Self-study and classroom lessons based on newspaper feature stories

This column is for self-study or classroom use and gives guided help with reading the wide variety of writing styles and topics that appear as feature articles in the Bangkok Post. The lessons include background information, skill-building practice and vocabulary explanations.

September 2, 2003

Making a point

INTRODUCTION

The story for you to read today is part of a series about a group of Burmese and Karen people who live in Thailand. They live here, but are not Thai citizens so they do not have opportunities that Thai citizens have. For example, children cannot go to government schools. Today’s story is about someone who is helping those children, a doctor named Cynthia Maung.

When the writer sat down to write, she thought about how to begin telling Dr Cynthia’s story? Here is one way she could have done that:

Dr Cynthia Muang is a doctor who set up a school for children in her town because they could not go to any other school.

But that’s not what the writer, Santisuda Ekachai wrote. Read her introduction – the first two paragraphs. Who is that introduction about? Which introduction do you think creates the most interest?

Probably you thought that Ms Sanitsuda’s introduction was better. One of the basic rules of feature writing is ‘get the reader’s attention right at the beginning’. By focusing on one of the students in the school and letting us hear him speak, Ms Sanitsuda gets readers involved in the situation that led Dr Cynthia’s to start the school.

Now read the third paragraph. Then check to see how many times the word ‘dream’ is used in the first three paragraphs? By repeating that word, the writer has prepared us to find out how Dr Cynthia is trying to make dreams come true.
Making dreams come true

Below is a list of dreams that Dr Cynthia has for the school, based on information in the story. As you read the story, find out which of her dreams have been achieved and which goals have not yet been reached. Put a check mark in front of the dreams that have already come true.
……. The school should provide full elementary education to grade six.
……. All the students should be able to speak, read and write Thai.
……. All students should learn Burmese language and culture.
……. Karen children should also speak Karen.
……. Students should have life skills (practical knowledge about living where they are and preparing them for the future).
……. The school should be self-supporting (have enough money for all its needs).
……. All the children who need to go to the school should be able to attend.
……. Families should be able to provide lunch for students.
……. The school should have as many teachers as necessary.
……. The school should teach a curriculum that allows students to enter the Thai educational system.
Uncertainties

There are many fears and uncertainties for people living near the Thai-Burmese border. After you have read the story, complete each sentence below with an idea from the story about the uncertainties, worries or fears that they face. There is more than one way each sentence could be completed; you choose one idea.

Dr Cynthia and other Burmese who came to Thailand many years ago are uncertain if …

People who live in Thailand but who cannot read Thai are afraid they …

Unregistered adults with families to support are uncertain about …

Families living in outlying areas of Mae Sot often cannot …

The school depends mostly on donation to operate but it’s never …

Children who study at the school and will continue to live in Thailand don’t know …

Children like Joh with dreams of careers are not sure if …
WORD FAMILIES

Here is a base word that appears in different forms in the story: migrate (v): (of people) to move from one town, country, etc. to go and live and/or work in another for a short time. Adding the prefix ‘im’ makes ‘immigrate’ to move into a country to live, while adding ‘e’ forms ‘emigrate’ meaning to leave your country to live and work in another.

See if you can make the noun forms; add ‘ant’ for the basic noun …………………… . Add prefixes to name someone who 1) moves into a country ……………………. ; and 2) someone who leaves his or her country to live in another ……………………. .

Highlight as many of the words above as you can find in the story? Who do they apply to?

OUR STORY FROM THE BANGKOK POST

Fighting for a chance to learn

A school in Mae Sot aims to make a difference

Story by SANITSUDA EKACHAI

Rakpol Rakkanam and Wiriyapa Chandrasuwong

SOME VOCABULARY HELP

official papers
documents issued by a government which state your status, which then gives you certain rights

dedication
hard work on an important activity

spartan
simple; lacking anything that makes life more pleasant

crackdown
severe action taken to restrict the activities of a group of people

concrete
real; based on facts

grave
serious

dead-end
a point at which you can make no further progress in what you are doing

reproductive
connected with reproducing babies

instil
to gradually make someone feel, think or behave in a particular way

limited
a small amount

resources
a supply of what an organization or a person has and can use

sole
one only

breadwinner
a person who supports a family with the money they earn

unstable
likely to change suddenly

hangs in the air
is uncertain; likely to change

stabilise
to make something steady and unlikely to change

chip in
to give money or other needed things so a group can do something

sustain
to provide enough of what is needed to keep something existing

scarce
only available in small quantities

recruit
to find new people to join

devise
to make something new

equivalency tests
those that measure the value of learning in one system compared to another

hand
a labourer

Joh, 14, had a very simple dream: He wanted to go to school like other children. But like countless other children of immigrant workers without official papers, the boy knew his dream was not likely to come true.

“I was jealous every time I saw Thai kids walking past me going to school,” said the Karen teenager, who lives in Mae Sot, Tak province. “I wanted that too. Going to school. Wearing a beautiful, clean uniform. It hurt me that I could not go.”

Joh’s dream came true two years ago, thanks to his “angelic doctor”. The school he is attending was set up in 1997 by Dr Cynthia Maung, whose dedication to providing medical care to poor Burmese along the Thai-Burmese border has won her several international honours, including the Magsagsay Award, Asia’s equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The school, located across the road from her small but internationally known hospital called the Mae Tao Clinic, serves some 200 students, most of whom are children of poor migrant workers in the border town of Mae Sot.

Like the clinic, the spartan school, where students learn while sitting on the floor, arose from her efforts to meet the immediate needs of poor Burmese people who are not cared for under the Thai system.

“First it started as a nursery for only 20 toddlers,” she recalled. Through word of mouth, more parents started to bring their children. As the years passed, the nursery was expanded into a school providing elementary education.

“Last year, some 50 children finished fourth grade. We know we won’t think of just setting up 5^th grade for the children. We have to think more long-term,” she said.

When Dr Cynthia Maung crossed the border with other pro-democracy fighters in 1988 following a military crackdown, she was confident they would return to Burma within three months. But the months turned into years — 15 to be exact. With no concrete signs of democracy in Burma and a chance to return home, as a trained doctor, she did her best to provide medical care to poor Burmese exiles and migrants.

Meanwhile, she watches with grave concern the growing number of children from Burma facing a dead-end future as stateless persons in Thailand.

“We cannot expect these children to go back soon, so we need to do something to give them an education. And we cannot think of only classroom education, but also the practical kind, suitable for undocumented children,” said the physician, herself a mother of three.

“The education issue is the most important challenge for us now.”

Even if the political situation in Burma changed in her favour, the children still could not go back at once, she added. “We need to prepare our children well, not only with formal education but also in life skills.”

While her Mae Tao Clinic tries to provide non-formal education to teenagers and young people in reproductive health to ease the problems of unwed pregnancy, abandoned children, as well as HIV and Aids, the school’s mission is educate as well as to instil cultural roots in the children.

Songs in Karen and Burmese echo from the classrooms where the children learn to master the languages of their homelands through music. While staying in Thailand, the children also need to learn how to read and write Thai, however, they still cannot do so given the limited resources, Dr Cynthia Maung said.

Joh, for one, said he wants to learn more Thai. “I cannot read signs on the road,” he said in perfect Thai. “I’m always afraid of getting lost and getting cheated.”

He is happy enough, though, that he can now go to school, though he does not know for how long. His mother, a food vendor and unregistered worker, is the family’s sole breadwinner, and her income is unstable. Besides, the family’s future hangs in the air given the state’s crackdown on migrant workers.

Working against uncertainties is nothing new for Dr Cynthia Maung, however. Her formula: Take one thing at a time and do things step by step.

Her immediate challenge is to help more children attend school while stabilising the school’s operations.

“Many parents lived scattered in the outlying areas of Mae Sot. Because of transportation problems, they can’t go to school as much as they would like to,” she said.

For those who can, the parents are asked to chip in, paying an entrance fee of 150 baht and a monthly fee of 30 baht. Yet this hardly sustains the school’s operations, which runs primarily on donations that are scarce and irregular.

Parents are also asked to buy the children school uniforms, stationery and books. The children are asked to bring their own lunches. But many simply cannot afford it. As a rule, the school steps in to help.

Apart from basic material needs, the school needs to recruit and train more teachers. Meanwhile, it has yet to devise a curriculum that can be later linked to the Thai educational system through equivalency tests.

“There are so many things to do,” she said. “And we need a lot of help to make them possible.”

And to help make the children’s dreams come true. Pohpae, 13, whose father is a guard and whose mother is a farm hand, says he wants to get a good job in the city so that he can provide for his hard-working mother.

Joh, though knowing he will most likely end up a labourer, refuses to give up. “I want to be a doctor,” the teenager said. “I want to help sick and poor people, like Dr Cynthia does. I admire what she is doing for us and I want to help her in return.”

• This lesson was prepared by Maureen Paetkau, a professional teacher of English as a second and foreign language and Assistant Manager and Webmaster for Learning Post at the Bangkok Post.

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