We have slowly bee learning about the Thai education system and one of the common themes is Thais do not like to learn. This is not in the same way that Americans do not like to learn, but in a way that there is less ambitions and personal motivation to gain knowledge. The Thai cultures centers around family and having fun- two things that are on the opposite end of the spectrum of a personal education. One teacher said that Thai education is more about the process of getting your students to appreciate gaining knowledge rather than actually gaining specific objectives. For these reasons a lot of good teaching tactics are based on group work, group think, and games. The idea of cheating is very common because of the collective culture and the lack of understanding of intellectual property.
Also Thai students do not like to think. Critical thinking is not a skill that has been valued for a very long time. It was only recently in a modification of the national curriculum that the government encourage creativity and learning centers throughout the community. Originally the value was placed on teachers lectures and students memorizes and recites- students were more like tape recorders than thinkers. (what is interesting is that I read an NPR article saying that education is going in a circle. America is becoming more like the Asians in encouraging memorization because of no child left behind and Asian countries are becoming more like America by starting to promote creativity and critical thinking). What this all means is that it is very difficult to get Thai students to participate in class or want to critically think about the knowledge they are gaining.
There is a lot (and I mean a lot ) of respect for the teaching profession. It is highly revered and sometimes even intimidating to the parents of the students. What a teacher says in the classroom is not questioned by the students or the parents even if the facts are believed to be wrong. For these same reason students are afraid to participate in class and loose face for answering the question wrong in front of an authority figure. (*** This is what I have learned so far and it in NO way generalizes every student in every province). This poses a big challenge for me as a western teacher who is trying to encourage students to learn English based on my experience in American classrooms let alone promote the new national standard of critical thinking.
So the question is: is it better to have an orderly classroom full of tape recorders or a classroom out of control who can at least think on their own?
Hi Jamie! Wow, very interesting. Veterinary colleges have been debating this very issue for several years. A lot of veterinary medicine require rote memorization. Anatomy is one of those places where there's not much you can do but memorize. Same with some of the pharmacology etc. The challenge comes when the students start to look at a patient. No matter how much rote memorization has gone on up to that point, if the student can synthesize those list into something applicable to the patient, it's all been a waste. So, many schools have used a combination approach... some rote memorization tied in with case-based learning. All this starts in the first year so that students start to apply the memorization immediately into a live situation. Some schools tried ONLY case-based learning and those didn't produce good results either... so maybe a blend is the best option? Very interesting.... thanks for the posts!
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