Welcome to Student-Centered Learning Thailand

LONG LIVE THE KING!

Our Mission:

To provide a center of discussion , information and planning for 21^st Century education reform in Thailand that will lead to a unity of purpose and action among  Thai and international educators to realize the goals set forth in the National Education Act of  B.E. 2542 (1999).

At the heart of this National Education Act B.E. 2542 (1999) is a move toward student-centered learning and a student-centered  classroom.  Specifically, Section 24 of the Education Act outlines what must be done   to improve  education  performance : 1. arranging learning in line with the students’ interests , aptitudes and individual differences ;2. training students in thinking abilities, especially critical thinking; 3.organizing learning activities that draw from authentic experiences; and 4. promoting situations where learners and teachers learn together.  

In addition to addressing these key issues of education reform in Thailand , indeed in international education, we also focus our attention and resources on the goal of promoting Thai teachers to reach their potential as skilled teachers using teaching methods that engage their students with the result that students love to learn through self discovery.

 

ยินดีต้อนรับสู่ Student-Centered Learning ประเทศไทย

ทรงพระเจริญ

พันธกิจ:

เพื่อสร้างศูนย์ข้อมูล การแลกเปลี่ยนข้อคิดเห็นและวางแผนสำหรับการปฏิรูปการศึกษาของประเทศไทยในศตวรรษที่ 21 อันจะนำไปสู่การปฏิบัติอันเป็นไปในทิศทางเดียวกันของนักการศึกษาไทยและต่างประเทศเพื่อให้บรรลุเป้าหมายที่กำหนดไว้ในพระราชบัญญัติการศึกษาแห่งชาติ พ.ศ. 2542 (1999)

ใจความสำคัญของพระราชบัญญัตินี้คือการมุ่งไปสู่การเรียนรู้และการเรียนการสอนในห้องเรียนโดยมีนักเรียนเป็นศูนย์กลาง โดยเฉพาะอย่างยิ่งมาตรา 24 ที่กำหนดถึงสิ่งที่ต้องทำเพื่อพัฒนาประสิทธิภาพของการศึกษาไทยคือ : 1. จัดการศึกษาให้สอดคล้องกับความสนใจ, ความถนัดที่แตกต่างกันของนักเรียนแต่ละคน; 2. อบรมนักเรียนให้มีความสามารถในการคิดวิเคราะห์ด้วยตนเอง; 3. จัดกิจกรรมการเรียนรู้จากประสบการณ์จริง; และ 4. ส่งเสริมการเรียนการสอนที่ครูและนักเรียนได้เรียนรู้ร่วมกัน

นอกจากประเด็นหลักเพื่อการปฏิรูปการศึกษาในประเทศไทยเหล่านี้ แน่นอนว่าในระดับโลกเรายังมุ่งเป้าไปยังการส่งเสริมศักยภาพอาจารย์ชาวไทยในด้านทักษะการสอนโดยอาศัยเทคนิคการสอนที่ให้นักเรียนมีส่วนร่วมในชั้นเรียนเพื่อให้นักเรียนมีความรักที่จะเรียนรู้ด้วยตัวเขาเอง

 Why Girls’ Education is Important

By Peter J. Foley, Ed.D.

Muslim extremists are determined to prevent the majority of Muslims to continue to participate in modern life.  The 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 symbolized Al Queda’s hatred of Western capitalism and a modern culture that extremists view as moving away from Muslim religious traditions and practice. A decade later the Taliban attack on a Malala Yousafzai, the girl who was shot in the head by Taliban while riding on her school bus in Pakistan’s Swat was meant as a warning to all Muslims that it was wrong for girls’ to seek a modern education.

The day to day struggle of whether the future world of 1.6 billion Moslems will continue to be centered on education, particularly girls’ education is being played out in daily violence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.  Extremists such as the Taliban found both in Pakistan and Afghanistan are aware that economic development leading to competition in global market must include girls to be successful.

The struggle between nation states who are determined to enter the global markets to prosper and the Muslim extremists who want to establish a Moslem state governed by sharia law will be determined in the arena of girls’ education.

The Womanity Foundation has developed models of how girls’ education can be delivered successfully—even in areas where the Taliban has influence.

During an assessment of girl’s schools in Afghanistan in March of 2013 sponsored by the Womanity Foundation, I interviewed student councils at all four of the girls schools I visited.  Forming student councils that are given considerable responsibility for making sure the school runs properly is part of a set of components the Humanity Foundation insists must be in place in order for a girls’ school to receive foundation support. At first it was difficult to believe that the student councils had done so much to improve their schools. These girls were empowered to take action and they did.  They formed committees and tackled problems ranging from getting girls who had dropped out of school to come back; making the school green by planning flowers and trees; inviting the local Mullahs to come to discuss girls’ education through the reading of the Hadiths; helping to solve the lack of classroom space, tutoring younger children who were falling behind in their reading and setting up a teacher evaluation system that made sure teachers were qualified in the subjects they were teaching. These girls in rural communities in Afghanistan were empowered and they showed astounding maturity and ability to take on major responsibilities in helping to run their schools.

When I interviewed these girls they were direct in their answers. They were determined to help their communities. They also were determined to go as far as they could in their education. Most wanted to go on to the university in Kabul . For financial reasons that would be impossible for most since the scholarships provided by the Womanity Foundation were necessarily limited due to budget constraints. In each group there were obvious student leaders who spoke when I posed a particularly difficult question. These young women had poise and leadership skill far, far beyond their teenage years.

Most of the female student leaders were 14 to 17 years old.  Most would be married and have children soon. Most were already promised to a boy in their village or a nearby village. As a teenager they would be soon taking on the responsibility of being a mother and running a household. These students spoke of the confidence an education has given them.

Can these young, educated Afghan teenagers in rural areas be the hope of their nation? Is girls’ education that important?

I was surprised at the answer to this question I got from a group of ten men that represented the parent teachers’ Association of a girls school in an area that has a substantial Taliban presence located about a three hour drive from Kabul.

I asked why these parents wanted their sons to be married to educated girls.  Was not the culture in Afghanistan to prefer that girls not be educated so they would devote themselves to housekeeping and motherhood?

“Yes, those are the old ideas.  However, we want our daughters to be educated,” they said vehemently.  “How can we hope to have our society grow when the mothers of our children cannot teach our children properly?  How can we expect our community to prosper when our women remain ignorant, cannot read and cannot help their husbands solve family and life problems? “

“Understand”, one of the leaders of the parent teachers group said by way of summary, “ we are a poor, agricultural community. Our resources are few. I want my boys to marry educated girls. It is the only hope we have of building our community. It is the only way we will have to build a future for other generations in this mountain area. We are running out of land. We need new ideas. “

Modern social research confirms what these bearded, pious Muslim men from the mountains averred to be about the importance of girls’ education. For illustration, the ability of a mother to read makes it 50% more likely that her child will survive past the age of five. Furthermore, women being able to read also strongly correlated with subsequent lower fertility rates and improved child-health outcomes, including reductions in infant mortality rates. 1

There is a false notion that the majority of men in countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan are against girls’ education. This is patently false.  The Afghan Taliban when in power did forbid girls to be educated; it is also the notorious position of the Pakistani Taliban. Yet, over and over, I heard men in the Jalozai camp outside Peshawar say that people wanted their daughters to be educated but were intimidated by the Pakistan Taliban in the FATA region. In the FATA region only eight percent of women are literate. There no schools for either boys or girls in many parts of this FATA region of Pakistan lying along the Afghanistan border. Poverty and illiteracy go hand in hand. FATA is one of the least developed areas Pakistan. Few countries have had such a total breakdown in their economy and social structure as Pakistan. A sure sign of the extent of deterioration of this country with nuclear weapons is that it is ranked number two in countries of the world with the most elementary school aged girls out of school.

The UN Millenium goal 2 is “ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling.”

Holding back the Millenium Goals on universal girls’ education are seemingly intractable areas of poverty and of militant insurgencies. Pakistan and Afghanistan are at the top of the list of countries that are lagging far behind the UN Millenium Education goals

Billions of dollars have spent to send vast armies to fight in these forbidding areas.  Real victory will only come when girls and boys receive an education that equips them to meet the challenges of earning a living and raising a family. If the billions spent on wars are used for girls’ and boys’ education, we will create a peace keeping force that will be the most effective the world has ever seen.

A LITTLE DIARY FROM THE SCHOOL FOR LIFE –

PART II

26^th July to 13^th August 2012

 

Hanseatic School for Life, 26^th July

 

A conversation with Sommart Krawkeo. As educational manager, he wants to bring the concept of the Hanseatic (formerly Beluga) School for Life to the far reaches of the coast which was ravaged by the tsunami in late 2004. Since August 2011, when the turbulence surrounding the collapse of the Beluga Group in Bremen slowly subsided and it became clear that the Beluga School for Life could survive with new sponsors and under the name of the Hanseatic School for Life, I have been acting in an advisory capacity for the project which I founded in 2005 after the tsunami and for which I acted as educational leader until 2010. My role is a voluntary one, for which the School for Life receives an annual compensation of €20,000 until my contract ends in July 2014.

 

Among other things, Sommart and I discuss a problem which is evident not only in Thailand after the tsunami, but also further afield – the fact that humanitarian aid projects, especially those of a prolonged duration, must be careful to ensure that people do not become dependent on external aid. Entrepreneurship education and social entrepreneurship, the approaches of the Schools for Life, represent good methods for preventing this tendency, instead teaching the children to stand on their own feet.

 

Thalang, 28^th July

 

1. First stop: Bremen: I am here on a visit, and go for a stroll through the town. I come across a shop which repairs shoes, copies keys and sells a few watches. I have owned a Swiss watch for the past twenty years, not an expensive one, but reliable – but now the glass cover has got a crack in it and the battery has given up the ghost. I ask the man behind the counter to replace the battery and the glass cover. He manages to open the paneling on the back of the watch, but is unable to close it again. After half an hour of concerted effort, he gives up, and I take back the glass cover, the watch, and the panel, I am about to pay for the battery, but the man says that this is against his code of honor, which find very friendly of him.

 

1. Second stop: Berlin: With the components of my watch in my bag, I head for Berlin’s finest department store and find the section for fancy Swiss watches. I show them the individual pieces and tell them what I would like: a new glass cover and the paneling put back on. I am requested to come back in an hour. When I return, the expert behind the counter tells me with a dour face that the watch will have to be sent back to the manufacturer. They will contact me if the repair will cost over €200. Gulp!

 

After quite some time, I receive a message to say that I can come and pick the watch up. Back at the counter of this distinguished establishment, I am told that the watch is irreparable. I am somehow relieved – better the components of a watch than a dizzyingly extortionate bill for a glass cover and a panel which has been screwed back on.

 

1. Third stop: Thalang/Thailand: This is a place that you really only drive through if you are going from the mainland of the coast province Phang Nga to the town of Phuket on the island of the same name, via the long Sarasin Bridge. In Thalang there is a covered market selling all kinds of paraphernalia, and not far from the entrance sits an old watchmaker at a little table. I give him the parts of my watch and ask whether he can help me. He nods. I sit down on a stool opposite him and wait, expecting him to give up. First he checks the battery, and says it’s new. Then he holds up a magnifying glass to his eye and barely five minutes pass before he has replaced the glass cover, having bent the minute hand back into place (it was a little bit crooked), screwed the cover back on and attached a sealing ring. He then turns around and reaches for a little polishing machine to give the watch a glossy finish. I ask the price, and he says 280 baht – which is about €7.36.

 

Vivat Thalang! Long live this watchmaker! And if our Swiss friends don’t shift up a few gears in their watch repair service, and indeed their price-performance ratio – whether it’s up to incompetence, arrogance, indifference, laziness, or urging people on to consume? – then at some point they will find out that you don’t always rise in the market, but can also fall.

 

Chiang Mai, 6^th August

 

Ott, who went from ‘Bad Boy’ to polo player, has returned from Argentina. While he was there, he was trained as an up-and-coming professional. Ott is overwhelmed. He learned more there than he had learned in the rest of his life put together. He has now understood what it means to learn, and wants to learn about everything – religion, philosophy, politics – he has a multitude of questions that want answers. Dominique Leutwiler is the right person; she listens and answers with great patience. After a few days’ holiday in Chiang Mai, Ott is back at the Pattaya Polo Club and it’s onwards and upwards.

 

The owner of the club, Harald Link, has donated the school three beautiful horses and commissioned some stables to be built in a traditional style on some land on Lamphun Road in Chiang Mai. Now the way has been paved for offering equine therapy. There will be no lack of demand.

 

Chiang Rai, 7^th August

 

A mother and father belonging to the Karen people tell me that their daughter, who goes to school in the border town of Chiang Rai, has been reprimanded by her teacher for dying her hair brown, which is forbidden. She hasn’t though – her hair is naturally brown, like her mother’s – yes, there are brown-haired people in Thailand too. The teacher, however, doesn’t believe this and has continued to scolds her. So the daughter now dyes her hair black every morning so that it looks as if it hasn’t been dyed.

 

School for Life, 8^th August

 

On the lower part of the campus, the area which is being used for organic farming is increasing. Chanmongkol, the manager of the Center of Organic Farming & Animal Husbandry, accompanies me around the grounds. Down at the creek, tightly-woven bamboo boxes lie in the water protruding by about 30cm, and teeming with fish. I ask whether the especially agile fish are still jumping over the edge of the baskets on a bid for freedom. Well yes, replies Chanmongkol, but there are also immigrant fish that jump in when the fish inside are fed, eager to join the meal. All told, with emigrants and immigrants, numbers remain more or less stable.

 

On the field below the sports facilities, all manner of vegetables are growing, including beans and cucumbers. At the start, Chanmongkol had been wondering where they were all disappearing to, until he noticed that the children were eating them straight from the field. He toyed with the idea of putting up a fence, but decided against it – the children’s bellies is where the food is intended for anyway.

 

Half a dozen piglets are grunting in the spacious pigsty. A big, fat pig holds its mouth open wide because Suchart the farm worker is spraying him with a hosepipe and the happy pig can shower and drink at the same time. We carry on, and call in at Suchart’s hut. I want to see something there that I have never seen before: Suchart is rearing three large geckos that will grow to be much larger still – about 40cm long and weighing 400 grams. Chanmongkol explains that they can then be exported to Arab countries and sold for 200,000 baht (€5260) each. Apparently, a medically coveted serum would then be extracted from them, from one point on their head and one on their tail. This is not (yet) a project which involves the children – rather an expression of Chanmongkol and Suchart’s desire to experiment. They assure me that they have heard about these dream prices from reliable sources.

 

I can see three geckos of half an arm’s length each, who have nothing to do in their separate, barred boxes than to flick their long tongues at the live grasshoppers which they are fed every evening. Chanmongkol and Suchart get the grasshoppers from Kru Tomsri, the teacher who – as well as having a lovely vegetable garden – keeps a whole menagerie of animals including a rat. The rat likes to eat grasshoppers, so these are being bred carefully and expertly in Kru Tomsri’s little queendom.

 

Namsom, whose mother was sentenced to imprisonment in the women’s prison in Chiang Mai for 25 years, also has a pet rat. It has become vegetarian because it is only fed vegetables. Namsom loves the rat, so it’s allowed to go everywhere and join in with everything. Namsom’s new family teacher finds this rather unhygienic, so the question arises of how to accommodate the rat appropriately. Namsom would probably enjoy the blockbuster animation film “Ratatouille”, a humorous call for a better status for rats in the animal class struggle; she hasn’t had a chance to see it yet though.

 

While the feeding up of the geckos is still in its early stages (the two breeders give me the reassuring information that geckos are neither a protected species nor subject to a ban on exports), another more advanced experiment is running in a dimly lit room adjacent to the auditorium. This has been conceived of by Khun Anchana, who works at the School for Life to guarantee thorough and transparent financial management, and has sought advice for this experiment from scientists at a university in Bangkok.

 

A small team of children and teachers show me the room in which silk worms are being bred. On a table are the cocoons from which the silk worms have now emerged as butterflies. In a corner behind this is a box, the open sides of which reveal a number of little hanging threads on which the butterflies have laid eggs. Having eaten their fill of mulberry leaves when they were caterpillars, the butterflies then live on a diet for the seven short days of their life, with time only to mate, ensure the existence of their offspring, flutter around the room and then die. A very short flight on the wings of love. As I watch these dark, large-winged beings, I think of opening the door and letting them escape to freedom, but am reminded that I wouldn’t be doing them a favor because it would make it difficult for them to find a partner and they wouldn’t be able to produce the next generation. Better then to leave them to their short moment of happiness in the little room.

 

School for Life, 9^th August

 

The first installment of €20,000, paid by the Hanseatic School for Life gGmbH in Hamburg, is on its way. This money is desperately needed because the subsidies from Germany have decreased. Lots of sponsors have remained loyal for many years, but quite a few of them have now retired from professional life, and living on a pension, have to budget their limited resources.

 

The internationally experienced manager Maik Fuellmann has taken on the problem, and hand in hand with representatives of a major insurance company has thought up a way of motivating many customers to support the School for Life with small monthly sums of 6, 12 or 15 Euros. We are optimistic, and hope that this will be a success story.

 

In Germany, the team that looks after the School for Life has been reinforced: Andreas Dernbach, who was in development work for many years in Vietnam, has taken over the baton from Rita Haberkorn to become the new director of the School for Life Institute at the International Academy (INA), Free University of Berlin. Other members of the institute include Christian Luther, director of the Digital Print Centre ‘Laserline’ in Berlin, who will be responsible for setting up a support group, especially made of businesses; Dr. Julian Bomert of the Berlin University for Further Education, which – along with the Robinsohn Foundation – takes care of the collection, management and forwarding of donations and advises the School for Life;  Ulrich Griesdorn, from the German Foundation Center, a longtime adviser and supporter of the project; Dr. Berndt Tausch, CEO of the Step Foundation in Freiburg, which has promoted physical education at the School for Life for many years; and Rita Haberkorn, whose commitment from the beginning of the project helped secure its existence and whose advice is still in demand. Dorothea Schrimpe and Kathrin Ebel have founded UMIWI together, selling beautiful colored glazed bangles made from mango wood, produced in Chiang Mai under the supervision of Dominique Leutwiler – the proceeds go to the School for Life. Dr. Diethelm Krull has also joined the team, under contract from Barbara Hunz Personnel Management Ltd., and has taken on the task of fund-raising for the School for Life.

 

Of all institutions, the Shaul and Hilde Robinsohn Foundation is our oldest and most loyal supporter and competence companion, with their board members Prof. Dr. Götz Doyé, Rita Haberkorn, Dr. Gerd Harms, Dr. Hans-Henning Pistor and Dr. Wolfgang Schirp. The commitment of these people as well as the many others in Germany and Thailand is very moving, and I am very, very grateful to them all.

 

 

 

 

School for Life, 10^th August

 

The publishing company ‘verlag das netz’ has sent a proposal for the cover of my book, “Semi-Controlled Chaos – 50 Years of Reports, Essays and Portraits”, which will appear in Autumn 2012. 600 pages of text, lots of illustrations and a title that is borrowed from a text by Herman Melville. In “Israel Potter – His 50 Years in Exile”, he writes:

 

“The career of a stubborn adventurer is obvious proof of the principle that those who desire success in the bigger picture should not wait for smooth seas – which have never existed and will never do – but rather begin making their way blindly towards their goal with the random methods they have to hand and leave the rest to fortune. For all human relationships are messy by nature, as they both stem from and are maintained by a kind of semi-contained chaos.”

 

The printing of the book will receive substantial financial support from Laserline and the publishing company, and both the profits and my author’s fee will be used to benefit the children at the School for Life.

 

In the early 1960s, I began writing a lot for the newspaper ‘Die Zeit’ in Hamburg, and later also for other newspapers and magazines, and found that curiosity about the immediate and wider world can lead to getting entangled in situations of semi-controlled chaos – and that it can be important to keep the goal in mind and to develop good ideas along the way. I have encouraged my students to approach different realities from different perspectives and to choose a lively language for their description rather than fall to the assumption that abstract jargon is necessarily enlightening. I remember a story told to me by ethnopsychoanalyst Mario Erdheim, who once visited a colleague in a remote part of the world – perhaps Borneo? – and was fascinated by the stories he heard in the evening by the fire. His colleague then presented him with an article as a farewell present, said to contain the stories he had told his friend, so that Erdheim could read everything again on his flight home. When he did, however, it was unrecognizable. All the vibrancy and color had fallen victim to icy sheets of technical jargon.

 

Our condition is part of the process of realization, as indicated years ago by a doctoral student who wrote her research about the Pinochet regime in Chile and the transmission of the traumatic experiences of torture victims to the next generation. She wrote down her fears, doubts and unanswered questions in a research journal, which added a second complementary level of commentary to the actual research process. The “semi-controlled chaos” can be conceived of as a biography – translated into camera movements – of my curiosity about the world, the risks that are taken and the attempts to capture and hold on to threads of a real utopia.

 

School for Life, 11^th August

 

In Thailand, Mother’s Day is on the Queen’s birthday. At 9am, we gather outside near the entrance gate, in front of her picture. The headmistress, Siriporn, reads out a list of good intentions with her face turned to the royal image. This is done by all of the head teachers of all the schools in Thailand.

Today, the children are wearing what in this country is called “national dress” – the costumes of the Lisu, Lahu, Akha, Hmong, Karen, Thaiyai and the Thais of the North. A colorful picture. Celebrating Mother’s Day with children who often have no mother, either because she is no longer alive, or is not in a position to take care of her child, is a difficult and sometimes tearful affair.

 

I tell the children the story of the chalk circle: many, many years ago, two women both claimed that they were the mother of the same child. They quarreled violently and finally, went to court. Only one of them could be the real mother. The judge listened to both women, and then said he didn’t know who was the right or the wrong mother, and then he drew a big circle on the ground in chalk. He placed the child in the middle of the circle and ordered the two women to pull the child until one of them succeeds in pulling the child out of the circle – this mother would be the winner. The women began to pull, but then one of them let go. The other woman was triumphant, thinking the child was now hers. However, the judge took the child away from her and gave it to the woman who had let go, with the words: “You are the real mother, because you couldn’t bear your child to suffer.”

 

While I tell the story, which has spread since ancient times in different variations throughout various cultures, two young women who have come with a group of twelve from Kolping to do a work camp at the School for Life, play the roles of the two mothers. They take a kid and pretend to pull with all their might. Then one of them lets go. Now in the role of the judge, when I take the child away from the woman who held on and give the child to the real mother, this makes a big impression on the children, and some of them come running up to me and hang on me like grapes.

 

Later that morning, as every year on Mother’s Day, an Abbot comes with his monks and neighbors who live near his temple. They bring the children’s favorite food, and the Abbot shows them that Mother’s Day can be a good day even without mothers.

 

School for Life, 12. August

 

A few days ago, lightning struck the school. Nothing bad happened – no fire, and no one was hurt. The flash just broke the TV, DVD player and computer system. It will take a while until they’re repaired. I use this as an opportunity to spend the evening reading KurtTucholsky, volume 7 of his collected works. Tucholsky in 1929 on Bert Brecht, the copyist; Tucholsky on the Ten Commandments, which he no longer remembers; Tucholsky’s leaflet for jurors.

 

A few days after the lightning struck in the evening there is another storm. Now there is a power cut for hours. By candlelight, without music or film, it’s almost like being back in Wasserburg on Lake Constance in 1945, when we lived in a small, 15 square meter shack without power and water. We could hear the wind and the waves on the nearby lake. And I learned to pick up the cigarette butts dropped by the occupying forces and store them in matchboxes, exchanging them with the former German soldiers for a piece of bread or a corncob.

A LITTLE DIARY FROM THE School for Life – PART I

14^th February to 15^th March 2012

 

14^th February

 

If you want to enter the Royal Forest to find the School for Life, you have to turn right when you exit the highway which leads from Chiang Mai to Chiang Rai and then on to Mae Sai and the Burmese border. After a few hundred meters there is a checkpoint, though no one is actually checked: the barrier is simply lifted and greetings exchanged. The narrow street runs past a small lake, a reservoir with a water level which rises or falls depending on the time of year. The road becomes unpaved, and in the rainy season a shower of mud is churned up by the wheels, while in the dry season – depending on how fast you drive – it is a banner of dust which rises up behind the vehicle.

 

The best vehicle to have around here is a pickup. You see pickups with crowds packed inside and boxes or bales piled several meters high above the cab, so that I increase my distance from such skyscraper vehicles if following them around a corner, worried that they might not only swing wildly from side to side, but even overturn. Motorbikes are loaded even more adventurously: light motorcycles which force every driver to check their wing mirrors time and time again. Three or four people on a motorbike, with a baby wedged in between? “No problem!”. A tower of goods of some description behind the driver, which he holds onto with one arm whilst trying to steer with the other? “Also no problem!”.

 

But somehow there is a problem. The fact that one of the most popular subjects for Thai pop-songs (alongside falling in love, having a broken heart, and being ready for someone new again) is the motorbike accident, is a telling sign. We recommend volunteers to drive their motorbikes on the defensive, and to watch out for the hot exhaust pipes which can cause painful burns to the shins.

 

All is quiet on the small road through the Royal Forest. The pace slows down. A sign points to the “School for Life”. Three kilometers later, a left turn. The farm emerges, bearing the name “Suan Sai Suoi Fha” – “Light Sky Over Beautiful Garden”. Children come running, laughing, and greet us with a Wai – the traditional Thai greeting – and want to carry the luggage, and I think to myself that it’s the same as ever. And I feel at home.

 

15^th February

 

At around 4:30am, the first cockerel crows. Shortly after this comes the collective howl of the dogs, though there is no full moon to be seen. Then it stops abruptly, as if lightning has struck. Then comes the solitary yap of one dog, but this receives no reply. All is quiet again.

 

At 6am, the temple bell is rung. Wake up! Morning has broken. By 7am it is lively. Every child belongs to the “cleaning the campus” team. The big dry leaves of the teak trees are collected up, later to be laid in heaps and used to grow mushrooms. Brooms are swung, and a babble of voices and children’s songs rings out from all corners of the campus.

 

At around 9am, Kru Ya comes running in, the Vice Principal who has been at the school for many years. She rubs her arms and shakes herself. She has goose bumps. I ask her if she’s cold. No, comes her answer – there’s a ghost in the school office! The shadowy face of an unknown child had appeared at the window. All the teachers who had been in the room had left in a hurry and rushed outside. Someone fetches a laptop. On the screen is a photo showing the back of the head and shoulders of a teacher sitting at the table, and at the window is an unrecognizable face.

 

Meanwhile, the incident has circulated amongst the children. A dense cluster surrounds the laptop that sits on a table in front of the farmhouse. Kru Ya and I speak about how in two days’ time, a ceremony is planned in front of the four spirit houses which are dotted about the campus. Kru Ya says she saw the ghost itself, not just in the picture.

 

A few hours later, Kru Tomsri (‘Kru’ means ‘teacher’) comes in and admits to the teachers that the ghost appeared for educational purposes. She had produced it on her laptop, touching up the photo of the office in such a way that it appeared to show a ghost. She had told the children that they would bump into ghosts if they roam around at night instead of going to bed. Now the teachers wouldn’t have to chase the children back into bed – they would go to bed like good children. Good, huh?

 

Kru Tomsri differs from Western parents who might threaten disobedient children with the bogeyman despite not believing in him themselves. No, Kru Tomsri believes in ghosts, as do all of the other adults – except for one who believes nothing of the sort, and wishes to dispense with spirits, angels, Buddha and reincarnation too, for that matter.

 

16^th February

 

Around 7 years ago, two comic advertisements appeared in the German Journal “Course Book”, financed by the publisher. One of them featured a person in a space suit, in front of a spacecraft. The text said “Tula Bpor-Wai, installing the first solar panels on the moon in 2026. Tula Bpor-Wai is one of over 60 Thai children at the School for Life…”. The other advert pictured someone in a doctor’s overall with a syringe in their hand. The text said: “Darin Sri-ma, developing the first remedy for Parkinson’s disease in 2028. Darin Sri-ma is one of the children at the School for Life…”. The text ends by asking the reader to support the project. Even if Tula doesn’t build solar panels on the moon or Darin doesn’t find the cure to Parkinson’s, both comics express the core of what the schools are about: helping children emerge from the shadows of society and proceed as far forward as possible.

 

Today, 19-year-old Put came to the farm from Chiang Mai. He spoke to the young people in 9^th grade who are about to decide whether they will go to Senior High School in the nearby town of Doi Saket, to Vocational College in Chiang Mai, or if they will do something else. Put has a suggestion: they could become grooms and work either in stables with thoroughbred horses or at a vet’s, or in a polo club. Put shows them photos of other graduates of the School for Life who, like him, have completed the groom’s training and are already, after a short period, earning as much as teachers. Photos of thoroughbred horses, photos of the polo club in Pattaya, photos of how horses are bandaged, harnessed and ridden, and of the grooms’ accommodation and their leisure time – going fishing, for example.

 

Having started his training two years ago, Put is now leading the project on the grounds of Chiang Mai University. He has also received a grant to train in Germany at the Marbach Stud Farm and become a farrier. With competition horses like those in Thailand, this is a profession that places high demands.

 

In Thailand, there is a great demand for grooms, and the School for Life – in collaboration with the veterinary faculty of Chiang Mai University – is the only educational institution in the country to provide a groom’s training. Both girls and  boys are welcome. The project was launched two years ago by Dominique Leutwiler, the General Manager of the School for Life and herself an avid rider. And her joy about Put and Ott and all those who want to make something of themselves in this profession is clearly visible.

 

18-year-old Ott was a ‘bad boy’ who stole and threatened to drift into the drugs scene. After his groom’s training, however, he developed his skill as a polo player. The high-end polo club in Pattaya is now sending Ott –  a talented rider – to Argentina for a few months to train him as a professional polo player. The club is planning to send Ott to play in the Thai national polo team in the future. This is breaking news for the School for Life! From ‘bad boy’ to international polo player: a story that we hope for in many variations.

 

19^th February

At dawn, a small procession moves towards the four spirit houses. Each is home to the souls of the ancestors who, on this day when many birthdays will be celebrated, are to be honored with gifts: two cooked chickens, mandarins, mangoes, juice and water are left on the verandas of each of the four houses. As one of the birthday boys for whom a party is to be held in the evening, I accompany the group of teachers on their tour. Kru Non, the teacher for Thai classical dance, is the master of ceremonies. We meditate in front of each house, and incense sticks are lit and stuck into the gifts.

 

The walk around the grounds shows the progress being made in organic agriculture: a greater area of land is now being cultivated, along with more village life, especially in the lower part of the grounds by the creek, where a small embankment dams the water and fish are being farmed. Nearby, water buffalo are grazing, and Somchart the farmer has turned his cottage into a small farm. At a small bridge that crosses the creek live Sampan and his wife. Sampan is one of the veterans of the School for Life in Chiang Mai, the foreman of the construction and maintenance team which installed the first sanitary facilities and laid the cables and water pipes after the Tsunami on the site which later became the Beluga School for Life; it was there that he fell in love with Noan, whom he married and took back to the North.

 

After the ceremony at the fourth spirit house down there by the bridge, Kru Non tells me that there are actually six rather than four, and that we will now go to the fifth and sixth spirit houses. I can’t remember there being any more, and so assume there must be some new ones. We walk from the creek at the East of the site back up hill to the entrance in the West and come to a halt in front of the school office. A stool is placed at the window where the ghostly child’s face was seen on Kru Tomsri’s laptop screen, and is then covered with the same gifts which were dedicated to the souls of the other spirit houses, followed by the same ceremony.

 

To be on the safe side, a second chair is placed at the far right of the main entrance, along with the gifts, and a final ceremony takes place. Better safe than sorry. Who knows whether the Tomsrian spirit which Kru Ya seemed to see even without a computer doesn’t exist after all. In any case, the twelve teachers are convinced by the little procession. This reminds me of the comment of one Thai, who said he wouldn’t hang up the 2012 School for Life calendar, which pictures exorcisms and rituals, because the spirits might come out from the pictures and cause trouble.

 

At around 9am, the large room in the farm house is emptied and the adjacent room with the Buddha statues is prepared for the visit of five monks. In Thailand, celebrating birthdays is more about honoring the mother than celebrating the person whose birthday it is. When all the children have gathered in the room and the monks have settled, I remember about this custom of honoring the mothers, and tell them about my mother. She was expelled from her family because of her unmarried relationship with my father, who later died in Russia. Her brother, who was a captain and a pentathlete who had been in training for 1940 Olympic Games which were no longer held, and who soon died in France, could have been dishonorably discharged from the army. I tell them how we survived the war living in a shack without electricity and water, collecting moldy white bread which the occupying forces had thrown away, and sorting out the parts which were edible. I also told them about the weeks before my mother’s death, in which she organized a concert for peace. With the donations which were collected at this concert, we founded the School for Life.

 

The chanting of the monks, which the children join in with, the Christmas festivities, the Thai New Year Festival Songkran, the visits to temples, the church service in the little wooden church nearby, the honoring of the Ancestors: the farm is an ecumenical amalgam of exploratory movements, all contributing to peace between the religions. I resonate with the faithful, with the intersecting fragments of religion and myth, and with our monks from the temple of Lamphun. We discourage missionary efforts, whether they come from the Buddhist-robed operators of “temple businesses” or fundamental Christian sects that approach us with their aggressive marketing and throw their spare change to the poor.

 

By late afternoon, the festival begins on the meadow at the edge of which HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand planted a tree in the fall of 2005. A buffet with many variations of the northern Thai cuisine and homegrown vegetables is laid out. Wasan, the drummer, leads his companions as they swing their hips and are swept into a wild dance by the “Drums of Victory”. Demonstrations of ancient and modern dances follow, and the highlight – by which time it has grown dark – is the Candlelight Dance of twenty girls who paint figures in the night with their candles, a symbol of the unity within the diversity.

 

At the end of the evening, a large cake is cut into many pieces – there is enough for everyone. Then it’s time to tidy up. Everyone knows what needs to be done. I take a melon, the top half of which has been ornately carved by Aimee, who wanted to thank everyone that she could learn and live at the School for Life for so many years.

 

 

21^st February

 

A phone call from Guillaume Amigues from the World Economic Forum in Geneva. They are interested in the concept of the School for Life and “entrepreneurship education”. In June, a regional meeting will be taking place in Istanbul: this will be a good opportunity to introduce the concept. He goes on to say that 750 million young people are unemployed worldwide, representing a major challenge for both the public and private sectors. I arrange a date to meet with my friend and colleague Günter Faltin (with whom I wrote the book “Wealth from the Bottom” over twenty years ago; back then it was trailblazer in all things entrepreneurial) as he is currently in Chiang Mai: together, we will design a dossier for the World Economic Forum.

 

22^nd February

 

Professor Apichai Puntasen, Doyen of Buddhist Economics, and most recently Dean of the Ubon Ratchathanee University in Isan, Thailand’s poorest region, has sent a student. Her name is Thip and she is studying “self-sufficiency economy”, a concept of the King of Thailand. It is the philosophy of independent survival in times of crisis, such as Thailand in 1997, when the currency collapsed overnight. Apichai (the Thai people address one another by their first name) is a board member of the School for Life Foundation and has been a friend and companion of mine for thirty years.

 

Thip is specializing in organic agriculture and has established frog breeding and mushroom cultivation. This is a pilot project in order to gain experience. The mushrooms grow in a mixture of straw and cuttings from banana plants, built into small mounds and covered with plastic sheeting and additional bundles of straw – mushrooms seem to like to keep warm.

 

23^rd February

 

The noisest classroom is that of the retired German teacher Angela Grossmass, who has been teaching English pro bono for the last two months. I’m not sure if “teaching” is the right word – more like a direct transfusion of English, through extreme drama, music and rhythm, into the flesh and blood. The children participate with full committment, and by the end they have exerted so much energy – both mental and physical – that they could fall into a deep sleep. And some do.

 

Today, the lesson is about the human body parts. The second-graders launch themselves into a choreography which would most aptly be dubbed “out of breath”. They jump up and down, row with their arms, and their legs swing rhythmically up and down so high that they look as if they are rehearsing for a performance in the Moulin Rouge. Simultaneously, the names of the body parts from head to toe are being sung, and this mixture of loud singing, hopping around, laughter and guesses as what this or that body part is actually called is the best English lesson I have ever seen. It reminds me a little of my French lessons in 1948 in the former robber baron’s castle in Hohenfels, in the lonely hinterlands of western Lake Constance. When Miss Köppen wanted to explain the difference between “under” and “on”, she crawled under the table or climbed on top of it, and we got a raisin if we could supply the right answer.

 

Angela Grossmass is a decidedly favorable contrast to one of my English teachers, who regularly turned up unprepared, got us to open up the English book on a certain page and read a few paragraphs before telling us to close the books and do a dictation. Week after week, a sure-fire remedy against learning English.

 

24^th February

 

Kru Tomsri has transformed her little wooden house into a zoo with hamsters and guinea pigs, as well as planting a vegetable garden which is growing by the day. She invites everyone to help themselves to salad and vegetables. The children love the zoo, and often drop by to look at the animals.

 

Next door lives Siriporn, the head teacher, who is busy extending her garden. Seedlings are being replanted, and beans curl their way up the trunks of teak trees. The children help both Tomsri and Siriporn to dig up the dry earth, mix it with organic fertilizer, water and cover the beds with straw and watch the plants grow.

 

Gradually, all of the unused areas of the campus (40 Rai = 6.5 hectares) are being transformed into vegetable fields and fruit plantations. “Self-sufficiency economy”, the philosophy of the King and pioneer of organic agriculture, reminds me of Julius Nyerere’s concept, the big statesman and visionary in Tanzania the 1960s: he called it “self-reliance”, confidence in ones own power. He wanted to implement it in the Ujamaa villages and schools in Commu­nity Development projects, but his bureaucrats countered him with tough resistance and outlived him.

 

25^th February

 

Thirty girls and boys from an international school in Bangladesh arrive. They help to renovate buildings. They bring paint and paintbrushes, and the School for Life children once again experience how many nationalities meet to form such a school.

 

The international school from Bangladesh isn’t the only one which has found its way to the School for Life. The international schools from Stavanger in Norway and Düsseldorf in Germany come every year – as long as the Yellow Shirts aren’t occupying the airport, or the Red Shirts taking control of the center of Bangkok, or floods submerging half of the country. Here in the Royal Forest on the hills of Doi Saket, we are far away from such occurrences, and no one must fear for their safety.

 

Every time when a group of students leaves after two or three weeks – the Bangladeshis are an exception to the rule with their two-day stay this time – tears flow on both sides. But the connections that have been made can always be maintained via social networks.

 

 

 

 

27^th February

 

Lutz Buschhüter, a graduate of social work who is married here and has lived in Chiang Mai for more than a decade, is coming here to meet up with two young Germans and their Turkish supervisor Onursal. The two boys are in the final phase of a two-and-a-half year program run by the Youth Fund “Par-ce-val” in Berlin and Brandenburg. This is a project that does rehabilitation work with young people who are ‘at risk’, if you will, of delinquency.

 

I met Haci Bayram, the manager of Par-ce-val, in Berlin to prepare the three-month stay in the School for Life. Bayram’s ideas of sending young people to a completely different social and cultural setting to gain experiences there was not new for me. The High Seas High School, which sails for months over the world’s oceans with students from the 10^th and 11^th grades is a clear example of challenging young people rather than over-domesticating them. We had volunteers in the School for Life whose stay with us was a turning point: one high school student, for example, had told his mother as he departed that he wanted nothing more to do with her,  but realized during his stay how much she meant to him and went on to develop a new, loving relationship with her when he returned; or the 16-year-old who had drifted into the dropout scene of her city, played truant from school and couldn’t see any point to her life, but then went on after her stay here to give up smoking, drinking and drugs, and went back to school to concentrate on her final exams. Her story was filmed for the German TV: “Polly on the Rocks”.

 

Before they leave, the two youths and Onursal talk to me about what went well over the three months, what we could do better for the next visit from Par-ce-val participants, and why they felt almost too good. The core of Par-ce-val’s rehabiliation program is about bringing strictness and structure to the lives of the young people. One of the two young people filmed a very moving video-portrait of Namson, whose mother was sentenced to 24 years’ imprisonment – 16 more years to go – in Chiang Mai.

 

28^th February

 

The abbot of the temple of Lamphun, has been a friend of the School for Life for many years. When people come to him and want to make a sacrifice for one reason or another, he encourages them to give 5000 Baht (€125) to fund lunch at the School for Life. The donors can buy everything in advance, as directed by the abbot, cook it at home, and then bring it to the school to eat with the children. The abbot’s soup is famous amongst the children, and tastes delicious. The abbot and the visitors he brings never fail to be amazed at how much the children can eat.

 

Today he’s celebrating his 60^th birthday with us. He has brought his monks and fifty relatives and friends along with him. Everyone collects in the canteen, an open-plan, covered room, for the feast. It is late morning – monks are not permitted to eat after midday.

 

29^th February

 

In the large room of the farmhouse, big sheets of paper lie on the floor surrounded by lots of smaller ones. The big pieces of paper have the names of the seven Centers of Excellence ‘under the trees’ written on them (unlike the Hanseatic – formerly Beluga – School for Life in the South of Thailand, the School for Life in Chiang Mai doesn’t have buildings for them), and on the colorful smaller labels are written ideas for projects, mini-enterprises and other activities that are assigned to the centers. The school and family teachers (mentors) have gathered in order to plan the next semester, which will last from May to September.

 

Project ideas for the Center for Organic Farming, for example, include fish farming, frog farming, mushroom growing, composting, herbal gardening, animal husbandry and planting fruits and vegetables.

 

For the Center for Culture Sensitive Tourism, a restaurant management team and projects ideas by the names of “being a little guide”, “where do I come from?”, “soul trekking”, or “the forest as a supermarket” have been compiled.

 

Under the tree of the Center for Nutrition & Health, courses in baking, Thai food, international food, and cooking with guests are all on the menu.

 

The piece of paper representing the Center for Cultural Heritage & Development is surrounded by a multitude of colored labels: Thai & contemporary dance, Thai music, world music, classical European music, jazz dance, local wisdom, ethnic fashion, painting, fresh flower fashion, teaching Buddhism, teaching Christianity, comparative understanding of world religions, performance program develop­ment and teaching the culture of indigenous people.

 

The Center for Body and Soul has also generated plenty of ideas: Yoga & Thai massage, football for girls, football for boys, swimming, martial arts for girls, Thai boxing, basket ball, morning exercise and meditation.

 

Children’s World Radio, an introduction to soft- & hardware, cinema club, children’s journal and white board (a large-screen digital window to the world of the internet) belong to the Center for International Communication, while the Center for Technology, Crafts & Ecology has been assigned maintenance, keeping the campus clean and a bicycle repair shop.

 

Since not everything can be assigned to one Center, another sheet of paper with “Other Essential Activities” written on it lies in the middle, surrounded by ideas for a children’s investment bank, a community shop, mediation, morning ceremony, family day, children’s parliament, guardian angels, night guardians and holiday activities.

 

At around 6pm it is slowly getting dark. The teachers are still deep in discussion. The first teams are being formed. Not all of the labels will turn into projects or Mini-Enterprises – we will set priorities. One upon which everyone agrees is organic farming and animal husbandry. The road towards a self-sufficiency economy is beset with many obstacles, but the Situational Approach upon which the Schools for Life are founded favors learning in challenging, real-life environments. You don’t have to look far to find these on the campus – it’s more a case of stumbling over them.

 

1^st March

 

Like on every school day, the temple bell is struck at 6am by a child with a metal rod. It begins with individual taps, and is followed by a quick staccato which then flows back into individual chimes. Then everyone gathers together in front of the auditorium, where the Thai flag is raised and the national anthem sung. The relatively tall aluminum mast is fitted with a pulley at the top, through which the rope runs. The flag is still hanging at the bottom. Today, two six-year-olds will raise the flag. The Head Pupil, Master of Ceremony, begins with a song to which everyone sings along. Depending on how high or low the caller begins, the children always find a pitch that feels comfortable to them. Darius Milhaud would have delighted in the ensuing polyphonic chant that is somehow taken for granted here.

 

The girl and boy try to raise the flag slowly enough so that it doesn’t reach the top of the pole until the end of national anthem. The pulley is squeaking, and several dogs start to bicker and chase a few children back and forth, and when the hymn is over there are still several meters of flag pole left to go, so the children then hoist the flag up as quickly as if they were launching a rocket.

 

And now it is time for an alternating recitation, like in the monks’ ceremonies. Then it is quiet again. The children are meditating, and the dogs have quietened down and are lying about in the shade. The School for Life song is often sung, beginning with the words “School for Life our home, our school …” and ending “I have brothers, sisters and friends”.

 

The children are still standing in six or seven rows, the younger ones on the left and older on the right, with their gaze fixed on the flag. But now the children in the first row turn to those in the second row and both greet each other with a Wai and a “Sawasdee”. The children in the second and third rows then greet each other in the same way, and then the third and fourth rows. The greeting is passed on in such a manner until everyone has been greeted. Finally, the children greet the teachers, volunteers and often the guests too.

 

After that, they form large circles and a meditative dance begins with very slow movements that point up to the heavens or down towards the earth. It is in this way that the strict, ceremonial atmosphere is dissolved into a soft, peaceful sense of togetherness.

 

I used not to think much of rituals, but nowadays I have a different opinion of them. They offer structure in lives which have been overshadowed by biographical catastrophes. The children at the School for Life love rituals.

 

2^nd March

 

The School for Life is more than a school. The academic core, the official part so to speak, consists of a nationally recognized social welfare school. It has a ‘School Board’ as well as coming under the umbrella of the overall ‘Board of the School for Life Foundation’ . On both committees, Thai people form the majority.

 

Today, the School Board is meeting. Its members include, among others, the representative of the highest education authority for private schools, the mayor of a community association, the representative of the Royal Forest project, a lawyer from the nearby village of Pongkum, the head teacher and her deputy as well as a family teacher representing the absent or non-existent parents of the children.

 

Two issues shape the debate this morning. First of all, how can bridges be built between the national curriculum and the projects and mini-enterprises? How can the conventional subjects be looted in order to shift some of their content into the new, interdisciplinary ‘clean slates’ of the Centers of Excellence? The seven sheets of paper with the names of the Centers and the labels with the project ideas lie on the conference table in the school library. With the school inspectors, we discuss questions such as how at least half of 120 teaching hours of mathematics can be transferred to other activities and nonetheless still be recognized and evaluated. The school inspectors comment that such a dynamic model, emphasizing the application of knowledge in real situations, has unfortunately not yet arrived in Thai schools. The children are kept inside the classroom and exposed to long speeches by their teachers, memorizing things which are then forgotten again.

 

Second on the agenda: the government has increased the minimum wage for teachers from 8000 to 15000 THB (200/375 €). In the primary school, one teacher is subsidized per 25 children, and in the junior high school, one teacher to 20 children. At this rate, the School for Life will only receive a grant for five teachers. But we have 12 teachers, because according to the School Act, each class must have one teacher. The nursery has three classes for the three-, four- and five-year olds and operates according to the Ministry of Education’s expectations for same-aged classes (unlike us). The elementary school with grades one to six, and the junior high school with grades seven to nine also all need one teacher per class. If we only hired five teachers, we would lose our license. So in the future there will be five funded teachers and seven unfunded teachers. Previously, all twelve teachers received state grants. For us, this means more toing and froing in terms of educational policy.

 

5^th March

 

The arrival of Lena Grüber. Lena, who is 26, studied Art in Public Spaces at Berlin-Weissensee. She also helps in the editorial team of “Betrifft Kinder” (Re: Children) and “The Net Publisher”. Her mother, Eva Grüber, became self-employed after the reunification of Germany and began to publish journals and books which do away with educational fussing around, instead seeing children as explorers, experimenters and constructors of their own lives. No educational “jargon” escapes the eagle-eye of the editor.

 

The magazine “Re: Children” is a fan of the School for Life, as is Lena with her big analog camera. She says that shooting analog photos demands more thought and a more accurate sense of waiting for the right moment. The problem with documentary filmmaking and photography, though, is that situations pass by so quickly and can never be repeated; you therefore have to somehow imagine what might happen, and Lena will try to catch some of those moments over the next three days.

 

In the afternoon, the teachers meet again. They form groups on three different subjects. Firstly: Mind Mapping in connection with the fish farming project. When such projects go off at a tangent, it doesn’t mean anyone has got lost – it’s just another chance to learn. The children themselves develop maps of the situations which interest them the most. Since the fish farming project doesn’t take eight hours a day, there’s plenty of opportunity for that.

 

Questions thus emerge which demand clarification and experimental research. Can fish sleep? Why don’t they sink? Don’t they need air? Fish float, but stones and wood sink – why? Why does a stone sink more slowly in oil than in water? Why can birds and butterflies fly? Do they crash sometimes? Airplanes fly too – how do they do that? Why do they crash sometimes, why don’t they float down to the ground if they have wings? How do rockets fly? And when fish get hungry, what do they eat? How do they have babies? Do they lay eggs like birds? Don’t the eggs swim off? Why don’t people lay eggs? What is an egg exactly? If we don’t eat the fish, but want to sell them, where could we sell them and how much for? Why only 20 baht for a fish and not 200? You can get money so easily when you put a card into a machine and push buttons … and so on.

 

Secondly: the planning of an excursion of a few days with the children and guests to the nearby villages the children are from. The project is called “Where do I come from?”. This way, the guests will also get to know the everyday culture of the Thai people and ethnic minorities beyond the well-trodden tourist paths, and make new friends.

 

Thirdly: local wisdom. What do the elders know, and what have the young people forgotten? Who can the children ask, and how can they document their findings? The idea comes from Eliot Wigginton (USA), who in 1966 as a young teacher began collecting the stories of old people with his class. This was in the Appalachians, and was the consequence of Wigginton’s realization that the methods he had learned at university were practically useless with his students. The “Foxfire Book”, with its multiple volumes, was the result of their research, and sold millions of copies. Many many readers wanted to know how to build a cabin or a chimney out of rocks, how to construct a rabbit trap or how to extract the bristles from a slaughtered pig, what a homemade banjo looks like or how a smoking oven can be built.

 

The teachers at the School for Life want to go out with the children into the surrounding areas, find the wise old people, and find out first of all how to build a bamboo hut covered in dry leaves; they don’t just want to collect the knowledge, but they want to build a life-size version with the children, not just a miniature model.

 

6^th March

 

The Step Foundation in Freiburg (Germany) has funded sports facilities, including a large football field and a basketball court. At 5pm, it’s time for girls’ football – on the basketball court, because the grass-covered football field is still hazy with the heat of the day, and the distances really are very far to run. Two little goals stand underneath the basketball nets, and the girls are dribbling, shooting, shouting and laughing, with little breaks here and there when the ball – which is not contained by any fence – disappears into the distance and has to be retrieved. The teacher, Dim, whose stature and shooting power is somewhat reminiscent of the legendary ‘Bomber Müller’ from FC Bayern, played in the first ever women’s football team in Chiang Mai seven years ago. Her job is funded by the Foundation in Freiburg, so for the first time we have the opportunity to form a real team with the ten- to twelve-year-olds.

 

Martial arts for girls is also on the wish list. Not full contact martial arts, but dance-like forms such as Pencak Silat from Indonesia or Brazilian Capoeira. The aim is to promote the girls’ self-confidence through martial arts which can be transformed into a dance ritual with high levels of physical discipline.

 

7^th March

 

An evening trip to the outlying Wang Tarn restaurant with Trirat Petchsingh, son of a diplomat, who grew up in various countries and is an engineer, has founded a Computer School, teaches at an elite school in the vicinity of Bangkok. Trirat, who can speak better English than Thai, and runs a website which offers a critical perspective on Buddhism,was  a journalist for Reuters and “The Nation”,  and is the author of “Thai mangoes”, a book of short stories – Trirat is leaving us. Responsible for “education innovation”, he says he couldn’t get the backing of the teachers. He comes from a very different world. I appreciate his honesty, his commitment to children, his education, his penchant for experimenting and scientific learning, and I observe the relentlessness – reminiscent of that of Michael Kohlhaas – with which he throws himself into conflicts and creates opponents for himself. He says that he was not the right man for the job, and I agree. We amicably agree that he will retire and take care of his daughters and their companies.

 

Trirat’s role is filled by two people. Manoon Kalapat, former director of the Hotel Training Institute of the Beluga (now Hanseatic) School for Life – a friendly, experienced manager of Hotel Management Schools and hotels, who speaks fluent English and began working for the School Life a few months ago months as grounds manager and head of the guest area. He will now be responsible for the implementation and development of the educational concept. The other person is Dr. Chanmongkol Trisri, previously known as Charlniwat – he has changed his name because Chanmongkol means ‘long life’, and this gets more important the more years one numbers. He spent five years as director of the Center for Organic Farming at the Beluga School for Life and was very highly regarded by the guests for his storytelling skills and for guiding them through the jungle. Now Chanmongkol wants to work in the North. His seventeen-year-old son is studying two hours’ drive away, in Chiang Rai, and will be happy to see his father more often.

 

Chanmongkol will become Director for Organic Farming & Animal Husbandry at the School for Life, and be one of those responsible for seeing that we not only move towards our goal of agricultural self-sufficiency, but also raise funds through the cultivation of highly priced products like cantaloupe melons or out-of-season limes. We are also receiving advice from Ex-Senator Mechai, who many years ago organized a successful nationwide Anti-Aids awareness campaign and since then goes by the nickname of “Mr. Condom”.

 

One of Chanmongkol’s showpieces has been the establishment of a pig farm in China that doesn’t smell. That was a great sensation for all involved. Prior to this, there had been violent dispute with the owners of nearby hotels because of the odors – but after Chanmongkol had solved the problem, the hotel owners were so happy that they became shareholders of the pig farm!

 

Chanmongkol has also advised farmers in Israel. He knows how to drive away snakes with mongooses and that you can feed catfish with a dead dog and they’ll gnaw it down to the bone in six hours. He rides, and when he puts on a hat, he looks like the brother of Charles Bronson. We will breed odor-free pigs, and if the pig farmers in Mecklenburg (a pig-breeding area of Germany) want to know how to avoid the protests of local citizens, then Chanmongkol can hold seminars to reveal his secrets if they are willing to pay good money to the School for Life.

 

But now he has a new problem: some time ago, on Trirat’s initiative, the creek at the lower part of the grounds was dug out for twenty meters for the purposes of breeding fish. Many small fish were introduced into mesh baskets of several square meters. Now they have grown, and it appears that the designers of the baskets underestimated the intelligence of the fish – Chanmongkol has seen the fish overcoming the sides of the basket in one elegant leap and swim off to their freedom. Not an insurmountable problem, but one of many in the world of fish farming.

 

8^th March

 

Chalee was here. School inspector, evaluator and specialist in teacher training, whose workplaces extend over much of Thailand. He thinks that the School for Life’s concept, or more precisely the connection between the national curriculum and the Centers of Excellence, would be a good idea for every school. Today, Chalee is here to train the new teachers about how to build bridges between the curriculum subjects and the Centers, as well as on how the inescapable “credit points” can be awarded beyond the confines of conventional education. Chalee loves movement, is an entertainer, and hates the classroom – so the seminar will take place outdoors.

 

Basically, it’s like in a good kitchen: you take the elements from the different subjects, mix them up into a project and then treat this fusion not as some unofficial game, but rather as a modern version of a previously antiquated structure of a curriculum. Yes, something like that. The “credit points” are then just the stamp of approval.

 

Although I can imagine learning without “credit points”, and it’s not as if I’m a supporter of this dynamized bureaucracy, I do realize that in this way we can do sensible things without risking the academic recognition of our children’s efforts. Thanks to Chalee.

 

9^th March

 

Born in Berlin in 1787, Emma Hart went on to emigrate to America and marry Dr. John Willard, thus becoming Emma Willard. In 1819, she wrote to the House of Representatives in Vermont campaigning for the education of women, sending them a kind of Magna Carta for the higher education of women in America. In the same year, she opened a school for girls, today’s Emma Willard School in upstate New York.

On the 9^th of March 2012 at around 9:30am, two minibuses arrive at the gates of the School for Life. Around twenty girls from the Emma Willard School, a gang of spirited fourteen- to fifteen-year-olds, clamber out of the buses. Students from other countries are always received by our children with a big hello. They want to join in with decorating one of the walls of the house with colorful characters, dance and play with the children, and show them that Emma Willard is an important role model. They have brought along her portrait and hold it up high as they gather for a group photo.

 

10^th March

 

At the Pattaya Polo Club, Dominique Leutwiler met Harald Link, its owner, and spoke to him about the development of the groom’s training project. Link, initially distracted by telephone calls and all of the things distract the attention of a manager of a large company who runs a polo club as a hobby, was suddenly gripped by this project, unique  in Thailand, realized its value and was thrilled. Now we can move forward together.

Everywhere in the clubhouse there are photos, including ones of the British princes William and Harry, who have played polo here. The demand for grooms who are skilled enough to make a career of it is much greater than our project can meet at this stage, so expansion is called for.

 

Harald Link asked whether we have horses on the farm; no, we don’t. Well then he’ll send us a couple of horses so that the children can get used to them at an early stage. Chanmongkol is already looking forward to converting part of the grounds into a ranch or cooperating with a neighbor.

 

The groom’s training project has its costs. On the way to writing a memorandum of understanding, we will consider how we can return our investments from the customers and define the proportion of overhead costs in favor of the School for Life so that more is covered than just the costs.

 

12^th March

 

The vice-governor of the province of Chiang Mai, Pairoj Sangpoowong, wanted to come and visit today, but ended up having to go to the constituent assembly in Bangkok instead. The Board of the School for Life Foundation will meet at the farmhouse. Those present are Chamnang Chanruang, governor of 65 Rotary clubs in northern Thailand and Senior Legal Expert at the Administrative Court of Chiang Mai; Mary Kelly, on behalf of her husband Matthew, who once played with the “Grateful Dead” and now heads the Amicus Foundation, but is sick today; Prof. Apichai Puntasen, director of the Rural & Social Management Institute under Royal Patronage in Bangkok; Siriporn Hanfaifa, the school director; Dominique Leutwiler, the general manager; and myself. Manoon Kalapat and Chanmongkol Trisri are also present as expert witnesses.

 

We discuss the development of schools, the finances, the new management structure and the long-term security of the School for Life. I announce that the School for Life will be ten years old next year, and I will be 75, and that I plan to retire from all operational matters at the end of 2013 and deal only with the more enjoyable affairs of educational innovation. It therefore makes sense to found an Association of Supporters of the School for Life by this time, in order to ensure the existence of the project in the long term – half of the suporters coming from Thailand, the other half from Germany and the rest of the world.

 

13^th March

 

It is a day of departure, joy and sadness: graduation day. The graduates of the 9th grade will follow different paths from now on: to Senior High School in nearby Doi Saket, to Chiang Mai Technical College, or to undertake other professional training. Most of them will stay on with us for the next three years, either commuting every day and continuing to live on the campus or, like the grooms in training,  moving into a townhouse where they will continue to be looked after by us.

 

At 9am, everyone gathers in the Seminar building which has by now been brightly painted by our international guests. The graduates have flowers pinned to their lapels. Speeches, dances, laughter – and tears, not only in the children’s eyes. The head boy has to interrupt his speech because his eyes overflow. He speaks of the happy time he has spent here and says that when he has made something of himself, he wants to come back and support the School for Life. I also believe that some of the graduates of the first generations of the School for Life will return as very capable teachers. They will be very welcome, as are all alumni.

 

Now that the event is coming to an end, the graduates of the Junior High School are all solemnly presented with their documents. This is followed by a particularly beautiful custom: the adults tie small white bands around the graduates’ wrists and wish them well. Many hugs and more tears.

The beautiful flower arrangements are carried outside onto the sports field: group photo. The cameras click. Their faces are radiant once more. In the evening there is a BBQ outside the farm house for the celebrated graduates and teachers. A screen is erected, texts roll across it, and the sounds of karaoke are to be heard until late into the night.

 

Then – silence. But no. A dog that apparently sees ghosts every night begins to bark furiously. No other dogs join in. They know that this dog is not quite right in the head.

 

15^th March

 

Late on the previous evening, a brief and violent storm swept the leaves from the trees, tore branches down, lifted up one of the rooves and felled a tree. No electricity for fourteen hours. Nobody has to oversee the cleanup next morning – everyone has their job and knows what to do.

The holiday season begins. Many children set off to their villages, others are taken to their villages by the teachers, and some remain on the farm.

 

The school and family teachers gather together and form teams of four: Team A for the nursery, Team B for grades one to three, Team C for grades four to six of the primary school, and team D for grades seven to nine of the junior high School. Each team also manages a family with children. Four, rather than the previous two teachers, take on the role of parenting. Each team is responsible for both curricular and extracurricular life. The teachers want to overcome the formation of subcultures – school on the one side and family on the other. I like this integration. In the world of boarding schools, you find the structure of ‘school’ versus ‘boarding’ with teachers and mentors or the role of teacher and mentor in one. We tried that practice, but it led to the overloading of teachers, giving them less time to prepare for classes.

 

The model of integration of the two areas will be tested next semester, and one of its best features is that we can break up the usual daily routine – lessons in the morning, projects and other activities in the afternoon – in favor of a rhythm which is both more child-friendly and makes more sense: dedicating the cooler parts of the day in the morning and late evening to organic agriculture, and using the rest of the day for school, project and free time to avoid forming a rigid routine.

 

The teachers are very satisfied with the teams they have built. Towards the end of the meeting, the old teachers practise both of the School for Life songs with the new teachers and show them what is meant by “making power”. We form a tight circle, put all our hands in a pile in the center, count to three and then raise our arms with a powerful “School for Life – Yeah!”. We have been doing that for the last nine years.

 

At 5.30pm, the closing party for all the employees begins outdoors in front of the farmhouse. BBQ, dancing and karaoke. The mood is relaxed. Chanmongkol muses with Sampan over how he can purify used water for irrigation purposes. The driver, Tub, tells us that he thinks he needs to be paid a little more because he has to buy all his own food when he’s on the road. The cook is dancing rock ‘n’ roll. A half moon is in the sky. Even at midnight, the hardier among us are still singing. At some point in the night, everything is cleaned up. It is all done as quick as a flash. And then there is peace.

 

No, not entirely. The dog who sees ghosts begins to howl again. No other dog joins in, but a frog does. The stormy rain lured him out of his hole in the ground too early. Now he croaks for attention, but in vain. No other frog replies. The dog who sees ghosts and the lonely frog are an odd couple in the night before the day when I pack my things and set off to the South, to the other School for Life.

Moving an Education System from … from poor to fair, fair to good, good to great, and great to excellent.

Greg Cairnduff, M Ed, BA, Dip Ed, MACE, Deputy Managing Editor

When one looks at the international league tables of high performing systems as judged by such assessments as the OECD’s Performance Indicators of Student Achievement [PISA] and Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) developed by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), it is possible to look at the high performing systems and discern what it is that puts them head and shoulders above other systems.

This web site has frequently referred to the international studies of the highest performing systems and the high performers in Asia – Singapore, Shanghai Hong Kong Japan and South Korea.

The McKinsey Reports [1] for example,  have been highly influential in raising the profile of the elements which bring about high performance in systems. The reports continue to monitor what some systems are doing to lift their performance often from a very low base to being in the middle of the international pack of systems on a demonstrable improvement trajectory.

The reports shine guiding lights on the way forward for countries trying so hard to become internationally competitive.

Student Centred Learning Thailand has as its core purpose the goal of being a constructive contributor in assisting Thai teachers, Thai schools and the Thai education system, to reform and improve performance against international standards. This is a long term, but not impossible task.

The most recent McKinsey report,  “How the world’s most improved school systems keep getting better”[2] examines 20 systems the research makes a unique contribution to this critical global agenda. The report is highly relevant to Thailand as it builds on the landmark 2007 study, How the World’s Best Performing Systems Come Out on Top. The latest report analyses 20 systems from around the world, all with improving but differing levels of performance, examining how each has achieved significant, sustained, and widespread gains in student outcomes, as measured by international and national assessments.

The systems examined did not contain many of the previously well known performers such as Finland, but contained the following systems Armenia, Aspire (a U.S. charter school system), Boston (Massachusetts), Chile, England, Ghana, Hong Kong, Jordan, Latvia, Lithuania, Long Beach (California), Madhya Pradesh (India), Minas Gerais (Brazil), Ontario (Canada), Poland, Saxony (Germany), Singapore, Slovenia, South Korea, and Western Cape (South Africa).

Based on more than 200 interviews with system stakeholders and analysis of some 600 interventions carried out by these systems, this report identifies the reform elements that are replicable for school systems elsewhere as they move from poor to fair to good to great to excellent performance.

It is the analysis of how these systems are moving that is relevant to Thai schools, teachers and educational leaders. What the researchers found was that six interventions occur with equal frequency across all the improvement journeys, though manifesting differently in each one.

The six interventions are:

• revising curriculum and standards,
• ensuring an appropriate reward and remuneration  structure for teachers and principals,
• building the technical skills of teachers and principals,
• assessing students,
• establishing data systems,
• facilitating the improvement journey through the publication of policy documents and implementation of education laws.

I would ask Thai teachers to look at their school and their local clusters of schools and ask how many of these six interventions are evident in Thailand? The answers will give an indication of how Thailand is going with its reform agenda.

There is much food for thought and action by educational leaders in the findings of the  report . In the future we will provide some practical examples of what can be done at the school, district and system level to give Thailand the educational lift it is seeking.

Greg Cairnduff, October 2012

Greg is Director of the Australian International School of Bangkok

 

Check out this TED talk on the new Self Organized Learning Experience project from Sugata Mitra

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud.html

This looks like a very interesting and practical experiment.

- Bryan Forst

TALK LESS. TEACH MORE!
NONVERBAL CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

You are ALWAYS communicating! Let’s take a look at what nonverbal communication actually is. Professor Albert Mehrabian, a pioneer since the 60s in communication research, determined during a communications project for the University of California that there are 3 factors that influence the effect a conversation has. These are: 7% verbal        =      the words which are spoken 38% vocal        =      how these words sound and 55% visual       =      how you look when you say them. That comes to 7% verbal and 93% nonverbal! Other more conservative studies estimate that the nonverbal part of communication comes to about 82%. An impressive percentage! In other words, what you say is important but HOW you say it is even more so! And this percentage also makes us aware that we are ALWAYS communicating – whether we are speaking or not!

Very often though we are not aware of the nonverbal signals we are sending.  Sometimes the nonverbal message and the verbal one don’t match up. Then we are surprised, disappointed or angry when our students do not follow our directions or react as we expect them to.

Yes. Actions DO speak louder than words. And you can be very sure that if a verbal and a nonverbal message are in conflict, the student will ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS  react to the nonverbal message. This is called being INCONGRUENT. For example, take a look at this picture:

Our goal should be exactly the opposite – we want to be congruent

Just imagine that I am standing before you. My posture is tense. My arms are crossed in front of my chest. I have a grim frown upon my face. My voice is dripping with sarcasm as I say the following words:   “I’m really glad that you are taking part in this webinar!”

Do you believe my words?   Probably not. Now let’s take a look at an example where the teacher is congruent:

And now imagine that I am standing in front of you and my posture is relaxed and open. My hands are stretched out in front of me. The palms are facing upward. I am smiling at you and I say in a warm and friendly voice, “I’m glad that you are taking part today.”

That was better, wasn’t it?

The first time I was incongruent. My nonverbal message contradicted my verbal one. The result: I expressed the exact opposite of what I actually wanted to get across.

The second time I was congruent. My verbal and my nonverbal messages were in sync with one another. Therefore I got my point across and you believed my words.

Let’s look at another example:

Imagine that I want my students to write an essay. We have discussed all the details and I have listed them on the board. All of the important questions have been answered and I would like them to start writing. My verbal message: “Now we will begin. No more questions, please.”

Quite clear, isn’t it? Or perhaps it isn’t. The words are clear. But whether the pupils follow my instructions is dependent upon whether my words and my nonverbal message correspond. It is, once again, a question of congruency.

How is my posture? My facial expression? What does my voice sound like? Those are decisive factors that will determine whether my directions will be followed or not and how others will react or interpret my intentions.

In these examples there are two kinds of voices that I can choose between: the CREDIBLE VOICE and the INVITING VOICE Both voices are very useful. What is important is choosing the right voice for the right situation!

The CREDIBLE VOICE is the one I use, for example, when I discipline, when I give instructions when I have a serious conversation with my students where I do not expect them to talk back or when I want to get their attention. This voice carries the message, “Do what I say. And no contradictions!” Here’s a picture of the credible voice. (I would like to add that although it can look like this, I usually do this voice with the arms close to the torso and the elbows bent.)

My posture and my body movement (or my lack of movement, in this case) determine which voice I produce. When I speak with a CREDIBLE VOICE, I hold my body straight and still. My feet are parallel to one another with the toes pointing forward. My chin is tilted down slightly. Because my body is still, my head is also still. The way I hold my head has direct influence on my voice. When my head is still, my voice is monotone and it often goes down at the end of a sentence or statement.

Those who naturally have a credible voice tend to be assertive and get their own way. When they talk, others listen. And then go into action. The disadvantage of this voice lies in the quality as well as the quantity of communication. Although these people often want to communicate, they very often have problems starting and conducting productive conversations.

The second voice is known as the INVITING VOICE.

This is the voice I use when I want to converse with my students, when a discussion, suggestions and ideas are welcome. This voice encourages conversation and an exchange of ideas. Those with an INVITING VOICE tend to move their bodies while speaking. The movement is rhythmical and symmetrical. Their arms are held close to the body and move slightly in the same rhythm. These speakers occasionally show the palms of their hands while speaking. The head and therefore the voice move up and down in rhythm with the body movement. And the voice tends to go up at the end of a statement – as it does at the end of a question. And your pupils will tend to answer – whether you asked a question or not!

People who have an inviting voice are sociable masters of communication. They can talk on almost any topic and bring out the best in those to whom they are speaking. The disadvantage of using this voice is that it is difficult to be assertive. Statements made with an inviting voice are regularly challenged and discussed. The discussions can be lengthy – and in the end nothing actually happens!

You will prefer one voice or the other. This is the voice that will feel natural to you. And – as a teacher – it is very likely that the voice you prefer is the auditive one. It is good when you recognize your own preference. And at the same time, it is ESSENTIAL that you choose the right voice for the right situation!

Upon hearing this, some teachers respond with, “But then I won’t be authentic. I won’t be myself!”

Possibly that is true. But as a teacher you cannot always allow yourself to be totally authentic. We have a job to do. This job is to lead a class. And if for a moment you take a step back to better observe yourself and your class’ behavior, you will notice that the class is a mirror in which you can observe yourself.

That means that when you are lively, your class will be lively. When you are calm, they are calm too. If you like to talk, you will have a talkative group.

If you notice that a class behaves differently when you are teaching it than when your colleagues are, you need to ask yourself the question, “Is the class mirroring me?” As long as the class’s behavior is congruent with your goals in the classroom, this is fine. But, if this is not the case, you need to change your own behavior to match the results you want to achieve. YOU set the tone. The class mirrors you. The first step is creating an environment in the classroom where you can achieve your goals. Once you have created this environment and the class is on task, you can then afford to be yourself.

Let me give you a few examples:

I personally have a quite lively personality and this is often reflected in my teaching. Under normal circumstances, this could be called my “authentic behavior”. Most of the time I can be myself. But there are certain situations where being myself is not beneficial. For example, the most boring times of the school year for me are the days on which the students have a test. They are all sitting there, as they should be, working diligently and silently on their tests. And I am bored. There is no action! No interaction! But of course I do not allow myself to act “authentically” in this situation because the result of my behavior would be bad grades for the students. Or I assign an essay that the students should write during the lesson. They are all quiet and busy writing. And suddenly I think of something that I absolutely need to tell the class IMMEDIATELY. Or I begin to converse quietly with one pupil. And what happens? Within second the entire class is talking with me or with each other. And then I have to quiet them down again so that they can complete their work. And whose fault was it that the class wasn’t quiet? It is not the pupils’ fault but mine! Because I did not act the way I wanted my pupils to act – and they mirrored my behavior.

We need to be aware of our posture and the voice it produces in order to better understand the reactions our own behavior is calling forth in our students. To help you in this task, my son, who is also a teacher trainer, and I made this quite humorous film clip which you can find on You Tube with the search criterion “Pearl Nitsche” or simply by clicking this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VbNOhd3xhE Watch it, show it to your colleagues and practice together – until we meet the next time when we’ll be talking about the use of anchors in the classroom.

TALK LESS. TEACH MORE!
NONVERBAL CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

The nonverbal classroom management techniques that I will introduce to you in this series of articles are solutions that I have either used successfully while teaching 10- to 14- year-olds as well as 14- to 19-year-olds at two different inner city schools in Vienna, Austria or they are techniques introduced to me by teachers of all school levels and for all subjects – from kindergarten teachers to university lecturers and adult education trainers – who have attended my teacher training seminars throughout the world.

I have held these seminars in 22 different countries on 4 continents and I am asked the same questions in Vienna as in Buenos Aires, in Moscow, in New York and also during the past months where I have been assisting teachers here in Thailand in a local high school. The challenges we are facing are universal and nonverbal classroom management offers us solutions.

THE GOAL: Talk less. Teach more!

We talk and talk and talk in the classroom … and very often we are exhausted by the end of the day and frustrated by the feeling that our students aren’t listening or aren’t taking our verbal instructions seriously. It has been proven that over 82% of a teacher’s communication with her students is NONVERBAL. So why should we waste our breath on getting kids to do what they’re supposed to do? Let’s save our voices for content and use nonverbals to effectively manage the classroom.

Once you start using these techniques you will discover that it is not necessary to raise your voice in the classroom. I know it sounds incredible – but it’s true.

A very good friend of mine, Renée, is an inspiring teacher. She successfully and joyfully taught elementary school for 16 years. Then she got a new first-grade class, which she would be teaching –as it is usual in Austria – for the next 4 years. Within a few weeks she realized that she could not get this class under control. She had tried all the techniques that had worked in the past – with no success. She had a talk with the director of her school and told her that she was considering giving up the teaching profession. The children were quite intelligent, but their behavior was wild, loud and they appeared to be “untameable”. And then she came to the seminar “Nonverbal Classroom Management.” Suddenly she saw a light at the end of the tunnel!

Renée returned to school with her head full of plans, nonverbal techniques, and anchors, which we will talk about in more detail in Part 3 of our series. She used these techniques –systematically- and within a short period of time she had “tamed her little lions.” Renée’s techniques became automatic for her, and the children also responded automatically. By the end of 4^th grade, when they moved on to a new school, they were the living example of the “perfect class”. The children had learned a lot. School was a pleasant experience for them. And Renée was a happy teacher!

In the meantime Renée has finished the four year cycle with that class and with the next one too. Last year, at the end of school picnic, one of the mothers came up to Renée and said, “I need to ask you something. My son told me that in the four years that he was in your class, you never raised your voice a single time? How do you do it?”

So Renée told her some of her nonverbal “secrets”. And the mother was truly impressed.

Yes, it’s possible. And the best part is: It’s easy!

Basically what I am telling you is simply common sense. We all know these things. Many of the techniques I will mention here, you are already doing. Others you will have observed in your colleagues or you might have seen them used by your teachers while you were a student yourself at school.

We know it, but it is on an unconscious level. We simply need to become aware of the resources, the tips, tools and the techniques we already know, have used or  which we have experienced. And then we need to be brave enough to stop talking and try DOING something different!

Several years ago I visited my brother and his family in America at Christmas time. One evening my brother said, “Guess who I ran into on the street yesterday? You’re old math teacher!” I was quite surprised at this and my brother continued, “He asked how you were doing in Austria and then he asked me if you had already learned in which direction one should face when sitting on a chair?”

I had to laugh out loud! When I was in school I was always chatting with someone during the lesson – either behind me, or to my right, to my left – or occasionally on the other side of the room. The one direction I wasn’t looking in was straight ahead at the teacher.

My brother went on, “He said that every time he says the words ‘Turn around’, he thinks of you!”

We laughed a lot about this. And then at the end of the Christmas holidays I returned to Vienna. On the first day of school, I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard myself saying to a student, “Dreh’ dich um!” (which means “Turn around” in German). I thought to myself, “How many hundreds of years have teachers in America and other English speaking countries been saying, “Turn around!”, teachers in Austria and Germany say “Dreh’ dich um!”, and from my travels I know that teachers in Buenos Aires say the same thing in Spanish, teachers in Finland say it in Finnish and teachers in Siberia say the same thing in Russian! And I am certain that Thai teachers say it in Thai.

And what good has it done us?

None whatsoever – otherwise we wouldn’t still be saying it!

If I want something to change, then I have to do something differently than the way I have always done it.

It’s the same as if I wake up in the morning and think, “I would love to have scrambled eggs for breakfast!” I go to the kitchen, take two eggs out of the refrigerator and break them into a frying pan. I fry them and then I suddenly realize that I have fried eggs instead of scrambled eggs!

I think to myself, “What? Fried eggs?!? That’s not what I wanted. I wanted scrambled eggs. Oh, well. Fried eggs are also good so I’ll eat them – and MAYBE … if I’m lucky … tomorrow it will be better.”

And the next day I do the same thing all over again and once again I’m disappointed because I have fried eggs instead of scrambled eggs.

And it will ALWAYS be this way. Until I do something differently.

With the eggs, it’s stirring them with a fork.

And in the classroom I need to find nonverbal solutions – because actions really do speak louder than words!

In this series I will include a lot of tips, techniques and tools for you to choose from Yes, contrary to what many of us learned during our studies, there ARE tried and true recipes for managing a classroom. We do not need to rediscover the wheel each and every time a discipline or classroom problem comes up. We can use what others who have gone before us have learned. We need to be realistic though. There is no one single cure-all, no magic bullet that can be used in each and every case. Different situations, different classes and different age groups require a variety of techniques as well as the flexibility to adapt these tools to your classroom needs. We need to remain flexible. To pick and choose.

Therefore I would like to invite you to a nonverbal management techniques “buffet”. Help yourself! Fill up your plate generously with all of the delicacies on the buffet. Take the one you need and fancy at the moment. Enjoy them and use them to improve the atmosphere in your classroom.

But –please! – let’s keep the leftovers! Don’t throw away what you don’t need today. Feel free to pack it up and put it in the freezer for another day, another class and another challenge!

Bon Appetit, my teacher friends! Enjoy your meal!

In the meantime, take a look at this film clip in You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oEsa2UR3cM  (you can also find it be typing in “Pearl Nitsche” as your search criterion). My son, Derrick, who is also a teacher trainer, and I made this video as an introduction to nonverbal classroom management. It sums up what we have been looking at here and it is also an excellent introduction for your colleagues to the topic of Nonverbal Classroom Management. Enjoy!

The next installment in this series is all about the credible and the inviting voice and posture. Talk to you soon!

Talk Less, Teach More! Part 2

by Peter J. Foley, Ed.D. , editor-in-chief

SCLThailand editors were surprised and delighted to see—finally—some positive reporting on the use of the tablets in classrooms in Thailand.  In the February 4, 2013 edition of The Nation an article appeared entitled:  “Tablets Get a Cautious Thumbs-Up in Early Test”.  The distribution of free tablets to Prathom 1 students has been one of the hallmarks of Prime Minister Yingluck’s education policy. When the policy was first announced at the beginning of her term, The Nation newspapers was a vehicle for severe criticism of the policy.

For example, The Nation included the following in articles:

Respected educators like Dilaka Lathapipat, Ph.D. have voiced objection to the plan in his column “Chalk Talk” in The Nation September 12, 2011 edition.  Dr. Dilaka cited a study he co-authored of the damage to students’ PISA test scores when they are from the student cohort that use computers to play games.  Other educators have been even more forceful in opposing the plan.  The Nation posted an article on July 11, 2011 entitled: “Top Academics Oppose Computer Tablets Plan”.  The article cited Maitree Inprasitaha, dean of education at Khon Kaen University and Chainarong Indharameesup of Boyden Global Executive Search as against the distribution of the Tablet PCs to Thai school children. Professor Maitree specifically referred to a lack of e-books and learning software in her objections. In another article in The Nation dated September 3, 2011, Veena Thoopkrajae sums up her argument in her title: “Tablets Cannot Cure the Cancer in Thai Education.”

In contrast the recent February 4^th article states: “So far, interactive learning with the tablets has provided good motivation to study and practice for Prathom 1 pupils at a Bangkok school.   The article goes on to say the tablets motivate students to learn.   The Yingluck policy has already resulted in the distribution 800,000 tablets nation-wide in 2012.  The government will eventually distribute 1.69 million tablets to all Prathom 1 and Matthayom 1 students countrywide in the 2013 academic year.

We applaud The Nation for actually following up and virtually making a volte face in its stance on the tablet policy of the current administration.

The February 4^th article stated: “ During The Nation’s observation in both Prathom 1/1/ and ½ classes last week , Prathom ½ students were seen actively adding numbers in mathematics games, as Prathom 1/1 students practiced reading about two elephants on their tablets.”

The editors of SCLThailand have been saying all along that Yingluck’s policy was correct and the tablets, given the right software, would engage students and increase their learning in the critical areas of math and reading.

History will look back on this administration’s efforts to put tablets in the hands of its young people as a giant step in making sure Thai students can compete in the 21^st century world economies.   There is much to do; nevertheless, we are heartened that at least in the realm of using technology to further learning this is a huge step in the right direction.

By Peter J.  Foley, Ed.D.  , editor-in-chief

In the last couple of weeks I  have  met two visiting , gifted educators here in Bangkok:  Arthur Eisenkraft, distinguished professor of education at the University of Massachusetts, and  Agnes Chavez, artist /educator and owner of the teaching publication company, Sube.  Both were main speakers at educational conferences in Thailand.

In Arthur’s article, which you can read in our current  edition of SCLThailand,  he proposes seven steps as essential in learning.  These steps are consistent with  current cognitive learning studies  and also form the core thinking of those of us who advocate student centered learning approaches in classrooms.

Two  essential steps that caught my eye were establishing what the learner  already knows and engaging the learning so that her interest is peaked.    Both Arthur  and Agnes have figured out how to engage learners.  Arthur  is a physicist by training, Agnes is an artist.   The brain loves a picture,  a structure to visualize.  Both Arthur  and Agnes give the learner a picture to work with as they approach a concept to learn or a problem to solve.

Agnes has had great success in teaching both English and Spanish to kids using art, music and games.  Her materials totally engage the students in the process of learning a language.  More information about Agnes can be found in the letters to editor section of SCLThailand this month.   Arthur’s lesson plan examples given in this month’s article show how he totally engages students in the pursuit of physics lessons.  The lesson plans are nothing short of brilliant.

Both these educators have learned the secret of how to engage the human mind:  give the student a picture, a vision, a design , a framework to build on.  Educators like to use the word scaffolding, which is as good a word as any for what both Arthur  and Agnes do con brio.

Sometimes a current model must be amended to maintain its value after new information,
insights, and knowledge have been gathered. Such is now the case with the
highly successful 5E learning cycle and instructional model (Bybee 1997). Research
on how people learn and the incorporation of that research into lesson plans and
curriculum development demands that the 5E model be expanded to a 7E model.

The 5E learning cycle model requires instruction to
include the following discrete elements: engage, explore,
explain, elaborate, and evaluate. The proposed 7E model
expands the engage element into two components—elicit
and engage. Similarly, the 7E model expands the two
stages of elaborate and evaluate into three components—
elaborate, evaluate, and extend. The transition from the 5E
model to the 7E model is illustrated in Figure 1.
These changes are not suggested to add complexity,
but rather to ensure instructors do not omit crucial elements
for learning from their lessons while under the
incorrect assumption they are meeting the requirements
of the learning cycle.

Eliciting prior understandings
Current research in cognitive science has shown that eliciting
prior understandings is a necessary component of
the learning process. Research also has shown that expert
learners are much more adept at the transfer of learning
than novices and that practice in the transfer of learning
is required in good instruction (Bransford, Brown, and
Cocking 2000).

The engage component in the 5E model is intended to
capture students’ attention, get students thinking about the
subject matter, raise questions in students’ minds, stimulate
thinking, and access prior knowledge. For example,
teachers may engage students by creating surprise or doubt
through a demonstration that shows a piece of steel sinking
and a steel toy boat floating. Similarly, a teacher may
place an ice cube into a glass of water and have the class
observe it float while the same ice cube placed in a second
glass of liquid sinks. The corresponding conversation with
the students may access their prior learning. The students
should have the opportunity to ask and attempt to answer,
“Why is it that the toy boat does not sink?”

The engage component includes both accessing prior
knowledge and generating enthusiasm for the subject
matter. Teachers may excite students, get them interested
and ready to learn, and believe they are fulfilling
the engage phase of the learning cycle, while ignoring
the need to find out what prior knowledge students
bring to the topic. The importance of eliciting prior understandings
in ascertaining what students know prior to
a lesson is imperative. Recognizing that students construct
knowledge from existing knowledge, teachers
need to find out what existing knowledge their students
possess. Failure to do so may result in students developing
concepts very different from the ones the teacher
intends (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking 2000).

A straightforward means by which teachers may elicit
prior understandings is by framing a “what do you think”
question at the outset of the lesson as is done consistently

in some current curricula. For example, a common physics
lesson on seat belts might begin with a question about
designing seat belts for a racecar traveling at a high rate of
speed (Figure 2, p. 58). “How would they be different
from ones available on passenger cars?” Students responding
to this question communicate what they know about
seat belts and inform themselves, their classmates, and the
teacher about their prior conceptions and understandings.
There is no need to arrive at consensus or closure at this
point. Students do not assume the teacher will tell them
the “right” answer. The “what do you think” question is
intended to begin the conversation.

The proposed expansion of the 5E model does not
exchange the engage component for the elicit component;
the engage component is still a necessary element in good
instruction. The goal is to continue to excite and interest
students in whatever ways possible and to identify prior
conceptions. Therefore the elicit component should stand
alone as a reminder of its importance in learning and
constructing meaning.

Explore and explain
The explore phase of the learning cycle provides an opportunity
for students to observe, record data, isolate
variables, design and plan experiments, create graphs,
interpret results, develop hypotheses, and organize their
findings. Teachers may frame questions, suggest approaches,
provide feedback, and assess understandings.
An excellent example of teaching a lesson on the metabolic
rate of water fleas (Lawson 2001) illustrates the

effectiveness of the learning cycle with
varying amounts of teacher and learner
ownership and control (Gil 2002).
Students are introduced to models,
laws, and theories during the explain
phase of the learning cycle. Students
summarize results in terms of these new
theories and models. The teacher guides
students toward coherent and consistent
generalizations, helps students with distinct
scientific vocabulary, and provides
questions that help students use this vocabulary
to explain the results of their
explorations. The distinction between
the explore and explain components ensures
that concepts precede terminology.

Applying knowledge
The elaborate phase of the learning cycle
provides an opportunity for students to
apply their knowledge to new domains,
which may include raising new questions
and hypotheses to explore. This phase
may also include related numerical problems
for students to solve. When students
explore the heating curve of water and
the related heats of fusion and vaporization,
they can then perform a similar experiment
with another liquid or, using
data from a reference table, compare and
contrast materials with respect to freezing
and boiling points. A further elaboration
may ask students to consider the
specific heats of metals in comparison to
water and to explain why pizza from the
oven remains hot but aluminum foil beneath
the pizza cools so rapidly.
The elaboration phase ties directly to
the psychological construct called
“transfer of learning” (Thorndike 1923).
Schools are created and supported with
the expectation that more general uses
of knowledge will be found outside of
school and beyond the school years
(Hilgard and Bower 1975). Transfer of
learning can range from transfer of one
concept to another (e.g., Newton’s law
of gravitation and Coulomb’s law of
electrostatics); one school subject to another
(e.g., math skills applied in scientific
investigations); one year to another
(e.g., significant figures, graphing,
chemistry concepts in physics); and
school to nonschool activities (e.g., using
a graph to calculate whether it is cost

effective to join a video club or pay a higher rate on
rentals) (Bransford, Brown, and Cocking 2000).
Too often, the elaboration phase has come to mean an
elaboration of the specific concepts. Teachers may provide
the specific heat of a second substance and have students
perform identical calculations. This practice in transfer of
learning seems limited to near transfer as opposed to far or
distant transfer (Mayer 1979). Even though teachers expect
wonderful results when they limit themselves to near
transfer with large similarities between the original task
and the transfer task, they know students often find elaborations
difficult. And as difficult as near transfer is for
students, the distant transfer is usually a much harder road
to traverse. Students who are quite able to discuss phase
changes of substances and their related freezing points,
melting points, and heats of fusion and vaporization may
find it exceedingly difficult to transfer the concept of
phase change as a means of explaining traffic congestion.

Practicing the transfer of learning
The addition of the extend phase to the elaborate phase is
intended to explicitly remind teachers of the importance for
students to practice the transfer of learning. Teachers need
to make sure that knowledge is applied in a new context
and is not limited to simple elaboration. For instance, in
another common activity students may be required to invent
a sport that can be played on the moon. An activity on
friction informs students that friction increases with weight.
Because objects weigh less on the moon, frictional forces are
expected to be less on the moon. That elaboration is useful.
Students must go one step further and extend this friction
concept to the unique sports and corresponding play they
are developing for the moon environment.

The evaluate phase of the learning cycle continues to include
both formative and summative evaluations of student learning.
If teachers truly value the learning cycle and experiments
that students conduct in the classroom, then teachers should be
sure to include aspects of these investigations on tests. Tests
should include questions from the lab and should ask students
questions about the laboratory activities. Students should be
asked to interpret data from a lab similar to the one they
completed. Students should also be asked to design experiments
as part of their assessment (Colburn and Clough 1997).
Formative evaluation should not be limited to a particular
phase of the cycle. The cycle should not be linear.
Formative evaluation must take place during all interactions
with students. The elicit phase is a formative evaluation.
The explore phase and explain phase must always
be accompanied by techniques whereby the teacher
checks for student understanding.
Replacing elaborate and evaluate with elaborate, extend,
and evaluate as shown in Figure 1, p. 57, is a way to
emphasize that the transfer of learning, as required in
the extend phase, may also be used as part of the evaluation
phase in the learning cycle.
Enhancing the instructional model
Adopting a 7E model ensures that eliciting prior understandings
and opportunities for transfer of learning are
not omitted. With a 7E model, teachers will engage and
elicit and students will elaborate and extend. This is not
the first enhancement of instructional models, nor will it
be the last. Readers should not reject the enhancement
because they are used to the traditional 5E model, or
worse yet, because they hold the 5E model sacred. The
5E model is itself an enhancement of the three-phrase
learning cycle that included exploration, invention, and
discovery (Karplus and Thier 1967.) In the 5E model,
these phases were initially referred to as explore, explain,
and expand. In another learning cycle, they are referred
to as exploration, term introduction, and concept application
(Lawson 1995).
The 5E learning cycle has been shown to be an
extremely effective approach to learning (Lawson
1995; Guzzetti et al. 1993). The goal of the 7E learning
model is to emphasize the increasing importance of
eliciting prior understandings and the extending, or
transfer, of concepts. With this new model, teachers
should no longer overlook these essential requirements
for student learning.

Arthur Eisenkraft is a project director of Active Physics
and a past president of NSTA, 60 Stormytown Road,
Ossining, NY 10562; e-mail: eisenkraft@att.net.

References
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People Learn. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
Bybee, R.W. 1997. Achieving Scientific Literacy. Portsmouth, N.H.:
Heinemann.
Colburn, A., and M.P. Clough. 1997. Implementing the learning
cycle. The Science Teacher 64(5): 30–33.
Gil, O. 2002. Implications of inquiry curriculum for teaching. Paper
presented at National Science Teachers Association Convention,
5–7 December, in Alburquerque, N.M.
Guzzetti B., T.E. Taylor, G.V. Glass, and W.S. Gammas. 1993.
Promoting conceptual change in science: A comparative metaanalysis
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