Good morning everyone ka!
Last week, with the kind cooperation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), we were able to organize a seminar, inviting school directors in our ETA (English Teaching Assistantship program) and the MFA network to learn about several US school instructional approaches and administration and leadership.
High on the list of the school directors who visited the US schools were critical thinking through problem-based learning, priorities on teaching over attention to receive guests, and importance of substance in learning over huge school name signs.
We were also fortunate to have Associate Professor Varakorn Samakoses with us, sharing his deep thoughts what the public expects from school leaders.
He stressed the need for leaders to handle important things themselves, admit the fact that errors can occur, and to be genuinely open to listen attentively with the least prejudice.
With the impacts made by globalization on all the sectors, leaders must be more aware of common issues in this interconnected digital world, like human rights and peace, effects of capitalism, and knowledge revolution.
On public expectations, he pointed out that Thai people
expect leaders to focus on students, providing education of quality. However, the facts remain that 73% of the funding is on education personnel salary and that teachers aren't facilitators in class to enhance active learning.
For directors to be leaders, they need to know how to assign others to achieve mission and ask 'Why?' more often. Effort must be made to nurture trust within the schools.
A few attributes he repeatedly pointed out were ethics, holding up ideals with integrity, and respect.
What he shared might be something familiar, but the session was rich in content and great examples for the participants to realize the links of our country to the outside world, public expectations and the real situations, and the challenges of each leader to learn, to develop their own selves as role models, and to look into the future.
Once in a while, school directors need to be reminded of their roles and responsibilities with some food for thoughts!
All with their open minds and hearts certainly left the seminar, feeling inspired and energized!
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