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370.28 รวมบทความทางการศึกษา
Journal of Permanet Secretary, Ministry of Education
ดร.พนม พงษ์ไพบูลย์
Episode twelve: getting an award in USA.
I had to go abroad once again, this time, to the United States of America. The trip started off on 8 October 2000 and I was back in Thailand at midnight on 16 October 2000. So, the journey lasted 9 days in total, of which two days and a half was spent on the plane: 30 hours for the trip to USA and another 30 hours for the return trip. It was indeed a very tiring flight.
There were two reasons for this trip to USA. One is that the university in the USA, Michigan State University (commonly known as "MSU"), where I used to study invited me to visit. The other reason is that they wanted me to witness their academic progress. They wanted to set up a meeting to discuss cooperation between the Thai Ministry of Education and MSU. I gained a lot of useful experience which I wanted to share with others, I therefore wrote a personal journal. I hope no one blames me for this.
I travelled from Bangkok to Los Angeles via Narita Airport, Japan with Thai Airways International. Thai Airways International flight attendants were extremely helpful. They even accompanied me to the shuttle bus for the US domestic flight. I was very grateful to everybody who provided me with such astonishingly superior service. Then, I was on the US domestic flight which I received a completely different service from that of Thai Airways International. Air hostesses of the US domestic flight were unfriendly and hardly smiled. I left Bangkok at 07.30 a.m. on Sunday 8 October 2000 and arrived at my destination at midnight of the same day (USAs time). Upon my arrival, I was welcomed by Dr. Chris Wheeler who came to pick me up at the airport. He brought me to stay in residence at the university conference center called "Kellog Center". Dr. Chris is a professor of the Faculty of Education. He likes Thailand and has made a lot of visits to Thailand for holidays as well as for his research which involves teaching development. His researches are based on the method of integrating community, teachers, and students to jointly help protect and preserve community forest. Such method is a modern teaching technique which keeps up with the age of education reform. The method works well.
I merely had a few hours sleep before Dr. Chris came to pick me up in the early morning. He took me to meet Dr. McPherson, the university rector. He knows a great deal about Thailand because he used to work at World Bank. He has worked as the University rector for five years. International cooperation programmes are his main interests. He claimed that MSU has the largest number of international programmes of any universities in the USA. He shows keen interest in working with Thai universities. The rector particularly admires MSU alumnis activities. This is the reason that I visited MSU. I had to because they would award me the Distinguished Alumni Award 2000. The award ceremony took place on Thursday night (12 October 2000).
After the meeting with University rector, Chris arranged many other meetings for me, for example, the meeting with the rector of the Faculty of Education. He has initiated several interesting new projects. I also had an opportunity to observe computer teaching at schools and meet a great number of education personnel in Michigan. We exchanged knowledge on various grounds, for example, teacher development and quality assurance. Chris even gave me a tour around campus to refresh my memories of MSU and enable me to compare it with what it was 30 years ago.
How has MSU changed (from the days that I studied which was during 1969-1974)? Having walked around campus, my first impression was that nothing had changed. The buildings were still red-bricked color as they used to be. Red Cedar River which has run through the campus is still there. Although the color of the river water increases its darkness- now it becomes almost red like its name. This might be because in fall, rotten leaves fall into the river thus discoloring the color of the river water.
The river reminds me of old times when I studied at MSU. I remember standing on the bridge, clinging to the bridges guard and watched the river flow. I set my mind free along with the water flow, hoping that the river would flow to Thailand, my home. When I saw the buildings, I could barely recognize them. Chris told me that some buildings have recently been built, some were renovated and taken great care of, they therefore stay in their best form.
From the exterior, nothing seems to have changed. But once I got inside the buildings, I realized that everything had changed. The library in the Education Faculty Building had been turned into a computer room. Students are allowed to use computers at any time. Classrooms were better equipped with teaching devices. Universitys main library keeps twice as many books as it did 30 years ago (roughly about five million books). Now, there is a book retrieval service, enabling us to find books without actually having to go there. It is made possible through the computer network. There was also a door-to-door service to offices. In other words, IT has had a great effect on changes in the service system, management system, and learning system. One obvious example was from the dean of the Education Faculty, Carol Aims, who told me the story of Prof. Cusic, a comprehensive examiner (I remember having met him when I did my Phd). She was responsible for installing the Internet system. But Prof. Cusic was very conservative. Every time he got mails via Internet, he insisted on replying them in a letter form. Until one day, Dr. Cusic gave her his feathered pen. He gave in to IT. From then on, he started using Internet. So everything then settled down. At present, Dr. Cusic works as head of the Education Administration section.
I went to observe KLICK Project. I presume that the name KLICK is derived from the act of clicking computer keyboards. KLICK represents a joint project between MSU and State Department of Education. At first, KLICK may look like a normal computer teaching. But, in fact, it is not. The philosophy behind the project is that after school, students have free time to do something enjoyable, interesting, and useful. He therefore initiated KLICK Project to encourage students to study and play with computers depending on their interest. Schools merely provide computers and their parts, train teachers to give necessary assistance to students. Children play with computers in many different ways. From what I saw, some children enjoyed dismantling computers into pieces and then assembling them again. Some learned how to surf the Net from scratch. Some learned to create moving pictures using digital photographing and then used computers to rearrange them. Some created different figures from clay, photographed them, and lined them up. With IT assistance, these clay figures could move and became alive, exactly like we can see in cartoons. Some played with robots. Children bought spare parts and pieced them together, and then programmed the robots memory section. As a result, robots could move and follow instructions. They became the childrens new toys. This certainly is a very interesting project. Many children enjoyed themselves and learnt computers at the same time. Perhaps we could try KLICK Project in Thailand. I was informed that the project did not cost a lot of money. Schools can use out-of-date computers, most of which were donated.
May I go back to the Distinguished Alumni Award story. The Alumni Association had sent letters to its alumni networks worldwide, asking them to nominate alumni who are remarkably successful, provide social services or make MSU famous. Many Thai people have graduated from MSU. We formed an alumni group which we called "CLUB" and take part in its activities on a regular basis. The president of the CLUB is selected every 1-2 year as convenient. I was once selected as president and I have always taken an active part in CLUB activities. We annually hold big ceremonies. MUS CLUB in Thailand has earned a good reputation for its activities. This year, CLUB nominated me as a distinguished alumni and I was accredited by MSU Education Faculty. After several processes, I was selected as one of the 8 distinguished alumni of the year 2000. I am the only foreigner among them. Dr. Peter McPherson also got the award. The award ceremony took place on 12 October 2000 and the reunion ceremony on 13 October 2000. MSU invited me to watch the American Football Match on 14 October 2000. Since most of the mentioned activities took place in the evening, I had time to visit places and people, both Thai and American, during the day.
Nowadays, the education system is one of Americas prime concerns. When I watch the presidential election campaigns on TV., Vice President Al Gore tried to win the votes by proclaiming his plan to reduce classroom size to accommodate fewer than 18 students per class. This means that 18 students per class is considered too big and substandard. This reminds me of the classrooms I had vistied in Australia. Every school has no more than 18 students per class. Unlike schools in Thailand, the more famous the schools, the bigger the classrooom size. Some classes may have as many as 50-60 students. I wonder why we do that. This might be due to different perspective we hold with regard to quality of education. The United States of America highly values students performance and ideas rather than memorization. As a result, US classrooms are small. By contrast, Thai students do not take part in many activities, so we can have a big classroom full of students. Moreover, Thai parents and teachers seem to favour this idea.
In the USA, another system which is undergoing drastic changes is budget allocation system to schools. When I look back 30 years ago, schools funding came mainly from local community. The local community collected taxes for education purposes, amounting to 60-70%. State funds provided some support, approximately 20-30% and little support came from federal funds. Now, things have changed. State funds have become a large proportion of school budget: 60-70%. The local community funding reduced to merely no more than 20%. In USA, the prevailing idea is not to allow any particular community to have too much control over education because different communities have varying degrees of readiness in education management. This is the reason that state has to be responsible for education so as to create equality. The idea is opposite from that held in Thailand. Orignially, education in Thailand was the states main responsibilities and local communities offered only scant assistance. According to National Education Act of 1999, it is stipulated that power must be decentralized to local communities. But mind you, over-decentralization may lead to the new problem of inequality which USA is facing.
When it comes to Quality Assurance (QA), USA has a different system from that of UK and Australia. In USA, each state is divided into counties which are equivalent to Thai districts (or amphoes). However, US education system is based on school districts which resemble education service areas (which we are planning to set up in Thailand). Both counties and schools districts are separate. However, USA has QA system which promotes the supervision of education quality at country level. QA mainly focuses on visiting schools and giving them advice instead of strictly assessing them (which is different from QA in Thailand). Unlike English input&process based assessment, Thai QA which we are planning to set up is achievement test-based. In UK, QA seems to be education supervision-cum-assessment rather than pure QA. Very interesting indeed!! Thailand has already had education supervision system which is an advantage. We are now in a stage of creating a new QA system. Providing that there are numerous independent organizations and the already exisiting system. Why dont we get the better of the existing system instead of inventing a whole new QA system. This might be an idea.
May I go back to the alumni award ceremony again. Talking about the alumni award, I was awarded distinguished alumni awards from every school I had attended, for instance, Wat Tung Samoe School, Wisuthi Rangsri School (Kanchanaburi Province), Rajabhat Institute Ban Somdej Chao Phraya campus, and Srinakharinwirot University. MSU was the only educational institute that I have not yet received distinguished alumni award (I studied MA and Phd there for five years). This year, I would be awarded the distinguished alumni award from MSU. So, this means that I got the distinguished alumni awards from all educational institutions I have studied. The ceremony seems to be very exciting.
I travelled with my wife. But when we arrived in Chicago, she separated and went to Pittsburg alone to visit our daughter who got a Thai government scholarship to study Phd in computing at Carnaegie Mellon University. I separated to go to Lansing alone. Later on Tuesday, my wife and my daughter joined me in MSU. On Thursday evening, a ceremony took place. I sat with Dean, Education Faculty Professor, Dr. Chris Wheeler. The ceremony started off with registration, photographing to program the pictures in the Internet, then dinner.
After the meal, the award ceremony began. Master of ceremony (MC) announced three types of awards: honourary alumni, alumni who provide great services, and distinguished alumni. He read out the awardeds names and they walked out on the stage. Then MC read reports of praise and the awards were presented. Before obtaining the award, I tried to calm myself down, avoiding getting too excited and looking clumsy. I asked Chris what I need to do. He said that I need to do nothing except giving a big smile. According to alphabetical order, my name came fourth among the awarded, after the rector. Once the name "McPherson" was called out, there was a big round of applause which came as no surprise to me because he is the rector after all. I got very nervous. The rector received his award and gave a very long speech. This gave me some time to calm myself down. Then it was my turn, I felt as if my heart leapt. I walked out on stage, listening to the praise report and got the award. Everybody who was awarded had to give speech, including me. My speech said, "I have travelled all the way to get the award and to visit my beloved university. I came dressed in green because I love green" (at this point, I showed them my green shirt under the jacket). Audiences gave me big hands, I continued "Not only am I dressed in green, but I also have green blood". Then I got a bigger round of applause than the first time.
I thanked everyone concerned as well as MSU CLUB in Thailand. I was told that I was applauded three times, more often than the rector was. Lots of people rushed in to shake hands and congratulate me. I think I had saved Thais and MSU CLUBs faces.
On Friday, there was a parade on the Reunion Day. On Saturday, I was invited to join the Reunion party and watch the American Football Match between MSU vs. Wisconsin. Approximately 70,000 spectators were there. The match was exciting but it was boiling hot and I was burned by the sun. After the first half, the score was 10-10. I went home to watch the rest of the game because I could not stand the heat and strong sunlight. Unfortunately, MSU lost 10-17. All of us were disappointed. I felt sorry. I should have watched to the end to the match.
I said goodbye to MSU on the dawn of Sunday 15 October 2000. If someone were to ask me what impressed me most in this trip, I would say that besides Dr. Chris Wheelers great help, I was impressed by all Thai students who accompanied me to various places and took me out for a meal. They all studied very hard and I believe that, very soon, they will come back to Thailand to help develop our beloved country. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Dr. Preecha, a saint of Thai students. Whenever Thai students fall ill, they will not go to university health center but will go to see Dr. Preecha instead. This is because no matter how severe their illness is, he has never charged them a cent. He even helps taking care of MSU lecturers. On the very last day of my visit to USA, Dr. Preecha gave a farewell party for me. There were about 30 Thai students joined the party. All of us had a very good time. I would like to thank Dr. Preecha once again. I promise myself that after he comes back to Thailand, I will definitely take him out for a nice meal.
แหล่งที่มา
พนม พงษ์ไพบูลย์. (2553). Journal of Permanet Secretary, Ministry of Education .
ค้นเมื่อ พฤศจิกายน 23, 2553, จาก
http://www.moe.go.th/web-panom/article-panom/book-panom12-e.htm
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