By the generosity of one of the Fulbright Senior Scholars here in Bangkok, Dr. Bruce Svare, I was able to take a day trip out to a neighboring province. We took a rented van out to Nakhon Pathom province about an hour and a half west of Bangkok to see a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant (ETA) by the name of Sarah Sieloff. Sarah teaches at Pattarayan Wittaya High School in Nakhon Chai Sri amphur (an amphur is geographical area within a province) and is quite good at what she does! In addition to being a Fulbright ETA, she is also a Truman Scholar – the caliber of people who are attracted to the mission of the Fulbright is amazing, isn’t it? I feel so fortunate to have been given the opportunity to get to know people who are leaders in their field (as the Senior Scholars are) and young men and women whose talents have brought them quite far and have a ways to go yet in terms of their journeys in life.
Sarah teaches students from ages 13 to 18, if my memory serves me correctly – basically, the equivalent of US high school- aged kids. Our arrival at the school was fairly uneventful. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but we didn't get it. Hah hah. As we arrived in the middle of the school day, most of the students and teachers were still in classes. We wandered around a little bit and tried to call Sarah on her cell phone, but were unable to reach her. When we ran into a lady whom I thought looked teacher-ly, I used my broken Thai to ask where “Teacher Sarah” was. She then led us to the English Department’s office just a few doors down where we met up with Sarah, who was just wrapping up a few things she wanted to share with us. She gave us a brief tour of the office and the nicely air-conditioned computer room where she likes to teach. Apparently, it is easy to just up and move your classes if a particular room happens to be empty. I don’t remember seeing air-conditioners in the other classrooms, so you could probably understand why the computer room would be a nice place to be. Also, it happens to be one of the only "wired" rooms I saw, so Sarah is able to make use of technology to aid in her teaching. Given that she is teaching English to students whose native language is some form of Thai (there are geographical variations), sometimes actions are necessary to communicate an idea. Then it was time for lunch...
One of the interesting things I saw as we were wandering around the campus was how segregated the boys are from the girls...
We went to a place right down the street from the school that Sarah had found by trial and error during her months at the school. By now, I’m quite accustomed to eating at the type of establishment we sat down at. Sarah assured us that this place was excellent and I had every reason to believe her. It was a small stall set up in front of a home and the dining area was the family’s front yard. By this time, I had learned that just about every food stand has my favorite Thai dish (kraphao kai raat khao – stir-fried chicken with holy basil over rice), so that was exactly what I ordered. It was oh so wonderful. We talked for a little bit about what we wanted to do and who we were going to see that day, but mostly, we just caught up with each other about what we’ve all been up to and what we thought we might be doing for Christmas.
After lunch, we headed back to the school, where Sarah pointed out the assembly grounds where the students gather every morning at 8am. Here's a picture of the gathering space:
She then took us on a brief tour of the school, where we were able talk to some of the teachers through her =). Her Thai is much better than mine, so she asked all of the questions – thank goodness she was there! Much to my delight, I found that I understood quite a bit of what was being said in response to her questions. Yay, AUA and their Automatic Language Growth (ALG) method! We also saw some of the on campus housing. Apparently, it’s not uncommon for teachers to live on campus. Sarah happens to live with one of the top woman administrator at her school, so she is getting used to having a mom again after she had tasted the freedom of college life at a Florida university quite far from home (I think). Did I mention that Sarah is from Snohomish, WA? Small world, huh? Then it was time for her to teach.
Oh, by the way, here are Sarah’s words as to what she does on a day-to-day basis:
We do an opening ceremony every morning at 8am and it lasts until 8:25. All the students gather, sing some songs off-key, pray to the Buddha, and then sit and receive their daily dose of wisdom from one of the administrators, who is either berating them or giving them helpful advice and encouragement, I'm still not sure since the tones in Thai still throw me. I teach from 9:30 until 10:20 (Matthayom 6/1, the most advanced group of kids in the school, most of whom are university-bound). From 10:20 to 11:15 I'm with M5/3, where half of the class is deaf. They are accompanied by an interpreter who speaks decent English. From 11:15-12:10 I'm free. From 12:10 until 1:30 is lunch time. From 1:30-2:25 I don't teach. From 2:25-3:20 I'm teaching M3/5, which is a fun group of kids (like American 9th grade). The teacher supervising me actually supervises most of the time (a rarity) but her English is limited (when we speak, it's often in 1/2 Thai and 1/2 English) and she also teaches some Chinese. I get the feeling that Chinese interests her much more than English, but that English pays the bills…Thailand has passed a lot of educational reforms recently, and it's helpful to know what they're aiming for on paper vs. what the situation looks like on the ground.
This is Sarah in action -- I think she's a natural! You wouldn't believe that just a few months ago, she couldn't stand "kids" !!
What Sarah describes as discrepancy between what is on paper and what is on the ground is the very reason that I felt that it would be important to my research to go on this trip – this is of course, in addition to just being able to spend a day with my fellow Fulbrights and just get a sense of what they do on a daily basis. Let me just say that it is very different from what I do as my days are a lot less structured than theirs. Fortunately for me, I was also able to sit in on one of Bruce’s lectures at Chulalongkorn University before going to see Sarah’s school. The differences between the students at a public high school versus at one of Thailand’s most prestigious private universities weren’t all that great, actually. Although the students in Bruce’s class are senior college students, many of them exhibited the same types of behaviors as Sarah’s students. The main difference between the two classes is that in Bruce’s class, there were about 5 students who consistently raised their hands to either answer or ask questions. There was even one student who raised his hand and politely said that he simply disagreed with the conclusions of the author of one of their readings (Dr. Svare teaches in psychology, by the way). In Sarah’s class, many of the students seemed very nervous and looked as if they actively worked to stay unnoticed amongst the pack. For the most part, I noticed that the students in both classes were very hesitant to participate and volunteer. I’m thinking that much of it has to do with the language barrier. One young lady in Bruce’s class seemed very eager to ask and answer questions, but she had to do so through one of her classmates, who acted as an interpreter. Or maybe the meekness on the part of the students is simply a Thai thing. Perhaps on both occasions, it was because they were aware that visitors were in the classroom. I’ll have to defer to Bruce and Sarah on this matter, as they are the ones who stand in front of the classroom and teach.
After class, we were able to meet with one of the Assistant Directors of the school. I’m not sure how he would compare to the administrators in our high schools, but his title makes him sound like something of a vice principal. However, from talking to him, it sounded to me like his role was closer to that of a school principal. What the actual Director of the school does then, is still a mystery to me ~ Is it like a head of state and head of government thing? Perhaps Ajarn Wiichan, the Assistant Director, is one of the heads of government for the school and is responsible for making it tick. The term “Ajarn” by the way, isn’t part of his name, which is Wiichan (I hope I already mentioned that Thais don’t really use their last names very often, so I don’t even know what his last name is). Ajarn is a title of respect that’s also used to refer to university professors and also the teachers at this particular school. In contrast, the teachers at the AUA all go by the term “kruu,” which translates into “teacher.” As you might imagine then, there is a social and hierarchical distinction between kruu and ajarn and therefore, the level of respect that each title merits, respectively.
Here's a picture of me, Sarah, Bruce, one of the female teachers and the Assistant Director. I trust you don't need me to really go through who is whom...
Our meeting with him was actually quite interesting. From him, we learned that the Thai government spends a little over $30 per student annually through the equivalent of grade 9 and then about $55 for grades 10-12. Yes, you read correctly. Annually. I’d like to get the thoughts of American high school administrators on that tidbit of information. I remember from my days in student government when I was in high school that they were always complaining how little they had to work with in terms of funding. Actually, the numbers that they gave me were quite stunning, even to me and I’m familiar with some of these abysmal figures. I guess I had just forgotten. We learned that because of the very small amount of money that the central government shells out, the school systems require the parents of the students to fork out some money to help with the costs of running the school. This is quite a bit different from our public school systems where we have mandatory schooling up through grade 12 and it is truly free of cost for the parents (spare me the lecture about property taxes, yeah?). In contrast, the Thai system mandates schooling up through grade 9 and it’s certainly not free. They were baffled by the fact that a student who is an outsider can still go to school for free in our system – we were asked what happens if a student from NY were to move to WA and whether they would be expected to pay then. It just occurred to me now that the children of immigrants (legal or illegal) also go to school for free. Not sure that this would be the case for the Thailand, which also faces a problem with illegal immigration. One important difference I should mention as well is the level of centralization that the school systems are organized under – all public schools fall under the jurisdiction of the national Ministry of Education, which is of course, very different from our educational system, which is governed at the state level and further at the district level. At any rate, they’re trying to change this and make the schools more independent.
Finally (and one of the more exciting things I learned as a result of this trip), is that Sarah’s school is known as a “Dream School” and considered “Super Fast-Tech.” What makes them a Dream School is that they are participants in a program that bestows upon them a bright and shiny computer lab. With further questioning, I found out that the program is funded by grants from Krung Thai Bank, or what is more generally known as the Thai Military Bank, and administered by some branch of the Ministry of Education. According to the administrators, Krung Thai bank is a public corporation, but I’ve done some extra questioning and have heard that it is actually a state-owned enterprise (which would make sense given that it is the military bank). I also asked them what the motivation is for the bank to fund this program, which aims to provide access to technology to children in the public education system. Their answer was that given the bank’s success, they felt like they wanted to give back to the community. For those of you who are familiar with my research proposal and know that I’m very much interested on corporate giving and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), you can see why I launched these series of questions at my generous hosts. I would have asked for much more clarification on the whole matter, but it was getting late and I didn’t want to keep them much longer – keep in mind that our meeting took place in the afternoon, when school was already out. And besides, our driver was waiting to take us back =).
So given the new information about the funding and nature of the Dream School project and what I saw earlier, I got to thinking. Sarah mentioned that one of the frustrations she’s had with the computer room is that although there are two rows of computers, she has only ever seen one row in use. Also, despite the fact that the computers are there, few of the teachers actually incorporate technology into their teaching. So my feeling is that it kind of defeats the purpose of providing the technology if it’s not going to be used to its full potential.
In a conversation I had with another person who has been quite indispensable in helping me to shape my research, Therese Caouette, I’ve come to consider a different point – who are programs such as the Dream Schools project really benefiting? Is it possible that it would instill a false sense of accomplishment? Obviously, the schools and students it would benefit most are the ones that have the sorts of resources and environment that would allow them to utilize the technology they are given to its full potential. The administrators of this program aren’t seeing the whole PROCESS through to its end. If they’re going to provide technology, they also need to ensure that the maximum benefits can be reaped from it. They need to provide training for the teachers in the Dream Schools so that they can serve as models and build upon the experience. It’s no use to anybody to spend what amounts to millions of dollars and have only half of it be beneficial to anybody.
If I take this experience further, I can see how the same problems can arise in any other type of social development programs or CSR initiatives for that matter. Throwing money at problems won’t fix them. Throwing computers at technology deficient populations won’t achieve anything. This situation just provides me with a whole host of reasons as to why economic growth formulas may have failed when economists tried to apply them to solving the problems of developing countries. If you say that given a certain amount of education, foreign direct investment, capital investment, etc should have X effects on GDP growth per capita, do you look at some of the variables that are harder to quantify? Economics, like any social science, has its limitations. There are things you just can’t express in numbers. Therese pointed out that when it comes to social development programs and related efforts, we have historically focused too much on product. We wonder what went wrong when our numbers don’t add up. Everything was applied in the correct quantities on the left side of the equation, how come the right side doesn’t come out right? I think the answer lies somewhere in the nebulous and unquantifiable areas that are bound to slip into the cracks where human beings are involved.
If you apply this to the Dream School project, maybe what I’m saying will make more sense. So Krung Thai Bank provides funding for so many computers for each beneficiary school in the hopes that it will encourage the training and development of a generation of students will be more computer literate. It hands it over to some office in the Ministry of Education to dole out and figure out which schools in which provinces will get the honor of being a Dream School. However, it doesn’t seem very apparent that there is much involvement from either Krung Thai Bank or the Ministry of Education in terms of seeing the project through to completion. How will they measure their success? Is there an identifiable goal that they are working towards? Who will be monitoring the program? Is there funding for the maintenance of the program? Is there an extra stipend to cover the cost of electricity that will be required to use the computers? Does anybody care? If the answers to some of these questions were a “yes,” somebody would be able to make sure that the second row of computers at Pattarayan Wittaya School were actually used. Somebody would come out and offer to give the teachers who wanted to learn various seminars on how to incorporate more technology into their curriculum. The grants would provide for teachers to have such training paid for. It would provide incentives for teachers in a system and society that is deeply entrenched in tradition to change. Somebody would be just as concerned about the processes as they are about the results. In short, the computers would be put to use instead of becoming outdated over time and being another phenomenal waste of money and source of confusion and disappointment for the architects of this supposedly well-hatched scheme to bring technology to the hoi polloi.
[Sigh]
Anyway, we ended the day by having dinner at a fabulous riverside restaurant where there were scary catfish the size of my legs swimming in the water. And people were feeding them! Shudder…no wonder they get so big! Here's a picture of it =). Regardless of the freaky fish, I shall have to go back there next time I'm in Nakhon Pathom ~
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