The recent incident concerning the director of Debsirin School getting on his knees to apologise to a disgruntled high school student no doubt made a lot of Thai people uncomfortable. The incident happened when director Ananth Supwaree was called out by a student for having spoken five minutes longer than the 20 minutes he said he required during the school's routine morning flag-raising assembly, a common custom in Thai schools everywhere. The director admitted his mistake to the student, and even offered a wai in the way of an apology.
"When that didn't seem to make him happy, I told him I would be glad to get on my knees and apologise," said the director in an interview with the media.
"As long as it can make my students good people, I am willing to do anything." On the one hand, some say that this story is a great example of the growing lack of patience and respect older generations tend to see as the hallmarks of the millennial generation.
On the other, people are criticising the director's actions, saying he should know better than to show such deference to a student. Some are even calling his actions a passive-aggressive way to shame the students, as a spoken apology would have sufficed.
While the incident is now resolved (with both parties having spoken and reconciled), I found myself thinking about the level of regard teachers receive in Thai society. After all, this is the second time in recent memory where a dispute between a student and teacher made national news, and it's tough not to draw certain parallels between the two stories.
I'm referring to the incident concerning deputy director Aisoonpiyathorn Chuthatham of Soengsang School, who was seen slapping the head of a student -- among other embarrassing and unreasonable things -- on a widely-shared video clip earlier last year. The deputy-director had tried to disperse a mob of students who were protesting the shady activity fees the school has been collecting from them, and grew angry and violent after the leader of the student group refused to comply.
"I realise my mistake, but I refuse to apologise," said the deputy director, who insisted that his actions were done only because he wanted to make his students better people. Like director Ananth, the deputy director also received an apology from the student later.
Growing up in Thai society, we are taught to respect our elders, especially our parents and teachers. From a very young age, we are taught to revere our teachers with phrases such as "teachers are like your second parents" or traditions like the "wai kru" ceremony, which treat teachers almost like spiritual beings of worship. But is that reverent position we hold teachers in really helping anyone anymore? Doesn't it pave the way for teachers to think they can do no wrong?
I ask this because I feel like sometimes, there is a divide between students and teachers precisely because of the position of reverence teachers seem to hold. Students always seem to be at a disadvantage when dealing with teachers, even when they are in the right, like in deputy director Aisoonpiyathorn's case. While the student in director Ananth's case was the one in the wrong, I feel like he didn't deserve the public humiliation he received. Director Ananth should've known that doing what he did would only make the student look bad, and that there were other, better ways to deal with the problem. This only makes the student and himself look bad; the student for being disrespectful and him for being sarcastic. My point is, perhaps we should stop building up unrealistic expectations of what teachers should be. It doesn't help the students, and it sure as heck doesn't help the teachers. Teachers are expected to conduct themselves to fit the position of reverence they hold in society, which only makes it harder for them to connect with students, and students are demonised when they dare to point out the all-too-human mistakes of their teachers.
Kanin Srimaneekulroj is a feature writer of the Life section of the Bangkok Post.