You may have heard or read about a recent Facebook post by the aunt of a first grader, who complained that the child's teacher marked the answer to a homework math question as wrong when it ought to be right.
In case you missed the story, the math question in dispute goes like this: Joy picks 12 mangoes. Jo picks 8 more mangoes than Joy. How many mangoes does Jo pick?
If you answer 20, you are wrong. According to the teacher, the answer is 4.
The post went viral, and a lot of social media users jumped into the fray, trashing the teacher. She later admitted that she made a mistake.
But an important aspect that most people seemed to have missed is that the child got her answer correct because her aunt was there to help her with homework. Could the child have done it herself? Maybe or maybe not. In my opinion, probably not.
The question -- though to us a simple one -- involves working with a concept and an operation of numbers. But first, the child must be able to read as well as comprehend the question itself. On top of that, she was instructed to turn the words into an equation.
The whole sequence of operations, it seems to me, is too abstract a concept for most first graders, thus the need for assistance from adults.
Many parents, who for whatever reason cannot help their children with homework, turn to tutors or tutoring schools. The children simply cannot by themselves satisfy the schools' expectations of them.
In an attempt to prepare their children for future competition in the world at large, parents struggle to have their little ones enrolled in schools with a reputation for academic excellence.
There, the children are drilled in core subjects to ensure they will to pass entrance exams from kindergarten to first grade, then to high school and then to college.
Years ago, my wife and I enrolled our eldest daughter in a nursery school near home that came highly recommended. It was somewhat pricey, but we thought it beat having to take her a long distance through heavy traffic every morning to another school.
Early on we hung around the school just to see how our daughter took to her new environment.
What we witnessed was distressing. Children generally sat on the floor while the teacher stood in front of a whiteboard and gave them lessons.
One time we peeped into the classroom and saw the teacher drew a picture of an apple, apparently to impress upon the young ones what an apple was. That was the last straw for us.
How difficult could it be to show a real apple and let the children feel its texture, smell its aroma, see its colour, and even take a bite?
Sitting in front of a whiteboard and learn by rote was not our idea of how we wanted our daughter educated.
She should be out in the playground getting dirty or, if inside a room, doing something with her hands.
We hurriedly took her out of this school and put her into another further away but with the kind of learning more closely attuned to our views.
After nursery, her mum found a new Thai school offering Waldorf-style education. This is where she began her kindergarten.
The school did not require students to wear a uniform. The children either played outside on the grounds or were engaged in various activities -- art, craft, games, etc -- inside classrooms. Indeed, every activity had some educational purpose.
This educational model is probably not for everyone because academic excellence in its usual sense was not emphasised.
I find that parents generally agree that young children should spend more time playing than burying their heads in textbooks. But most of them feel it is their duty to give their children the best education academically they can afford even if it means putting them through a gruelling life from early on and depriving them of a proper childhood.
Consequently, everyone suffers. The parents get exhausted shuttling their kids between home, school, work and tutoring school. The children, on the other hand, are stressed out with school work while having to bear the burden of their parents' expectations.
Clearly, there's something wrong with the Thai education system.
Every child development and early childhood education expert worth their salt has warned that our education system has been heading in the wrong direction.
Saisuree Chutikul, a well-known educator and advocate for children's and women's rights, sees it as a crisis that will have a wide impact on the country's future.
"Thai children nowadays are thrust into an education that emphasises IQ development but does not provide opportunities to explore and be active. They lack critical thinking and life skills, discipline and self-restraint," she said.
Everyone knows we have a serious problem -- the experts, parents, even education officials. Yet, the country is in such disarray, socially and politically, that no one in the authorities has the time or inclination to try to fix it properly.
Every Children's Day, we hear people say ad nauseam that children are the country's future. With the current state of education, I can't help but wonder what kind of future is awaiting our children.
Wasant Techawongtham is former news editor, Bangkok Post.
