Here are some notes & one story about schools in the countries I have visited so far in Asia.
A story I wrote about students after visiting a school in Malaysia. It is is about students being hit.
What I like about schools I've visited in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia
Singapore
What I like about schools I've visited in Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia
Students are laughing a lot. They are loud and full of energy.
They don't seem to be as hurtful towards each other as in places like the USA, Australia and England. They seem to be more cooperative and they almost all seem to get along with each other.
They are happy to see me. Especially in Jakarta. They would yell out thru the open hall windows,"Hello Mr. Steve!" when I would walk by, even if the teacher was trying to teach!
The teachers usually also welcome me. One teacher even changed her schedule to give the exam the next day when she met me, so the students could have a chance to talk to me. She said it was a special occasion for them to meet someone from another country who spoke French.
I didn't see much punishment or many threats.
They are not threatened with going to jail if they don't go to school, as they are in some schools in the USA.
There is much more trust of the students. They are not watched over like in the schools in Australia and the USA, for example. On their freetime they can go to the canteen or the library or sit outside and talk to their friends. They walk around the school campus freely and don't have to have passes like in the USA.
In the canteens I never once saw a teacher criticizing a student for how they were talking or acting or sitting. This is in contrast to a school I visited in the USA one of the last times I was there where a teacher told a boy he could not sit at the table with one foot underneath him on the bench.
Sitting on the floor was okay in many schools when the students were in the halls or if the teacher wanted them to get closer together.
Taking your shoes of and walking in the library barefoot was okay, in fact it was the normal thing to do in one school I visited! This was one of the funniest things I saw in a school because I know how much trouble I would have gotten in if I had taken of my shoes and socks (though I rarely wore them) and walked around barefoot in the library!
In 2 schools I visited in Thailand the students take off their shoes before they go into the classes too. They walk around in their socks and leave their shoes outside in the hall. This would probably be considered a fire hazard in the over-regulated USA.
Things are just more simple. For example, when a worker was cleaning the sink, he just used water and his hand at one school.
Their are privately run cafes inside the school grounds
The students treat the people they buy the food from like
friends or friendly family members. For exmample, at one school
they called the lady selling snacks
"Ibu" which means mother. This was her and her
husband's business.
I like the school "canteens" where the students can buy whatever food they want. In my schools we had lunches prepared for us and we had to eat whatever they made that day.
Teachers have more decision making ability. They don't have to run to their school principal to ask if it is okay if I speak in their class. Many teachers quickly understand that their students will benefit from my visit and some don't, but generally it is all up to the teacher in most of these schools.
The school principals, directors, headmasters etc. don't seem to be as authoritarian. They don't seem to be as feared by either the teachers or the students.
Their seems to be more true respect and less blatant fear of teachers and school leaders.
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Note on visiting classes - I'd say about 80 percent of the teachers I've met have let me talk to their classes the day the I dropped by their school the first time, completely unannounced. I found many really appreciate having a guest speaker and have invited me to come back as often as I want. The students especially really love it as this is a once in a live time chance for some of them. They will probably never meet someone who has travelled so much and is so free from whatever cultural rules they are growing up in. They can tell as soon as I walk in that I am different because of little things like I wear shorts and I sit on the teacher's desk or I am interested in the music they are listening to or the magazine they are looking at. And I take a personal interest in them and treat them individually. And I smile a lot. I smile because it is so nice to be around them. When I walk in and say "Hello!" 80 percent of them start to smile and usually the females giggle no matter what age until they get too serious at the universities. I feel sad for the students in the few classes where the teacher did not let his or her students talk to me, but there was nothing I could do about it. I learned that I like to go places where I am welcomed and appreciated and I don't waste time trying to change people who can't see the benefit of having me visit.
Military training.
Uniforms.
Making boys and even girls cute their hair.
Making them stand up and say bbb when the teacher comes in. Teacher saying "You may sit down."
Morning prayers and school and/or country propoganda.
Calling me and the teachers "Teacher".
Making everyone do everything at the same time and making everyone take the same courses for the same amounts of time. (of course this is not just Asian schools!)
Causing students to be afraid of making mistakes. This was one of the students' biggest fears when I surveyed them in Bali. It seemed that the younger the person, the less afraid they were to try to speak English to me. I'd guess this is a direct result of being tested and graded and thus being afraid of making mistakes.
Too much emphasis on education and the wrong defintion of what a "good" education is. One 19 year old woman in Jakarta told me she tried to kill herself at 9 years old. She had been in a private religious school where here parents were paying a lot of money to get a "good" education. She was stressed because she didn't do well in math and her mother called her lazy and stupid. She showed me her workbook from her class when she was 8. At 8 years old they were already making her do algebra and geometry.
There is not much encouragement of individuality. Students pressure each other to conform. Students are afraid to do anything without the approval of their peers.
When I ask one student a question, he or she will often not answer without looking to their friends for guidance
I also met a 16 year old woman who tried to kill herself in the past year because she failed a major end of the year test and had to repeat the whole school year. She is exceptionally smart but she had just had a big fight with her boyfriend the night before and wasn't able to concentrate. School can't be blamed completely for this woman's problems though. For example, while I was in Indonesia she told me about how her mother had hit her within the last 30 days. So this is another case where the person does not feel safe, either psychologically or physically or both, in either the home or the school. Like most schools around the world, they are not teaching her anything helpful about dealing with abuse or unlearning the self-destructive thinking and habits she has learned from her family. Nor are they teacher her relationship skills and basic life skills like listening.
Feedback from some students in Thailand
In one highschool I asked some students how much they liked the school from 0-10. I got some fives so I asked why. They said:
- I don't like some of the girls in this school. (When I asked why one girl said because they are too beautiful and they say hurtful things like "she's ugly or stupid.")
- I don't like some of the boys at the school. They bother us too much.
- The classes are too noisy.
- The classes are too big. Too many students. About 40 per class.
- I don't like the dog at the school. He frightens me.
- I don't like some of the teachers at school. (When asked why she said: They don't understand me. Then I asked for an example. She said if I have to help my mother with her business and don't have time to do my homework the teacher doesn't understand and doesn't give me any points.)
- I don't like that the girls have to cut our hair.
- The school day is too long. (From 7:30 to 4)
- I don't like uniforms.
A university student also told me she didn't like the school uniforms. At her university the women have to wear white shirts with two pins on them, and black skirts.
I have mixed thoughts about the females not being allowed to wear make up or as much jewelry as they want. I don't like make up or jewelry but I would rather see the schools educate the students about why these things are a waste of money which could be spent on books or something. I think I
I didn't see much punishment.
For example, they don't punish people by making them stay after school. They don't punish them by locking them into rooms alone- IE solitary confinement. In a school in Thailand for, example, they never even heard of "ISS" or "In School Suspension" where the students are forced to sit in solitary confinement for hours or days at a time. This is common in the USA and Australia. One university student in Australia told me she was locked up in a room for four days at her Catholic school. She was only allowed out to go to the bathroom and to home. I also read about two students dying in Japan after being locked up in a shed outside.
In Thailand at one school I was told they don't expell students or threaten them with being expelled.
I asked a teacher in Thailand what the worst punishment was and they said if someone is very bad they will send them to the teacher's office, but only for a short time.
A teacher in Jakarta told me the worst punishment was to make someone do some push ups or go out in the hall for a while.
The teachers I have seen generally did not seem sarcastic and hurtful. They didn't seem to enjoy humiliating students like so many teachers from countries like the USA and England.
They seem to laugh more with their students and not try to hard to impress them with how much they know.
I did not visit a school in Singapore. I met enough students and talked to them long enough to know what it would be like inside. I have never seen a place where the students and population are so afraid and so brainwashed. The children in Singapore stared at me with a frightened look on their faces when I said hello to them.They were the complete contrast to the kids in Indonesia who would come to me and say "Hello Mister!"
They still regularly hit young people at school and at home in Singapore. It is perfectly legal.
Also, in Singapore a teacher told me she would have to get permission from her boss just to talk to me about the school even on her personal time.
Misc.
Catholic School in Bogor - Chart with numbers on the wall. Trophys.
SMK school in Jakarta. Tropheys in the morning school.
Organization charts at the uni in HatYai. Pictures are okay. But not the hieararchy is not necessary.
One school had six different uniforms. Some people had to wear hats. Looked like soldiers, nurses, boy and girl scouts. Some boys dressed with long socks up to knees. Why? Why the hats? Many uniforms have school pins. Why?
In Singapore I asked someone what if they didn't wear the pin. She then you hope that a teacher doesn't notice. So in other words they are afraid of being punished.
I don't like how they make everyone stand up and say "Good after noon teacher."
I don't like to be called "Teacher." I am Steve. I wouldn't call a person "Student." I would use their name. I would know all their names and I would know about them.
In one school the teacher did not know the names of the students.
What to do about make up, jewelry?
Considered selling it at school. Only letting them wear what they buy. Only letting them buy it when something interesting is happening so they have to make a choice between how they spend their time.
There is too much talk about beautiful and handsome.
Too many like to watch TV as a hobby.
In one school in HatYai only one of the students did not have a TV. She liked to read. So I gave a thumbs up for reading and a thumbs down for TV's.
Some students get bored more quickly than others. For example when sing the heads and shoulders song, an intelligent looking girl lost interest
An intelligent looking girl was not interested in watching a Mr. Bean comedy. 95
Making everyone do the same thing at the same time. All stand up. All sit down. All sing. All watch Mr. Bean.
Even the kids at the free school in Lovina did not all want to watch the cartoon
The military training in Jakarta. Evidently some of the same things happens in Thailand.
When I am feeling frustrated because it is too noisy or because someone is not paying attention I will tell them how I am feeling. Then I will ask them to write how they are feeling and what would help them feel better.
Ask them how they are feeling. Teach them to be good listeners. Reward good listners. Acknowledge them. Ask them to write down how they are feeling and show it to their best friend.
Talk about emotional honesty. Explain that we can't help them if they are not honest. Explain that if we judge their feelings or tell them what they should do they will stop being emotionally honest.
I would always let them to go the computer and write.
When I visit schools
When I go to a classroom I tell them that I am from Canada but I was born in the USA. I tell them why I don't like the USA. I pretend I am shooting a rifle, then I fly my hands around and make it look like I am dropping bombs. I tell them that people in the USA think too much about money and I try to explain what it means to be materialistic. I tell them that people expensive watches when a cheap one gives the same time.
I show them that I don't like drinking by acting drunk and falling into people and falling down.
I sometimes as how much they like school from 0-10 and I ask why. I ask who their favorite teachers are and why. I ask what makes a good teacher and what makes a bad teacher. I want to learn from every school I visit.
say that the people are violent and they are dropping too many bombs.
I want to start asking:
Who wants to help people? Who wants to help poor children?
How much do you want to learn English? Why?
Who has been hit by their mother or father?
In Jakarta I told them the story about me taking off my shirt and pouring water over my head. In KL at the train station and then on the bus to JB. They laughed.
I asked if they thought it was healthy to hug. Only one person said yes in Jakarta.
I asked how many people believe in ghosts in HatYai. Most of them said they did. Almost everyone.
I sometimes tell them why I don't like religion. How it divides the world and makes people kill each other. And how in some places their parents won't allow them to marry someone from another religion. This was the norm in Indonesia. The Muslim parents wouldn't let their daughters marry anyone who wasn't Muslim and the Hindu's were the same.
I tell some people I would rather see more libraries and less churches and temples and mosques. And I sometimes say that I don't think God likes rice. Because they Hindus make offerings of rice everyday. Yet God never eats it. It is still sitting there at the end of the day. Usually the dogs and ants eat it.
I also don't like all the money being spent on the offerings and the food that is wasted. Like I saw them offering a dead chicken in a poor village in Bali. And they burn thousands of sticks of incense everyday in Bali as part of their offering ritual.