PM wants students to spend less time in classrooms but more time on critical thinking

[cumgranosalum]

Without education you have no critical thinking, but what you do have is a lot of sheep....LOS will now stand for; Land of Stupidly...

What K. Prayuth and a lot of TV members don't seem to realise is that critical thinking is a specific skill/art and has to be learned and therefore taught. It has to be taught by those who understand it just like maths or languages.

Very few schools anywhere in the world teach it as a subject - you need a teacher who understands it to bring it into a class.

Most universities expect you to understand the principles of it but I suspect in Thailand the average business studies student has no idea....or worse still medical students!

Edited May 18, 2016 by cumgranosalum

[Plutojames88]

So if I was a Thai student who thinks the army should be submissive to government not over throw them.

How can I explain that to others without being sent to a military run camp for AA?

Thais need to exam the past and be critical of it.

Learn

Stop repeating errors.

What's ironic is a general who has his own Friday night TV show

Edited May 18, 2016 by Plutojames88

[cumgranosalum]

So if I was a Thai student who thinks the army should be submissive to government not over throw them.

How can I explain that to others without being sent to a military run camp for AA?

Thais need to exam the past and be critical of it.

Learn

Stop repeating errors.

What's ironic is a general who has his own Friday night TV show

that's not what critical thinking is about. It is .....well, watch the video

[optad]

Let's take a look at part of the neural net involved in becoming a better thinker, a critical thinker. How does each of these skills get taught as a child grows and matures? What role do parents play? What role do teachers play? What role do smartphones and LINE play? People on this forum are forever talking about the dysfunctional education system in Thailand and PM and others in government are forever making proclamations about what needs to be done and more recently "critical thinking" has become the hot topic of the day.

But there is a problem: What is generally thought to be critical thinking is a farang invention beginning with the Greeks, and coming to full bloom beginning in the 17th century in Europe and later in America. The truth be told, it is only in the last 30 years that Thailand began to understand that the path for the past 500 years does not allow for a transition into the modern world.

But the PM is also aware that none of Thailand's teachers were every exposed to critical thinking, let alone capable of teaching it. So he has suggested an end around; have the students spend time outside the classroom learning how to do this magical thing. But here is the second problem: One does not go sit down in KFC and by magic know how to "critically think."

Good work balance, and a tough task trying to communicate to many Thai Visa posters what they, themselves never learnt or either through their parochialism or for blanched vision cannot distill in movements re education vis a vis their static understandings of Thai traits.

CT is a valuable cognitive capacity, always has been, and has become a trend in ed curriculums globally. Obviously, it is a scholastic and humanistic derivative and it will be systematically challenging in the Thai environment for implicit cultural differences, second language inhibitions and students general deference to overt authoritative voice. The better schools, students with foundational and prior experience will excel and will leave general Thai students overall adrift. A large two class system is appearing where demands are met by Thais who can better interface with emergent global needs because of their shared understanding of educational values in asia today.

See International Baccalaureate's asian proliferation and: who participates, and who pays and its central curriculum core diploma component, TOK, theory of knowledge or critical thinking.

However, the desire to extoll CT should not be so readily derided on TV. This displays a wearied farang culture of 'taking' here and innate derision which is happy to stay [reside] in Thailand as most farangs face more problems at home. That saddens me but that is a fact too.

Edited May 18, 2016 by optad

[selftaopath]

This sounds like a small but very positive step in the right direction, and I welcome the announcement. However, such a fundamental change in the education process will require a sustained, long term effort that will require teacher re-training and a re-write of the current curriculum.

There needs to be a well researched roadmap and significant funding to achieve this, so I can only hope this statement is going to be followed up with the necessary resources, comittment and effort to make it happen.

Actually, i think it would be a massive step, but on past performance one that this admin is incapable of taking, largely because they show little evidence of even understanding what that step is.

This admin, the last admin and all future admins. Let's face it folks all those with power are only interested in one thing. And it's not "little people."

[willyumiii]

Without education you have no critical thinking, but what you do have is a lot of sheep....LOS will now stand for; Land of Stupidly...

What K. Prayuth and a lot of TV members don't seem to realise is that critical thinking is a specific skill/art and has to be learned and therefore taught. It has to be taught by those who understand it just like maths or languages.

Very few schools anywhere in the world teach it as a subject - you need a teacher who understands it to bring it into a class.

Most universities expect you to understand the principles of it but I suspect in Thailand the average business studies student has no idea....or worse still medical students!

"What K. Prayuth and a lot of TV members don't seem to realise is that critical thinking is a specific skill/art and has to be learned and therefore taught."

What the PM does realize and many TV members do not is that in this case "critical thinking" refers to a method of teaching as apposed to the "Rote" method now used in Thai schools.

The critical thinking method, leaves topics open for questions and discussion about the topic.

With the rote method , now used i Thailand< a topic is presented by the teacher and accepted and memorized by the students. Thai students have been taught that it is disrespectful to ever question a teacher on anything they say.

So, again, in this case ,"critical thinking" is a method of teaching and not a thought process.

The PM is very aware of this and wants the Thai education system to join that of most of the world in using modern ( 100 year old ) teaching methods.

[Nickymaster]

This is a prime example of how delusional this man really is.

Please explain way you think he is delusional if he says that kids should spend more time on critical thinking instead of just sitting in classrooms long days waiting to go home again. I think he is correct. More schools around the world go this way.

[Mook23]

Good idea. Let's start the critical thinking at 8am when the anthem blares...

[John Kane]

My previous quotes about Finland's education system is widely known throughout the academic community. Thailand is not a large country and has much to learn from Finland, but not the US, a country itself unable to learn partly due to the famous "if it isn't invented here principle, it must not be good." Somehow my second paragraph didn't appear. I referenced several authors to look into but Harvard's Tony Wagner in particular is a source for educational comparison in his many books on education. I suggest Wagner's The Global Achievement Gap as a good place to start learning about education worldwide. A quick look at Amazon.com will be useful for both we of the Forum barstool philosophers cohort and also the Thai government.

[Mook23]

What the PM does realize and many TV members do not is that in this case "critical thinking" refers to a method of teaching as apposed to the "Rote" method now used in Thai schools.

True. As a 16 year old I had 2 school "hours" a week of something called ethics/social criticism. I was lucky to get high school education in a small non-religious freethinking school. I always approached any type of authority with extreme scepticism and have never regretted that. I was selfsupportive at age of 18, left the parenteral haven, and through trial and error I built up an atypical, exciting existence. Thailand needs critical thinking and people leaving the stereotype paths. Everything is way too generic and uniform here.

[pauleddy]

Exactement!

[Balance]

Let's take a look at part of the neural net involved in becoming a better thinker, a critical thinker. How does each of these skills get taught as a child grows and matures? What role do parents play? What role do teachers play? What role do smartphones and LINE play? People on this forum are forever talking about the dysfunctional education system in Thailand and PM and others in government are forever making proclamations about what needs to be done and more recently "critical thinking" has become the hot topic of the day.

But there is a problem: What is generally thought to be critical thinking is a farang invention beginning with the Greeks, and coming to full bloom beginning in the 17th century in Europe and later in America. The truth be told, it is only in the last 30 years that Thailand began to understand that the path for the past 500 years does not allow for a transition into the modern world.

But the PM is also aware that none of Thailand's teachers were every exposed to critical thinking, let alone capable of teaching it. So he has suggested an end around; have the students spend time outside the classroom learning how to do this magical thing. But here is the second problem: One does not go sit down in KFC and by magic know how to "critically think."

Good work balance, and a tough task trying to communicate to many Thai Visa posters what they, themselves never learnt or either through their parochialism or for blanched vision cannot distill in movements re education vis a vis their static understandings of Thai traits.

CT is a valuable cognitive capacity, always has been, and has become a trend in ed curriculums globally. Obviously, it is a scholastic and humanistic derivative and it will be systematically challenging in the Thai environment for implicit cultural differences, second language inhibitions and students general deference to overt authoritative voice. The better schools, students with foundational and prior experience will excel and will leave general Thai students overall adrift. A large two class system is appearing where demands are met by Thais who can better interface with emergent global needs because of their shared understanding of educational values in asia today.

See International Baccalaureate's asian proliferation and: who participates, and who pays and its central curriculum core diploma component, TOK, theory of knowledge or critical thinking.

However, the desire to extoll CT should not be so readily derided on TV. This displays a wearied farang culture of 'taking' here and innate derision which is happy to stay [reside] in Thailand as most farangs face more problems at home. That saddens me but that is a fact too.

Since writing the post it has occurred to me there are some necessary first steps needed before CT can be taught. The issue here is that many of them form the part of the foundation of 'Thainess' and these steps are most certainly stillborn politically. The intellectual and emotional adherence to the present is perhaps the most difficult as so many other impediments (planning, learning from past mistakes, etc.) are derivative. Second is the abhorrence of being wrong, let alone failing, which in turn instills a fear of failure that evokes hysteric paralysis at many levels. Finally, there is lacking a basic foundation by which thinking can be organized.

In the west, Aristotle provided this foundation and it along with mathematics has been used as the basis for scientific progress. The bivalent Yes/No, zero or one, true or false has been challenged in the past 50 years as not comporting to how the real world actually works and the Koreans and Japenese were the first to adopt Fuzzy Logic and apply it to machines to make them smarter. It turns out that eastern religious principles recognize more clearly that almost nothing is 100% true or 100% false. But I digress.

Little steps can be taken to find the right pedagogic pathways to overcome these cultural issues, but be sure that it is not an either/or proposition but learning and knowing both systems, using what is appropriate at any given time. Finally, the most difficult thing needed is for the government and the people controlling the power in Thailand to find the political will to make it happen.

[Kaalle]

Start with regular thinking first, baby steps..

[steve williams]

Mmmmmmm.... Teach students the ability to be socially aware, analytical and questioning .....Critical thinking, but after you gain this ability don't criticise my governments policies or you will go to jail for 10 years???

Edited May 19, 2016 by steve williams