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Indoexile

**Pedant alert.**


yeah, yeah, yeah, same difference.

bruceveld

In our case, yes as they were employed as a teacher.


Which I believe was clearly stated in "
But obviously those who do not have schools would need to consider other options." or was there a part of that you could not understand?


Lol, so they are all on sukhomvit except those actually doing a good job...

Now THAT makes a lot of sense!

Heres my suggestion. CHOOSE A GOOD ONE. Heck, even a bright Thai with decent English can cover a lot of subjects. Or a filippina!

Indoexile

erm, you maketh our point. There is not loads and loads of good teachers, just hanging around to get a year's work from you teaching your children.


now you are just being silly.

quoted so you cannot change this one later.

bruceveld

There are THOUSANDS of English teachers in Thailand. There are many that can do this well. Its a heck of a lot easier to do this than teach 50 kids at a time. teaching Primary Math, Social Studies, Science, Health is not at all difficult. Find someone who likes kids and is friendly. They can teach them the materials easily. Once you actually sit down and READ the material you may realize I am right.

In my opinion, and the opinion of some pretty well-respected researchers, our current warehousing of children in schools is harmful. If you did any research on Education you would learn that the current education structure was developed by the Prussians as a way of training solders and Bureaucrats. Yes men who did not need to think for themselves and follow orders. Thats the last thing I want for my kids.

Check out the classic on alternative education, "Why Children Fail" by John Holt or his follow up "How Children Learn". He was a huge advocate of Home Schooling far before it became fashionable and I am a huge fan of his work.

But others disagree. Its cool. Do whatever you want with your own kids.

Camel Toe

I am interested in unschooling (I prefer the term) and have been reading about it for some time. There seems to be no conclusive evidence of the outcome of unschooled children later in life. What queers the stats, as far as their advanced formal schooling and success in life, is that most unschooled children are of higher income families. So success-wise they are already at the silver spoon. What does seen practically sound is that it may not be a good idea past grade 3. What I found surprising is a stat that shows unschooled children are much more likely to be molested by parents, unschooling being a way to keep them out of public view.

There are many successful people, like Abe Lincoln, Che Guivera, Tom Edison, who were home-schooled. This seems impressive (to me at least because I like Che and Tom) until you see a list of those who weren't home-schooled.

If I were to leave my five children in the hands of a home schooler he or she would have to meet my approval by providing more than a TESL certificate and a BA in whatever. If they were learning at home I be just as interested in what they were learning as I would if they were in the best school money could buy. Home schooling wouldn't relieve me of these worries, wouldn't make my life any easier at all. I believe exposure to the real world as it is today is paramount to education. There are a lots of temptations out there. Best learn how to deal with them ASAP.

bruceveld

Some good and interesting points (a welcome change) Camel.

There are loads of great materials and even interactive programs available online. We used time4learning.com and k12.com along with materials we picked up from the US. Costco always had great stuff especially DVD based cirriculum.

But we also asked the teachers to give us weekly reports on progress. you can't just hire the guy (or gal) and forget them. Just like everything else, the more attention you pay to it, the more your kids will get out of it. Sometimes I would just show up and see what they were doing.

I forot to mention that sites like time4learning.com allow you to moniter what lessons your kids study, ho much time they spent and how they did. Very helpful!

Camel Toe

Glad to see you don't shop at Wal*Mart.

bruceveld

Don't worry Camel, your former job as Wal mat greeter is safe with me. lol

And don;t say you didn't deserve that. you did.

Smeg

Bruce, how do you go about getting your kids involved in group work, peer learning, and team-based sports ( all of which are important parts of a rounded education in my opinion as a UK qualified school teacher)?

kingwilly

was this bit really necessary?

DrAndy

seemed reasonable

if his opinion as a UK qualified garbage collector was stated, then you probably would not have taken much notice

teachers do get some training in the UK, so tend to pick up on what they are told

Nawty

In my opinion not everyone can do it 'easily' as stated.

My 6yo came home in the first month at his new 1st grade school, his home work consisted of thai and math and english. His english was to read 2 words and have me expalin them to him.

I had to go look up on the internet one of those words me self.

Fancy askin a 6yo to spell and explain what photosynth...photosinthesy....photosynthesis ?? is all about.

So crikey if i cannot do it then god help the gimps getting paid 40k a month to do it.

Camel Toe

Six years old is one year younger than normal. Must be a bright kid. Don't care for Bruce much myself, only because I have this thing for aggressive salesmen, but unschooling does have an advantage, your case is one of them. I personally would never turn mine over to the Thai educational system. Nor would I turn them over to one of Bruce's White boys with a TESL certificate.

It's all about money isn't it? Or is it not? When I was reunited with my long lost son 20 years ago we had a strong heart to heart. I found myself saying "But I couldn't afford, I couldn't afford." He turned out to be a good adult and went to school for 12 years in Providence RI with dark people who say waz up a lot.

Parents have to have more an influence on their kids than the waz upers have. If they don't they fcuked up! And will most likely blame to school.

I'm a teacher in Thailand -- please don't throw shit at me, and the system sucks more than you ever believed. In classes of 50+ there are loads of losers, mostly boys, way over 50% of them. There are always a few good ones though, about two or three per class. I bet 100% of those parents would easily believe, in a natural way, their kid is one of the good ones. That's why I love Songkron so much, when Darwin does his thing.

Nawty

I would not say he is bright, well his english teacher said he was, but he can read and write and spell a hell of a lot more than I ever remember at that age and he loves it. He amazes me sometimes with what he says and writes. He just finished a half page write up on his trip to Singapore last week and what he did.

He goes to a Bi-Lingual school now that he finished Kinda, only reason he did not stay at the first school was because they do not do beyond k3. It was expensive in my books for what I considered 'playtime'. But then again look at him now and maybe it was a good grounding for him.

Current school is around 54k per year, whereas the other was 120k.

Next year hope to be moving and the only school in the area which is not Thai is 300k.

Camel Toe

There is another bad system, the kinder. Kinder in Thailand is what we call Day Care in Yankerland. And they stay there until they're six, usually. Why start a kid in grammar school at seven, he/she loses one year. I've had high school kids in their 20's.

CSFFan

While the whole "qualified" and "teacher" being used by Smeg to describe himself either hysterically funny or vomit inducing BS, I've got to agree Smeg has a point.

Bruce, how do you also educate your kids in interacting in a social environment with their peers? This is equally important in any childs development as learning static information.

bruceveld

First of all, to Camel S%#! for brains, drop the crap. No one cares what you think of me or TEFL courses or anything else for that matter. You want to PARTICIPATE in this discussion, cool. if not, get the f$^& lost. Your little dog and ppony show is tired and boring.

Smeg and CSFFFAN, the jury is still very much out as the the necessity of socialization pre year 6 (12 years old or so). Some very well respected voices say we are prematurely putting our children into an overly-structured environment with bullies, peer pressure and social classes far too early.

I believe in socialization and so during the times our kids are hme schooling I make sure they are able to go visit friends virtually every Saturday. They can also join private music/sports lessons during their spare time.

Camel Toe

This is not pparticipation? If you compare this:

to this:

dirtydog

You sound like a great parent

Camel Toe

I confessed, right?