Friday, March 25, 2016
Opportunities and Challenges of Thailand in Asean and the World
Opportunities and Challenges of Thailand in Asean and the World
Wednesday, March 23, 2016
Brown 's First Two Laws
The First Law :
"For every action on a complex, interactive, dynamic system, there are unintended and unexpected consequences. In general, the unintended consequences are recognized later than those that are intended."
The Second Law :
"Any system in a state of positive feedback will destroy itself unless a limit is placed on the flow of energy through that system."
DUNCAN BROWN
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
"ประธานาธิบดี" ในภาษาเมียนมา
คำว่า "ประธานาธิบดี" ในภาษาเมียนมา (ตัมมะตะ) นั้น มีที่มาน่าสนใจไม่น้อยครับ
มีรากศัพท์มาจากภาษาบาลี ว่า สัมมา แปลว่า ถูกต้อง ดีงาม คือผู้ที่เต็มเปี่ยมไปด้วยความถูกต้องดีงาม
ดังที่ทราบกันดีว่า ส เสือ ในภาษาเมียนมา ออกเสียงเป็น ต เต่า ในภาษาไทย ตัมมะตะ ก็คือ สัมมาตะ นั่นเอง
คำว่า สัมมา นี้ยังปรากฎในคำว่า ตัมมะจาน ที่แปลว่า พระคัมภีร์ไบเบิล อีกด้วย มาจากคำบาลีสองคำ คือ สัมมา + จาน อ่านว่า ตัมมะจาน จานแปลว่า หนังสือ หรือ ถ้อยคำ
ตัมมะจาน จึง แปลว่า หนังสือที่บรรจุไปด้วยความถูกต้องดีงาม อันหมายถึง พระคัมภีร์ไบเบิล นั่นเอง
Monday, March 7, 2016
Thai and Khmer: Two of the Same Language
Thai and Khmer: Two of the Same Language
Janpha Thadphoothon
Language is part of culture.
Myanmar and Thai: Two of the Same Language
Myanmar and Thai: Two of the Same Language
Janpha Thadphoothon
National Identity amidst Regional Integration and Globalization
"National Identity amidst Regional Integration and Globalization"
Janpha Thadphoothon
Thailand, like many others, is facing new and pressing challenges, due largely to external factors. It's harder and more complicated to 'maintain' and cultivate Thai national identities in Thai youths and younger generations.
What's more is the advent of new communication technologies, like social media platforms, making the cultivation of one's national identity highly challenging and complicated. Nowadays, youths do not seem to be as obedient as their parents' they are more rebellious and seem to refuse the power that be or the establishment.
This makes the creation of 'national myth' a hiccup.
Myths have been created to sustain national harmony and common values have been installed to make on'e's identity relevant and meaningful. In the past, such national identity cultivation was more linear and straightforward.
Under the current context, how can we cultivate our national identity and values? How can we maintain our identity? Or are we asking the wrong questions? For one thing, identities are sometimes flexible and it evolves with time.
It's high time Thailand rethink it's own construction and future direction. It's one thing to devise a set of slogans like sustainability or prosperity, it's another to mean what is stated and make it happen. This may require active participation of everybody. Exclusivity might have been accepted in the past, but today it's the mantra lies in the inclusiveness, where the voice of one in counted and matters,
Exclusiveness seems to be the thing of the past. It's harder to be listed in the The 21st century discourse. The same thing holds true with exclusive patriotism, the notion that only some groups are more patriotic, others are less so. This exclusivity brings divisions and may create dissonance in the effort to build national identities.
The discourse of distrust and partiality seems to be prevalent in the country. Such the discourse seems to have been disguised as 'anti-corruption' language or slogan, assigning blames to certain groups like politicians and business people. This construction is another that is bound to fail as it lacks true and ardent participation from all sectors and stakeholders.
National identity is an identity that needs everybody's input and it may take time. I am of course talking about the 'new' national identity', the identity that would help bring us sail cross the ocean of uncertainties and challenges.
Janpha Thadphoothon
Thailand, like many others, is facing new and pressing challenges, due largely to external factors. It's harder and more complicated to 'maintain' and cultivate Thai national identities in Thai youths and younger generations.
What's more is the advent of new communication technologies, like social media platforms, making the cultivation of one's national identity highly challenging and complicated. Nowadays, youths do not seem to be as obedient as their parents' they are more rebellious and seem to refuse the power that be or the establishment.
This makes the creation of 'national myth' a hiccup.
Myths have been created to sustain national harmony and common values have been installed to make on'e's identity relevant and meaningful. In the past, such national identity cultivation was more linear and straightforward.
Under the current context, how can we cultivate our national identity and values? How can we maintain our identity? Or are we asking the wrong questions? For one thing, identities are sometimes flexible and it evolves with time.
It's high time Thailand rethink it's own construction and future direction. It's one thing to devise a set of slogans like sustainability or prosperity, it's another to mean what is stated and make it happen. This may require active participation of everybody. Exclusivity might have been accepted in the past, but today it's the mantra lies in the inclusiveness, where the voice of one in counted and matters,
Exclusiveness seems to be the thing of the past. It's harder to be listed in the The 21st century discourse. The same thing holds true with exclusive patriotism, the notion that only some groups are more patriotic, others are less so. This exclusivity brings divisions and may create dissonance in the effort to build national identities.
The discourse of distrust and partiality seems to be prevalent in the country. Such the discourse seems to have been disguised as 'anti-corruption' language or slogan, assigning blames to certain groups like politicians and business people. This construction is another that is bound to fail as it lacks true and ardent participation from all sectors and stakeholders.
National identity is an identity that needs everybody's input and it may take time. I am of course talking about the 'new' national identity', the identity that would help bring us sail cross the ocean of uncertainties and challenges.
Friday, March 4, 2016
Thai Education at the Crossroads
The Failure of Thai Education?: Thai Education at the Crossroads
Janpha Thadphoothon
Is it true that Thai education is lagging behind others? Critics believe so, based on the international standards. This realization, they argue, is supported by various sources of evidence.
What can we do about it? Who, if not we, can save us from going down further into the state of hopelessness? let's consider the evidence below.
Firstly, let's consider the state of our country, our well-being. With the provisional government running the country, how can we deny that education is in a big trouble. has it been performing well lately? Has it been performing well, how come the country is in the present state, where democracy has to be put on hold. We are, if anything, in the critical stage, which might have been on the edge of the category of 'failing state'. Thai education will find it hard to come out 'clean and clear' hands with this hard evidence. The question is: what went wrong? or rather what's wrong with our education?
One may argue that the alternatives to the present system may be less desirable. But the crux of the matter is the factors that have brought us into the dire situation in the first place, and one of which, hard to refute, lies in the quality and emphases in our education.
The second - the results of the international text like PISA, plus the poor results of the national tests. In addition, our English language proficiency has not been impressively satisfactory.
What's more? The growing social problems are hindering the development of the nation.
However, it would be unfair to blame all the social maladies on 'education' as there are other factors in the equation.
As Thailand is a part of Asean and the global society, its citizens need to be equipped with not only basic 3Rs, but other 21st century skills as well. Little progress has been done on the preparation of Thai students for the mounting challenges.
Hence, Thai education is at the crossroads. We can choose to remain the same and maintain the status quo. Now, everybody is happy. Or we can redirect our missions, and modus operadi.
One suggestion, (Bangkok Post, 4 March 2016) is for sure, we need to decentralize the education, allowing schools and regions to manage their own education. The Ministry of Education needs to acknowledge the fact that it has failed to effectively manage Thai education, despite the handsome budget. This is the first step.
Thai education is in crisis. How can we let it be as it is. Dr Supachai has blamed it on the MOE's administration. That is a big target. Meanwhile, Somkiat Tangkitvanich, president of TDRI, blames it on the lack of accountability. Teachers and administrators and other stakeholders should be held accountable for what works and what doesn't.
Some scholars have called for a bigger change. A senior and respectable citizen like Dr Praves Vasi has called for the paradigm shift in Thai education. the focus should be shifted from the subjects to the society, from teaching to learning.
The situation Thai education is in may need a well-planned and serious study, and the stakeholders must work together to move and shape the destiny of Thai education. In the past, it's okay to let business be as usual. But under the pressures and challenges from the regional integration and globalization, we can't afford to be complacent with what we have got.
Thai education is indeed at the very big crossroads.
Janpha Thadphoothon
Is it true that Thai education is lagging behind others? Critics believe so, based on the international standards. This realization, they argue, is supported by various sources of evidence.
What can we do about it? Who, if not we, can save us from going down further into the state of hopelessness? let's consider the evidence below.
Firstly, let's consider the state of our country, our well-being. With the provisional government running the country, how can we deny that education is in a big trouble. has it been performing well lately? Has it been performing well, how come the country is in the present state, where democracy has to be put on hold. We are, if anything, in the critical stage, which might have been on the edge of the category of 'failing state'. Thai education will find it hard to come out 'clean and clear' hands with this hard evidence. The question is: what went wrong? or rather what's wrong with our education?
One may argue that the alternatives to the present system may be less desirable. But the crux of the matter is the factors that have brought us into the dire situation in the first place, and one of which, hard to refute, lies in the quality and emphases in our education.
The second - the results of the international text like PISA, plus the poor results of the national tests. In addition, our English language proficiency has not been impressively satisfactory.
What's more? The growing social problems are hindering the development of the nation.
However, it would be unfair to blame all the social maladies on 'education' as there are other factors in the equation.
As Thailand is a part of Asean and the global society, its citizens need to be equipped with not only basic 3Rs, but other 21st century skills as well. Little progress has been done on the preparation of Thai students for the mounting challenges.
Hence, Thai education is at the crossroads. We can choose to remain the same and maintain the status quo. Now, everybody is happy. Or we can redirect our missions, and modus operadi.
One suggestion, (Bangkok Post, 4 March 2016) is for sure, we need to decentralize the education, allowing schools and regions to manage their own education. The Ministry of Education needs to acknowledge the fact that it has failed to effectively manage Thai education, despite the handsome budget. This is the first step.
Thai education is in crisis. How can we let it be as it is. Dr Supachai has blamed it on the MOE's administration. That is a big target. Meanwhile, Somkiat Tangkitvanich, president of TDRI, blames it on the lack of accountability. Teachers and administrators and other stakeholders should be held accountable for what works and what doesn't.
Some scholars have called for a bigger change. A senior and respectable citizen like Dr Praves Vasi has called for the paradigm shift in Thai education. the focus should be shifted from the subjects to the society, from teaching to learning.
The situation Thai education is in may need a well-planned and serious study, and the stakeholders must work together to move and shape the destiny of Thai education. In the past, it's okay to let business be as usual. But under the pressures and challenges from the regional integration and globalization, we can't afford to be complacent with what we have got.
Thai education is indeed at the very big crossroads.
Thursday, March 3, 2016
Vietnamese and Thai: Two Closely-Related Languages
A Vietnamese professor of education was a bit surprised when I told her that Thai and Vietnamese have a lot of cognates, or words sharing the same origins.
Not only that, upon close look both share almost identical syntactic structure.
Not only that, upon close look both share almost identical syntactic structure.
As a former head of the Asean language unit of DPu and someone who is still in charge of Asean language courses offering at Dhurakij Pundit University (DpU) in Bangkok, I happen to know some Vietnamese as I have been helping a Vietnamese teacher to prepare her lessons and exams. What I have found to be the case is the sentence structure: both Thai and Vietnamese follows the same structure. Moreover, many words are one syllable words. And there are many cognates or words having the same linguistic derivation as another; many words are indeed from the same original word or root.
My conviction is not lonely. Ajarn Wilaiwan Khanittanan from Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand has provided evidence to support my claim. In her paper, "Ancient links between Thai and Vietnam: Evidence from cognates, Sukhothai inscriptions, and traditional calendrical terms for nnimals", she demonstrates 5 points of language evidence which indicate that there is a strong link between ancient Sukhothat and ancient Vietnam.
Ajarn Wilaiwan, notes that the strongest evidence (proving that there is a strong link) between Thai and Vietnamese lies in the words that share the same origin. However, it is not easy to tell whether many words are from Chinese or the Red River basin.
Examples
Structure: Subject + Verb + Object
Anh yêu em.
พี่ รัก น้อง
Em yêu anh khong? น้องรักพี่ไหม
My conviction is not lonely. Ajarn Wilaiwan Khanittanan from Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand has provided evidence to support my claim. In her paper, "Ancient links between Thai and Vietnam: Evidence from cognates, Sukhothai inscriptions, and traditional calendrical terms for nnimals", she demonstrates 5 points of language evidence which indicate that there is a strong link between ancient Sukhothat and ancient Vietnam.
Ajarn Wilaiwan, notes that the strongest evidence (proving that there is a strong link) between Thai and Vietnamese lies in the words that share the same origin. However, it is not easy to tell whether many words are from Chinese or the Red River basin.
Examples
- shop (Thai: ห้าง) (Vietnamese: hàng )
- waist (Thai: เอว (Vietnamese : eo )
Structure: Subject + Verb + Object
Anh yêu em.
พี่ รัก น้อง
Em yêu anh khong? น้องรักพี่ไหม
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