Let's not forget the youngest students

We should all bear in mind that early education is the most critical period. But whenever there is talk about reform, we almost always overlook opportunities to improve learning at the earliest level.

True to form, the Education Ministry aims to reform the system from the primary level upward. But what about the three to four years before that when kids are in kindergarten? What is happening to them at the most critical period of their education?

Perhaps the Education Ministry should try to look for an answer.

A number of pilot primary schools are trying a new path, having children study less and participate in more activities. New Education Minister Adisai Bodharamik supports the plan. It's a new idea for Thailand, but not in several other countries. In the United States, for example, schools in some states have students doing class work for half a day on Monday because the educators believe that after the weekend, they can't concentrate on learning for the whole day.

Adisai's plan to have students participate in more activities such as sports and the arts is a bold move. It means that our kids will have good opportunities to develop the right side of their brains while enjoying activities that will strengthen their personalities and development.

The present curriculum, largely unchanged for generations, emphasises exercising the left side of the brain, where analysis, reasoning and calculating occur. The present curriculum allocates only one or two hours a week for the arts and music, which helps kids develop the right hemisphere.

Recent findings show that the improvement of the right hemisphere, where creative thinking and coordinated movement develop, is actually vital for the left hemisphere's development too.

Youngsters can be good in maths as well as music and arts. When a kid draws something, he or she is actually using both sides of the brain, because drawing requires skill in memory, coordinated movement, proportions, counting elements, imagination and more.

Much as the reforms on the primary level and above will help, it remains true that our kindergartens still do an injustice to our children by forcing them to sit quietly and listen attentively to their teachers' lectures, with little reprieve. Teachers should be letting kindergarteners spend more time drawing pictures or doing other activities that improve their manual skills.

Adisai must also turn his attention to these youngsters. Kids who succeed at the kindergarten level by parroting their teachers may already have their creativity and talent buried. For some reason, the majority of kindergartens aim to teach kids to read and write rather than to prepare them for primary education.

A senior education official recently expressed her shock at a growing number of Prathom One (Grade One) and Prathom Two (Grade Two) students who cannot read. Well, that is actually alright. Kids' reading skills don't need to be rushed. In time, they'll learn to read or catch up with others. But youngsters do need to have an enriched environment to develop their technical skills and imagination. Jigsaws and puzzles are good activities.

Some kindergartens advertise shamelessly that they can guarantee their students will pass exams to enter exclusive primary schools. Thailand is one of the few countries in the world where kindergarten kids are studying for long hours to prepare for an entrance exam into primary schools.

Most parents are equally to blame. They encourage schools to bombard their kids with lessons. In some cases, they encourage teachers to cane their kids if they aren't properly obedient, perhaps because they already have a hard time taking care of the kids at home. The faster their child learns to read and write, the happier some parents are. But what they're really doing is saddling their children with stress and anxieties.

In many developed countries, students are not allowed to read or write at all until their hand muscles are mature. Instead of writing, youngsters play with blocks and other educational toys. Once their hands can function well, they can pick up writing easily. Meanwhile, blocks and puzzles help the kids learn the foundation of maths, shapes and counting.

In the worst cases, a few schools (which ironically have reputations for excellence) hide the fact that they push kindergarteners far harder than is beneficial. They know their methods aren't proper, so they have the kids keep their many books at home whenever an inspector from the Education Ministry is due to visit.

Talk about teaching kids to be honest!

There are schools that have music rooms and computer rooms to impress the parents but the kids hardly touch them. They are for display only. If the minister were to conduct a survey of kindergartens, he would be stunned by the amount of children being forced to learn at levels far beyond their ages.

Most international schools have half-day classes for young kids but Thai schools have lengthy hours starting from 8 or 9am to 2 to 3pm. Worse, classroom sizes are so large that individual students hardly have any interaction with teachers. Class sizes in government schools and leading private schools are as large as 40-plus kids per class to just one teacher.

Western standards dictate classes be as small as 20 or fewer with a teacher-to-student ratio of between 1:5 to 1:10. In Thailand, parents would be lucky indeed to find such a small class for their child. Smaller classes mean more chances for activities and greater opportunities for kids to ask questions and receive appropriate attention from the teacher.

With the present format of kindergarten education, we will not only lose the gifted kids (how can a teacher see talent amongst so many students?) and the chance to foster that talent, but also the opportunity to create new talents.

So here's how we stand: We have youngsters who are taught to listen and follow without thinking critically, and with no time to exercise their creativity, who will suddenly enter primary schools that have fewer classes and more activities. They will certainly be pleased to escape the repressive kindergarten environment, but they'll still be at a disadvantage in terms of developing the right side of their brains.

Some kids will recover and thrive, but for some unlucky kids, it will be too little, too late.

Published on Dec 6, 2003