My landlord, who lives across the street, will occasionally let me use her washing machine to clean my clothes which saves me the trouble of hand-washing them in the bathroom. Typically I would teach her some English while the washer ran, or we would watch TV, or eat. However lately we have gotten into the habit of playing game after game of checkers. If checkers were an art form, my landlord would be Michelangelo…while I would be more like the Ninja Turtle version of Michelangelo, making erratic moves based on quick guesses and, as a result, typically not winning. However after a few sessions I have begun to get better and, once a while when the planets align, I actually manage to win.
Topics of discussion during these games range from my family in America, our plans for the weekend, etc. Rarely is it anything of any particular magnitude. However today we got on to talking about the protests in Thailand, and I asked her what she thought was going to happen on Monday. Allow me to catch people up on the topic. On Monday the 13th, the Yellow Shirt protesters are planning to shutdown Bangkok by protesting at several major intersections throughout the city. Protesters in favor of the current government, the Red Shirts, will be there to counter-protest to to speak. Theories about the end result vary, with some not ruling out the possibility of military coups. I asked her if she thought confrontations between Yellow and Red would turn violent, and she said possibly but that she thought Yellow would win. I asked how seeing as the Red Shirt’s represent the nation’s majority, and she said I didn’t understand and that this was a lie developed by Thaksin Shinawatra (the corrupt former Prime Minister who is currently in self-imposed exile in Dubai, and whose sister, Yingluck, is the current Prime Minister). This eventually led to a conversation on corruption which, in turn, led to a conversation about the education system in Thailand. I made mention that nations with half the infrastructure and resources of Thailand, such as Myanmar and Cambodia had better English education than Thailand (though I should mention that Cambodia ranked only spot higher than Thailand). This led to more talk about how Thaksin had ruined the country years ago and was trying to keep people stupid, yada yada yada. The conversation wound down, I lost in checkers, and I went to grab my first load of laundry and bring it home to dry.
As I was throwing the last couple pairs of shorts into my basket, my landlord came back and asked me why I thought countries like Myanmar and Cambodia had better education systems than Thailand. I said I didn’t know much about other subjects, just English. She sited that Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, etc. had all been occupied by European nations. I said yes bet only Myanmar was occupied by the British, the rest were largely occupied by the French. And, despite that, both Myanmar and Cambodia had undergone brutal civil wars which had seen the expulsion of a lot of their foreign expats and thus many foreign resources. I had only once before been asked what I thought was wrong with the Thai Education system. My host brother and I were discussing it however the flame of hope I felt when he mentioned the system was broken was extinguished when he said the reason was that girls in school were allowed to grow their hair long now which was inappropriate given the Thai culture of modesty. That said, I didn’t want to screw this opportunity with my landlord up…but I couldn’t really put my thoughts into words. Eventually I would come up with two main reasons.
I’m going to skip ahead to the second reason because I feel like reason one is a little more relevant to the rest of the world (and I wrote a lot more about it so one might read it and then forget what this post was about in the first place) so I’ll fast forward to reason two (and if anyone uninterested in Thai English education is getting bored then please skip ahead). I was hanging up my shorts and it hit me, and suddenly I knew how to explain what I thought the Thai English Education system’s biggest problem was, and so I hurriedly hung my clothes to dry and raced back to my neighbors, dictionary in hand (because I tend to forget which words I know in Thai and which ones I don’t). When i got into the house she was assembling her pieces for another game of checkers. I told her that I thought I had a good way of explaining what I thought was wrong. “Imagine I gave you a bunch of boards, nails and hammer”, I assume she imagined it because she said ok. Then I asked her if she could build me a house, to which she replied ‘yes’. I corrected myself and reworded my statement, “Would you know how to build me a house?”. She said no. I told her that was what I thought the problem was. Students are given tablets, televisions in their classrooms, english programs on disc, textbooks with games, but they don’t know how to use any of it. No time is invested in actually explaining how all of these tools, the English words themselves, should be used! Instead its just assumed that if they have great materials they will become great students. Students go to speech contests and recite speeches that are often pages long, but don’t understand a word that they are saying. I’ve seen students give speeches with phrases like “I know I am very fat, but I am strong and happy”, probably because the teacher who wrote the speech and taught the student to memorize it thought it would be cute and thus earn the students a few extra points, thus boosting the reputation of the schools English program and the reputation of the school overall. I told her I thought the schools were more interested in looking successful than actually being successful, which ties into the concept of ‘face’ which I will talk about later. She asked if I thought it would change and I answered honestly, no I didn’t. For things to change people need to admit they are wrong, for people to admit they’re wrong they need to be willing to face shame, and a system designed to appear successful doesn’t face shame eagerly.
Ok so now rewind to when I was putting my shorts in the basket. The initial response I gave my landlord resonated with me a little more, mostly because other PCVs and I have hashed out the above response with each other before. The more I thought about my initial response the more my ideas snowballed, and thus landed on a concept that (again I’ve talked about before but have often had a tough time verbalizing) I believe is relevant to all of us, all of humanity.
Keep in mind I only have experience with the English education system and thus its the only department I feel even remotely qualified to comment on. It would seem that those in charge of the English education system in Thailand are, themselves, unable to speak English properly! Take one look at a Thai standardized English exam and one might soon doubt whether or not a native speaker could even pass it. The questions are so grammatically flawed and the answer choices so absurd that you have to wonder if the test was even made by a human being or simply plugged into a Google translator. It’s full of the kind of questions the Joker would give in an old Batman comic to one of his victims as a last chance for escape…there is just no chance of doing well. To make matters more complicated, Thailand is one of many nations that has the concept of ‘face’. Breaking face, making someone look bad, is one of the harshest transgressions one can commit against somebody. That, coupled with a strong respect for elders and those in charge, means that no one wants to tell the Thai professors of English at the country’s many universities, the individuals designing these exams and educating the countries future English teachers, that THEIR English is incorrect. I know Peace Corps has offered assistance with revising standardized English tests, and those offers were refused because no one wants to tell someone with their Doctorate in English that their English language skills aren’t quite up to par. And so its not questioned, and thus we have generation upon generation of English educators learning poor grammar, phonics, sentence structure, and techniques to teach this mess of subject matter.
At first it may be easy to look at this and think how ridiculous it is that no one just sits these professors down and tells them they need to brush up on their craft a bit, but is the rest of the world so different? I apologize in advance if it seems that I’m making a massive leap here but my brain works that way and I thought the following was too important not to discuss. It is my personal belief that there are few things worse for a nation (barring genocide, repression, war, famine, etc.) than blind nationalism. That is, I think its extremely detrimental to a nation when it’s people love it without knowing why they love it, and hate those who oppose it without knowing why they hate them. Development and change occur when people aren’t afraid to question those in charge and above all else, to put forth that most important query: Why?
In North Korea, during the reign of Kim Jong Il, citizens were taught that the moment of Jong-Il’s birth had a direct effect on the weather, changing the seasons immediately from winter to spring and filling the sky with rainbows. Absurd? Yes. Do the citizens of the DPKR actually believe this? I don’t know I’ve never met one. But it’s safe to say that anyone who outwardly opposed this belief would probably not be met with the kindest of responses. But what is the rest of the world’s excuse for just accepting what we’re told? Thailand is preparing to join the *Alliance of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in 2015 and judging by the effort being put forward to promote this venture one might mistake it for the formation of some Utopian paradise in the region. My students have on more than one occasion come up to me, smiling, and recited “ASEAN! One community, one identity!”. My response is usually something to the effect of “What does community mean?”, to which I receive no response aside from the lingering smile from ear to ear. So tell me, what is the difference between North Korean’s believing Kim Jong Il controls the weather, or Thai’s believing ASEAN will be the best thing since sliced bread, or (and please everyone at home reading this, give this some serious, serious, SERIOUS consideration before buying a plane ticket and crucifying me) American’s believing that America is the greatest country on Earth. Do we really know why? Are we the most advanced? Are we the strongest? Are our people the happiest, healthiest, brightest, and (dare I say it) freest? Or, are we told from day one that America is the greatest country on Earth and so we grow up believing it?
To any who might think that I dislike my country I say this, I love my country. I am a proud American, and I am proud to serve as a representative of America overseas. But America was founded on rebellion, built on the ideas that things could be and should be better. It is a country that was founded by people who were not afraid to ask ‘why’ and were not afraid to disagree with the response they were given in return. And the nations I’ve mentioned aren’t the only ones guilty of this, they’re just the only one’s I have any experience with (or in the case of North Korea just represent the pinnacle of misguided nationalism). Human beings aren’t stupid. We know when something isn’t right, and we jump at the opportunity to voice our concerns. Look at the Occupy Wallstreet movement. I’ll be the first to admit that at its end it was more of a circus than a protest, but at its inception it had some reasonably clear cut objectives (of course when you add guys dressed like the devil claiming the government is hiding the cure for cancer, and people in space suits claiming we falsified the moon landing its not surprising that a movement’s credibility tanks). But at its foundation, beneath the costumes and the goons looking to air their every grievance, it represented something good; People asking why and people challenging the answer.
The point I’m trying to make, and that its possible I may have drowned a little in example, is that it is your duty as a citizen of any nation, as a student at a university, as an employee at job, to question things that you don’t agree with, especially when you know there is a good chance the answer will be something you would want to challenge.
If I was in a rap battle this would be the part where I drop the mic and walk off stage, hoping like hell I actually made my point and didn’t just ramble incomprehensibly. Thank you for reading.
*The Alliance of Southeast Asian Nations will consist of Brunei, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Phillipines, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam and Laos.
Manventures 