Monday, January 21, 2013

Teaching Responsibility.

  At Wat Klang School the students are divided into work teams.  Each team is assigned a responsibility for a week; dusting, sweeping, picking up trash, mopping, doing dishes, etc. The teachers told me it is to teach the students responsibility. Watching 5 years old children mop is cute but they aren't very effective.  There is also a school custodian who is around all day.
   One custom that's hard for me to practice is throwing trash on the floor.  If  I leave it on the table it will remain forever.  There are no wastebaskets so I throw it on the floor and the next day it is gone.
  The school is small, perhaps 140 students in 9 classes from age 3, through grade 6.  These small classes are a great aid to teaching.  There are quite a few absent each day.  There is no compulsion for parents to get their children to school.  The entire atmosphere is lackadaisical.  While a teacher is talking during opening exercises no one seems to listen and the other teachers visit noisily with each other in the back...even when the principal is speaking.
   Ayutthaya was very smokey this morning.  There's always a lot of garbage burning, heavy industry and fires here and there.  That cool wind from China would have helped.
Noon and Mata cleaning. (5th grade)



 
 


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