Move to axe 'smart classrooms' needs further debate

[northernjohn]

Changing schoolchildren's thought processes would be a good start. Encouraged to challenge, have an opinion and think outwardly, would be a good start. Now is the good General likely to foster that approach to anything in Thailand, be it education or anything else?

I think this headline gives you the answer:

Military junta to revise school curricula to stimulate greater patriotism and love of establishment

(http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/military-junta-revise-school-curricula-stimulate-greater-patriotism-love-establishment/)

Here is a quote out of that article

The National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) is now in the process of revising the school curricula of the nation to foster greater patriotism in younger generation targeting two subjects for revision, History and Civic Duty.

I agree the students need to know more about history here in Chiang Mai we had them honoring the Nazi's. A better education in history is defiantly needed.

As for Civic duty I agree. That is some thing that should be done in all countries.

Do you have a problem with those things?

[AnotherOneAmerican]

The political adage is:It is the Economy, stupid

Thai Education adage: It is the Teachers, stupid

I agree reform of education is critical to the future of Thailand. There are few nations that have actually managed to solve the conundrum of what schools are actually for..certainly not the US and UK. It is all very well for Singapore and Korea to come top in all kinds of tests..but 'education/' I think not. From my experience of having children in Thai schools, the over riding impression is that the teachers do not care a *** they have jobs for life, the banks lend them money for cars and houses because they are civil servants. They have no knowledge of learning methods other than preaching from a blackboard..Prayuth has a big problem!

I learnt from a blackboard and did rather well from it.

[duanebigsby]

Well there has been a lot said and some very pointed hints laid out.

The way I see it in a nutshell is that the corruption at the top must go. The amount of money that is spent on every thing else but teaching is out of hand.

The teachers should all be taught how to teach. To inspire thinking in the students. No student pass a grade unless they have done the necessary work to pass in to the next grade. The ability to reason and use logic must be taught.

I have a friend teaching English here. They have a Major in English. They took the required TEFL class as required by law. They told me it was the hardest thing they had ever done. It was easy to know the subject but that had nothing to do with the ability to impart that knowledge in a manner that the students could understand.

Teachers today for the most part have no idea of how to teach they talk and every body is expected to learn from that. At the end of the year every one passes. (save face) that applies to the student and the teacher. After all we can't have people thinking they are poor teachers. To turn out decent teachers it will require colleges to learn how to teach them. The whole thing will require a three college generation project. It will be the teachers graduating at least ten years from now really qualified to teach. I will allow that there are some who it comes natural to and in fact there are some in the present system but this is a minority of them.

As for teaching with technology it is my belief that should be applied late second grade at the earliest. Make them learn to think and reason first. Then give them a machine to help them out. I favor the smart class room with decent equipment not that cheap vote buying junk Yingluck used to get elected with. The cost would more than likely demand waiting for third grade to introduce it.

This also should be the case in schools with out electricity. That will force the government to even the playing field. Some thing the previous government was willing to leave alone and so far the present government has not commented on. The one in my opinion good thing they have mentioned is shortening the school hours.

I agree with many of your points but would like to point out, that while TEFL is useful teaching English, it is not required by law.

None of the suggested improvements to Thai education can ever come about until classroom sizes are reduced from the 45-55 kids in a class.

Absolutely agree the "no fail" policy is hurting education big time here.

I also think, for English classes, students should test to be in a "A or B" class, so lessons can be tailored for the level of English.

My students range from not being able to tell you their favourite colour, to holding a decent conversation about what they did on the weekend.

[SaamBaht]

Has anyone ever been in a Thai classroom? No one is listening. Teachers drone on and on using a microphone while Nit and Wit "play" Facebook on their phones, or maybe catch a nap before lunch.

Still, quote unquote good schools pack in the students with sometimes sixty plus per classroom and the school's director comes and goes in his brand new Mercedes.

I don't know many principals back home driving German made cars.

[Maroon Watcher]

Schools just need a good, updated computer room/s dependent on student numbers...

Like a research Library - everyone has reasonable access (book a day and time?)

Supervised use for research only. (Much cheaper than individual tablets)

The computer rooms can then be incorporated into lesson planning - even if it's just once per month.

It's also about time there was a computer in every classroom - teacher use.(separate system)

With adequate internet download speeds for classroom use.

(And for teacher apartments: homework, forward lesson planning and family connections)

However, Internet access for all should be guaranteed for students, even if it's switched off during class time.

Computers are part of evey day use - why not in class?

[AnotherOneAmerican]

I agree the students need to know more about history here in Chiang Mai we had them honoring the Nazi's. A better education in history is defiantly needed.

As for Civic duty I agree. That is some thing that should be done in all countries.

Do you have a problem with those things?

I think you will find their idea of history will be different to everyone else idea of history.

Same for civic duty.

Essentially it will be social conditioning along the lines that Thailand is the greatest country in the world and foreigners are not to be trusted.

This is what Dictators do, maybe they can issue a little red book and every child can be taught to spout the words of general .....

[kurnell]

The problem is that the elite of Thailand have been laboring under the false notion that if the masses are kept ignorant, and poorly educated, than they will be able to grow and preserve their wealth. Nothing could further from the truth. So, they have done everything possible to insure the system does not improve. They somehow need to be taken out of the equation, and the system needs to be completely dismantled, and rebuilt from the ground up, with the help of foreigners, and other Asian nations that have had success with education such as China, India, and Malaysia. Everything has to change. No more rote learning, and no more inability to question your teachers. Thinking outside the box. Encouraging creativity. Better teachers. How will this happen? It is anybody's guess.

I've been looking for this 'box' for over 25 years. Has anyone ever seen it?

[northernjohn]

our daughter wants to be a doctor, she is very intelligent and has to go to after school classes to even get a decent education. She is in the only highly regarded class in the southern area, a class of around 30 students that had to sit an exam to qualify, it was for the whole southern area and she qualified in the top half of students. When there is only room for 30 students in the whole southern region of Thailand to be able to learn the harder subjects we have to wonder what sort of pathetic schooling they have here, are thai people considered that dumb that the education department has to make classes teach low education classes for the majority, more likely it makes it easier to give them all pass marks so they do not have to use their own brain to think. What we see happening here is the dumbing down of the people as a whole, by only having a few intelligent people it makes it easier to control the masses, it enables people like thaksin to convince the uneducated that what they are telling them is the truth and is the major cause of disenchantment here. Until such time that education actually does teach the students and requires them to pass exams we will not see an improvement in the way things happen here, education is the answer but corruption/graft is still the over riding factor in it not improving

I'm not 100% sure but the director at the first school I worked in told me that the students there where lucky. He said that normally 1 or 2 students a year managed to pass the exams to start studying for MD from that school and usually only 3-4 from the entire province got accepted!

I know it's hard and they need to do a good job but I think it would be better if they could accept more MD students as it seems to be a shortage of MDs in all government hospitals!

to be accepted into the university to become a doctor there are certain subjects that need to be studied but there is only one class in the whole of the south that actually has those subjects. This is the problem, instead of teaching all students subjects needed for better further education they restrict it, the reason being is that even the teachers are not smart enough to teach the required subjects. This is due entirely to the education system in Thailand, there needs to be a huge improvement and we would probably see an improvement in a lot of things if students had to do real tests and pass to be able to advance.When the govt deliberately keeps people uneducated there is always going to be a problem, until we see teachers made to do their jobs and students made to pass exams there will never be a smart Thailand.

While I agree with you on most of your statement I differ when it comes to blaming it all on the Government. The Thai culture of save face has a lot to do with it also.

[northernjohn]

Well there has been a lot said and some very pointed hints laid out.

The way I see it in a nutshell is that the corruption at the top must go. The amount of money that is spent on every thing else but teaching is out of hand.

The teachers should all be taught how to teach. To inspire thinking in the students. No student pass a grade unless they have done the necessary work to pass in to the next grade. The ability to reason and use logic must be taught.

I have a friend teaching English here. They have a Major in English. They took the required TEFL class as required by law. They told me it was the hardest thing they had ever done. It was easy to know the subject but that had nothing to do with the ability to impart that knowledge in a manner that the students could understand.

Teachers today for the most part have no idea of how to teach they talk and every body is expected to learn from that. At the end of the year every one passes. (save face) that applies to the student and the teacher. After all we can't have people thinking they are poor teachers. To turn out decent teachers it will require colleges to learn how to teach them. The whole thing will require a three college generation project. It will be the teachers graduating at least ten years from now really qualified to teach. I will allow that there are some who it comes natural to and in fact there are some in the present system but this is a minority of them.

As for teaching with technology it is my belief that should be applied late second grade at the earliest. Make them learn to think and reason first. Then give them a machine to help them out. I favor the smart class room with decent equipment not that cheap vote buying junk Yingluck used to get elected with. The cost would more than likely demand waiting for third grade to introduce it.

This also should be the case in schools with out electricity. That will force the government to even the playing field. Some thing the previous government was willing to leave alone and so far the present government has not commented on. The one in my opinion good thing they have mentioned is shortening the school hours.

I agree with many of your points but would like to point out, that while TEFL is useful teaching English, it is not required by law.

None of the suggested improvements to Thai education can ever come about until classroom sizes are reduced from the 45-55 kids in a class.

Absolutely agree the "no fail" policy is hurting education big time here.

I also think, for English classes, students should test to be in a "A or B" class, so lessons can be tailored for the level of English.

My students range from not being able to tell you their favourite colour, to holding a decent conversation about what they did on the weekend.

True it may not be required by law. I believe their is also another course available. I only pointed it out as an example of the difference between knowing your subject and imparting that information to your pupils.

As for class sizes I learned in large classes and the very fact that they are learning in them today all be it not to well and much is nonessential nonsense shows that you can learn in a large class. Yes it would be nice to have class rooms of no more than say 25. Definatly an advantage for a real teacher. Notice I said a real teacher. Even at 25 students they would be stretched.

As for learning English yes different classes for the students abilities and take into consideration that being generous 25% of them are going to be the only ones who need it.

[northernjohn]

I agree the students need to know more about history here in Chiang Mai we had them honoring the Nazi's. A better education in history is defiantly needed.

As for Civic duty I agree. That is some thing that should be done in all countries.

Do you have a problem with those things?

I think you will find their idea of history will be different to everyone else idea of history.

Same for civic duty.

Essentially it will be social conditioning along the lines that Thailand is the greatest country in the world and foreigners are not to be trusted.

This is what Dictators do, maybe they can issue a little red book and every child can be taught to spout the words of general .....

You just outlined to a T why they need teaching in those two subjects. As it is the schools just reinforce those false assumptions. Teach them the truth and they will be better adjusted to the world.

Civic duty is not declaring that if it is not Thai it is wrong or no good. That is false pride based on lack of knowledge being passed on in schools.

[phil2]

They have no knowledge of learning methods other than preaching from a blackboard..

And reading off textbook.

[borisloosebrain]

The Navy is suing a journalist for quoting Rueters. He may go to jail. The head of navy is the new education minister. Draw your own conclusions but the phrase ' dead and buried ' comes to mind when conjecturing about the immediate future of education.

[BillyBobThai]

[belg]

just ask yourself, did you or I had smart classrooms when growing up? and how we turned out ...

thais think that gadgets will replace the lack of quality education ??????????