Educational Policy

Educational policies are aimed for a universal good and somehow blended by totalizing ideologies of the govern societies. Therefore, at the basic level, educational policy has been viewed as a rational plan related with authoritative body such as a government or government agency. One of the main factors which contributes either the success or the failure of implementing educational policies is the management structure which is between “top down” and “bottom up” approaches. Based on different approaches it is taken, it makes a significant impact on decision making power in terms of human resource management, curriculum and finance, infrastructure which are the foundation to make the educational policies implemented and sustained effectively.

Educational Field Trip

As a student of Master of Education in Educational Management in Mahidol University, the    comparative study has been taken and had chances to observe the schools and university from both Thailand and Japan as foreign field trip. It could be clearly seen that Japan education has been improved far comparing with Thailand education. Japan education is moving forward for quality in every level of education while Thailand is managing for the equal access. Based on the observation from not only Roong Aroon School but also Chiba University in terms of the environment, curriculum, teaching approaches and classroom setting, Japan has been practicing student centered learning and encouraging higher level thinking in almost all of the schools and universities as it could be generalized that the observed Chiba University is one of the normal university in Japan. On the other hand, for Roong Aroon School is one of the special schools in Thailand unlike Japan, and it is observed that student centered learning can only be found in those kinds of specially founded schools. In accordance with the personal observation from Roong Aroon School and Chiba University, it could also be reflected their school management system and both has each strengths and weakness. Therefore, it was effective experience for me observing personally instead of studying from the paper and in the classroom and made me comprehend their actual management system and practices.

Decision Making

It is really a hot issue for everyone regarding decision making. In particular, decision making is defined as the process of choosing from among alternatives. People mostly say that right decision making is difficult ones and needs competent skills and experiences. There are many models identified by different scholars such as the classical decision making model, the behavioral decision-making model and Vroom-Yetton Normative model.etc. Among them, the common model of decision making is based on the concept of rationality and it has to be broken down into logical steps. There is one model I mostly practice in terms of decision making for my life. It is simple and practical as there are six steps in that model of decision making.
(1) Identifying the Problems
(2) Generating Alternatives
(3) Evaluating Alternatives
(4) Choosing an Alternative
(5) Implementing the Decision
(6) Evaluating the Decision
It really seems like simply and easily to follow the steps, however, regarding with right decision making, those practical steps are not enough and always require to have skills and knowledge and logical thinking. To illustrate, if we have to choose between a devil and a blue sea, it would be definitely needed to have logical thinking skill and calmness to handle and deal with the situation. If it can be overcame, it is proved as good decision maker and I doubt that smart decision rarely comes up from the coincidence and luck.

Knowledge Management

In M. Ed Master course I am studying, I am taking Knowledge Management (KM) as for elective course. I did choose that course as I do have a strong interest on that topic and I believe that KM will be one of the useful tools for my career path. In the course, it is focused on the KM in organization however, in my opinion, KM happens in individual and other groups in different situations. Among the success stories of KM I have read, I found one case study interesting for me as it was about why KM fails in one of the successful company in Hong Kong. That case study came up as the evaluation for 2 years long planned KM activities. In the case study, it was mentioned the company followed the important steps of implementing KM activities and needs assessment in the company. However, after two years later, it came out like unexpected unsuccessful results and outcomes. I was wondering even though the company applied successful KM activities and analysis with middle-up-down approach recommended by Nonaka, KM was failed to sustain successfully in the company.

Nevertheless, in that case study, the authors analyzed eight driving factors which contributed the failure of KM in the company.

(1) The top management was too ambitious or unrealistic to grasp and incorporate the best knowledge in industry into the company and their insufficient role support in encouraging the desired behavior.

(2) The mere presence of KM vision is not sufficient to guarantee KM success.

(3) There was no specific and appropriate guidelines for knowledge sharing activities had been devised.

(4) The instruments used to help acquire and stimulate knowledge creation and sharing encountered problems during implementation.

(5) Although a reward system was established for knowledge creation and sharing, the emphasis on extrinsic terms, such as monetary bonus, turned out to have an opposite and negative effect on cultivating the knowledge-sharing culture and trust among employees.

(6) There was a misleading notion that IT could be the cutting-edge solution to inspire KM in organization.

(7) It was noted that the KM initiative were left unattended once implemented.

(8) An undue emphasis and concern with the best practice knowledge at the company to improve short-term benefits at the expense of long-term goals.

As I learned from that case study is that adaptation is needed in any organization even though successful KM tools recommended by famous  scholars are applied, it is far way to be successful without adaptation which in line with the nature and culture of the company or the organization.

Comparative Education

The word “Comparative Education” has been widely used nowadays, however, it is said that “Comparative Education” has been developed starting from Pre-history period up to the present. There were many pioneers in the history in order to find lands to settle for a better life. Since then, those travelers had interests to nurture their children observing good things from others foreign lands and attempted to develop their communities. Particularly, they looked for the similarities and differences of other communities and adapt in their own community. There were many famous scholars in those areas such as Xenophon who did comparative studies for Persian and Sparta education, Plato, Julius Caesar, and Cicero especially who compared Greek and Roman education. Later on, other scholars like Victor Cousin who advocated to apply Prussian education experience in France and likewise Horrace Mann in America and Henry Barnard. The consecutive period was leading to analyze different education and reform and included many factors in terms of politics, economics, demographics and culture to consider the educational development. The well-known persons like William Torrey Harris from American suggesting the impossibility of borrowing one successful education system from different countries and reapply as there were many factors impacting differently in each county. When it comes to the most recent period approximately from 1900s up to the present, there were many factors taking for consideration for the development of comparative education with international cooperation, quality and research particularly focusing on the social sciences and humanities. Comparative Education becomes mainstream and headline for academic debate and research within different stakeholders from education; moreover, there were many books and articles for Comparative Education.

Nevertheless, that trend of Comparative Education could be encountered clearly in the western countries attempting for the quality of education while most of the eastern countries are having difficulty for equal access of education.  

Trends of Teaching and Learning

In 19^th century, the classroom, the fundamental infrastructure of most of any school, are often constructed  at the minimum cost as the design is a closed isolated space which could keep students in sight at all times during teaching. Physical classroom are mostly inflexible and task-unrelated time frame decided by school bells based on the bureaucratic arrangement of “time-period-teacher-group-subject matter” blocks designed by school managers. Pedagogic objectives, methodologies, and resources, evaluation processes and interactions between students and teachers were interfered by the physical space of the classroom. Therefore, student learning and development was rooted in the classroom that was not improved for student research, creative projects, cooperative work or co-teaching. Particularly, in many classrooms, there is hardly any free space for collaboration, development of competencies and skills and application of knowledge, hence, the physical setting for the teaching and learning process blocked interaction with teachers and among students and as for individually-centered role for teachers. It could be assumed that the physical design of classroom of most schools is irrelevant, inapplicable to students’ out-of-classroom realities and individual particular supposed futures. Those traditional school designs are irrelevant for the universal student development of the 21^st century skills as it is required to support the necessary variety of individual and group working areas for interaction in the teaching and learning process.

During the second half of the 20^th century, almost nobody expected that the information environment would develop so drastically in such a short period of time. However, internet has not been using widely and curriculum authorities, school managers nor examination boards have not been able to take hold of the full implications of reversal for the education of the 21^st century. It used to believe that the traditional concept of school grounded on explanations of teachers and on a few books as external sources of knowledge. Nowadays, students of the 21^st century education, there is no longer a need to emphasize and rely on textbooks, workbooks, a few maps and a dictionary as the internet is capable to provide endless student personalization and education possibilities and the potential of individual student.

I wonder what the teaching and learning situation will be like in next century ! Would it be artificial intelligence or robot teachers or any other things beyond our knowledge.  

Online Education ?

Throughout the world, online education is fashionable in 21^st century among learners and teachers. Even though it is incredibly convenient for education because of the advantages such as time-saving and home schooling, I suspect that the classrooms teaching will also need for both teachers and the students to get the social surrounding and the motivation to learn and also the assessment.

First of all, if people do online course at home, they are not supposed to go to schools to meet with old friends. And so they will have no opportunity to make friends who have a common with them. And as a result, the computer users for education could feel lonely and lack of chance to discuss and share their ideas with one another. Therefore, they necessitate to study in the friendly environment like classrooms with teachers and classmates in order to avoid these drawbacks

Furthermore, classroom teachers are supposed to motivate the learners to get pleasure and skills in their learning. For example, school teachers are able to use a variety of lively activities to lead the students to be interested in learning and hence they could provide simulations for the apprentices to apply their skills that have learned as theories. Consequently, the learners are actively involved in learning process in the classroom with the purpose of successful learning outcomes.

Another important factor is that the class teachers have no difficulty in assessing their students’ course work. As the continuous assessment or portfolios of students are actually important in their education progress, it is one of the responsibilities of classroom teachers that cannot be processed by computers. In my opinion, the role of classroom teachers will never fade away because humans are social beings and they need the teachers and classroom to motivate, also assess their performance and support with love and care for their personality development that are unworkable with computers.

Moral + Leadership

When I recall my inner self to ask what moral leadership means to me, it makes me ambiguous to make my mind up whether I have moral and leadership capability or do not have. As I recognize that leadership is a complex perception and leaders are normally considered to be those that have authority over others, those who control, those that somehow walk ahead, are better than the rest. I believe that this kind of leadership is often self-serving, short-term oriented. In contrast, I think that Moral Leadership is very different kind of leadership. Rather than aspiring to being followed, Moral Leaders aim to serve. Instead of showcasing their own skills, Moral Leaders tend to develop the capacities of others. Moral Leadership is not about rank-any person holding any position can be a Moral Leader, but such individuals are always characterized by a deep sense of in ethics, are driven by core ideals (such as justice ) and are motivated by the pursuit of a high purpose.

Moral Leadership has to do with helping people develop a capacity to make decisions in accordance with their morals, and to think deep about the moral consequences of their actions. This does not under any circumstance, however, mean holding an unnatural power to influence people’s decisions by exploiting their beliefs. For example, all of us have certain morals we stand by, we want to make these morals live on. It does not mean that leaders have to take their followers to make believe what they believe. Moral values can be different in a variety of cultures and society. Therefore, in order to become a Moral Leader, I think we are not supposed to draw the conclusion with our own belief, moral leader have to pay respect to diverse beliefs. Moral Leaders need to aware of the morals and ethics that are fair and everyone can agree to. Like the speech by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, “A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus”.

First of all, in my opinion, Moral Leaders need to know how to manage themselves, how to temper their egos and how to act with nobility and rectitude. They should be visionary and affect personal change. Moral Leaders also might also a highly developed sense of emotional intelligence and master key social skills. They are able to work to overcome obstacles and are skilled at the art of consultation. They must have an ability to build consensus navigate diversity and establish unity. This would lead to Moral Leaders who are the conscience (i.e. moral compass) of an enterprise or organization and the glue that holds it together to make progress. 

Therefore a moral leadership means a skill in the way of leading and managing the people in accordance to what is right and good for the benefits of each person involves as part of the group. Furthermore, it is a skill which leaders should be possessed in order to attain the mission and vision of a certain organization. As my experience, inside the classroom, teachers are motivating the pupils or the students to be a good and effective leader in our society someday, hence, teachers used to give the selected leaders to supervise the members and teach what to do to achieve the expected perfect outcome as prescribed by the teachers based on the given activities or experiment to perform. 

The character and integrity of the leader provide the basis for personal characteristics that direct a leader’s ethical beliefs, values, and decisions. Individual values and beliefs impact the ethical decisions of leaders. The duties of leaders include the responsibility for ensuring standards of moral and ethical conduct.

Finally, I compromise that Moral Leaders are committed to do what is right even if there is no personal benefit, have the capacity to inspire ethical conduct in others, posses moral reasoning, know how to temper their egos, show dedication to socially responsive principles, establish trust and are devoted to serve. I regard a person who posses these credentials is a Moral Leader and they have Moral Leadership. I do appreciate and envy those leaders and I wish for to be that kind of leader.

Personality

According to the Personality Test I took from https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test mentioned that my personality type is The Executive in the category of Sentinels. It was interesting for me reading about myself based on the resulted type and analyzing myself whether the descriptions suit with me or not. I always find difficult to believe the fortune telling or palm reading or whatever related to talk my future or about me as I believe I know myself better and I shape my future on my own. However, I am usually fascinated to take mental test or other test online as it gives me sometimes amusement, often tells me nonsense things. 

Nevertheless, the link that I mentioned above is quite different other junk tests I took for fun before, it is more systematic for humanistic psychology and personality traits. There are four different personality category outlined and there are four types in one category such as: 

1)Analysts (Architect, Logician, Commander, Debater)

2)Diplomats (Advocate, Mediator, Protagonist, Campaigner)

3)Sentinels (Logistician,  Defender, Executive, Consul)

4)Explorers (Virtuoso, Adventurer, Entrepreneur, Entertainer) 

Based on the personality of each, strengths, weakness, career and relationships are written in detail. As far as I know, knowing oneself what kind of personality makes easier in the self management and will have direct impact on the professional life as well, in competitive job hunting, it is always required to mention the personality type. In addition, knowing yourself is an enlightenment and benefit to grab more opportunities and to be success. 

Do you know what your personality is? Have you ever thought about what kind of person you are? Could you recognize your strengths and weakness in terms of your personality? If not, we should know ourselves so that we are able to understand difference and diversity among people and potential of a particular person. I would not say we could rely on those kind of online test 100%, however, based on the test, we could analyze and synthesize on our own and build up our strengths and overcome weakness.  

Everyone is gifted and irreplaceable, definitely have different potential inside. I wonder the reason why others become Somebody and most become nobody would be mainly concerned with they could not realize either misplace their potential and personality or not having perseverance and hard working. 

Holistic Education

It could be seen in many countries that the role of education is missing and different stakeholders in education favors on exam-oriented teaching and learning process. Therefore, most of the students spend most of their time on study and it becomes merely subject-based learning and the development of human’s mind and the acquisition of knowledge are neglected somehow. In order to deal with that issue, holistic learning is introduced by westerns scholars in the 1970 which lead to the all around development of an individual and achieve three domains in learning: cognitive domain, affective domain and psychomotor domain. 

I have a chance to learn more about holistic education in one of the alternative school called Roong Aroon School. Roong Aroon School which is one of the successful alternative schools using the Holistic education approach in Thailand. Roong Aroon school is initiated by the lead of Associate Professor Prapapat Niyom, with the purpose of improving the quality of the learners.

Roong Aroon school offers a holistic learning process,the Buddha, Dharma Approach,which links factual knowledge to the learners’ life. Learning by doing, integrative learning contexts will nurture the insight learning awareness and cultivate the sustainable relationship to others It is also emphasized on Thailand tradition culture education, meanwhile improve the students’ foreign language skills. There are some important innovative teaching and learning processes applying in Roong Aroon school in order to reach the holistic learning practices: 

(1)Deeper learning which aim to nurture one’s inner learning capacity in order to promote wisdom-based learners by practicing mindfulness cultivation, self reflection, mediation, spiritual arts, public volunteer services, etc. 

(2)Learning by Doing aims to practice with hands-on activities in the real situation, through activity-based, problem-based, project-based, and research-based though learning unit integrated with real life experiences, to promote the self-directed and self-reliance learner.

(3)Communicative learning aims to the sharing of knowledge and understanding in building up learning organization or community of practices, through group learning, discussion, dialogue, knowledge-management, community sharing, group meeting, people mapping, ICT presentation, to promote the social engagement and learning partners with sustainability.

In my opinion, that kind of school is really out of the box and alleviate the suffocation of current classroom, examinations, grades and scores and prepare to meet the upcoming challenges of the 21st century education. However, there is still a long road to go in order to adapt holistic education in every schools ! 

Culture of John Kotter's Penguins

I read a book called Our Iceberg is Melting by John Kotter which it is a fable featuring with penguins. In particular, those penguins are living on an iceberg with a strong belief that “Our Iceberg will never melt” and there is a possible threat to those penguins observed by a common penguin called Fred. The whole fable is about how they went through to change that threat by applying eight step process of successful change:

Create a sense of urgency: In order to deal with stone-headed and conservative penguins to see what has happened on the ice berg and how urgent it was, Fred came up with the idea of using a model and presented to others with the help of Alice who firstly believed what Fred observed.

Pull together the guiding team: A team of five members was formed up by Louis, Head Penguin, in order to emphasize on urgency and find out solutions.

Develop the change vision and strategy: The team met with a seagull and thought of the alternative solution for the colony, however, it was totally a different life styles of penguins to become nomad colony as they did not used to so that it would be a big change for them.

Communicate for understanding and buy-In: Since the team had made up their minds for nomad colony solutions, it became a big step for them to make the colony realize as there were many penguins who still did not believe them. The team used creative ways  such as posters to communicate with those penguins.

Empower others to act: After communicating, they attempted to encourage others to be part of them and participate in reaching to the solution.

Produce Short-Term Wins: Then, they accomplished their short-term goal by getting participation from some penguins and it would lead to other left penguins to join with them.

Don't let up: When the colony had moved to other ice berg, they become not like they used to be living in one place for a long time as they would be always looking for better places for the colony.

Create a new culture: It became their new culture moving for better living conditions and they would like to keep doing so in future as well.

I feel like it is really a great exemplary to see through what an organization like and how to move to change an organization. It could be said that there is no main character in that fable, all the five members in the team are characters and they possess different potential and skills to lead to a change. It is also highlighted the possible supportive and opposing character which would both delay and push to a change. Anyway, the team does change the culture of the colony.

Could we assume that it is Culture Revolution? Culture Evolution? And what culture do the team change would it be Dominant culture? Or Subculture?

Education and Employability

Education is valued in the worldwide to be able to cultivate human potential and contribute to economic growth. Based on utilitarian ideas in human capital theory, the primary purpose of education is to equip with skills that enable them to put their labor to more productive use, which lead to the higher income and economic development. Moreover, according to the liberal approach, education is aimed to fulfill the intellectual and emotional potential of the individual. Nevertheless, the 21^st century world is demanding well-educated and highly trained workforce to use as imperative for economic development.

On the other hand, a high rate of unemployment and mismatch of specialization and job are not contemporary issues for graduates as it has been occurred a century ago. There is no doubt that there is a gap to fulfill the dreams of graduates and the needs of employers. Therefore, both the blame on education and an intriguing interrogative come up how educational managers and administrators confront those issues.

It is clearly seen that there are countless numbers of graduates out there with high GPA as they have met the demand of education knowing how to pass examinations, however, they are still looking for their dream jobs. It is not enough to survive in our dynamic world as it is urging for more than hard skills in other words a person possessing not only hard skills but also soft skills. Could we assume that universities are providing the required bridge to students to be ready for job market and to put theories into practices?