Following a post-seminar project for 16 high school teachers, we work with RIHED to come up with a so-called ‘Encyclopedia of ASEAN-1st Phase’ and just had a focus group yesterday.
It was so enjoyable ka. I was really impressed that Ajarn Somkiat Onwimon agrees to write about political-security pillar of ASEAN, not because of his name but because his first proposed issues are so interesting.
For this document, we aren’t looking for facts ka….anything that could help American teachers to know and identify key issues about ASEAN to the point that their students will be able to discuss after doing some more research on the topics of their interest checking the websites we’ll have provided ka.
We ask our writers to answer questions in 3 sections ka:
Our first section is looking for ’10 things about ASEAN the public probably don’t know’. Ajarn Somkiat highlighted ASEAN’s geographical base of grouping together, ASEAN centrality on the driver’s seat to prevent any major power domination, non-interference (which westerners could feel so frustrated!), democracy (slow progress the ASEAN way), etc.
The second section is ‘Constructive partnership between ASEAN and the US’. He selected ASEAN’s role with dialogue partners, including both the + and – of countries involved, EAS, APEC, ARF, etc.
The last part is ‘Between two sides of the world’ and Ajarn Somkiat has chosen to discuss comparative historical perspectives, local governments, human rights, etc.
The economic and socio-cultural pillars will also follow similar patterns. Several ajarns from Thammasat, Chula, and Dhurakijpundit as well as a representative from the ministry of foreign affairs and from media gave really good suggestions to include issues on role of mass media in politics like election, rice, narcotics, world heritage under these two pillars ka. I’m so happy to hear that a few said they now are looking forward to reading this booklet ka!
We hope that this document will not only be used by American kids but also by our Thai schools, which are required to be more alert, yet, seem to focus on hard facts that after all, don’t do much to the ASEAN development and our own readiness preparations by 2015 ka.
More highlights on critical issues and critical thinking ka!
Regards,
Porntip
Thu 9/8/2011 9:17 AM
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