Sarah was gracious enough to allow me to tag along on one of her recent return visits to her old school in Nakhon Chai Sri. We were able to convince the dance & music teacher to dress us up in traditional Thai costume so that we could take some photos. The studios back in BKK demand a small fortune for the same thing, so we were quite happy to wait around a little bit for her to be free, which was all fine because there were other people I wanted to see at the school. I had visited Sarah’s school before, but this time, I had a greater sense of purpose in mind and specific questions I wanted to ask. As you may be aware, my time here in Thailand is ticking away and I have just a little over a month before I return to our beautiful Pacific Northwest. Hence, I have to make really good use of the time I have left. This entry is about how my time in Thailand has helped to change the way I see certain things as well as how I’ve developed a deeper level of understanding of certain aspects of Thailand that I couldn’t quite appreciate in my first few months here.
Me being silly on a concrete pole near the school's garden:
Getting jiggy with the traditional Thai instruments...sorta:
I call this piece "Culture Clash"
The main focus of this entry is my observations regarding two very different educational initiatives and how the implementation and results differ between the two. On the one hand, we have the Dream School Program and on the other, the integration of the Sufficiency Economy Philosophy in school curriculum. First, I want to talk about some of the reasons why these programs were implemented because it’ll provide context that I’ve become quite attuned to, but I cannot expect the same familiarity from my readers. Both of these initiatives came about as solutions to perceived problems within Thai society – problems that many believe can be addressed in the long term by introducing tools to help combat them early on in life. What better a place to influence young minds than at school, where they are already in learning and absorption mode? Although both of them seek to enrich the educational experience, the level of enthusiasm that each respective program received from the faculty, staff and students couldn’t be more different. As such, it is only expected that their results were also different. I will spend some time reminding you about the Dream School Program and then I will go into what I saw in terms of Sufficiency Economy in practice. Finally, I will talk about the reasons why I think one caught on with a bang whereas the other performed less than spectacularly and close by offering some suggestions on how the latter could have delivered much more than it promised.
Since this entry is sparked by my visit to a Thai public school and observations concerning the people there, I will start with what I think is the most important component – the students. Most Thai youths are taught certain things by their parents and other things by television, film, advertisements and peers (I would go so far as to say that this is true in most societies today). Often, the influences from the world outside the home teach them to become good, participatory consumers in the global economy – they need to spend money on fashionable clothes. They must have the latest cell phone model. They need to eat grease-soaked, cholesterol-laden, genetically modified foods. They must only spend time pursuing specialized degrees that will be of use in landing them a specific job. Of course, this creates tensions and social rifts within society. Proponents of the traditional Western model of development laud this as Thailand’s approach towards a modern capitalist society – Thailand is simply experiencing the growing pains of development. Others feel as though they can do nothing but stand by, sigh, and watch with resignation as their children lose touch with the customs and values they themselves grew up with. These same people may also feel inadequate as parents as they probably find it difficult to understand why their children desire certain things, let alone be able finance the trappings of the fully decked out members of the modern Thai glitterati. In this quest, families are broken as various members run off to the city in search of income to finance material desires. Many of these individuals are frustrated by the reality on the ground and feel like cogs in the monstrous machinery of the global economy. They then feel as though they have lost control of their lives as their choices are often limited by factors such as lack of adequate education, social connections, growing debt and a firm grasp of how they could possibly change their lots in life or even why they decided it was a good idea to leave home and school early to take a factory job in the first place. The King is among those who are concerned about this growing trend and has for a long time now, taken opportunities to remind his people that they should not leave everything behind and rush blindly into modernity. After the traumatic experience of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, he unveiled his observations and learning in what came to be known as the Sufficieny Economy philosophy.
After all my readings and research about the Sufficiency Economy philosophy, I’ve concluded that in order for it to be successfully implemented in Thailand, it must be integrated into the Thai education system. The thinking behind this is that SE is not just an approach for government officials sitting in their dingy offices making policies that are removed from the citizenry; it is way of thinking and a path for life. Thus, it must be cultivated in the young minds that are the future of the country if it is to take effect and maintain its potential to transform the future of Thai society. The thing that will make this task a lot more realistically achievable than one might expect at first glance, especially for anybody familiar with the Thai education system, is the fact that Sufficiency Economy (SE) is quite straightforward.
Unlike the general perception that anything having to do with economics is full of meaningless numbers, cryptic graphical models and elitist academic jargon, SE is very approachable and provides a straightforward process of decision-making that promises a sustainable path of human and economic development. Today, the field of human and economic development work has shifted away from pursuing economic growth as the sole path towards improving quality of life. Instead, it places people at the center of such efforts and looks at economic growth as just one factor that contributes to the end goal. SE incorporates this thinking in addition to providing principles to bear in mind as we go about our daily lives; it also stresses that in order to live full and meaningful lives, we need to cultivate our mental and spiritual faculties – things that are integral to being human. This idea is neither new nor unique to the Sufficiency Economy philosophy. In the West, many people are familiar with Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs; once we have met our basic physiological and safety needs, we become aware of other needs – social interaction, love, a sense of belonging – all things that lead towards what Maslow calls “self-actualization.” For many people, religion is one path towards self-actualization because it teaches morality, provides a sense of community and oftentimes, direction in life. I should mention that with regards to religion and Sufficiency Economy, it is difficult to ignore the heavy influences of the Buddhist way of life. The Sufficiency Economy philosophy was developed through real experiences in a real time and place and by the efforts of real people – namely, the latter half of twentieth century Thailand and HM King Bhumibol Adulyadej and his subjects. As such, SE’s teachings reflect the culture, values, religion, natural environment, economy and even politics of said time and place. Within this complex relationship lies one of SE’s hopes for catching on in the larger Thai society. I will explore this connection in a little more detail shortly.
One of the teachings of Sufficiency Economics is that one should value local resources such as knowledge and understanding of the world around us because it fits best with who we are and our way of life. In the Thai education system, this materialized into something known as “Local Wisdom” courses. When Sarah first told me about them in December, I didn’t think too much of them. I dismissed them as the system’s way of taking yet another opportunity to control the children and brainwash them into to becoming “proper Thais” because my understanding was that they taught the children lessons on morality and Thai-ness; otherwise known as how to behave and think appropriately. However, I have since learned that they are much more than this. Not only do these courses teach students about their heritage, culture and customs, they also serve to instill in them a sense value and pride in where they come from. This is a very important point because it is becoming increasingly more difficult to have an idea of who you are in our rapidly globalizing world. And if you can’t figure out which community you belong to, it will inevitably become a major stumbling block towards the aforementioned self-actualization.
At this point, I would refer you back to one of my past entries from way back in December of 2006 (Pattarayan Wittaya School…); specifically, look at the latter half of the entry, where I discuss the Dream School Program. Recall that the project has to do with a government funded program (through state-owned Krung Thai Bank) to provide computers and Internet connectivity to various public schools throughout the country. Recall also my critical stance with regards to the implementation of this program. I found it frustrating that the project was only half-heartedly accepted by the faculty and school administration. The administration seemed to be quite content and proud of simply having the distinction of being a Dream School, even if they may have missed the point entirely – which was that they were supposed to incorporate technology into the curriculum so that their students may be better versed in the vital tools of the modern world and move past the digital divide between developing countries and developed countries. My second visit allowed me to adjust my views on this slightly because of two reasons: (1) I was able to compare it with the task of incorporating SE into the standard curriculum; and (2) I’m much more aware of the politics involved when it comes to government spending.
Before we proceed though – if you’re still wondering how SE has anything to do with all of this, please refer back to my entry on it back in March – or shoot me an email and I can go over it with you again. You know, I do love it so when you send me emails in response to my entries! Now let’s get our feet back on the ground so we can see how everything I’ve just said relates to Buddhism, Sufficiency Economics, the Dream School Program and educational reform at work at Pattarayan Wittaya School in Amphoe Nakhon Chai Sri in Nakhon Pathom Province. So where were we…oh, yeah…
In contrast to the tepid reception of the task of incorporating technology into teaching and learning, the teachings of Sufficiency Economy has taken root in a way that is quite remarkable. Let’s go over some of the ways in which SE has been translated into something measurable so that we can have something to work with in comparing the performance of the two programs.
Sarah set up a short meeting for me with the go-to teacher with regards to local wisdom courses. I asked her a variety of questions that I’ve had ever since learning about SE’s integration into educational curriculum. Is the provision of local wisdom courses connected to Sufficiency Economy? Do the students enjoy local wisdom courses or do they pretty much do it because the teachers tell them to? How does programming work? Do the students ever use what they learn outside of school? This last question is of particular importance, I think because it tells us whether or not the teachings are seeping out into the larger community outside school walls. From her, I learned that the students enjoyed the local wisdom classes very much. In addition to the co-op bank, the students also cultivated a specific tree on school grounds that produced a particular flower used to make fragrant extracts. She proudly told me that the mother of a particular student, who had an established business, decided she would switch over to producing this extract instead to sell to the local community – and that she has made thousands (of baht) as a result of this business decision. While Sarah was still teaching at the school, they held meditation retreats for all teachers and staff that went on for up to five days at a time when school was out of session. During these sessions, they presumably spent time ruminating upon how they can incorporate the teachings of SE into their classrooms and school as a whole – and how they can first and foremost relate its teachings to their own lives. After all, the government has adopted it quite enthusiastically and even put it into Thailand’s 10th Economic and Social Development Plan. Another item of note is that the school has set up a student cooperative bank to teach students how to manage their money by familiarizing them with simple accounting and budgeting so that they can be more mindful of their consumption patterns and thereby make better decisions.
Later that afternoon, Sarah and I headed down to a school for deaf children just a few kilometers away along the same road. She has volunteered there in the past and that particular trip was no exception. She was going to teach the students how to swing and salsa! I was slightly nervous because I didn’t know how I was going to be able to communicate, but this concern was quickly allayed as soon as I met the teachers, who are fully hearing and communicate verbally as well as via sign language – this was of course, before I met the students, who made me feel right at home with their welcoming smiles and ability to communicate with me through intuitive body language where no knowledge of sign is required. I was also quite excited to find out that this school had a rice paddy when Sarah told one teacher that I was researching Sufficiency Economy; Phi Nuch (Big Sister Noot) graciously promised to take us on a tour of the school grounds later. There was only the issue of dancing left to tackle. It had been a very long time since I done any salsa-ing and I had no idea how to swing. Sarah was a fabulous teacher and within minutes, had turned me into her assistant to demonstrate to the boys how they should do their parts. I ended up having a fabulous time and was even given a name in sign language. I’ll try to describe what it looks like: first, you take your left thumb and index finger as if you’re about to pick something up, but instead, you trace your eyebrow. This is the first part. Then, you take your left hand, palm open towards your face with your elbow raised and do a motion coming down from the middle of the top your head to about your eyebrows from left to right. Sarah tells me that your name comes from distinct facial features, so to them, it was my eyebrows and hair.
Here's a picture of those crazy dancers. One thing to think about -- have you ever danced to music you can't hear?
We met up with Phi Nuch after dance class and went about our tour of the school. Again, I was armed with lots of questions and she was quite knowledgeable in answering all my questions. She was also surprised that I was able to ask her all of these questions in Thai and understand her replies – I was actually quite surprised myself how much I was able to muster. From Phi Nuch, I learned that the school has been around for just 12 years and that is it fully government funded. The students live on campus and have to choose a vocational path – almost like a major – in addition to their regular courses. These specializations could be anything from growing rice, vegetables, bananas and mushrooms to raising pigs and fish or even baking and handicrafts. The school accepts students from nearby provinces in the central region, but also has student from as far as Chiang Mai in the north and Ubon Ratchathani in the northeast. Students have to apply, but they have to be accepted by law. It has yet to graduate a class because it has only been around for 12 years, but they will graduate their first class this year. I found this school remarkable because it is giving students with a disability the chance to lead lives they wouldn’t otherwise be able to lead. First of all, it gives them a chance to be around other non-hearing students, but the school actively promotes social and academic exchange with hearing students from nearby schools, including Pattarayan. The school teaches these students that they are equal to hearing students and instills a sense of pride and self-esteem that would probably be missing if they were part of a small program for non-hearing students in a regular school. Finally, they give them an extra boost to their livelihood choices by allowing them to get hands on experience for real job skills. On Sukhumvit Rd in Bangkok, there is an entire population of non-hearing clothing and trinket vendors. In fact, that was the extent of my interaction with this section of Thai society until my visit to the school. You may think it’s a little odd, the notion that somebody who isn’t able to hear can possibly engage in sales. However, these resilient people are able to do a lot with a calculator and their business acumen.
The rice paddy, vegetable plots, banana field and mushroom house:
The bakery and handicrafts workshop:
The fish pond and piglets at play:
I guess what I’m saying is that I was very impressed that I had stumbled upon a school that gave these kids a choice to be productive members of society beyond peddling wares in tourist town. All of this, of course, relates to Sufficiency Economy in that it cultivates within the students a sense of self-reliance and resiliency when it comes to facing the world outside school, where they must eventually fend for themselves as adults. It engrains within them, the understanding that they must continually develop themselves mentally and spiritually if they are to tackle the task of living in the outside world, which is going to be that much tougher on account of their inability to hear. One of the remarkable ways that this type of teaching shows through is in the behavior of the students. They were just as shy as any teenaged Thai student – at first. However, they warm up a lot more quickly and seem to have so much more life to them than many students I saw at the Dream School down the street. They seemed to be genuinely happy with life. This display of vitality is in high contrast to the busy bee workers I share trains, elevators, restaurants, and coffee shops with back in Bangkok. But then again, maybe they’re just being children. At any rate, I want to take some time to compare the two programs now, but first, a short little story regarding education in Thailand.
I was in news class the other day at AUA when I learned about an interesting tidbit of information. You see, the Thai newspapers often report on items that the English language papers fail to report on for one reason or another. In this particular class, I learned that there was a recent probe undertaken by the National Anti-Corruption Commission that discovered that a number of ministries seemed to be missing large sums of public funds. First among them is the Ministry of the Interior, which comes as no surprise. In second place is the Ministry of Information and Technology and finally, the Ministry of Education – which came as a shock to me. After all, it is the case that the Thailand-United States Education Foundation, aka Fulbright Thailand, is under the auspices of the aforementioned ministry. Not too long before this class, I was reading the English language Bangkok Post that featured a column called “Report Card.” In this particular issue, there was a piece on educational spending on Thailand. It concluded that the problem with education in Thailand isn’t necessarily a lack of funds. The problem lies in inefficient use of existing funds and inadequate measures to assess needs and appropriateness with regards to the spending. This final point leads us now directly into the discussion of why the Dream School project pretty much failed when compared to progress that has been made so far in terms of incorporating Sufficiency Economy principles into educational curriculum.
The Dream School project was a top-down, government driven program that focused on providing tangible educational tools and was funded by a state-owned bank (Krung Thai Bank). Though the project was made to look as though it was part of the bank’s community development programs, it is not unreasonable to ask whether there were some hidden political dealings involved where a relative of somebody high up in the Ministry of Education happened to own a business selling computers; or perhaps this individual or group of individuals were heavily invested in a similar business owned by friends. However it came about, the end result is that the Dream Schools were given something they weren’t prepared to use; they weren’t given the necessary training or support that is involved with introducing new technology. It’s like building miles of roads into poor villages where nobody has cars. In short, they were given something completely foreign, almost alien to them – many of them know that these things are called computers, but if you took a survey of how many of the teachers and administrators have computers at home, it may be revealing. Also, very few of the staff had computers at their desks in the administration offices. The few they had were collected in one common work area and all I saw being done with them was word processing. To make matters worse, a majority of the Thai educational workforce is made up of older individuals who were themselves brought up in the tradition of rote learning. If the system worked for them like it has for decades, why change it? What are these things called interactive learning and critical thinking? It sounds dangerous, teaching the kids to ask questions. What if they asked us something we don’t know?
The problem is that this old system is no longer adequate and the effects are quite visible in Thailand’s current labor force. Many managers, foreign or Thai will tell you that their employees are very good at following directions, but if you ask them to think independently, it’s another story. Part of this is cultural, but the issue of “kreng jai” aside, many believe that it’s simply not their job to think out of the box – that’s what managers are for. For some reason, many of them seem to be content at being told what to do. On the other hand, if you look at the progress that has been made in terms of incorporating Sufficiency Economy teachings into the curriculum, you’ll see something dramatically different – why is that?
To start off, I want to reiterate that SE arose out of real experiences of real people in real time and space. It is not a system of ideas that is foreign to either the teachers or the students. On the contrary, its heavily Buddhist influences make its teachings feel quite natural. This is why I said earlier that because of SE’s strong ties to things Thai, there is a good chance that it will be successfully integrated into the educational curriculum. There is no need to convince them that they should follow the path that it lays out. Instead of government officials sending plastic trophies to house in an air-conditioned room, it is HM the King reaching out to his people because of his concern and love for them. The Sufficiency Economy philosophy strikes a chord in each of them insofar as it is like everything that is featured in a book by this name: Very Thai. The teachings, instead of making the teachers feel insecure and risk looking incompetent in front of their students, empowers them and implores them to be good role models regarding issues they are very much well-versed in and knowledgeable about already. In short, it makes them feel good by telling them they should do more of what they are already doing – teaching the students to be upstanding and moral citizens, dedicated students, exemplary Buddhists and proud Thai citizens.
The other night, I had dinner with an American Fulbright Scholar at my university in the field of chemistry. Margaret and her husband David have been here for only 6 weeks, but they have seen more of Thailand than I had in my first three months here. One area of particular interest to her is the subject of “Green Chemistry.” As I understand it, green chemistry pushes for the design of products and processes that eliminate or reduce the amount of hazardous substances being used or generated as part of the production process. The other factor that makes this approach a unique and exciting field to study is that it seeks to incorporate this thinking along every step of the way towards the end product. In the past, industry sought to make everything in the most cost-efficient and time saving manner and left the clean-up work for the end. When dealing with undesirable behaviors, governments are very quick to make things illegal and slap down fines. Of course, this never really works in the long run and will only pave the way towards more discreet, underhanded dealings. One of the things she said that really stuck with me is that in order to encourage desirable behaviors, you need to make it easier for people to do what you want them to do. If you want them to recycle, provide an accessible recyclables pick-up program. If you want factories to stop dumping into the nearby river, help them figure out a way to reduce the waste or a method of disposal that is more environmentally friendly. Instead of focusing exclusively on providing farmers with debt relief or industrial workers with psychological counseling so they don’t kill themselves, teach the farmers to practice crop diversity so they are less vulnerable to changes in market prices because of mono-cropping and educate the students who are considering leaving school early to go get a factory job on their choices in life so they don’t end up feeling hopeless. I share this story with you because I think that the Sufficiency Economy is a case in point and because of this, simply ingenious. This brings me to my closing remarks – could more have been made of the Dream School Program? Of course. But you don’t need me to tell you that.
In the case of Sufficiency Economy, there was faculty and staff buy-in. The people who are in control and make the decisions were behind its implementation and participated in helping it to truly become part of the school curriculum. If the people at Krung Thai and/or the Ministry of Education truly and earnestly wanted the Dream School Program to work, they could have provided a stipend that included something as simple as hiring a team of specialists who could make rounds between participating schools to encourage and train the teachers on how incorporate more technology into their teaching. In short, they needed to make it easier for the teachers to use the computers and the Internet to teach their students. They probably could have given each school just half the number of computers they each received and used the savings to invest in a single part-time lab technician who could give both student and teacher basic seminars on computer use as well as offer technical support and trouble shooting in case problems arise. This person doesn’t need to be anybody who is particularly highly trained – perhaps they are graduates or even students at the local vocational school who is in the IT course. This leads me to one of the reasons that I think that true corporate partners, not state-owned enterprises that sit somewhere in the middle, would have been a great partner in this particular program. I find it hard to believe that a business that invests in such a joint project (let’s call it Microsoft) with the government would be content to just let their contributions sit and gather dust in a forgotten corner of some provincial school. Instead, said company would presumably be interested in making sure the school can produce something that helps to make its philanthropic activities more visible. This difference in expectations, motivations and desire to monitor and evaluate investments is what drives me to study the role of private business as potential partners that will revitalize the field of socio-economic development and add a component that is very much understudied.
ขอบคุณมากครับที่อ่านได้มาเยอะขณะนี่ !!
Thank you very much for reading so much!!
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