Sadly at the village I was not able to observe a class in session or talk to a teacher. I tried, but there was too much going on with the micro hydro project to get time. But I was able to look at the classrooms and see some of their books that they used in class, as well as observe some of the children in their everyday life.
In the class I saw charts with the ABCs as well as the Thai alphabet. They only had three classrooms but that is hopefully enough for the students. They also had blackboards for teaching, and in the children's desks there were some text books, some with some English in them.
Some interesting things that I did observe that I found interesting, is what information the children have learned outside of the classroom, which got me thinking about the learning that takes place in and out of the classroom and the value of each. Near the village there was a river. One of the days I walked down to the river with two of the village boys. Along the way they showed me different plants that I could eat and how to eat them. Even at home in the northwest I do not know many of the plants well enough to know if they are edible. Once we got there, there were two rock near each other. One of the boys was on one and was making like he wanted to jump to the other. A few of us westerners that were nearby tried to stop him. We grew up constantly being told not to do things because they are dangerous and we could hurt ourselves, but these children are free for a lot of the day to run around and play by themselves. They do not have parents telling them what not to do. The boy didn't listen to us and jumped anyways. He was perfectly fine. He knew his body well enough to know that he could make the jump. That is one large difference I have noticed here in Thailand, the children have more freedom to move about their surroundings and know their body and limitations better.
Even though I didn't get the chance to observe a classroom or get to talk to a teacher, I still got to observe the children and learn from them.
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Hi Molly - Good questions about in-class and out-of-class learning. What has changed in American culture that many children do not have the kind of free play and roaming time you describe here? Besides the knowledge of local plants, what other out-of-class learning did you notice? What skills are being learned at school? What function do those skills have in the local community?
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