Learning — the SWISS way

Is all this really helpful or are parents simply subjecting their young ones to unnecessary pressure? If the experience at the Swiss Section at Ruamrudee International School (RIS) is anything to go by, anxious parents might want to relax a bit and let their children enjoy their earliest years.

Kindergarten does begin at age three at the RIS Swiss section, but play and exposure to the German language – not formal learning – are the main focuses.

Thomas Huber

"This is a children’s paradise," says Principal Thomas Huber. "They learn a lot but they don’t learn in a systematic, academic way."

Instead, they learn things naturally and informally, Huber says. "For instance, Tuesday and Thursday, the mothers sell pretzels and salami sandwiches. The children know how much they can buy.

"A sandwich costs 15 baht and they know how much they get back from their 20 baht. That’s how they learn numbers. They don’t have to fill in exercise books just to show the parents they have done something."

Formal learning begins in grade one at age six. Even the introduction of the letters of the alphabet and basic numbers is delayed until that time. Yet by mid-year, the children are reading German at the sentence level and beginning to calculate using two-digit numbers.

Jump ahead to the final year of high school and the curriculum is as rigorous as any found in Thailand.

Math students tackle differential equations in calculus while language-oriented students learn basic Spanish in addition to reading French and English literature in the original. All students take a philosophy course – taught in English no less.

What’s missing? Not a lot, except perhaps much of the pressure associated with so many high-performance programmes. Students learning the Swiss way seem remarkably composed and unruffled. Recently the learning post paid a visit to find out some of the reasons why.

Australian PE teacher Tony Tree conducts his sixth-grade class in English.

Like Swiss education in general, the RIS Swiss section is a little difficult to categorise. It cannot be said to follow the Swiss national system because there is no such system. Each of Switzerland’s 26 cantons is responsible for formulating their own curriculum and there are considerable differences within the country.

The RIS Swiss Section has been accredited by the Canton of Lucerne which supervises its curriculum. Given the school’s very un-Swiss location, however, the local curriculum has been significantly modified from what you might find in Lucerne.

"What we have here is a bit of a mixture," says Huber. "We have adapted our programme to the conditions here and we think it’s the best way for our children to learn."

At its core, Huber says, his is a German-speaking school and this means it is unlikely to grow significantly beyond its present enrolment of about 200 students.

"We try to keep this a German school. We could well do with another 100 or 150 children, but we don’t want to compromise this German standard. Maybe we could have 30 to 40 more children, but we definitely will never be a huge school," Huber asserts.

Students attending the school are supposed to have at least one German-speaking parent. But that does not always ensure that the child has a strong German language skills, Huber says.

"Usually, it’s the father who is German-speaking. He might be Swiss, German or Austrian. He is also usually very busy – always traveling. So the children stay a lot of the time with their mothers and the kids don’t really have a good German background."

This is a big reason why the Swiss section has a three-year pre-school programme, longer than comparable programmes in Switzerland.

"Once they come for three or four years to pre-school they learn enough German to follow through. But these children sometimes have a disadvantage because they don’t have anybody at home to help them with homework or answer questions. It’s not easy for these children. German is a difficult language," Huber observes.

Interestingly, the language of the classroom is High German, not Swiss German – a clear adaptation to the local situation. Another deviation from the way things are normally done in Switzerland is the early introduction of English rather than French. Parents demand it, Huber says. The French language still has an important place in the curriculum, but it is only introduced in grade six. English begins in grade two.

Despite the differences, the curriculum of the RIS Swiss section is still quite typical of schools found in Switzerland and Germany in one very significant way. Like their European counterparts, Swiss section students are streamed at a relatively early age according to their academic abilities and interests.

Beginning in seventh grade, students are separated into three different academic streams in order to develop each student’s potential to the fullest. Students deemed capable of university study enter Gymnasium, a particularly demanding course of study that continues through grade 12.

More practically-oriented children enter Sekundarschule which goes through grade ten. "After grade ten, basic schooling is actually over," Huber explains. "In Switzerland or Germany they would move to an apprenticeship which means training as a plumber, an electrician, a secretary, a carpenter, craftsman or any one of over 200 recognised professions – or if they are so inclined, they can enter tertiary education and obtain a degree."

The third stream is the Realschule. "This is for the less academically-oriented children," Huber explains. "This prepares them for types of apprenticeships which require practical gifts."

Clearly, this is very different from most other school programmes in Thailand where even weaker students hold out hope for university study until the very end. You might expect, therefore, the selection process used to stream the students could be contentious, with parents demanding a place for their children in the Gymnasium.

Not so, says Huber. "In our culture, this is very well accepted. Nobody doubts this system. And it is not a tragedy to go to Sekundarschule. About 50 percent of the students in Switzerland actually go to Sekundarschule."

The selection process itself is a lengthy one in which students and parents are intimately involved. "In grades five and six we start to observe which form of school they are suited for. The aim is to give the children tools to evaluate their own talents, areas where they are not so good. So we try to make children find out about themselves. We call this self-competence," Huber explains.

"Grades begin to count at this level and the children’s attitudes toward learning are watched closely. Is the child willing to learn? Is the child interested and motivated? On the other hand, do you always have to push him?

"The teacher has to share all these observations with the parents and finally they have to narrow down the decision. In the end, it’s the school who decides which stream the child goes to and not the parents."

Pre-school children have a wide range of free play activities arranged for them.

After three years of play in the RIS Swiss section preschool, first graders start formal learning in earnest. Within a year, they learn to read, count and calculate on a par with students in other local schools who spent their pre-school years reading, counting and calculating.

Could the Swiss section students have started earlier too? Many could, says first grade teacher Christina Lio, but doing so is neither desirable nor especially effective. "They have to be mature enough to sit down and be quiet and concentrate. They have to be interested in the material. They have to be able to work independently," Lio says.

Developing such maturity is an important part of the pre-school. Underneath its playful atmosphere is actually a significant amount of structure and purpose.

"The little ones really like to have it a bit structured," says pre-school teacher Claudia Schäfferle. "So every morning in the first lesson, I have circle time. This goes on for about 45 minutes. What we do in circle time is talk about the theme. Usually I have one big theme going over a couple of months. At the moment it’s water and fish. After that I will go on with colours and patterns," Schäfferle explains.

"Then we have a little free play. Then we always have our snack together. It's very important to sit together at the table and talk to each other. Then we usually have more free play and during that time I have activities going."

The activities, says Schäfferle, all relate in some way to the class theme. Children are able to choose which activity they want to participate in.

With choice, however, also comes responsibility. Pre-schoolers learn to clean up after themselves, to wash their hands, and go to the toilet by themselves. They also share various chores, like feeding the fish kept in the classroom.

The end result, says Huber, is that students enter first grade "schulreif" – ready for school. "Some of them could read at five years with no problem. But for the whole group to achieve the goals of learning all the letters in six or seven months, you need them to be a bit more developed," he says.

Teacher Christina Lio conducts this beginning third-grade English class entirely in English.

With German as the medium of instruction at the RIS Swiss section, the English language does not get the out-of-class reinforcement it would in an English-medium international school. Swiss section students take English for only three periods a week, much like their counterparts in Thai schools.

Viewed from this perspective, the level of fluency the students achieve is quite remarkable. By the sixth grade, for example, students comfortably take their physical education in English with an Australian teacher. Even at lower grades, many students already sound like native English speakers.

Perhaps they are. English is often the language of the home for many students from mixed marriages. Other parents deliberately raise their children to be bilingual German and English.

According to English teacher Dr William Adair, the international youth culture of Bangkok also has a lot to do with his students’ remarkable facility with the language. "To a great extent I think it’s just living in Bangkok. They’re exposed to English every day. They follow the American culture. They like rap singers, rock songs. They couldn’t learn it all in the classroom."

As a result, by the seventh grade, teaching upper skills English at the Swiss section can be bit like teaching English as a first language, not a second, Adair says. "I just speak in my normal manner. There’s no problem in communication. Some of them are just like native speakers. If you would meet them in America, you wouldn’t know they were German speakers."

They do struggle at times, however, Adair observes. "We read things like editorials on the war from the New York Times and they’ll come across vocabulary that they don't know. We just read the Rose for Emily and another Faulkner story – just stories, no Faulkner novels. That would be too difficult. Hemingway was a little difficult for a lot of them to appreciate."

While the RIS Swiss section offers all three streams, a disproportionate number of students enter the Gymnasium. "We have quite a high percentage of students who go to gymnasium because our population is not a normal population," Huber explains.

"The parents here are all quite ambitious. They’re in business or some in diplomatic missions. They emphasise the value of education. They are interested in their children’s school career which is not the case in all social strata in Switzerland."

The Gymnasium programme leads to the Maturität degree, which is roughly equivalent to the Thai high school diploma (Mathayom 6). In the last two years, students begin to specialise. Apart from core courses like German, French, English, philosophy and maths, they also have electives, particularly in the final year. In addition, seniors are also required to research and write a 50-page paper.

Final examinations are written internally by Swiss section teachers, but they are closely supervised by local representatives who have been elected by the Canton of Lucerne. These representatives scrutinise each of the exam papers and they also sit in on the oral examinations.

Swiss section Maturität degree holders have a wide range of options for their university studies. "Many of them go to Europe," Huber says, "but quite a few go to Australia or the States. Hardly anybody stays in Thailand. That’s the big exception."

Huber himself will be leaving the Swiss section in June after 17 years as head of the school. During his term, he has presided over major changes at the school, including the move to its present site in Minburi on the outskirts of Bangkok.

"It was only about 90 students when I arrived. It went only up to grade nine, so we didn’t have any accreditation. There we didn’t have any science labs or anything," Huber recalls.

"It (moving) was a difficult phase because we didn’t have much money, but it was also a chance to build a school that had all the facilities.

"In the beginning, people were a bit worried. They said you’re crazy to move so far from town but in the meantime we have realised we are attached quite well to the city. So actually nobody regrets moving here because the surroundings are much better for the children."