What exactly is Thai Studies?

Students at Nist take part in a traditional vegetable-carving contest.

Thais are rightly proud of their rich culture and intriguing heritage. So when the government finally agreed to let Thai nationals attend international schools in 1992, it did so on condition that they continue to take Thai language and that all students, irrespective of nationality, receive Thai Studies. This was a move designed to ensure young Thais receiving a Western education didn't neglect their native tongue and continued to develop an awareness of their roots.

The government wanted more Thais to get a quality English language education and it made sense to let them get it in Thailand rather than - as was increasingly happening with wealthier families - having students go overseas. The result was an exponential growth in the international school sector.

So what exactly is Thai Studies? No standard textbooks or resource-packs exist and ministerial guidelines are not easy to access. Even though Thai Studies is a statutory aspect of every international school's curriculum, it is taught in a multitude of ways, and quality and commitment can vary dramatically.

All students are entitled to at least one hour of Thai Studies per week. Loose monitoring, however, means that some international schools don't teach the subject at all, while others pay mere lip service to the requirements by holding occasional assemblies with cultural themes and observing Buddhist festivals. Most international schools, however, work hard and allocate generous resources to ensure this important area of the curriculum is delivered meaningfully.

A spirit of enquiry

Peter Anthony is head of social sciences at Ruamadree International School (RIS) in Bangkok, where Thai Studies is scheduled as a component part of the social sciences curriculum. "At RIS we teach Thai Studies in an academically rigorous way," says Anthony. "We have two main objectives: first, to provide Thai students with a deeper grasp of their historical tradition; and second, to make non-Thais more aware of and sensitive to the host culture."

"A major problem has been the lack of teaching resources in English. The only available texts have tended to be at university level or travel books like the Lonely Planet. To remedy this," Anthony says, "the Thai Studies team at RIS has begun collaborating with teachers from other schools to produce a textbook for the subject."

Thai Studies forms part of RIS's Year 10 Asian Studies course, in which students learn about the great events that have shaped modern Thailand, and its evolution into a constitutional monarchy and modern democracy.

"Ideally we'd like to broaden that to take in a whole range of different disciplines, like Thai literature, law and economics," says Anthony. "We aim to instil a spirit of enquiry in our students."

The culture of survival

If Thai Studies at Ruamadree International School is overtly academic and historical in character, at the New International School of Thailand (Nist) the subject is taught with a cultural emphasis. Philip Branston, who has been teaching Thai Studies to primary students for nearly four years, believes one of its most valuable effects is sensitising expatriate students to local culture, and promoting respect for traditional Thai values.

"The subject has a unifying influence amongst the students and gives them something extra in common," he says.

Nist follows the International Baccalaureate Organisation's Primary Years Programme, which, according to Branston, provides an ideal vehicle for the delivery of Thai Studies. One unit, called 'Survivor,' explores the complex ethnic patchwork of modern Thailand.

"We get the students active," Branston explains, "playing traditional Karen games, learning hill tribe songs, collecting and even copying tribal artefacts. This enables them to identify with other minorities and sub-cultures. We place a great deal of emphasis on speaking and listening activities. Students work in small groups and pairs, planning projects collaboratively and presenting their work to others in imaginative ways."

Branston is not sure about the immediate need for a standardised coursebook, and is wary of Thai Studies falling prey to the constraints that a prescriptive syllabus would impose.

"One of the biggest virtues of Thai Studies, as it stands, is its flexibility," he says.

Understanding and cooperation

Chaweewan Vosko teaches Thai Studies to Nist students on the IBO's Middle Years Programme. The MYP is based on Areas of Interaction, and Chaweewan capitalises on these to give her cultural approach to Thai Studies a coherent structure. Two areas in particular, Homo Faber ("man the maker") and Community Service, allow her to integrate work on Buddhism, traditional vegetable carving and Thai cookery with the requirements of the MYP.

Chaweewan would welcome the presence of some kind of course text, "as long as it complements rather than restricts the broad approach schools are currently permitted to take. At the moment we devise one topic for each year group and integrate it with one of the MYP's Areas of Interaction. What we really need is more quality teaching materials," she says.

A concentrated model

RIS and Nist are just two Bangkok international schools that, while using very different models, are making a success of Thai Studies.

Further north, in Chiang Mai, the Prem Centre has developed another approach that is arguably as successful. There, the emphasis is less on history or geography and more on outdoor pursuits. Rather than merely studying Thailand's heritage and customs, pupils are involved directly with the community.

Robert Service, MYP Coordinator at Prem, explains that the school meets the national requirement of doing one hour per week of Thai Studies by teaching it in one big chunk. They concentrate all those weekly hours of Thai Studies into an intensive fortnight.

"In the middle school we view our camp weeks as the main Thai Studies experiences for our students," says Service. "They actually go out and experience Thailand. All our grades 6 to 10 students go off on different camps in February.

"The experiences range from a trip on the Magic Eyes Barge to trekking in the north and snorkeling in the south. Wherever possible, we try to include a community service aspect so we are not only learning about our host country but also giving something back to it."

Popular with students

So, we come back to the question of what exactly Thai Studies is. Let's just say it's a portmanteau subject that has huge scope for interpretation. It can be embedded into another course or it can be the only subject in the curriculum for that week. It can be straightforward cultural studies or it can be multi-disciplinary in nature. Whatever form it takes, it is clearly popular with students.

Lukas Nagel is a year-ten German student at Nist who is clearly enthusiastic about Thai Studies: "It's been one of the main ways I've learned anything about Thai culture. It's where Thai kids and foreigners interact and learn from each other," says Lukas. "For example, we did a survey at the Thai market and I learned an amazing amount in just a few hours from doing it with my Thai mates. I know it's an important subject, but I don't think of it like that. It doesn't feel like work. We're talking and planning in groups most of the time. You enjoy yourself and the time just flies."

Tanya Dentham, Yanisa Srifuengfung and Jarupa Tachasiringugune are Thai students in year eleven at Nist. They agree with Lukas that Thai Studies brings Thai and non-Thai students into meaningful contact. "It brings us together and we cooperate to produce a shared understanding of Thai customs and history," says Yanisa.

"We know so much more [about Thai culture and history] than them to start with," adds Jarupa. "So sometimes we get to be the teacher and that feels good."

"We Thais also learn a lot," says Tanya. "Thai Studies teaches us a lot about how the majority of ordinary Thais who are less fortunate than us live and survive. That's important."

The future

The three schools mentioned in this article all place as much importance on the way they teach Thai Studies as on the way they deliver the rest of the curriculum. The education ministry has left it up to schools to decide how they fit Thai Studies into their existing models and most do so with conscientiousness and creativity.

The Thai Studies textbook proposal has reached group consultation stage and is an interesting development for teachers of the subject. Frequently, the main value of such discussion groups is the way they bring colleagues together in worthwhile collaborative networks to explore ideas. These links between schools are vital to the development of Thai Studies as a discrete subject with its own specific academic objectives.

"We're always telling kids to work as teams, says Peter Anthony. "The future of Thai Studies is in the hands of the people teaching it. That's why we're obliged to put our heads together."