I knew it was coming!

[Twilight Zone]

I guess all you have to do is open the phone book somewhere out of Bangkok and borrow a name. BP's readership is not that big I don't think.

[Twilight Zone]

Dear all,

I think you have all been duped by that other new topic. I don’t think it is scy(whatever) in disguise. The English writing structure is better and comes from an even filthier mind, but less understandable. It is just impossible for somebody to be that ignorant. He/she must be a paid PAD thought police sent into the forum to disrupt any meaningful discussion.

Just ignore it completely and the topic will just die a natural death being sent to the back row. Just don’t respond to it anymore. I won't even respond to it in that topic.

[stilljustbrowsing]

Ok!, still have suspisions about the 4 others though, on some posts it looks like it is congratulating itself and supporting itself under various sudonyms

[Twilight Zone]

Reply to stilljustbrowsing,

I know. It could be mutual mast_rbation or just one guy playing with himself. We can tell he/they don't go out much.

[Twilight Zone]

This is a letter to Deadhead about my experience as a university lecturer. It might be long and boring, so if you are not interested, feel free to skip.

Reply to Deadhead,

Yes, you and I agree that education and the ability to question the elders are important for the development of Thailand. It is the only way out of this mess we are in, but I don’t know the extent the power that be will permit it. But I guess the Pandora box has been opened and it will be hard to stop now.

I am a mid-size housing developer. I have an electrical engineering degree with MBA. My friend said that I had the quality to be a good teacher and he has got connection at the #1 university in Thailand. So I became a special lecturer there.

There were about 300 students each semester, and they were divided into 3 sections of 100 each and I taught one, while career professors taught the other two. While there, I was shocked to see how students were taught in the other two sections. (I studied in U.S. since 13). They were taught to memorize all kinds bullsh.t such as date of birth of “Frederick Taylor, the father of management”. Who cares? That is surely NOT the way management is taught. So I gave them case studies using what’s in the text book only as application.

During first month, every time I asked questions, students tried to hide their eyes for fear of being called and maybe giving “wrong” answers. So I told them they didn’t have to be afraid of giving wrong answers, because if they had all the right answers, they would be teaching me instead. And if I couldn’t answer any question, I would find the answer for them the next day. After that more hands showed up willingly. Two months later, class was in full discussion.

What I did was I gave them Xerox notes free of charge so they only had to listen. At the end of the semester, I asked for donation for the notes and included all of my salary and gave to Unicef.

My class was 2 hours, twice a week but I always taught extra 1-2 hours sessions, and the class was always fully attended. I taught them everything both inside and outside of the text books.

The students from the 3 sections had to take common final exams given by the other two professors. My students outperformed the other two classes by a wide margin. That’s when the problem started. The students from the other classes were asking the two professors too many questions on the tests. They also wondered why my students outperformed them. The two professors started getting on my back and telling me my teaching method was “too advanced” for 3rd year students.

After two more semesters, almost all the students wanted to register for my class and that brought embarrassment to the other two. So to save face, I told them I had to go back to my work as I was going to start a new project.

If you have ever been an educator, you would know that the happiest moment would be when you see your students blossom from not knowing much to full blown free thinkers about that particular subject or any others. I told them what I gave them was only the tool to keep learning. And the day they stop learning is the day they die. (Literally or otherwise).

My proudest moment was when the students collectively sent me thank you note for opening up their minds. Today I have about 400 hundred people who will run up to greet me as Ajarn.

Well, that’s about my stint as an educator.

So I know how our educational system works. Thai students are quite smart and they want to learn, but are they being taught the right way? The problem doesn’t lie with the physical classrooms or equipment. The problem lies with the quality of teachers. You need a free thinker to make a free thinker. Judging from the quality of teachers we have who were themselves taught by the old method of rote learning, it’s going to be a long time when we can have a society full of them.

This lack of logical thinking is reflected in our everyday life. I sell houses and I can see the big differences in how foreigners make decisions as compared to the Thai. I don’t want to sound as if I am putting down Thai people. However, I must say that most foreigners make more logical and more methodological decisions, whereas the Thai will make decisions based on feelings alone.

So if we get back to the problem we have at hand, we will see that the majority of the Thai people don’t even know what happened in the last few days. Even people closest to me such as my family members and friends don’t know what they are losing. They are saying that having Abhisit is good because it will bring peace. They also believe he is a “good” guy or at least a LHOR YAI.

So most of the time, to avoid going into long arguments, I just give up and keep it to myself now. This forum is a good way to vent my thought and feeling. Though I must say I am a little addicted to my computer like a small kid addicted to games now. I better stop writing so much and go out more.

Oh! One other thing about wealth. When I was about 12, I was sitting in my family car and asked my mom “Isn’t it funny looking at people packed like sardines in that bus?” My mom said it wasn’t funny and proceeded to give me a life lesson about having or not having money that I still remember to this day. (My mom is a great woman).

So please don’t judge us based on what we have. Of course I have been fortunate most of my life, but it doesn’t mean we all think the same.



BTW, I want to do good things for my country. If you want to contact me, please set up an email address and I will do the same. But I won’t give mine out here because I don’t want it to be full of Zombie mail. I don’t think the PAD likes my outspoken opinion against them that much. One “Yellow sh.t” guy already got quite upset with my honest opinion about them.

[thong]

Democrat party is a proxy of the military and the powerful pooyai. The country has already lost its dignity through this backdoor anti-democracy democrats (wow better change their name). Wait till we see if the 'democrat government will charge the PAD and all those responsible for all the illegal armed assemblies and charges of treason, terrorism. The abuse of public properties for the PAD illegal armed assemblies.

Well, I think it is good for Phuea Thai to remain opposition. These MPs have back-bone and principle for not willing to be bought by money to cross over to a proxy party - a party that will continue to be dictated by the military and powerful pooyai. Expose the dictators and those pooyai and restore the 1997 PEOPLE charter and democracy and free the \\\///// from the control of the military and the pooyai.

[Twilight Zone]

This morning in BP’s POSTBAG this “foreigner” wrote in “THIS TOO SHALL PASS”. In summary

• Thailand’s tourism industry will recover if “realistic” pricing” is offered in light of world recession.
• He met many stranded tourists, but none of them made any comments directed at Thai people or the country.

Let me see.

Last night I heard from a few friends in travel business. One friend who is a manager of an airline said flights coming in with 747 have less than 100 passengers and airlines such as THAI are cancelling many daily flights from Hong Kong and Malaysia.

They also told me the always “best hotel in the world” had the occupancy of two rooms when the airports were opened and everybody could get out, but no one coming in. One other hotel opposite side of the river was more fortunate, they had four rooms. All hotels in Thailand now use “low season pricing” to attract tourists. So a few may come back, but more will be the lower spending budget tourists. My friend said the wealthy tourists won’t come in for a long time. Why bother? Anyhow, I thought tourists like to come to Thailand because it is already quite cheap as compared to other places.

Imagine the loss of all this tourist income. Oh wait! It’s a small sacrifice because the PAD sacrificed their time too sitting around at the airports during their “peaceful” demonstration. The tourists should have joined the “elites” doing Ramwong dances and their trips would have been more complete.

The tourists didn’t complain? Where has this guy been? There is a clip of a p.ssed off tourist in one online newspaper calling this PAD thing a “cockameemee” protest. I am sure he was just joking.

Wow! All these “foreigners” and Thai lining up to make the excuses for PAD’s actions.

I knew it was coming.

[pachangamac042]

Even I do not think that there is much to add here because TZ and others have covered it very appropriately I still would like to share some more pennies worth of thoughts.

I keep on reading everywhere that the people of this country must be better educated, following 2 bad examples regarding education and truth, from my humble point of view;

“Rural people have good hearts but they don’t know the truth like we do in Bangkok,” said Noppakoon Lagum, 37, a surgeon helping to occupy the main international airport. “It is our duty to re-educate them.” - Bloomberg 1st December 2008

“Rural people are blinded by corrupt media and need to listen to ASTV,” said Thanapol Buranasombati, a protester, referring to Sondhi’s station that broadcasts the rallies around the clock. “When the poor farmers know the truth about what is happening they will side with us.” - Bloomberg 1st December 2008

Déjà vu? Re-education? Like in the fascist prisoner camps in Germany, Spain or Italy in the past? Either you are with us, or we take care of you, forced labor, meals and beatings included!” Education?

The PAD truth I guess. Hitler was telling the truth about the Jews as well, as did Franco and Mussolini about the communists. But what will happen if anybody tells this people the truth about the PAD leaders? What will they believe? That Thaksin is bad and the PAD just destroyed the country for the love of their country? Will the thousands of people with no job and nothing to feed their families, believe the PAD truth?

Fortunately for this country, there are people like TZ; “So I know how our educational system works. Thai students are quite smart and they want to learn, but are they being taught the right way? The problem doesn’t lie with the physical classrooms or equipment. The problem lies with the quality of teachers. You need a free thinker to make a free thinker. Judging from the quality of teachers we have who were themselves taught by the old method of rote learning, it’s going to be a long time when we can have a society full of them.” They know what the roots of the problems are.

I do agree completely with all what TZ said, but I would go a step further. Education is not just the teachers job, but it actually starts at home. Children should be taught from their early days basic education and I do not just mean to wai to an older person and respect the older.

It is not only the older you have got to respect, but just everybody. It is not just the olders from who you can learn, but you can learn from anybody. I may be 40 plus years old but I still can learn things from a 20 year old, and that is not a problem for me. Respect should not just come with age, but with respect given. If an older person does treat me like a dog, why should I give him any respect at all? Does that person deserve it just because the age difference? Well I do not think so.

Every day I see young children riding on their motorbikes, and off course not wearing their helmets. It does seem that their parents do not mind, so they are educating their children in a bad way. It is like saying, we know that what you do is against the law, but who cares anyways. From my point of view that is a wrong education from the parents side. Children grow up with the certainty, that breaking laws is not a bad thing.

In Thai culture you are not supposed to question olders and parents seem to be happy whit it. Instead of educating their children to become free thinkers they rather prefer their children not to be. Some kids could start questioning their parents and that could be uncomfortable for them. I understand that this is the easy way for parents, but are they doing their children a favour? I do not think so.

Rural people seem to be quite dirty people. Many do not mind to litter the whole place and that is what their children learn since their early ages. Keep Thailand clean seems not to be their favourite slogan. If you as a father or mother keep littering the whole place, your children will never learn to respect the environment. Bad education again.

There is of course many other things I could add here, but I think that the ones interested in this matter already got my point here. Education is a complex thing, which starts at home followed by the schools. If neither your parents first nor your teachers later are able to fulfil their duties properly, how can you than expect to get educated young people?

It is up to the students as well. They must understand, that schools will only teach you the basics or general stuff. So it is up to the students to understand that only hard work inside and outside the class rooms will get you further in live. If you settle for average you will not get anywhere.

A friend of mine who is a teacher in St. John’s college in Bangkok once told me, that while they have their breaks you would hardly see a local teacher reading a book or a news paper. At the most you would see a local teacher reading this funny cartoon books. Reading is education, and teachers should never stop to enrich their knowledge. Every teacher should understand that it is her/his duty to give the most they can to their students. If as a teacher you do settle for average than it is what you will get, average at the best. If you are a teacher or lecturer as Twilight mention before, than you will harvest knowledge and happiness from your students. It should be the biggest thing in live for a teacher to know, that her/he planted knowledge and the student harvested it. (maybe I lost myself a bit here).

Well to make a long speech short, education is a complex matter, which only works if every part of the engine works properly. If there is only one part which has a defect, the whole engine may blow up.

[stilljustbrowsing]

I think someone dropped a valve somewhere (or did I mean vowl)

[Chaiyuth]

Excellent post TZ. You write pretty well for an engineer!!