their is the tape variety that is pretty handy and dry.

As for young children using it and making more of a mess. Well of course, they are kids. It is not cultural, kids of all countries make a mess when using white out (liquid paper). I know I certainly did spill a lot or have huge puddles and then write before it was fully dry.

Though I do respect a lot of what Scott says, I think it is pretty ridiculous to read culture into using white out on mistakes. I think that you are over reaching with that. Penmanship is important and is stressed in all schools especially for young learners. I had penmanship classes growing up as a part of my curriculum. Which admittedly I wasn't good at. Having arthritis at the age of 8 didn't help me either. That is why I type 100+ words a minute.

The OP might find it superficial to judge something or someone on how well they write, but neatness in handwriting does tell a lot about someone's character. Though you might not judge someone's intelligence on how they write but you can judge their precision and attention to detail not to mention that they take the time to carefully and methodically get things down.

So being critical of that seems a little silly to me. I know I have had more difficulty in life with bad penmanship than if I could print as elegantly as some of my students.

"To me, it actually hampers the learning process if you pretend that you never made any mistakes. Why not just draw a line through the mistake and write the correction above/below/in the margin? That way you can see the mistake you made, and perhaps even learn from it."

Absolute hogwash.

First of all if you are talking about younger learners. In general they are not taught good study skills to begin with and tend to write every word that is said or written on the board. So if you are actually teaching students study skills instead of just the subject, having the notebooks neat organized and correct is essential for studying.

A well organized and accurate notebook will speed up your study time a lot more than what you suggest.

Your later argument on how students will get left behind in a lecture etc. Is also ridiculous. If a student actually knows how to take notes (which I do know most students don't because they were not taught good study skills) they aren't writing down every word and instead are listening carefully and writing down during the redundant parts of a lecture/speech. Also with the technology out there today it is easy enough to re-watch an entire lecture at home. The simple solution is having a study partner who also takes good notes and fill each other in after the lecture.

I myself use and suggest students do the daily notebook and the course notebook style. You bring one notebook to school and use it for all classes, then at night re-write each page as neatly and carefully and organized into your subject notebook in which you actually study from.

If you are studying from your notebook, lines drawn through and arrows leading to the correct line is confusing and distracting to study from.

"The advantage of this method is that you can look back through your notes and learn from your errors and see what corrections you made"

You do not learn from your errors in this manner for note taking. If you did an assignment or had an exam, yes but in note taking no. Your mistakes are often misspellings or misunderstandings that will distract you when actually studying from notes.

Bottom line is if you don't like it, have them use pencils, but then you will need to watch them sharpen their pencils. There is always something for a teacher to complain about and then bring culture into the argument.

The only cultural difference that I see here is that students are more polite and respectful and classroom management is easy. Back in the US I had a lot more disruptions and students were much more confrontational not to mention how batsht crazy parents were. A parent actually came into my room after school screaming at me because I sent a note home stating that the child hadn't turned in a homework assignment in weeks. The parent seemed to think that it was my responsibility to get the student to do her homework.

[Scott]

Where I work, the students have to use pencils through the first semester of Grade 4. Starting 2nd semester of Grade 4 and continuing until they complete High School, they are required to use pen. The greatest achievement I saw in the past several years, was that they stopped requiring them to use fountain pens. The filling of ink pens, the spilling of ink, the ink all over the clothes, notebooks, desks and the 10,000 other incidents with those silly pens made the use of correction fluid much more acceptable and easy to deal with.

[attrayant]

The only cultural difference that I see here is that students are more polite and respectful and classroom management is easy.

This statement makes me think that you're not in Thailand. You might want to have a look at this thread about classroom management to see what the teachers here are saying about it.

Though you might not judge someone's intelligence on how they write but you can judge their precision and attention to detail not to mention that they take the time to carefully and methodically get things down.

You're making my point for me. You yourself had penmanship issues for reasons that had nothing to do with attention to detail or lack of wanting on your part. I don't think it would be fair for anyone to draw conclusions about you based solely on your penmanship.

And as for your statement that we don't learn from mistakes, I think almost all educators would disagree with you. Everybody learns from mistakes. At the very least we learn how not to repeat the serious ones. The philosopher George Santayana famously said, those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

The OP might find it superficial to judge something or someone on how well they write, but neatness in handwriting does tell a lot about someone's character.

Shades of pseudo-scientific graphology. From the skeptic's dictionary:

Graphology (graphoanalysis) is the study of handwriting, especially when employed as a means of analyzing character and personality traits.

[snip]

Graphology is claimed to be useful for everything from understanding health issues, morality and past experiences to hidden talents and mental problems.* However, "in properly controlled, blind studies, where the handwriting samples contain no content that could provide non-graphological information upon which to base a prediction (e.g., a piece copied from a magazine), graphologists do no better than chance at predicting... personality traits...." ["The Use of Graphology as a Tool for Employee Hiring and Evaluation," from the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association] And even non-experts are able to correctly identify the gender of a writer about 70% of the time (Furnham, 204).

Handwriting doesn't reliably tell you anything substantial or useful about somebody's character.

[zeichen]

Well the fact is that I have been judge based on my penmanship, so it is not just a Thai cultural thing. And as a teacher when I have to read 100's of pages of notebooks or reports, I still would prefer to have students with good penmanship and neatly organized. It is just faster and easier to find the actual mistakes that I am trying to emphasize.

And thank you very much for misquoting me and rewriting my statements to fit your argument. Good luck on that. Not really what I would consider a logical argument or a very good way to keep a conversation going. I actually said the opposite as regards to learning from mistakes. I said that taking notes is for studying from them later and having mistakes in them distracts from studying. Which is opposite to having mistakes in one's projects or classwork.

The issue with your thread about classroom management is that the majority of posters are not professional teachers. have only taught in one or 2 different schools and most have very limited experience overall. I also read the entire thread a few weeks ago by the way and didn't see the same issues that you seem to see. I remember quite a few talking about different methods but not serious issues.

As for your erroneous assumption of my experience in Thailand, I have been teaching here for over 10 years. I have also taught in Korea, Japan, China, and the US. As a veteran teacher with all the qualifications, training and over 20 years experience I don't have many classroom management issues regardless of where I teach. However in the US you have a system where the teachers have no support or system for control from admin or parents. So you have little repercussions for a students outburst. In Thailand using peers is slightly more effective and parents are an excellent resource here if you build a rapport with them.

After teaching in Korea back in the 90's where kids would clasp their hands together with their thumbs extended out and jam them in your rear anytime they are behind you, Thailand is a cake walk in comparision. (DonJim) Not as popular today but now they do other things.

Though my experiences are slightly different because I have only taught in private schools, international schools and universities and haven't done more than a few outreach programs at the government schools. However I do stand firm that a well trained teacher will be proactive and avoid most classroom issues.

another example was once I corrected a student to show the error of their attitude. The student bowed, gave a wai and was very polite after that point. In the US I have told a student to stop similar behavior and got the middle finger and then had their parents threaten me physically for suggesting that their child was ever ill mannered.

"Shades of pseudo-scientific graphology. From the skeptic's dictionary:"

Not a very credible source now is that? They also have criticism on critical thinking, natural medicines, and other things. But you go ahead and believe everything that you read from a google search and keep teaching your students that way if you want. I will prefer to read credible sources and cite things that can be used in an argument.

But it is clear that you have a pre conceived set of beliefs based on limited experience and nothing I nor any say will ever change that. However overall I think you do a disservice to the students in which you teach by believing that. But you go ahead and change the Thai system and force your students to believe what you do because that is exactly what you are hired for. You are not hired to improve their English, you are hired to show them that everything that they have been taught and do is wrong. That your western ideals and beliefs are more practical and applicable to all people's lives.

[laurenrebecca]

There is quite a bit of overuse of white out, or "liqid" as my students call it, in my school. Desks tend to be painted with it, and for some reason occasionally more of the stuff ends up on the student than the paper. In the school I teach, students use pencil for Anuban, and then phase in pen over P1-P3, using only pen starting in P4.

I don't have an opinion either way whether they use it or just line out their mistakes. Have tried to get them to use pencil, but it has been met with quite a bit of resistance from both the students and the teachers. Pencils are for math class only, and for writing in the textbooks when you must make notes. That's it. I do make them use pencils on their written tests though to avoid the problem of constantly asking each other for "liqid" though...and that it is a multiple choice form test.

The biggest issue here now is that the students are using the stuff to write on the walls as graffiti....that is quite annoying to try and wash off!!

[SlyAnimal]

I do make them use pencils on their written tests though to avoid the problem of constantly asking each other for "liqid" though...and that it is a multiple choice form test.

Yeah this is the biggest problem with it to me. As their Thai teachers don't care if they do this, however if I'm supervising an exam and hear someone whisper "liquid", it could very easily be "a" or "gor", since a muffled word isn't particularly easy to know for sure. Which is why I try to ban it during tests, they complain, but get over it. The Thai teacher I'm supervising exams with this term even backed me up on it, which was a nice change from the previous 2 years, citing that she also wasn't allowed to use white out / liquid paper at university either.

[xen]

Hope they don't think they can use it on legal documents as well - a line and an initial is what should be done.

I was thinking that this type of cover-up is seen in other ways like the placement of tiles on the shoddy building work .