Learning and Knowledge
Management
In order to compensate for the unequal starting positions of disadvantaged children it is not enough to put them into a children’s home and to send them to a regular school. This project, which aims to provide first class education, purposely intends to re-invent school, a school in which modern learning and knowledge management can more easily unfold than would be possible within the limited boundaries of a regular standard school. The Thai Ministry of Education is interested in this development and hopes to set free stimuli for other schools in Thailand.
The intent of getting away from an orientation around school subjects and referencing the school curriculum more towards key problems and key situations does not mean giving up academic knowledge as useless. It means focusing knowledge from various subjects on real-life problems and applying the knowledge to solutions to the problems. A convenient place for this is a small Center of Excellence, a space where reflecting and acting can be combined, a laboratory for in-depth, practical studies. These blocks should reflect important local and regional themes.
Curriculum development within the project means examining the state curriculum used in Pongkum’s school for its use in such Centers of Excellence, and for how it could be put into a meaningful context. The state’s curriculum is not questioned, it is merely organized differently and expanded upon based on experience.
The following learning areas are currently planned:
Organic Farming
This laboratory will serve experimental research in
possibilities for organic farming. Studies on growing
agricultural products without using chemicals can be
conducted here. Useful and damaging insects in
agriculture can be a topic, or the process of
reintroducing threatened types of butterflies and
birds back into the area can be covered. The farm is
a learning-intensive setting that combines ecology
and economy – besides creating products, the
goal is also to sell the products, to find niches in
the marketplace in an environment dominated by
chemically-dependant agricultural businesses.
Culturally Sensitive Tourism
Career options for the youth include working in the
area of culture sensitive tourism. Children can learn
to blaze trails in the woods from early on:
herbal-remedy trails, wild fruit and vegetable
trails, insect trails, or colors of nature trails.
They get to know the woods as a supermarket from
which they can take many things they need for their
lives, and which must be managed in such a manner
that it lasts. The children and youth can take guests
on “soul trekking” tours. They get to
know their region, the villages, the markets, the hot
springs, the natural and cultural landscape, and let
the guests share in this.
Nutrition & Health
This learning area will include a restaurant on the
farm with youths as cooks and experts in northern
Thai specialties. Other people have had experience in
this: In the 1980’s, “Hapag
Kalinga” was founded in Manila, a restaurant
for the upper-middle class with dishes from different
regions in the Philippines. Street children ran
“Hapag Kalinga” and were assisted by
adults. School instruction included the things they
had to learn to buy good products at low prices at a
wholesale market, to cook very well, to provide
friendly service, to calculate, to advertise, and to
maintain the restaurant’s standards of quality.
The guests – from President Aquino to casual
customers – admired the children’s
professional work and their wild charm. In the bistro
in the School for Life, guests can not only look over
the young cooks’ shoulders, they can also
contribute their own recipes from their far-off home
lands.
Body & Soul
Supporting psychosocial and physical development is
considered an integrated process. Curricular elements
pertaining to health and sport didactic combine with
psychological-therapeutic elements. A spa as a
learning area can combine Thai-Buddhist traditions
with modern knowledge about body treatment. A
children’s circus as a learning area can
combine the enjoyment of acrobatics with
entrepreneurship.
Cultural & Development
Northern Thailand’s dance and music can be
sustained, and artistic craftwork trained. At the
same time, new things can arise through intercultural
encounters. Workshops with native artists and
international guests that include children and youth
encourage them to make their own products, as well.
Anything from an inter-ethnic jam session with bamboo
saxophonists and folk musicians to developing ethnic
fashion for children: Approaches can already be found
that show the way.
Many children are deeply rooted in Buddhism. At the same time, they encounter values that also are part of other religions: Respect for life, providing for the needy, the worth of a human, loving nature.
Many children are deeply rooted in Buddhism. At the same time, they encounter values that also are part of other religions: Respect for life, providing for the needy, the worth of a human, loving nature.
International Communication
The children grow up bilingually and learn the Thai
and the English languages. Adults will communicate in
either Thai or English, according to immersion
methods. The school teachers also profit from English
on the farm: They want to learn English themselves to
teach it.
Communication also occurs via the internet. Interactive software makes the children familiar with the computer. They learn to write correspondence over e-mail and to find access to knowledge. They may establish a campus radio station and an Internet radio.
The United Nations has developed a curriculum called “Global Concerns and the United Nations” that demonstrates the relationship between “global and local concerns” in a plausible way and creates local opportunities for action. This curriculum can be part of an international and intercultural education that helps children determine their position in the world, and at the same time, understand that we all live in the same world.
Communication also occurs via the internet. Interactive software makes the children familiar with the computer. They learn to write correspondence over e-mail and to find access to knowledge. They may establish a campus radio station and an Internet radio.
The United Nations has developed a curriculum called “Global Concerns and the United Nations” that demonstrates the relationship between “global and local concerns” in a plausible way and creates local opportunities for action. This curriculum can be part of an international and intercultural education that helps children determine their position in the world, and at the same time, understand that we all live in the same world.
Technology and Ecology
Both the standards and resource consumption of
industrialized countries are far too high: the age of
modesty is called for now. The fresh wind of the
world market will do the job. But the developing
countries also cannot afford to simply go along with
the misuse and wasteful destruction of our
planet’s resources.
It is necessary to discover the quality of “intelligent modesty”. The days of uncontrolled wastefulness of our natural resources are counted. High-quality, simple, mature, durable products are needed. What is wanted is the maximum quality for the pair of pants, the washing machine, the light bulb, the television set.
The Center for Technology and Ecology subscribes to the thesis that technology and ecology can be effectively combined. The Center concerns itself with ideas and first steps, considers small-scale examples, attempts to provide students with possibilities regarding the direction in which thought and action can take. The Center does not want to be Silicon Valley, but perhaps a kind of playground, in which occasional surprising designs and ideas might emerge. Competitions similar to the German program "Jugend forscht" (Youth Does Research) - illustrate that young people are capable of astonishingly original and marketable technological solutions of ecological problems when one takes them seriously as researchers and challenges them accordingly.
It is necessary to discover the quality of “intelligent modesty”. The days of uncontrolled wastefulness of our natural resources are counted. High-quality, simple, mature, durable products are needed. What is wanted is the maximum quality for the pair of pants, the washing machine, the light bulb, the television set.
The Center for Technology and Ecology subscribes to the thesis that technology and ecology can be effectively combined. The Center concerns itself with ideas and first steps, considers small-scale examples, attempts to provide students with possibilities regarding the direction in which thought and action can take. The Center does not want to be Silicon Valley, but perhaps a kind of playground, in which occasional surprising designs and ideas might emerge. Competitions similar to the German program "Jugend forscht" (Youth Does Research) - illustrate that young people are capable of astonishingly original and marketable technological solutions of ecological problems when one takes them seriously as researchers and challenges them accordingly.
Think Tank
The school will organize from time to time a Think
Tank, a place for the development of unusual
approaches and ideas, a place for nurturing sudden
impulses and contemplating their possibilities, a
place for inventive dialog between scientists,
artists, entrepreneurs, and maverick thinkers.
Internationally known personalities, leaders in their
fields, will be invited here to forge ideas together.
The discourse serves to transmit and analyze key
regional and global questions and invent future
solutions. The process frees ideas for the work at
the school as well as for special projects in the
surrounding community.
Master-Student-Workshops
Experts will be invited to give Master Courses to
particularly gifted and motivated students, working
together with the Centers of Excellence. This could
involve, for instance, the composition of music for a
CD, or working up ethical standards for genetic
technology, meditation or philosophical studies,
insights into the research of biospheres, drawing up
architectural drafts for building with bamboo or
handling problems in processing pineapple stalks to
textile products. The experts can suggest a topic to
which they themselves are eager to devote their
attention, and which incites student interest,
challenging them without overtaxing their
capabilities, and which can correspond in some way to
the curricula of the Centers of Excellence or at
least create a productive dialectic with them.
Basics
Due to various educational backgrounds, languages,
scholastic or non-scholastic experiences, and ethical
roots of the children, basic tools that are essential
to the language and content communication are being
taught. Electives include Organic Farming, Thai and
modern Dance, Thai and Lanna Music, Art and Art
Craftsmanship, and Hotel and Restaurant Management.
In addition, several other courses are offered. A
representative of the German Red Cross, for instance,
held two first-aid courses. The ‘Basics’
are usually taught daily from 9 am to 4 pm. After
that, as well as on the weekend and during holidays,
there is time for projects and Master Student
Workshops. The teachers make sure that the children
have enough time for ‘peer grouping’ and
play.