"From the moment students enter a school, the most important factor in their success is not the color of their skin or the income of their parents, it's the person standing at the front of the classroom... America's future depends on its teachers."
This is from my Facebook posted by ‘Teach for Thailand’ and immediately made me feel like emailing to our group !
Last week, I linked our Fulbright English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) , who have acquired direct experiences in ‘Teach for America’ program with a ‘Teach for Thailand’ key person for them to interact what should be planned, done, and assessed.
In just an hour listening to their sharing, I learned a lot. The objective to make quality education accessible to the poor is ambitious but so very valuable ka!
In the US, the program was founded by Wendy Kopp based on her 1989 Princeton University undergraduate thesis. It has developed much further to become, ‘Teach for All’, with a number of countries adopting this model to improve their respective education systems. Wendy Kopp has become one of the 50 influential women ranked by Fortune in its recent issue too.
Our American grantees pointed out that teachers would be held accountable if the kids failed. The teachers must take it as their challenges to make the kids learn, however difficult and complicated it could be. They said it was really tough to go through the two years of Teach for America, with many intensive sessions of training and assessment. But finally, they felt so rewarding.
As for Thailand, it’s still in the beginning phase with support from large companies, like PTT and SCG ka. Because it’s modeled after Teach for America, it focuses on leadership development with a series of training and academic support. At this stage, this Foundation has got funding from the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration for teachers under this program to teach in low-income area schools.
Definitely, there are so many challenges lying ahead for Thailand to make this program work. But I believe that it is a ‘can do’ one as there are strong partners, serious commitment, and sincere caring.
It was great to see younger ones….all are under 30 becoming so passionate about education and how they could potentially take part through these two programs. I now feel more hopeful about our education ka—Gen M’s desire to change the world is used in a very meaningful way and we do need their energy, enthusiasm, and efforts to help with our future generations ka.
Cheers!
Porntip
Tue 10/22/2013 8:03 AM
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