Interesting

[Flow]

From CNN 18/8/2006

JonBenet Ramsey Case

"""He was qualified to be a teacher. He had a diploma and has experience in teaching in Bangkok for some time," said Banchong Chompowong, assistant director of the English immersion program at Bangkok Christian. "John Karr came to us with a good resume and with credentials, but then we allowed him a trial (period) with students, we found he was too strict."

Banchong said Karr gave the students "time outs" and another teacher said he had a reputation for yelling at students"""

Interesting very interesting. Make no mistake about, there are dozens more in hiding in Thailand. I have personally witnessed a gay/paedophile to my horror molest a 10-years old boy in front of my eyes more than two years ago. I reported the incident and nothing was done about - TIT I suppose!

[CharlesDavid]

I was aware of something similar in a Pattaya School. One of the Thai female teachers in her early twenties was hanging around the adolescent boys (14 and 15 year olds) too much for my liking and encouraging a lot ( and I mean a lot) of body contact.

I later heard a lot of rumours that she had bedded several of the pupils. I reported her behaviour and was laughed at with the gist of the response being "you're only jealous".

It disgusted me. Had it been a male teacher and female pupils I have no doubt that the response would have been very different.

[bbc journalist]

hi

I'm a journalist working for the BBC, and I'm writing an article about how easy it is for foreigners to work in Thai schools - and the vetting procedures that are in place. Would either of you ( or anyone else) be willing to talk to me about your experiences?

The best email to get me on over the weekend is //email removed//, or my phone number is 018040707

Thanks

Kate

[paully]

Sorry to sound suspicious, but are you for real? I'm sure many could help you with background information on school recruiting of foreign teachers in Thailand, but what is your 'angle'?

[jdinasia]

reading this forum wouldn't hurt either .... but ... a journalist relying on hotmail?

[PeaceBlondie]

Last night, I invited the people with questions or suggestions about farang teachers in Thailand to comment here. One person asked if the responsible members of the farang teachers would agree to, and ask the Thai schools for, much tighter background checks of teachers who apply there. I'm sure none of us want to work with criminals; none of us want child-killers among us, especially teaching with us.

I responded that most Thai schools I know about, or heard about, don't listen closely to foreigners. If the Thais and farang who pay tuitions for students at the school, would agree to an additional fee for background checks, and were allowed to see the books of record that those fees went to such checks, I think that would be fine.

I think that only the international schools spend much money checking out the qualifications and criminal backgrounds of their applicants. You can't expect the applicant to pay for any more than their uni degree and an official transcript of academic courses taken.

Who will pay for background checks? I doubt that extensive checks are done. The Thai schools are too desperate for warm bodies, or too cheap or lazy to do the hard, expensive work to check references. I think.

[craftwork]

I'm a journalist working for the BBC, and I'm writing an article about how easy it is for foreigners to work in Thai schools - and the vetting procedures that are in place.

Since when has the BBC been so concerned about foreign teacher access to Thai schools? What you really want to know is how John Mark Karr happened to be employed here.

On the basis of what anecdotes and morsels of fact you gather while the Karr story is still 'fresh', you will come up with a piece full of generalisations which

will no doubt paint a horrible picture of the state of Thai schools and the foreigners who work in them.

In short, you want to become an instant expert on a subject that might require you to spend a little time here first, or at least talk to someone in authority. Best of luck finding someone in the know from the Education Ministry, willing to talk to you in English over the phone.

Questionable characters make it into jobs in western schools, too - not just here.

More to the point, before you tar everyone with the same brush, you may want to consider whether you are on the right track anyway. Karr, who has researched the murder obsessively, may simply be a crank. From an AP story on the wire tonight:

"It's clear to me that he's somewhat interested or maybe even obsessed by the case and the real question is whether he's inserting himself into it for some obscure psychological reason," said author Carlton Smith, who wrote 1997's "Death of a Little Princess: The Tragic Story of the Murder of JonBenet Ramsey."

[craftwork]

More reasons to doubt whether this guy is the real thing:

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_4199089#top

[PeaceBlondie]

We invite one and all to comment here, and I'd like to hear a reasonable, workable, Thai-style method of vetting applicants to teach in Thailand.

Who will pay for it?

Who knows how to verify background?

Will the law be passed by the Thai govt. and implemented by the MoE? In what decade?

How do we know a report is reliable? How do mistakes get corrected?

Can Khun Sasapacha in the admin. dept. of the school, who earns 4,500 per month, figure out how to do her part?

What about teachers who became "teachers" after leaving their home country? Even the passport doesn't prove where they've lived all their life.

I welcome a solution to this problem. And to the problems of visas, work permits, teachers' licenses, broken contracts, teachers who run away, etc.

[lannarebirth]

We invite one and all to comment here, and I'd like to hear a reasonable, workable, Thai-style method of vetting applicants to teach in Thailand.

Who will pay for it?

Who knows how to verify background?

Will the law be passed by the Thai govt. and implemented by the MoE? In what decade?

How do we know a report is reliable? How do mistakes get corrected?

Can Khun Sasapacha in the admin. dept. of the school, who earns 4,500 per month, figure out how to do her part?

What about teachers who became "teachers" after leaving their home country? Even the passport doesn't prove where they've lived all their life.

I welcome a solution to this problem. And to the problems of visas, work permits, teachers' licenses, broken contracts, teachers who run away, etc.

Is there an organization, association of affiliation that most expat teachers belong to? I see a shitstorm about to rain down on you mostly fine folks, and I would think it would be terribly beneficial to have some association to speak on your behalf citing your desire to see rigorous background checks, high standards, etc.. I wouldn't worry to much about the details but I'd think you'd sure want to get in front of this thing before the parents and schools start looking to scapegoat folks. I think I'd put all those things you want on the back burner for now .

On the other hand, this is Thailand and maybe the whole thing blows over by Monday.

Edited August 18, 2006 by lannarebirth

[Ijustwannateach]

If "BBC reporter" will PM me a valid email address and phone number (at the BBC, of course) and it checks out, I *may* be willing to help her out.

Personally, I feel that background checks, etc., would be no bad thing, and would be no threat to me or many other foreign teachers that I know. They would also require Thai schools to plan ahead a bit more (because the checks take time), give proper work permits, and make them less likely to fire people on a minute's notice.

On the other hand, it might just mean more people working illegally.

"Steven"

[lannarebirth]

This is the kind of thing I'm talking about. I assume all problrms will be made to seem "farang related".

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?sh...mp;#entry854713

[Ijustwannateach]

There will be a witchhunt mentality for a little while, but mainly at schools where the teachers are already rather questionable. That might be no bad thing. On the other hand, it has happened before that schools in Thailand have shot off their noses to spite their faces- there was an incident a few years back when a prominent private non-international school in Bangkok decided it wanted all its teachers to have B.Ed's specifically, no subject degrees. So it didn't renew contracts for any teachers who didn't have Ed's (which it turned out was all of them) at the end of the academic year. 2 months later, just before school started, it was desperately hiring anyone it could get, because it turns out that the few full B.Ed's in Bangkok just don't work for 40K a month for some reason.

"Steven"

[Neeranam]

Does anyone know if the guy was a good teacher or not?

[george]

This thread continues in the News forum:

http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=79433