The Village School Kophet Thailand
Kophet is where we did a home stay for a week in Eastern Thailand. The village has about 400 people and is not in a tourist area. Many of the adults have left the village to work in the city or other countries. Mostly the oldest and youngest members of the community are left in the village. The homes reflect the success of family members working away from home as these members send home money to construct bigger and better homes. We spent about an hour at the school one morning. This is the state run local public school for the village. Lamai, our hostess at the home stay, went to this school. Lamai's parents went to the village temple to learn to read and write because there was no school in the village in the past. Now Lamai's daughter goes here and soon her younger daughter will too. Lamai was our translator during our visit.
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| The entrance to the school |
The building itself is made of wood and is a little run down, it could use some paint. It is next to a field big enough for soccer, where cows some times graze. There is a vegetable garden the students care for in the back. There is a net for a Thai game called, where you get the ball over the net using only your feet or head. There is another building for storage and one where everyone eats. The students and teachers eat together and there is a cook. Students use metal paltes to eat from that they wash themselves.
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| Outside front of classrooms |
Everyone leaves their shoes outside the class rooms on shoe shelves. All students wear uniforms. They also have to have short hair, boys about 2 inches, girls to their ears in a bob cut. When I asked about this they said the government required it to try and prevent the spread of lice. Can't imagine parents in the US going for state mandated hair cuts even to prevent lice! This school has 7 teachers, one administrator and about 89-130 student ages five to twelve. They just had a graduation so they numbers were lower than usual because the new little kids had not started yet. There is a preschool for 3 and 4 year olds across the road were most of the students first went. It is sad and amazing that a developing country can afford preschool for all children but some how the US can't. When student leave this school they can go to one of two “middle schools” near by or to private school. For high school they have to go an hour away to the big city of Kohrat. Some even go to Bangkok for high school depending what they want to do next.
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| Shoes outside |
The first thing I noticed when we entered a classroom was how relaxed it felt. We walked in to a third grade were the teacher was absent and there was no sub. The children were playing games, drawing and reading. They all said hello in English to us when we walked in and wanted to know where we were from. I drew map on the board. They were very attentive as I spoke about how we got to Thailand. At this point Lamai left and Dave and I were on our own. I taught them to sing “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes”. They were so into it you would have thought no one ever taught them a song before. They sing with their teachers so that wasn't it. I think it may have been hearing English live. From a foreigner. They loved my nose for some reason and told Lamai to tell me. They study English but from the computer and the focus is mostly on reading and writing. Of course there isn't always electricity and the computer doesn't always work. They have no teacher who really speaks English.
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| Me drawing the map |
After third grade we went into second grade and talked to the teacher. Again the room was very relaxed. Here I spoke with the teacher through Lamai. This teacher and her husband have been at the school the longest and live in the village. Lamai had this teacher when she was in school here. The other teachers live in nearby towns 5-10km away. Some teacher have other jobs. One to the teachers who also lives in the village is the village butcher and money lender. He is not well liked. Another teacher also acts as a dentist.
The teacher told me tests are given twice a year. These tests determine if the student gets to move to the next grade or not. If they don't pass she said they usually move them on but make sure they get extra attention. I asked what do they do with a student who has trouble learning. She said they make get one on one attention from the teacher. Other than this there is no special education like we have in the US. Five subjects are taught Thai language (reading and writing), math, science, history and religion. They also have art, music and PE which different teachers in the school teacher from time to time depending on their interest and abilities. They have sports mostly in December and play against other schools. The big games are soccer, volley ball and takroo. They have homework almost every night and the amount depends on the teacher. (Our home stay family feels there is too much homework for their daughter this year and wonders why they don't do more at school).
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| Classroom were there was no teacher when we walked in. Students were drawing, playing games, reading, working in workbooks. It was very calm. |
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| Third grade classroom |
I asked about student behavior and what they do about bullies. She said that now they just talk to the bully. But she does not find that to be very effective. Until recently teacher were allowed to hit kids. But the government made that illegal. This has changed how students behave and teachers sound like they feel powerless, according to this teacher. They have asked the population and 60% of citizens they polled say they think teachers should be allowed to hit students.
My last question for the teacher was what would she like to improve about education in her school or in general. I realized after I asked this that I should not have asked it this way. A Thai person is not going to be critical directly about anyone and certainly not about the government. However what she answered was very interesting to me. She said she would like children to learn how to think. She feels they don't use their minds, especially in math to think through a problem. They just want to memorize the answer and get on with it. I feel strongly that learning how to think is the point of education but I don't feel most schools do a very good job of this. So she and I were on the same wave length about this.
Somethings I noticed around the school. The rules were posted in every class room and out front. State standards, or the Thai version, were also posted in the classrooms. There are far fewer standards per subject and grade level than in CA. Most classrooms had some kind of student work hanging up. There were desks and chairs but they looked like they were moved around a lot, in many classrooms they were in groups. I did not see rows of desks in the classrooms I visited. Students had workbooks for various subjects. Overall the students and teachers were friendly and open and the feeling of the school was relaxed. The students looked happy.
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| State standards |
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| School rules |
Dave learned how to play a game with pebbles that you throw kind of like jacks. The teacher said this is the most popular game with the younger students right now. Then Dave gave them a frisbee and taught them how to throw it. All hell broke loose and the second grade teacher had to go out and ask for order. We took a bunch of photos as the students prepared to go have lunch and said our good byes.
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| Dave learning pebble game |
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| Bye |
