(Some) Thais v maths...

[Arcadian]

All back to the level of education Thai's are unfortunate to recieve if they attend anything other than an International School unfortunately.

This goes back to my gripes which peed quite a few off on here. I suggested how daft it was to consider putting your kid in anything other than an International School (or close to), and that we ,as parents, hold a responsibility to ensure our kids are brought up with just as good an education as we would have recieved back home (in some places).

You see shop owners getting their calculator out to deduct a bottle of Chang off of 100 baht and then after you telling them how much you are to recieve in change they applaud your intelligence.

The level of Mathmatics in the International Schools here IMO is far superior than that of English schools compared with Grade to Grade.

Hi E-Dork, following on from your complaint about someone`s standard of written English, I spotted the deliberate mistakes in your post.

[E-Dork]

Hi E-Dork, following on from your complaint about someone`s standard of written English, I spotted the deliberate mistakes in your post.

I was commenting on the fact that there wasn't a single bit of punctuation in an entire paragraph! Not small mistakes which happen when typing

[charlesh]

If you had put a $ sign in front of the numbers she would have got it correct without need for checking.
As for a PhD from the UK - probably in a non science artsy fartsy subject with a thesis on an iteration that has been done to death and probably largely plagiarized.

[Takiap]

Good education is lacking, and not only with math and language. You'd be surprised for example, just how many youngsters and adults don't even know that our sun is not the only sun out there. Just one example. The other day I was told by a few Thais that the waves which devastated would reach here at around 05h00. Surely if they have ever seen a map they would know that a Japanese quake cannot send waves into the gulf of Thailand. I've also had a Thai teacher ask me if Libya is in Europe

I must say though, I have never seen world maps displayed in classrooms, and I seriously doubt they do geography in schools here.

Ah well.....................

[E-Dork]

I must say though, I have never seen world maps displayed in classrooms, and I seriously doubt they do geography in schools here.

Again, we must not use simply the word 'schools' when talking about the poor education here but rather.... 'Thai' Schools.

An International School meets all the requirements a parent desires here... plus the kids actually respect the teacher unlike the schools in England. Students are well educated about the world in Geography lessons, a far cry from Thai schools where anything outside of Thailand is regarded as 'not our concern so of no importance to teach about'.

[margaretcarnes]

Following on from Lindosfan and BB`s comments, does anyone else have an aversion to textspeak in e-mails? No wonder standards of English and general communication are slipping when kids today don`t use proper English when writing or speaking for that matter, yeah? Knowhaimean? Innit.

I have an aversion to text speak even in texts! Why do people do it? Can't they use pre-emptive text? Ah - I forget - they can't spell in the first place.
The problem of course is that text speak is being carried over into other forms of written communication.
Personally I don't have a problem with writing proper wiv a pen either because not all of my friends are on e mail - and I still need to keep paper file notes at work. As for using calculators in exams - we didn't even have sliderules to use in the 60's O levels. Log tables I think.. that was all.

Strange thing was it didn't feel like too much of a chore to have to show written maths calculations on maths papers - they were done in the margins remember? And were used in part to demonstrate understanding of the questions. In other words answers couldn't simply be guessed.
Using calculators doesn't require an understanding of the methods used in reaching an answer - and that's the big problem now.