Week 8

During this course I have learned a lot while communicating with my international early childhood contact. Several consequences of Thailand’s education are that you do not need a teaching degree to teach. I found it very interesting that after two years of teaching you need to take a test but it does not really matter if you pass or not because you can continue to teach and try again. Another consequence is to be in a high quality program it is very expensive and an average person in Thailand does not earn much. In the high quality programs where my contact was teaching, the students receive 15 hours of English instructed courses taught by a native speaker but a Thailand teacher taught grammar. My contact informed me that another consequence was that Thailand’s “standards” as we would call them are very different. The amount of English that needs to be taught and what curriculum needs to be taught are not a federal or even province wide mandated law in Thailand. No students can fail in Thailand either. The system keeps putting the kids in the next grade. My professional contact discussed how this was extremely frustrating to teachers.

A goal I have now that I contacted with my professional contact from Thailand is to continue to discuss educational topics with her and learn all I can. I would also like to contact other professionals in different areas and learn about their area. I have truly enjoyed learning about different countries’ education. While I am learning about the different educational systems I would like to connect with an organization and see if there is a way I can help support students. I would also like to discuss with my contact about becoming pen pals as way to get our students to connect.