Here Is Yet Another Sad Example of a Failed Education System
Here is yet another sad example of the failed education system in Thailand.
The students kept this secret under wraps until the day was upon them and then with flourish and a fanfare they arrived to gasps and groans from within the crowd. Leading the march into the sports ground was Adolf Hitler replete with toothbrush moustache followed seconds later by his squad of rather effiminate SS guards with (toy or real) machine guns. Foreign parents and teachers reeled under the shock of the sheer bad taste of the exhibition and once again Thailand’s education system took a knock. Didn’t the students still know what the Swastika and Nazis represent? The answer is they clearly did not. Not even some of the Thai teachers.
As a result, a delegation from the consulates of Britain, the United States, France, and Germany today (Monday) went to the school to protest. They left after the school authorites said they had been kept in the dark over the students' plan and insisted that no offence was intended.
A foreign English language teacher at the Sacred Heart Catholic School in Chiang Mai said: “It was all very embarrassing. Traditionally the students wear fancy dress on the summer sports day and they like to keep everything they are preparing quiet. Nobody saw any swastikas around the school before the event.
It’s not the first time this has happened in Thailand. In 2007 a director of Thewphaingarm School in Bangkok, Kanya Khemanan, was forced to apologise to the Los Angeles based Simon Wiesenthal Centre after a similar incident in which 200 students dressed up as Nazis for the Summer Sports day, and strutted around Seig Heiling.
Please tell me that the school's director (Sr. Darunee Sripramong, Director of Sacred Heart School) message
was sincere.
"We, the entire Sacred Heart School personal are deeply saddened by this incident which has caused much undesirable inconvenience".
If you have ever been to Thailand and especially to Chiang Mai, then you would probably have some knowledge of the many beautiful flowers that the Chiang Mai Flower Festival has every February and can also be seen throughout most of the year. Here at this festival you will see many flowers of different colors, shapes and sizes. They even smell so nice and fresh.
But colors can mean something totally different at Sacred Heart College in Chiang Mai, Thailand.
"The Director, teachers and staff has organized a sports day activity and it has been divided into groups of 7 different colors and amongst its various colors, there was the “Red” color group which was dressed up imitating some Nazi symbols. The purpose and motivation was to provide a sense of participation in much closer knowledge of being together for this particular “Red” color group. In fact, the main reason and desire behind of imitating some of these symbols was not to create any differences of damaging each individual image and identity".
Are those flowers or weapons that these female
students are carrying???
Are these students trying to represent university
students or jail inmates???
This is what the director calls (participation in much closer knowledge of being together).
Please tell me this is a good and practical way to get students to participate much closer together.
This is all of my professional and honest opinion and I will not accept Director Sr. Darunee Sripramong
apology for allowing so many parents, teachers and asst. directors etc. to be so irresponsible in
their duties to educate these students in creative, cultural and social ways. Furthermore, I call on the director to order an investigation as to who authorized these (toy or real weapons) to come into the school. Lastly I would like to see the director do the right thing after the investigation, and punish any and all parents and teachers (adults) who had prior knowledge of this. The director should then resign from the school for failing to uphold Thai traditional educational standards. The students kept this secret under wraps until the day was upon them and then with flourish and a fanfare they arrived to gasps and groans from within the crowd. Leading the march into the sports ground was Adolf Hitler replete with toothbrush moustache followed seconds later by his squad of rather effiminate SS guards with (toy or real) machine guns. Foreign parents and teachers reeled under the shock of the sheer bad taste of the exhibition and once again Thailand’s education system took a knock. Didn’t the students still know what the Swastika and Nazis represent? The answer is they clearly did not. Not even some of the Thai teachers.
As a result, a delegation from the consulates of Britain, the United States, France, and Germany today (Monday) went to the school to protest. They left after the school authorites said they had been kept in the dark over the students' plan and insisted that no offence was intended.
A foreign English language teacher at the Sacred Heart Catholic School in Chiang Mai said: “It was all very embarrassing. Traditionally the students wear fancy dress on the summer sports day and they like to keep everything they are preparing quiet. Nobody saw any swastikas around the school before the event.
It’s not the first time this has happened in Thailand. In 2007 a director of Thewphaingarm School in Bangkok, Kanya Khemanan, was forced to apologise to the Los Angeles based Simon Wiesenthal Centre after a similar incident in which 200 students dressed up as Nazis for the Summer Sports day, and strutted around Seig Heiling.
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