September 2014
Exceptional people. Outstanding opportunities. Academic excellence. Shrewsbury International School helps children achieve the very highest academic success and to grow into balanced, happy, confident young people ready for the challenges of life at university and beyond. We are currently accepting applications for Year 7 and Year 12 in August 2014. A limited number of places is available in other year groups. Call 02 675 1888 or email admissions@shrewsbury.ac.th Be part of the Shrewsbury success story.
www.shrewsbury.ac.th
Managing editor and publisher Nick Argles 089 721 3384 nick@elbkk.com Deputy editor Yasmin - Tamana Tanwani yasmin@elbkk.com Social media editor Isobel Bathgate isobel@elbkk.com Art Dew Piyaman dew@elbkk.com 089 144 7837
Editorial Contributors Peter McMurray Vaughan Pope Linda Belonje Jared Kuruzovich Nina Nicolai Tomkins Samantha Thakral Danielle Cevallos Thanvaruj Booranasuksakul Judith Coulson Krysten Fort-Catanese Bea Toews Jacqueline Baumann Dominique Tellenbach Julie Nguyen Bronwyn Skerritt Becky Horace Helen Couldrey Cindy Adair-Bolakoso Angela Speirs Julia Knight
4 Setting your child up for success 6 Sibling rivalry 8 Is cows milk healthy for us? 12 Social emotional learning and mindfulness in education 16 A question of quality 20 Child development 22 Date night 26 Students benefit from music education 28 Being a grandmother 30 Lets bake 34 ICT and schools - are friends electric? 40 Studying overseas 46 Reconnecting with your spouse 56 Swimming lessons 60 Benefits of imaginative play 63 Cyber bullying
Advertising sales Peerarat Voracharusrungsri (P) peerarat@elbkk.com 086 535 1544 Benjaporn Pa-Youm ben@elbkk.com 081 908 3343 Office Address: 20/70 Prommitr, Klongton Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110 Tel. 02 259 3661, 02 259 7007, 02 258 8392 Fax. 02 259 7008
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EDUCATION
Setting your children up for success: Starting the school year off right! By Danielle Cevallos
Are your kids dreading the start of the new school year? Danielle shares tips to make this transition easy, enjoyable and constructive for both you and your children
The summer months are typically the highlight of every child’s year. The late mornings, freedom from work, and excitement of summer activities is enough to make most students never want to get back into the swing of the school year. However, there are some things we can do as parents, to ease that transition and get our children excited and ready for the upcoming year. Bedtime About a week before school starts, get your children back on their school bedtime schedule. Helping our kids start to feel the flow of a routine will ease them into their first days of school. This will also help their bodies to adjust to waking up early once again, and help them to feel rested and alert for all of the learning that will be coming their way!
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School supplies Finding school supplies isn’t always the most exciting thing you can do, but try to make this fun for your kids! Let them choose a cool new backpack, some fancy notebooks, or some fun items to decorate their locker with. For the little ones, letting them choose a fun new lunchbox, or some silly erasers, will help them get excited about using their new supplies. Set some goals Having our kids think through some goals they would like to achieve this year, is one way to keep them positive about the upcoming start to school. I like to have my daughters come up with one academic goal, and one goal outside of school. I always focus on them setting goals that are measurable and attainable, but
that will require a little bit of work. Your children might have a goal to study a certain subject daily that year, complete all homework assignments, or make the honour roll. I also try to encourage hobbies, sports, or goals that are completely outside of the classroom. That might be to take a photography class, write a blog, score a goal, or move up to the next level of competitive team in their chosen sport. Once your children have set their goals, have them list out one or two ways they plan on meeting those goals, and then post that somewhere in the house. Check back mid year to see how they are doing and if anything needs to change in order for them to meet their goals. Be sure to not allow this to become another source of pressure, but a healthy push in the right direction.
about your child’s strengths and areas that might need some support. Ask the teacher about the homework expectations, any needed supplies and how you can help your child to be successful this school year.
Do something fun the last week Before the rhythms of school begin, try to do something fun as a family. Take one last trip to the beach, camp out in the living room, go to the aquarium, or do something that your family enjoys doing together. Take that time to talk with your children about what they are most looking forward to, and what they are most concerned about for the upcoming school year. Help them to feel at ease about the things they might be concerned about, and show some encouragement over the things that excite them. Take some time to just enjoy each other as a family, having one last hurrah, before the school year begins.
Celebrate after their first day After the first day, be sure to do something special with your kids. Maybe it is their favourite meal at home, or dinner out at their favourite restaurant. You might grab smoothies or some ice cream on the way home. Whatever you do, find something that allows you some time to sit down with your kids and talk. Help them unravel their day, discuss their friends, and look back at what their concerns were. Help them to process through the day, and encourage them!
Meet the teacher If your school hosts an open house or a meet the teacher night, be sure to attend. Spend some time talking with the teacher figuring out what your child will need to do in order to be successful. Let them know
Set up a homework space, and general schedule Before the start of the school year, write out your weekly schedule including after school sports and activities. Share this schedule with your child, and post it in an area where everyone can see it. Be sure to also set up a place where your child will do their homework each day. This could be a desk, the dining room table, or their bed. Do your best to have things set up prior to school starting, so that if homework is assigned on the first day, you can slip right into your family’s routine.
Summer is one of the joys of being a kid. However, we can help our children love the start to the school year, with just a little work and a little creativity. Do your best to talk up the great things about school, and encourage your children to do the same. Enjoy your time together as a family while you are off, but do what you can to set up a routine prior to the start of the school year. Getting on top of that, will only help your children to better adjust once school actually begins.
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FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS
Sibling rivalry By Thanvaruj Booranasuksakul, M.D. child and adolescent psychiatrist from Praram 9 Hospital
Sibling rivalry can occur in many extremes. Learn how to handle fighting siblings and how to recognise when there may be a deeper problem at hand
The appropriate spacing of children and the preparation of existing children for a new sibling helps to reduce sibling rivalry. Family situations that will potentially lead to jealousy should be avoided. Parents should not make comparisons between siblings and favouritism should be avoided.
sibling rivalries in the world. This is because sibling rivalry is a conflict between two individuals, unique in their needs, temperaments, cognitions and understanding of the situation. It is this uniqueness that does not allow for a single rule to come into play as part of conflict resolution. Patience, love, understanding, common sense, and humour are important parental skills necessary to minimise sibling rivalry. It is also only fair that as parents one should listen to a child, however unreasonable or unjust his behaviour is and tactfully guide this aggressive expression into more accepted forms. Like if a child beats up his brother or sister for touching his story book, reprimand him alone, then head him out and then teach him how to express his resentment in a better way. Perhaps he could be asked to give her another book or another toy, or he can be encouraged to share his book and see how good it makes him feel. Place positive examples while you are doing this.
Sibling rivalry – the solution. There is no one supreme solution that can solve all
Help your kids get along with each other. This way they will be building their first friendships in life
Rivalry occurs between most, if not all, siblings to a varying degree. Rivalry may be manifested as a verbal or physical attack, frustration, persistent demands for attention, or as regressive phenomena. When handled properly, healthy competition among siblings will lead to the acquisition of social, interpersonal and cognitive skills that are important to the development of a child. Mismanagement of the competition may lead to psychological problems later in life.
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which may well endure the ravages of adult trials and tribulations. What are the possible ways of doing this: 1. Encourage family time where the entire family bonds as a single unit. This teaches children to learn from positive behaviour in a happy receptive environment. 2. If both children want the same things, it is best to post a schedule so that both children can be fitted in and both get a chance to have a go at the coveted item. 3. Be proactive and cater to the varied needs one at a time. For example if one child likes a certain kind of food and the other does not make sure you cook both kinds of food interspersed with your favourite food or that of any other family member. This shows that you are fair, teaches a child to be more conscious of others needs and desires and encourages the idea of trying out a variety. 4. Recognise the differences between each child and let them have hours where they have their own
space and need not share or do things together. Having to share all the time may become a bother and fuel resentment. Let him have a whole chocolate once in a while. It makes him feel he is an individual without an appendage all the time. The next time he may be more receptive to sharing. Seeking professional help Sometimes sibling rivalry may have the most unhappy of endings. A sibling may fatally harm his brother or there may be disputes so violent that it mars the diurnal functioning. Therefore it is only prudent to seek help in such extreme cases. Seek help if: 1. The sibling conflict is very severe and refuses to die down; 2. There is physical or emotional threat that is coming in the way of normal development of both the siblings and there is a palpable lowering of self esteem, feeling of happiness and well being. 3. The cause for the rivalry or conflict may be a deep psychological disorder, like depression.
Reference 1. Alexander K.D. Leung, Sibling Rivalry, Journal Citation Reports速 (Thomson Reuters, 2013) 2. A Treatment Planning Overview for Sibling Rivalry. www.therapytools.us/course_article_pdf.php?course_id=167
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HEALTH, NUTRITION & FITNESS
Is cows milk healthy for us? By Judith Coulson, medical nutrition and lifestyle coach
To milk or not to milk? Judith explains why moderation and paying close attention to what milk your child is drinking is key
The western dairy industry, government bodies, and food manufacturers tell us that everybody needs two to three portions of milk a day, supported by an enormous annual advertising effort and budget. This has lead to a per head consumption between 154 to 270kg of milk and dairy products per year. Milk is promoted as a good and easy source of calcium, vitamin D and protein, the main benefactors to developing and keeping strong bones, as well as preventing osteoporosis. In Asia, parents believe their children will grow taller, drinking cows milk. But is cows milk in the promoted quantities really good for anyone? And living in Asia, do Asian children really need milk to cover their nutrient needs and grow strong bones?
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I am Swiss and to eat dairy products on a daily basis, was a diet form I grew up with. But the milk came directly from the farmer, who had the cows next to our house, eating fresh naturally grown grass, and farmed organic before organic even got invented. The cheese came from the local cheese factory or from the mountain farmer, working with nothing else than the natural ingredients you need, to make cheese. Going along with this diet, we ate a lot of homegrown vegetables, meat only every second day, drank water and sweets only when we had guests and for special occasions. If your parents and grandparents grew up with cows milk and cheese in their daily diet, you are most likely able to absorb and digest the nutrients out of milk, but very likely not to the extend the dairy industry claims. Moderation seems to be the key. Growing evidence
suggests, that the increasing consumption of dairy and animal products, sweets and processed foods may be linked to various health conditions and chronic disease, including some forms of cancer, heart disease, asthma, diabetes and obesity. Milk and cheese products contain saturated and often even trans fats, cholesterol and lactose, a form of sugar. Evidence also shows that today, dairy products are contaminated with pesticides, dioxins, drug and hormone residues, which are used to increase the cows milk production. And this is just what we find naturally in milk, not mentioning what the food industry adds to give the milk a longer shelf life, without the need to be kept cool, balancing the taste in sugar and fat free products, and stretching the natural product to gain greater margins.
day. Also have a look at the food label on the product, if the list of ingredients contains more than three ingredients, don’t use it. Let me recap that: It is not the natural milk product as such that is bad for your health, it is what the food industry has made out of it, the amount people started to consume eating and drinking it in combination with other processed food items, high in saturated fat, sugar and salt. Now what about if you and your family members did not grow up with cows milk? You may have relocated to a country, where dairy farming is almost non existent and most milk products are imported or made out of imported milk powder. Such as, living in Thailand.
The normal dairy product we buy in the grocery shops these days, is a highly processed food product, and like every other processed food product, should be consumed rarely or not at all, while the processing is destroying the benefits of milk.
Whoever created the world, did a very good job in providing each area and climate, with its own unique sources of nutrients. While the west claims, that milk is a needed source for calcium and vitamin D, to prevent osteoporosis and grow strong bones; Asians have the lowest rate in bone fractures in the world for years. So how did they get the amounts of nutrients they needed, without eating the products promoted by western governments and food manufacturers?
If milk and cheese products belong to your daily diet form, choose organic produced dairy products and I suggest reducing the consumption to one serving a
Let’s look at some calcium heavy foods: As a reference, a cup of milk contains about 300mg of calcium
food
calcium in mg
food
calcium in mg
Wakame ½ cup
1700
almonds 1 cup
300
Agar (sea vegetable) ¼ cup
1000
spinach 1 cup
280
Nori (sea vegetable) ½ cup
600
sesame seeds ½ cup
250
Kombu (sea vegetable)¼ cup
500
kale 1 cup
200
sardines with bones ½ cup
500
broccoli 1 cup
180
collard greens 1 cup
355
bock choy 1 cup
105
lentils 1 cup
50
walnuts ¼ cup
70
black beans 1 cup
60
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HEALTH, NUTRITION & FITNESS
The World Health Organisation recommends only 400/500 mg calcium per day. (500 to 700 mg for people over 50). Calcium is best absorbed in combination with a protein source and magnesium. It is therefore good to know, that even a cup of broccoli contains 2.8gms of protein and being a green vegetable, plenty of magnesium. Many Asian parents explain to me, the reason they agree with school canteens giving milk to their children two to three times a day, as well as them supplying milk tetra packs to their children in the evening or at weekends, is for them to grow tall. Now if you, your husband and your closest family members are not very tall, it is unlikely that your child will get much taller. No matter how much milk you feed them. And the other fact you might to consider is, calcium is only benefitting bone growth if your child is producing enough growth hormones, and that only happens if your child gets enough sleep before midnight. It is sad when I find cases where Asian parents, start pushing their children’s growth with hormones, but at the same time allow them to drink only soft drinks, eat no vegetables and only eat junk foods and play computer games all night. Now let’s quickly look at vitamin D. When I gave birth to my first daughter, the nurse in the hospital told me, to let my daughter sleep outside, every
day for 15min, or take her out for a walk, to make sure she gets enough vitamin D. The human’s most important source of vitamin D is daylight, not food or supplements. Most of the food’s we looked at containing calcium will also supply you with vitamin D. Good sources are the sea vegetables, sardines and mushrooms. Spend some time outside every day. I know that is not that easy in a city like Bangkok and people are scared to get tanned and catch too many UVB’s, but just 15 minutes outside will supply you with enough vitamin D for the day. The best time to catch vitamin D supporting daylight is in the early morning. How about if I wear sunscreen? No sunscreen is a 100% UVB protecting, so even wearing creams or makeup with UVB filters, will stimulate your vitamin D production, a bit slower but in general still enough. My health and wellness recommendations are always based on international medical research and guidelines. But they may not apply to everyone, depending on their individual health status, age, sex, gender, genetic, tradition and religion. Nutrition is never an exact science, because no human being is the same as the other.
Judith Coulson is a Medical Nutrition & Lifestyle Coach, who specialises in drug free disease prevention and health promotion. Contact Judith@lifestylefoodclinic.com for individual food/lifestyle analysis and consulting.
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EDUCATION
Social emotional learning and mindfulness in education By Krysten Fort-Catanese
Social Emotional Learning and Mindfulness is key to cultivating your child into a well rounded and mentally healthy human being. Krysten Fort-Catanese, Director of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and Mindfulness at Phuket International Academy Day School shares why
The World Health Organisation indicates that by 2030, depression will be a global epidemic and that symptoms are already being reported for youth as young as 8 years old. This should serve as a warning for how we move forward in supporting mental health in our communities. And, even more so, how critical it is to seek out a whole child model of learning that is in alignment with building 21st century skills; which includes resilience. Rigorous academics, coupled with Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and Mindfulness, provide such a road map for schools of the future. These will be schools where “EQ” (emotional intelligence) is on a level playing field with the cultivation of IQ based learning and youth are encouraged to develop into well rounded human beings with “flourishing” as a key theme.
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Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is a set of 5 core competencies focusing on self awareness, self management, social awareness, relationship skills and responsible decision making. Mindfulness, according to the Oxford Mindfulness Centre in the UK, is: the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, with compassion, and open hearted curiosity. At its root, mindfulness means “to remember” so ultimately, this is what it is about - to remember our competencies, our core values and our motivations, bringing all of these into our awareness in order to approach situations, whether they be good or bad, in a more constructive and healthy way. It brings us out of automatic pilot and sets us up to approach life with a spirit of curiosity, inquiry and compassion. Mindfulness also helps us not only to savour the good but also learn how to turn towards difficulties as well, which is where it can support mental health. Research studies around this have been so promising, that 8 week mindfulness courses offered through Oxford Mindfulness Centre are covered by the National Health Service in the UK.
Secular mindfulness has found its way into the mainstream, including education, in large part due to the contributions of Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn, who has made it his life’s work to bring these practices to increasingly broader audiences. It’s been over 30 years since Jon Kabat-Zinn began his Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) programme at the University of Massachusetts Medical Centre in Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Since then, a growing body of research has documented the physical and psychological health benefits of practicing mindfulness. Recently reflecting on some mindfulness in schools workshops and trainings that I’ve hosted or co-led over this past year, I am in awe of the many blessings, and lessons learned, that come with such work. As educators (and parents!), focusing on our own mindful edges and developing a personal practice while we embody these qualities remains a critical factor in effective teaching and parenting. Children learn from our examples so the more we can live it, the more they will learn it. The importance of keeping these offerings secular and accessible to all has struck me even more now that I have taken SEL/Mindfulness practices to the broader context of international schools. Overall, Mindfulness in Education is a rapidly growing field. Much about this is positive but there is also a danger of mindfulness being deeply misunderstood – considered to be only about focused attention and becoming better workers. Actually, mindfulness is much more than this and is deeply connected to human flourishing, developing compassion, and ultimately a “way of being” with the world that is more responsive than reactive.
At its root, mindfulness means “to remember” so ultimately, this is what it is about - to remember our competencies, our core values and our motivations, bringing all of these into our awareness in order to approach situations, whether they be good or bad, in a more constructive and healthy way. It brings us out of automatic pilot and sets us up to approach life with a spirit of curiosity, inquiry and compassion. Just imagine the implications for our future if children were to learn these life skills early on during their schooling years. England is the first nation to see about doing just that. Parliament in the UK has recently launched an All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on mindfulness, where a mindfulness course for MPs and Peers has become commonplace and some have even said how it has helped them to become more mindful leaders as well as happier human beings. This has now filtered down into mindfulness in education – where policy is starting to be written around wellbeing and mindfulness for children across the UK. This is what happens when people personally experience the lasting benefits of developing a personal mindfulness practice … they want to ensure that as many people as possible have access to it as well. Ultimately, mindfulness is about cultivating our own self awareness, our own hearts, as teachers and parents in order to be fully present for others in our care. Krysten Fort-Catanese is the Director of Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) and Mindfulness at Phuket International Academy Day School (PIADS). PIADS will be hosting two Mindfulness-based events for educators in October 2014: • Re -Treat Yourself Weekend Workshop for Educators Mindfulness in Education Workshop 17-19 October 2014 • Mindfulness in Schools Project (MiSP), Teach .b Certification Course 20-23 October 2014 For more information, please contact Krysten at Krysten.fort-catanese@pia.ac.th
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EDUCATION
Back to school in the international arena By Peter J. Murray, Head of Bangkok School, St Andrews International School
It’s time to get back to school. Learn how to optimise your child’s school experience in the international arena
Many of us will remember back to that frightening day when we nervously walked into our new school and met a forest of faces and buildings, both of which seemed huge and daunting. There would be so many things to learn and so much to take in so very short a time. How could we cope? But for many of us ‘mature adults’, these experiences were few in number as an older generation tended to be more firmly and solidly home based and much less transient than the younger generation of this new global society. Today’s younger generation find themselves following their parents in a very global context, often moving to not only more than one new school, but to more than one new country and the new school that goes with it. As an international career educator and director of schools in multiple countries, my own daughters saw their schooling start in California, move to Greek speaking Cyprus, then to the Muslim society of Abu Dhabi, to a year in a foreign country to them, the United Kingdom and then their final four years in German speaking Switzerland. Did this do them any harm? Not in the slightest is my unequivocal response, for they gained so much richness from these moves. Firstly, they were exposed to multiple cultures with a wide range of people and languages. They learned quickly that acquiring language for many was second nature and that in the international arena, being able to speak and desiring to acquire new languages was just a natural part of successfully settling into a culture. They learned a sense of history and of religion, of multiple nationalities studying in a rich and (sometimes) tolerant society. But critically, given the transient nature of international schools, student turnover is frequently high, and therefore, acceptance and quick orientation of new students is second nature. Existing students do not feel threatened by the new student, as it is something with which they have grown up. In addition, students are exposed to different teaching styles, with teachers often emanating from wholly
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different education systems and indeed countries. Their life experiences are contagious and further enrich the students’ view of the world. The above situation is certainly true of my own current school. We are a small school with an enrolment of perhaps 350, (in August of 2014). But, over 60 of those will be new students; twelve new teachers will start work, and there will be the sense for all of these ‘new kids on the block’ of not being alone in a new environment as so many others will be in the same boat. With over 30 different nationalities represented, there is a sufficient richness in diversity to allow some pretty exciting things to occur. And they do. So how do we as parents optimise the chances of a successful school experience? I believe the parent should recognise the school as a vibrant community of which they are a valued part. They should involve themselves in school activities and be active in taking something from the rich microcosm of the school community of which they are such important members. Parents should also approach the whole experience as a new but exciting and positive one. Whatever the age of the child, each student should feel quickly welcomed and supported for, with parents taking an active interest in the experiences the student is enjoying, the whole family benefits. One other action that the parents should consider is talking to the school with some regularity. Schools are vibrant and ever changing places and parents should remain involved in the social and academic changes through which their child journeys. The international experience is a rich and varied opportunity for your child to learn some important lessons, which will make them more valuable members of their future global community. Do not waste the experience nor undervalue its potential benefits for you and your child.
EDUCATION
A question of quality By Jared D. Kuruzovich
Communications Manager NIST International School The challenge of selecting an international school in Thailand As Thailand moves ever closer to becoming an official member of the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015, the rapid proliferation of international schools - already higher than virtually any other nation is only expected to increase. With such rapid growth, the inevitable question of quality must be addressed, as international education has largely become a profitable industry for many investors, both Thai and foreign. Unfortunately, in many cases that profit comes at the expense of the customers at those institutions. While many schools thus claim the title “international school,” they fail to display key characteristics that truly enable them to provide a high quality education for their students. For parents seeking to make a difficult decision, this can lead to confusion and frustration. Yet there are a few key signs that a school truly does provide the quality it claims. While some are obvious, such as a non profit status and active parent community, others may be unfamiliar. By keeping these factors in mind, selecting a quality school may become a much less strenuous task. Accreditation Before even considering any other factors, it is essential that an international school be licensed by the Thai Ministry of Education and be externally accredited, or verified, by an international accrediting agency. Such organisations include the Council of International Schools (CIS), the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) and the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC). To assure parents that a school provides a quality education, representatives from the one of the accrediting bodies visit the school and spend time speaking to teachers, students and parents. They also examine the school’s facilities, documents and records to determine, quite simply, whether it is doing what it claims to do. The accreditation process entails exhaustive preparation on the part of the applying school, requiring it to not only possess financial viability, but also a clear curriculum, admissions policies, administrative procedures, internal evaluation, professional development and much more. Accreditation thus serves as a simple means of proving that a school is providing a quality education for its students, as well as implementing improvement plans to support continued growth. The majority of quality international schools will make their accreditation documents public, enabling prospective and current parents to understand the process; an unwillingness to do so should raise a red flag.
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ISAT Membership in the International Schools Association of Thailand (ISAT) serves as another key indicator. Established in 1994, ISAT requires all member schools to possess, or be in the process of acquiring, external accreditation. The organisation includes all of the top international schools in Thailand, and it works closely with the Thai Ministry of Education to ensure that its members adhere to all proper laws and procedures. Additionally, ISAT provides structure for the member schools through its internal policies and requirements, preventing conflict between rivals and instead fostering cooperation. Membership in ISAT also provides schools with further support in the provision of professional development opportunities for staff, another key factor in ensuring that students continue to receive a quality education. The organisation frequently sponsors high profile workshops and presentations by world class educators, and also invites Thai government officials to provide schools with information regarding changes in policy that will affect them. Given the wealth of resources ISAT offers, a failure to apply for membership in ISAT - or being expelled from it - may again indicate that a school does not possess the quality it claims.
A true international school should have a balanced mix of nationalities
Staff quality Employing and retaining qualified, knowledgeable staff is undoubtedly one of the most significant internal measures of a school’s performance. To truly be designated an international school, an institution should - as a general rule - hire instructors who possess degrees in education or their respective subject areas at the secondary level. Bachelor’s degrees in other subject areas or TOEFL/CELTA certifications simply don’t provide the training necessary to effectively deliver the intensive curricula quality schools should offer. Educators in international schools need to possess a sound understanding of modern educational approaches and classroom management. However, merely hiring those individuals is not sufficient. The school should also demonstrate that it provides continual internal and external professional development opportunities for its staff. The latter should include membership in organisations such as the East Asia Regional Council of Schools and a robust development programme. Like
Technology should be woven into a school’s curriculum not restricted to a computer lab
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EDUCATION
Professional development is critical to the success of any quality school
most other professional fields, education undergoes continual changes as research demonstrates more effective ways of reaching students. Providing staff with training to keep abreast of those developments is essential. Before committing to any school, view its staff profiles and speak to a teacher or administrator about its professional development programme. The competition A fourth significant gauge of a school’s quality involves its performance relative to its competitors. Quality international schools are generally members of one or more organisations that enable them to compete against others in Bangkok, Thailand and Southeast Asia. These include the Bangkok International Schools Athletics Conference (BISAC), Thailand International Schools Activities Conference (TISAC) and South East Asia Student Activity Conference (SEASAC). If a school can boast significant successes in one of these leagues, it likely possesses the resources and internal quality to truly claim the title of international school. Additionally, such schools often compete - and succeed - in national and international tournaments, including essay writing, debate, the World Scholar’s Cup, Model United Nations and similar competitions. A less competitive type of benchmarking is also present in academics. Well established, quality international schools employ external evaluative measures such as the SAT 10, Measures for Academic Progress (MAP), Advanced Placement (AP) exam scores, SAT exam scores or IB exam scores. The SAT 10 and similar examinations serve as a means of comparing students’ abilities to their peers worldwide; students at high quality international schools in Thailand should be capable of achieving scores above global averages in all subject areas. Extending this principle to university acceptances, the school’s graduates should demonstrate a record of acceptances not only to the top institutions in Thailand, but also the best universities worldwide. Again, if an “international school” cannot
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produce data to demonstrate academic success relative to other schools - not to compare, but to benchmark - it likely lags behind its peers. The presentation While not as unambiguous as the aforementioned factors, clarity in the presentation of a school’s curriculum and programmes often provides an idea of its quality. Most good schools base their learning standards on an existing set of standards, whether the British, American or IB curriculum (or other national systems). However, they undergo a process of revision, systematically examining those standards and altering them to feed the needs of an international student body. Be wary if this process has not been undertaken, or if a school’s administrators are unable to answer questions about it; professional educators should be comfortable discussing the nuances of curriculum development. Second, quality schools typically possess clear documentation of the curriculum for both internal and external purposes, and most often have that information available to download on their websites. Many parents ask to “see the curriculum” when visiting a school. However, a curriculum is not a single document. It represents standards, lesson plans, curriculum maps, resources and much more. Thus, a school should be able to provide samples of each of these items to provide insight into its curriculum as a whole. Third, signs of adherence to the learning standards should be available. Though this includes the aforementioned samples of lesson plans, curriculum maps, assessments and historical school wide performance indicators, equally important are knowledgeable staff members who are capable of explaining them concisely. Quality schools have nothing to hide. Feel free to request a meeting with teachers and administrators, and ask them to explain their approach to education.
The final decision Unfortunately, the growing number of choices makes it difficult for parents in Thailand to weed out the true international schools from those that merely seek to profit from the title. To help in determining whether a school deserves to be in that category, consider preparing a list of questions when speaking to its admissions representative, and carefully check to see how much information they are already willing to publicise. The quality of answers received, more often than not, will prove whether an institution really does deserve to be called an international school. While a school’s reputation and the recommendations of friends and family certainly help in the decision making process, the best approach to making a final decision involves educating yourself about your options. An education from an international school should be an investment in your child’s future, and is thus not a choice to be taken lightly. Investigate, research and question: the time and effort put into that process will ultimately pay off in the future as new and unexpected opportunities arise for your child.
Questions to Ask •W hat is the status of your school’s accreditation? • I s your school a member of ISAT? • I s your school non profit? •W hat mix of nationalities do you have in your student body? •W hat curriculum does your school use? How do you meet the needs of an international student body with that curriculum? •C an you provide samples of teachers’ lesson plans and curriculum maps, and explain them? •W hat evidence, such as external academic measures or accomplishments, do you have to show the quality of your programme? •D o your students participate in extracurricular activities through a major conference? •W hich universities have your graduates been accepted to? •W hat percentage of your teachers possesses a background in education? •H ow many of your teachers have master’s degrees in education or their subject areas? •H ow do you ensure that your teachers continue to develop their skills? •W hat is your school’s long term plan for further growth?
Varee Chiangmai School is a modern school with international standards located near the centre of Chiang Mai. The school has excellent resources and a dedicated team of professional educators to ensure all students develop the necessary skills for 21st Century success.
For more details visit 59 Moo 6 Mahidol Rd., Nonghoi, Muang, Chiang Mai, 50000, Thailand Tel : + 66 (0) 53 140 232-3 Ext. 751 Fax : + 66 (0) 53 140 231 E-mail : international@varee.ac.th http://international.varee.ac.th
Build a secure future for your children with an International Education recognized and valued by universities and employers worldwide. • English National Curriculum • IGCSEs • A Levels
EDUCATION
The Importance of Art in Child Development By Elsie Evans
Art extends far beyond creativity Elsie Evans explains the benefits of art education
“Art does not solve problems, but makes us aware of their existence,” sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz once said. Arts education, on the other hand, does solve problems. Years of research show that it is closely linked to almost everything that we want for our children and demand from our schools: academic achievement, social and emotional development, civic engagement, and equitable opportunity. Involvement in the arts is associated with gains in maths, reading, cognitive ability, critical thinking and verbal skill. Arts learning can also improve motivation, concentration, confidence, and teamwork. “Art class extends beyond simply learning how to use a paintbrush. It helps to develop well rounded students and improves their skills in many areas” explains Elsie Evans, resident exhibiting artist and owner of Attic Studios. “In a world dominated by computers the value of creativity is often sacrificed.”
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Elsie a teacher and mother of four children herself, quickly saw the benefits of art classes in building her own children’s self esteem and so did her students parents. After several years of teaching at Bangkok Patana School and privately, Elsie saw the need to expand, and opened Attic Studios. This was in 2006 and since then has taught hundreds of students from ages 4 to 80! Attic is a large airy space comprising two studios providing supportive art instruction for all levels and abilities. “I wanted to open a space where anyone can express their feelings and ideas and in a more flexible format. Children who struggle with verbalising their inner thoughts are encouraged to find a suitable way to release them, whether positive or negative through art. In this way art class takes on a therapeutic value” “Students who may not otherwise feel accomplished in maths, science or English can always celebrate their achievements in our art studio. There is no right or wrong answer in an art class. We install a sense of pride and achievement in our students every time they finish a piece of artwork no matter how old they are. This confidence boost carries over into a students life no matter what they are doing.” I still feel a little glow of pleasure whenever I finish a piece of artwork. This stays with me all day .. and I am a lot older than all of our young artists!”, states Elsie.
The benefits of art class goes far beyond just building confidence in a child. Classes for children that focus on drawing painting and collage also cultivate curiosity and most importantly creativity. The benefits of art class goes far beyond just building confidence in a child. Classes for children that focus on drawing, painting
and collage also cultivate curiosity and most importantly creativity.
The Goshen Educational site states Observation and expressive drawing are the descriptive and expressive reading and writing of the brain’s visual development. The brain’s visual development is basic to the brain’s facility to imagine, to do visual scenario making, and to be creative. Therefore, teaching observation and expressive drawing is a basic part of teaching creativity. When art teachers teach children how to learn observation drawing, they are facilitating creative thinking in many other areas of their lives. At Attic Studios when we teach expressive drawing, we are engaged in actual creative thinking and acting. Children need to learn both. Every scribbling child is being expressive almost without knowing it. Observation skill practice can begin fairly young, and at least by grade one. Expression through art ..... creating leaders. “When children are encouraged to express themselves and take risks in creating art, they develop a sense of innovation that will be important in their adult lives. The kind of people society needs to make it move forward are thinking, inventive people who seek new ways and improvements, not people who can only follow directions”. “Art is a way to encourage the process and the experience of thinking and making things better!” If you are looking at finding a weekend or holiday activity that is not only fun but also helps your children get ahead in life, enroll them into an art class today. For more information on Attic Studios Art classes please visit our website www.attic-studios.com or facebook Attic Studios or phone Elsie 083 301 1314 We also run classes for adults for every ability throughout the week.
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REVIEWS
BTS Date Night: Thonglor & Phrom Pong By Yasmin -Tamana Tanwani Ever struggled to decide where to spend your precious date night out away from the kids? Expat Parents in Thailand narrows it down for you in our ongoing ‘BTS Date Night’ series. This issue, we look at Thonglor and Phrom Pong. Octave
BTS: Thonglor Octave The 360 degree unobstructed views at this sky high rooftop bar and restaurant are comparable to none in the Sukhumvit vicinity. Ambiance wise, Octave, inspired by New York apartment terraces, is modern and chic with accents of industrial and natural elements. The long and narrow dining area on the 45th floor is decked out with warm woods and lounge like sofas, serving up delicious new age Asian style tapas and a seafood bar. After your dinner be sure to make your way up to the rooftop lounge and hang out by the oversized circular bar, where you can mellow out to chilled out tunes spun by the live DJ nightly. Cuisine: Asian Tapas Sukhumvit 57, Klong Tan Nua, Wattana, 02 797 0140
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Iron Fairies Walking into Iron Fairies, you immediately forget the world outside you. This multi-level whimsical blacksmith themed restaurant come bar gives you the feeling you have been taken back into time and into an alternative realm. It’s rustic, cosy charm is accentuated with trendy and eclectic industrial décor - old, creaking wood, dim hanging bulbs of light, iron casted fairies and walls cluttered with vials of fairy dust. The ambiance is also complemented with sounds of a live Jazz band on weekends. Iron Fairies doesn’t just serve up fancy concoctions of drinks, but also great oversized burgers as well. If you are up for a not-so-ordinary date night, Iron Fairies is for you. Cuisine: International 404, Sukhumvit Soi 55, 02 714 8875 4 Garcons Brasserie For couples looking for a quieter affair, can head on over to this hip and well known French restaurant. Sophisticated yet unpretentious, regal yet contemporary, 4 Garcons achieves a fine balance between Iron Fairies warm and trendy. Food wise, their dishes offer a modern but simple take on traditional French cuisine without straying too far away from its authenticity. All in all, you will be guaranteed a quiet and satisfying meal.
4 Garcons
Cuisine: French 13 Thonglor Soi 13, Oakwood Residence 1st Floor, Sukhumvit Soi 55, 02 713 9547 O’Zake Adorned by wall filled sake barrels and bottles over looking their sushi bar, this multi-story Japanese Izakaya style restaurant come bar is a trendy and casual eatery. Ideal for sharing, their sushi and sashimi dishes shine with its innovative, fusion creations. Not a sushi fan? Their extensive menu caters to a myriad of tastes. The restaurant also boasts an outstanding variety of Japanese liquor and also houses a chic outdoor patio for post dinner drinks and shisha. Cuisine: Japanese Thonglor 15, Sukhumvit 55, 02 712 5061-2
O’Zake
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REVIEWS
BTS Station: Prom Phong Indus Indus has long been known for its fine Indian dining in Bangkok since it opened its doors in 2004. Since then, the restaurant has consistently lived up to its high standards with its various restaurant awards and delectable rich Indian flavours. Walking into the restaurant through its wood carved doors, you are ushered into an elegant, candle lit hued and romantic dining room surrounded by Indian art, woodcarvings and brick walls. The food, served in traditional Indian copper bowls is reminiscent of dining in an upscale hotel right in the heart of India. To end off your spicy evening, make sure you order a vodka flambé Gulab Jamun, a twist on the traditional milk solid Indian desert. Cuisine: Indian 71 Sukhumvit Soi 26, 02 258 4900 Antonio’s This Italian favourite never fails to disappoint. Nestled amidst the bustling Soi 31, lies this quiet, romantic stand alone two storey Italian eatery. The restaurant’s namesake is sure to greet you as you take a seat on your table. With not more than 15 tables, Antonio’s service is nothing short of personable and friendly. Food wise, expect your traditional fine dining Italian favourites or better yet, heed the advice of the owner himself who will cater to your suit your palate.
If you are in the mood for a romantic night out and feel like dressing up, Antonio’s is your perfect date night spot. Be sure to make a reservation before your head on down though. Cuisine: Italian 26, Sukhumvit Soi 31, 02 662 1001
Quince Quince’s philosophy is sustainability; serving fresh and seasonal produce only. And it shows. The eatery is rustic European/Mediterranean eating at its best – if you are into that kind of thing. As soon as you walk in, you are surrounded by warm industrial décor encapsulated by floor to ceiling glass walls overlooking a large open lawn. As you make your way into the living room, the vibe slowly flows into a more cosy, vintage and 1950’s country home setting without losing its contemporary vibe. A restaurant true to its cause in an idyllic setting, Quince makes an ideal date night out. Cuisine: Mediterranean Sukhumvit Soi 45, 02 662 4478 Indus
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EDUCATION
Students benefit from music education By Vaughan Pope Wells International School
Learn the many benefits of what music education can do for your child
It won’t matter if your child is in line to be the next big pop star or a budding solo artist belting out tunes in the car, research and recent studies have shown that they will benefit from some form of musical education. Research shows students that experience music also develop other skills that inevitably aid them with skills in other faculties of education. “A music rich experience for children of singing, listening and moving is really bringing a very serious benefit to children as they progress into more formal learning,” says Mary Luehrsen, executive director of the National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) Foundation. Consider this, just making music, or playing an instrument, a child will have to tap into multiple skill
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sets usually in a coordinated, simultaneous manner. It this way, they are using their eyes and ears, and fine motor coordination with small and large muscles. “Music learning supports all learning. Not that Mozart makes you smarter, but it’s a very integrating, stimulating pastime or activity,” says Kenneth Guilmartin, cofounder of Music Together. In the areas of language development, music has also proven to be a beneficial aid. Although children come into this world with the ability to breakdown and decode sounds and words, music education has proven to help enhance those natural abilities. In recent studies, music training has been shown to clearly develop part of the left side brain hemisphere also known to house the processing language centre.
In this way, the relationship between music and language development can also be a social advantage to young children. “The development of language over time tends to enhance parts of the brain that help process music,” says Dr. Kyle Pruett, clinical professor of child psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. “Language competence is at the root of social competence. Musical experience strengthens the capacity to be verbally competent.”
Studies indicate the brain of a musician, even a young one, works differently than that of a non musician. “There’s some good neuroscience research that children involved in music have larger growth of neural activity than people not in music training. When you’re a musician and you’re playing an instrument, you have to be using more of your brain,” says Dr. Eric Rasmussen, chair of the Early Childhood Music Department at the Peabody Preparatory of The Johns Hopkins University.
In a study conducted at the University of Toronto, by Another study by the University of Kansas, revealed E. Glenn Schellenberg, research suggested a small that students in elementary schools with superior increase in IQ points of students who were given weekly music education programmes scored around 22% voice and piano lessons. Over a nine month period higher in English and 20% higher in math scores on 36 students were standardised tests, studied with different compared to schools Consider this, just making music, or playing an instruction given to with low quality music instrument, a child will have to tap into multiple three groups of 12. programmes. skill sets usually in a coordinated, simultaneous In the first group, manner. It this way, they are using their eyes students received Overall music can and ears, and fine motor coordination with weekly piano and improve your child’s small and large muscles. voice lessons. In the abilities in learning second, they received and other non musical weekly theatre and tasks, but it’s important drama classes, and in the third they received neither. to understand that music does not make one smarter. The students were tested before entering the first grade, The many intrinsic benefits to music education include and then again before entering the second grade. being disciplined, learning a skill, being part of the music world, managing performance, being part of The results conclusively showed that the group with something you can be proud of, and even struggling piano and voice lessons, on average, tested at 3 IQ with a less than perfect teacher. points higher than the other two groups. Interestingly, although the group given theatre and drama lessons “It’s important not to oversell how smart music can did not show an increase in IQ points on average, they make you,” Dr. Kyle Pruett says. “Music makes your kid did exhibit development in social behaviour that was not interesting and happy, and smart will come later.” seen in the music only group.
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Being a grandmother By Bea Toews
A proud and loving grandmother shares the emotions of watching her son and then grandchildren grow up into this world
My grandfather said that it was not how your children turned out, it was how your grandchildren turned out, that told how well you had raised your child. His theory was that you could make your child behave, but you couldn’t make your child bring up his children the way you wanted him to. He was speaking about my father, and I know that my father did what his father wanted. I didn’t like my grandfather, because I thought he didn’t treat my father fairly, and I still think that. My father, however, did not raise us as he had been raised. The four daughters my father raised are independent outspoken women, not at all what grandfather admired. Times are different now and maybe he would have changed, but perhaps not. I married young and my son was raised by his father and me until he was 13 years old. His father then decided that he had had enough and didn’t want a relationship with me any more. He was a good father and a good husband until he decided to bail out. Then he continued to be a good father. Our son was still raised jointly, though in different houses and is a credit to himself and his parents. I like him, as well as love him. He and his wives have produced three grandchildren. The oldest grandchild is a girl and a lovely horse obsessed creature she is. She hangs out with studious friends and is mildly unhappy when she does not succeed brilliantly in class. She does succeed in horse riding though and that is what matters to her. I went riding with her after not having ridden for forty years and I was very sore, but it was worth it when she said that if I practiced I could have a reasonable seat. She looks like my mother and is named after her and I am pleased with the way she is developing. The second is a boy who as I write this, is in the throes of becoming a person and deciding what he will be obsessed by. We thought for a while it would be drama,
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but that seems to have been too much work and he is no longer so interested in drama. Even making videos seems to require too much focus and continuity. I would love to watch the videos he makes on youtube but I don’t see the point of them; the point seems to be that there is no point. He looks like his mother and I am interested in how he will develop. The third is three months old. He does not look like my son or like his mother. He looks like himself. I am in love with this stranger whose face goes from gurgles of pleasure to perfect cries of “waaah” in a paroxysm of what – Pain? Anger? Disapproval? Hunger? Discomfit? Above all, I want him to gurgle and wave his perfect little fists about and kick his jump suited feet, practice holding up his wobbly head and in other ways be a happy baby. I don’t want him to cry. It’s not the noise he makes that I don’t like. I don’t like the possibility that this small creature might not be
happy. I have lived long enough to know that with consciousness comes many things, one of them being unhappiness. The not enough, and the not yet, and the not quite and all the other “nots” that happen as consciousness develops will come to him in his allotted time, but I wish for him that it not come yet. May he not have nightmares, may he not be worried by his father being ill, may his grandfather and his wife not spoil him – but all that is for later. For now, let him be happy. Each morning when he wakes up and finds another part of the world at the end of his cot, or the end of his fingers, or the end of his line of vision, may he find that part of the world pleasing and may it fit the rest of his world view. When he finds his opposing finger and thumb, may he pick up things that won’t hurt him. While he is exploring his feet and sucking his toes, while he is learning to lift his head and to roll over, to hold the bottle when he is being fed, all those inevitable firsts – may he be happy. He will learn to walk and then a whole new arena of possibilities will rise. There are kitchen gadgets, electric plugs, knives, cords, steps and a thousand other things for him to find and learn what to do with. Then he will have the garden and the park to explore. When he explores in the garden, let all the snakes be somewhere else. In the park, may the swings and slides be what they are meant to be and not dangerous. In the zoo, may the animals perform for him. I do not dare go beyond this stage in my thoughts of that baby. He will change from the milky dozy little person that he now is to whatever he, his genetic makeup and his environment make of him. I will have to deal with those changes as I have had to deal with the changes in the other two children. Fortunately, I will have time to get used to what he will be as he changes. For the present his toothless smile of recognition and his attempts at interaction, his staccato kicks as he flexes his entire body and waves his arms, mesmerise me. I can hold him and wonder at the perfection of this creature. When he arches himself into his scream of unknown desire, I can hand him back to his parents. This grandmother is well pleased not only with the son, but also the grandchildren.
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Let’s bake with kids By Jacqueline Baumann
Jacqueline shares useful tips and explains the joys and benefits of baking with children I am a mother of three and my passion is baking. There is nothing better than the sparkle in children’s eyes when they receive special sweets. I grew up with a father as a chef in our own restaurant and a mother with a love for baking. I never thought that I develop the same passion as my mother. I first started to bake only for family birthdays but soon I found the passion in baking. Whatever I saw or read about baking, inspired me to bake more. Baking with children and adults is a fantastic experience every time for me. Children love to knead dough, shape cookies with the cutter and look through the oven window while their sweets are baking. Your recipe and shopping list When baking with kids, we must be prepared with an easy recipe. After choosing the recipe, we need to prepare the shopping list where the kids can already lend a helping
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hand. The kids can go through the recipe and check for example how many eggs are needed, how much flour is needed etc. Finally the shopping list is completed. The next step is the shopping itself. My kids love going to the grocery store to find the ingredients according the shopping list and finally settle the payment at the cashier themselves. The experience gives the kids more confidence to handle daily life and makes them more independent. Preparing the dough The next step will be the preparation of the dough. I explain to the kids each individual step in the recipe as they try to follow slowly. The kids then mix all the ingredients and knead the dough to the correct consistency. In the meantime, the oven has heated up and is ready for baking. In general kids love to bake! The smell of freshly baked sweets fills the whole house. They love to lick the spoon, play with or eat the dough, handle the hand mixer, crack
the eggs and so much more. Even the little toddlers want to help to bake and of course to taste. The best child friendly cakes generally consist of batters, where the dough is mixed in a bowl and poured directly into the baking shapes. The ideal baking activity for beginners is to make a yeast dough because this dough can be formed to a sheet cake decorated with fresh seasonal fruit such as strawberries or apples. With the yeast dough you can make different recipes. For example cake, bread or a yummy pizza etc. With pizza, kids can explore their creativity. They can decorate the pizza with all their favourite ingredients, make funny smiley faces with vegetables, meat and cheese; there are no limits. For cookies we use shortbread dough which children can wonderfully knead, roll out and decorate. Extra tip for baking with children: Should a cookie recipe include alcohol an alternative is soft baking extracts or fruit juice instead. The exciting moment for the kids is when the dough starts to rise and grow and to knead the dough with their own hands.
attention. There are a lot of easy cake recipes that are a lot of fun. One such example, are cupcakes. They are done quickly, made with a simple batter and can be made with a variety of ingredients such as fresh fruit, chocolate chips and dried nuts or fruit. Cupcakes are also particularly well suited for children, they fit perfectly into little hands. Let the children help Let the children choose the fruit for the cupcakes, stir the dough, fill the individual cupcake cups. They especially love to make the buttercream, to stir the butter and colour it. It is a nice idea to make a rainbow coloured buttercream. After topping the cupcakes with buttercream, the cupcakes can be decorated with any sprinkles, there is no limit. Make your own sugar or coloured dried coconut sprinkles. Eat with your eyes Children love colourful and beautiful things. This also applies to the cake.
When baking with children, the delicious result of their hard work is of course the most important. The children feel comfortable, develop confidence and self esteem seeing the final product. Positive emotions are linked with baking as anyone can still remember at least one cake story from his or her own childhood. For example, grandma’s cake, mum’s fresh made bread or homemade Christmas cookies. In addition, the dough kneading and decorating promotes fine motor skills and independence. Baking with children is exactly the same principle as cooking with kids: Only through assistance the children will develop the sense of importance about the handling of food, preparation and taste. Even when they make mistakes like dropping an egg on the floor it is good experience. We only learn from the mistakes. Baking cupcakes Baking with children does need to be very difficult. However, big cakes take too much time and need too much
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Sometimes a cake can already taste great because it was baked in a butterfly shaped baking pan. An extra tip for baking with children: There are special small baking pans you can buy in any supermarket for the young confectioner easier to handle by them self. There is almost everything in mini format and hot colours: rolling pin, whisk, apron (kids love to dress up), bowls. Beautiful bakeware and cookie cutters in various shapes such as butterflies, hearts or fir trees for Christmas make the kitchen equipment for baking with children fun. You also can use the cutters of the well known Playdough. Good for health An important aspect when baking with children is how to decorate the cakes and cookies! Pay attention to the children’s health. The more natural the decorations ingredients are, the better it is. You can use for example jam or jelly and brush on the top when the cake is still warm and the cake looks very shiny. On the jelly layer, you can sprinkle any colourful chocolate chips, dried fruits/nuts or coconut flakes for decoration. Safety A party is not complete without baking and coating with chocolate. Caution: When melting chocolate in the hot water bath, children should keep their distance! The completed molten chocolate is poured carefully on to the centre of the cake and spread at long range. Don’t forget to praise the children for the lovely creation what they have produced, it gives them great confidence. This will always be a good motivation for the next time. Decorating When the process in the oven is finished and the cakes have cooled down, the most fun part has begun for
the kids. They get to finally decorate and design their cakes. Ideal for decorating is also homemade frosting. Mix powdered sugar gradually with liquid until a liquid paste forms. Preferable liquids are fruit juice or water. Rough guide: For each 100 gms of powdered sugar, it requires about 1 to 2 tablespoons of liquid. Extra tip for baking with children: the white frosting can be coloured with a few drops of food colouring as desired. For very fine decorations there is also ready coloured sugar font in the tube to buy. Healthy variations include dried fruits such as cranberries, banana chips or raisins. Also popular are for the sweet tooth are gummy bears and chocolate beans, colourful sugar, chocolate or colourful motifs are suitable as cake decorations. Marzipan and fondant also make nice and sweet decorations for cupcakes, cookies and cakes. It is great for a birthday cakes, to make numbers and letters. They can also learn the numbers, shapes and letters, colours and much more. Happy baking!
Jacqueline runs cupcake design classes in Bangkok for kids and adults and posts easy step by step recipes on her Facebook page (www.Facebook.com/Jackybakes1). She also writes regular easy tutorials and recipes for different magazines in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
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Thai-Chinese International School
American Curriculum-English Language United States Accredited (Western Association of Schools and Colleges) History
Since its establishment in 1995, the Thai-Chinese (American) International School (TCIS) in Bangkok has maintained a tradition of delivering a high quality American Curriculum taught in English. TCIS is one of the top ten international schools in Bangkok that have an American English curriculum. TCIS is the only school in Bangkok where Age 2 through Grade 12 are taught 100% of the time in American-English; yet still take daily language lessons in Thai and Chinese. TCIS participates in BISAC which is the top athletic league in Bangkok and its sports association is limited to only ten international schools.
Who are we – Where are we?
TCIS is an international school with an enrollment of 800 students. We operate under a non-profit foundation board that has a great track record for supporting education. We employ 65 highly qualified American Teachers, 12 Chinese Teachers and 8 Thai Teachers. We are located south of the city; close to the IKEA store and the new Mega-Mall Bang-Na. Google us for more geographic details. www.tcis.ac.th.
What makes our campus such a great place to learn?
Our center is our focus! And our focus is academic learning In the physical center of our campus, we have a brand new astro-turf athletic field that is used day and night! We also have a wonderful young children’s play area, three gymnasiums, a state of the art theater concert hall, multiple technology centers , an indoor swimming pool and an extensive library resource center. All of our classrooms are air conditioned and a well appointed; supporting state of the art technologies.
What is our academic program like?
TCIS follows an American curriculum for the core subjects of English, Math, Science and Social Studies. Numerous options are also offered in music, the arts, athletics and technology. Our high school is an ‘all Mac’ school and every student has their own laptop which holds the bulk of their curriculum. More programs for iPads and other technologies are being planned and implemented each year.
What are our credentials?
TCIS is accredited in the U.S. by the Western Association of Schools and College (WASC). We offer 18 AP Coursed at the high school lever. Each year our seniors are accepted to many top universities in the United States, Taiwan, China, Thailand and elsewhere throughout the world.
Can you afford TCIS?
TCIS is one of the most affordable international schools in Thailand. Reviewing the top 25 tuitions in Bangkok, we are the 21st lowest in tuition yet we deliver a top ten instructional academic program. You won’t find a better learning environment at any price!
Come and learn more about TCIS!
We welcome your interest in our school! Our admissions officers (+662 751 1201) will be happy to provide you with more information and registration materials. Our website also holds much enrollment and application information and a great map for locating us for a visit. We look forward to your inquiry.
Thai – Chinese International School
Dr. Steven Ballowe, Head of School 101/177 Moo 7 Soi Mooban, Prasertsin Road, Bangplee Yai, Samutprakarn 10540 Thailand Email address: steven.ballowe@tcis.ac.th Expat parents in Thailand
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EDUCATION
ICT and schools – are friends electric? By Dominique Tellenbach, Principal of RIS Swiss Section – Deutschsprachige Schule Bangkok
Is information technology in schools a friend or foe? Here we discuss how the different mediums of IT in good measure, can be beneficial for your child
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is all around us. Most of us can no longer imagine a life without electronic little helpers and gadgets, be it in the professional sphere or in our private lives. Schools have embraced the possibilities of the digital age in various degrees, and parents are often divided over the topic: Must children be taught the use of contemporary media as early as possible because we know this is going to be indispensable in their professional lives? Should ICT be in the curriculum of every primary school? Or should the school be a “safe haven”, a self declared electronic free zone in which the students are given the room and the possibilities to interact “offline”? Are electronic devices the teacher’s friend or foe? Most experts agree that, as with all things in life, this is a question of good measure. With every generation of new teachers, technology in the classroom becomes more natural. The young pedagogues are “digital natives” themselves: they were socialised with ICT and are now computer literate in an entirely new way – comparable to a native speaker of English in contrast to someone who learned this language later in life: you can become very good at it, but it’s just not the same as when an English person speaks. In this article, I will explore some ways in which ICT is used in today’s classrooms. I draw from the experience
of many young colleagues who have taught me about technologies that I was not familiar with beforehand. Having seen many new electronics trends come and go, it is my understanding that schools need to differentiate between what is useful and sustainable and what is a mere hype. For this, they need an ICT strategy and committed teachers in charge of the topic. Relevant issues include smartphones, tablet computers, laptops, presentation technique and office software, tools for distance learning and social media. Smartphones These all pervasive gadgets are arguably the most widespread ICT devices around. All teachers agree that they can be a source of distraction and lead to limited attention spans. The question therefore is: How do we make good use of these technology packed minicomputers? The most challenging step is to define if and how smartphones are allowed in the classroom at all – and to commit students to clear cut rules.
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The use of smartphones in schools is a topic of heated discussions among teachers. It is important to have a pedagogically sound set of rules that the educators are comfortable with. And it must be absolutely clear what is off limits at school: audio and video recording, for example, or illegal downloads.
Tablet computers When Apple launched the iPad in 2010, we saw the dawn of a new age in computer technology. Sales in tablet computers of all makes have since soared and tablets have quickly become staple items in many households. But how can schools use them?
Even if smartphones are not allowed during lessons, they can still assist teaching in many different ways, for example during homework. Students can look up unfamiliar words in electronic dictionaries and encyclopedias – far more handy and comfortable than the books of old. Historical facts, numbers and dates can be consulted in a number of databases (and yes, there is more out there than just Wikipedia). Looking for a synonym to make your text more attractive? Free apps will help. Smartphones, in other words, can serve as quick fixes for all the little uncertainties. They are the easiest link to the internet. One of the teachers’ main tasks, then, is to assist the students in deciding what is valuable, trustworthy information and what is not – a new cultural technique that nowadays is as important as reading.
Tablets are more straightforward to use than desktop PCs or even laptops: they can be switched on in no time and are intuitive to use. This predestines them for use by younger children. As with any piece of hardware, their true value lies in the available software, or apps. At my school, we have complete sets of tablet computers for the entire primary level, beginning in the kindergarten. They are maintained and kept upto-date by one person in charge who makes sure only educational apps are installed (and the same ones on each device). Teachers may suggest new apps that are then evaluated, downloaded and installed on all tablets. Educational apps come in many forms and for every subject: mathematics, language arts, geography, biology… there is something for all tastes. These apps
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can efficiently complement more traditional teaching methods and give the students the possibility to work largely independently. The most appealing aspect of educational apps is that they allow teachers to differentiate the exercises according to the level of each student. Most educational apps can be configured accordingly - or they are programmed to find out where the learner stands and which level is appropriate. For example, an app to practice mental arithmetic evaluates the students’ answers and sets the next task accordingly. Teachers can check the progress of each pupil and decide individually who needs extra work and who can go on to more advanced challenges. At the same time, the children are more motivated because using a tablet is a thrilling incentive – no matter what task comes with it. Laptops When I first started teaching back in the 1990s, my school ran a very exclusive pilot programme called “laptop classes”. A select few were equipped with (outrageously expensive) portable computers and the elite of the teaching body was instructed on how to make use of them in class. Now more widely sold than your classical desktop PC, laptops have become the industry’s new standard. Most secondary school students own one. So why not use them in class as well? It is easier than ever before: WiFi is available in most schools and, in contrast to my 1990s experience, students do not need long introductions on how to use that miraculous machine called a laptop computer. It has long become the extension of their arms and brains. My school in Bangkok embeds laptops in activities on all levels of the upper primary and throughout secondary school. Students take notes, research, present, draw charts, access e-learning tools and class websites, edit videos and, of course, write papers and mini dissertations on them. Laptops have become not just a familiar sight, but an integral part of our teaching culture, at least from Grade 9 on. When I can sit in and watch students give elaborate presentations almost effortlessly, I am convinced that they are well prepared for the challenges of the professional lives that await them. Presentation technique and office software Qualification for the work life becomes the focus of
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secondary school. Students must be able to pursue an academic or professional career, and it is our task to give them the tools they need. Using the standard office software and especially mastering presentation techniques is one of them. Language diplomas such as the Cambridge First Certificate in English or the DELE series for Spanish are acknowledged internationally. Did you know that there are similar certificates for ICT? The International Computer Driving Licence (ICDL) is one example. It comes in a variety of degrees. Tests are standardised and taken online. Various modules are available. They assess a student’s knowledge of word processing, spreadsheet software, computer essentials, database software, web editing, IT security etc. A fixed number of successfully completed modules is bundled into a certificate. There are several advantages of integrating such diplomas into a school’s curriculum. The teaching of IT becomes standardised. The certificates are recognised universally – they represent true added value to a student’s portfolio. And there is the positive challenge of students, their will to pass the test for the diploma. Moreover, such standardised exams are straightforward to take: test dates can be determined by teachers individually, and students sit the exams in their normal classrooms – without the need for travel or for external supervisors. Tools for distance learning New media provides us with a number of new ways to get in contact, to share thoughts and documents and to work together. The Internet has made us rethink some basic concepts of learning and teaching. Distance learning is a didactic option that was not available before the rise of the Internet. It is especially useful when teachers and students are unable to be in the same place at the same time, for example due to illness, inclement weather or school closure. But it can also complement “traditional” teaching methods. How does it work? Teachers set up “virtual classrooms” on a server. Only invited people have access to it. In a virtual classroom, teachers can post additional materials, for example extra reading, videos, photographs or sound files for the
students to download. Questions that come up during the lesson can be answered later in the virtual classroom. Individual tasks can be assigned, again taking into account each student’s learning level. There are also chat and sharing possibilities. In other words, distance learning is a means for teachers and students to stay in touch outside the classroom, to deepen the learning experience and to individualise teaching.
people outside the learning network? Can group discussions and materials be found by other people if they use a certain search engine for web browsing? From the school’s point of view, the use of social media in teaching needs to be scrutinised thoroughly. Facebook and Google+ don’t cost anything, but they do not come for free. Privacy and information security must be our first concern, so when in doubt, we prefer solutions that are paid but guarantee the integrity of our students’ and teachers’ data.
Let us take the example of a history project. In class, the teacher discusses the eve of the Second World War. Using a virtual classroom, he can later upload historical film material, now easily available online, or post links to original sources. Individual tasks could include watching and summarising propaganda clips, reading about the Weimar Republic and give a presentation, or studying the balance of power in Europe in 1939 and to design an explanatory chart for the other students. Internet access and a virtual classroom outside the school open up brand new ways of engaging students and offer broader access to the world around us.
Let’s be clear: almost 100% of our students use social media privately, at least from the upper primary level on. Every school should therefore address the use of Instagram, Twitter, Line, Facebook and the like as a part of its media curriculum. With the new technologies come new dangers, especially for the safety and integrity of the users’ data. Preventive steps include talking about social media openly and integrating the children’s own experiences. One method I found very useful is to tell the students to Google their own name and find out everything they possibly can about themselves using only legal and openly accessible sources. The results can be real eye openers.
Social media An overview of ICT in schools is not complete without a brief mention of Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Twitter and other channels of what has become known as social media. These can be useful teaching tools as well: For example, if you set up specific groups with limited access rights on Facebook or Google+, learning networks can be established. Students can exchange their findings and insights with other group members, sharing the fruits of their work. However, as with all social media, matters of privacy need to be clarified before going ahead. Who is the owner of uploaded materials? Can the shared contents be accessed by
So – are friends (of the teachers) electric? As you have surely realised, I am quite enthusiastic about the use of ICT in the classroom. Modern technology offers many new possibilities and can truly take teaching to new levels. It also helps prepare our older students for their work lives. In all the enthusiasm, we should not forget to take seriously issues of privacy and data integrity and to address them. The use of media must be part of the curriculum of every school – but it is equally important to have the time and resources to reflect our use of them. If both can be achieved, some friends of the teacher will indeed be electric.
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What it’s like to be a third culture kid By Samantha Thakral
These days it’s easy to find ten year olds with makeup and ‘guy problems’ and kids resorting to iPads and computers in order to have fun whereas when I was ten, my main concern would be finishing my homework and to have fun we had to actually go outside. If this is just the generation gap that is new to us, it really makes me wonder how the second and first generation are feeling towards me and how they are the ones to look at the new society adapting to change without the assurance of not knowing whether this change is for the better. Culture is what we, the youth, grow up with. Our environment becomes our culture and this affects what we do and how we look at things in life. It’s important when choosing the lifestyle you want your child to grow up with and culture comes from years and years of traditions our parents and our grandparents grew up with. Now there’s me - a third generation kid. My parents had put my siblings and I in international schools since we were able to walk, it had become a part of their lifestyle, the go to decision. English was our first language
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at home (except with our grandparents of course, they prefer traditional Punjabi) and we had become accustomed to our modern ways which was no doubt so different from how my parents life was when they were growing up. Especially with my dad, unlike my mom, his final years of high school had been in Thailand. He had gone to Ruamrudee International School but never had the chance to go to college like his children have today. It was normal at that time to get married after graduating high school. Something I can’t imagine doing! His bloodline goes all the way back to Gujranwala British India which is now in Pakistan due to the great partition between India and Pakistan. It was in 1906 where my forefathers first moved to Thailand, and we have been here ever since. In 1980 my parents got married. My mom, originating from Singapore, after her parents had migrated from India, told me it had been a coincidence of how her parents later found out after they had married that they were infact from the same village in India. It’s stories like these you can’t find anymore in our day and age.
Now there’s me - an international kid born to Indian parents. I regularly get asked that if I was born here why isn’t my Thai as fluent as others and I answer the same thing every time which is that I had gone to an international school since I could speak my very first words. I was a student at St. Andrews International School but learning Thai was on my own account from going through the little things that I went through life everyday in Thailand as learning Thai wasn’t a primary focus in international schools at that time. It was until 2007 that I had attended there and they were some great years but it had it’s ups and downs. It was a growing school when I joined and not as big it is now and the number of Indian students were scarce which made it challenging at times. It was at that moment when my parents felt that my brother and I were ‘too international’ if that’s even a thing. Instead of us coming home singing our Indian heritage songs we would be coming home and singing Christian songs so my parents moved us to the Thai Sikh International School. St. Andrews had been a blessing though, it had been my foundation of ‘internationalism’ that I have today and has become way more complex than when I was there. In international schools you embrace new cultures and experience new things from all over the world. They give you a way to look at life differently than to what our parents and our grandparents were used to. After moving to a more Indian International school, I despised it at first, but who doesn’t hate a new school, I never thought later that I would love it and miss it so much. The friends, the teachers made me want to go back in time. It had made me embrace more of my culture yet balancing my international side by making me realise my roots and teaching me not to stray too much from tradition as that often happens when being a third generation kid. Now there’s me - a product of an international school. If you live in an Indian household it’s not uncommon to hear your parents say those famous words ‘back in my days’ or ‘when I was your age’ and start to compare your life to theirs and all we can think of is ‘exactly! we’re not in that time anymore’ and ‘things have
changed’. Our lifestyle has become way more different and challenging to what theirs was. We live in a society where we have to keep up with our friends and obscure any opportunity to have fun in life and that often requires us to collect more pocket money, buy more designer handbags and go out more. You really know you’ve become international when it’s hard to even communicate with your grandparents. My siblings and I are perhaps the only ones who can’t speak much of our heritage language and the ones that get that look from the grandparents that make you feel like ‘oh your pants are too short’ or ‘there’s too much makeup on your face’ that later leads to that comparison of us and our parents that comes and taunts us. It’s often hard to accept change, people don’t want tradition to be taken away and it’s up to us - the latest generation to keep that from happening. Culture is a crucial part in life though, it’s important it doesn’t get blurred along the international atmosphere that we grew up in and my parents do their best to keep us grounded. Being raised in an international environment has its perks in the long term as well. After graduating, my next step in life like most other students, was college and this was where I decided to go to Mahidol University International College which is one of the top three colleges in Thailand. It had been a completely different experience from what I was used to. Normally graduating from an international school, students go to a college abroad and there’s not much that changes. Except perhaps the curriculum and the studies but the lifestyle, the international friends, the international teachers are pretty much the same whereas for me going to a college in Thailand was a more challenging experience. Although international students were high in number, its ratio to Thai students was obsolete. Just like noticing a sheep in a herd, International students would be recognisable and pop out from the crowd. Going to an international school though had made me more outgoing and participative and made it easier to talk to the professors in comparison to the Thai students, it was often that the professors would remember my name more than the Thai students because of this, it had made my college life more of a breeze.
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Study abroad in Thailand By Nina Nicolai Tompkins
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From being a Dutch student going to (the only) American university in the Netherlands you can draw the conclusion that, I was instead of focussing on building my life in peaceful Holland, I was looking for international challenges. While the Netherlands is known for being a relatively international oriented country I personally did not experience that as much. I grew up in the Netherlands, went to different Dutch schools and lived the perfect peaceful life that most of the Dutch people (I know) live. When I was finishing high school I knew that if I went to a Dutch university, I could get a job easily at an embassy or a law firm where my parents friends work, or I could follow in my moms footsteps and work at her psychologists institute or whatever I wanted basically, in the Netherlands that is. And I would not have to work very hard for it. What a luxury! For me this seemed too easy, kind of boring, and not at all what I aspire.
Dutch, American, British, Indian, French, Jewish and Austrian.
Though my parents are pretty content with living in the Netherlands, which do not get me wrong, I am too, I always felt the attraction of living abroad. Most of my ancestors were expats, but my parents’ parents generation settled down in the Netherlands. My family is basically a mixture of different cultures and nationalities:
My path is following my ancestors in living, studying, working abroad in different countries, experiencing new cultures and build a new life.
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I felt drawn to those international parts in me. Growing up my parents did not send my sister and I to international schools at first, though what they did was raised us with much travelling, and all different tastes, traditions and stories of all those cultures. And although we are not a religious family at all, my parents took us to temples, churches, synagogues and read us the bible, Buddhist, old indian and native American stories, aside from reading Dutch children’s books and watching Disney movies with us. They gave us total freedom in believing whatever felt right to us and taking all those impressions and stories into account, which we processed in our plays with our dolls at first, and later in choosing our future paths.
In January 2014 the time was right, I got the opportunity to go abroad to transfer to one of my universities sister-
campuses - the school even sponsored my plane ticket. So, where to go? For me the most obvious choice was London or Vienna. I love those cities, I know them quite well, I speak the language, and it feels safe. Or a US campus maybe? I always wanted to study in the States after all. But no, somehow I felt the urge to step out of my comfort zone. I explained to my parents that if I wanted to be a true expat and live abroad, I should dive right into it and face some of my fears first. I figured Thailand would be an excellent choice. I had been to Asia a couple of times in my life, visited Thailand, but those visits consisted mostly of resort hopping and city sightseeing. To be honest I did not like Thailand that much, I thought it was way too hot, polluted, and crowded. The beaches were nice but most of the time you could not lie down in the sun or you sweated like a fountain or got sunburn. This image changed quickly when I got to live here for a little while. From the first day I arrived the happy memories started to build. Which in the end lead to me not wanting to go home anymore and finding solutions to prolong my stay. During my stay in Hua Hin, where I lived because my school is located there, I slowly lost my European stress mode and adapted to the relaxing lifestyle that this little beach town has to offer. I was impressed by how much I liked it. I always thought I liked my fast paced way of
living in Amsterdam; having non stop appointments, juggling work, school, my sorority, volunteer work, family and friends. Always carrying my MacBook around with Safari tabs open so I could again check admission requirements for the Columbia University’s graduate programmes, searching for New York internships, looking for possible editing options to amplify my LinkedIn page, and checking my three email accounts. Gosh was I busy. Luckily I could let that life be for now, and enjoy the fact that I only had to go to school twice a week for summer courses, and having the rest of the week off to either travel to surrounding countries or relax on the the beach and explore the nightlife in Hua Hin. My biggest concerns at that point were my senior finance course, and if I should shake up my nail colour pattern and shift from always having red nails to try something new like pink. (Turns out I still prefer red, but at least I mixed it up). Though I was going to the same institute here as in the Netherlands, I could now experience how it was to be at an international school as an expat instead of being a local. I realised that there were some significant differences. I was used to the comfort of speaking the language, knowing the way around town and local transportation, and having my lifelong friends and family near. Here I had to start building a new life
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which challenges you into being less critical of other people, acting more flexible, being patient when they do not understand what you are saying or the other way around, taking your time to find the way. Small but crucial things you have to adapt to quickly. Fortunately I made friends fairly easy, one of the perks of being in an international school is that everyone is very open to one another and you can relate because everyone goes or went through the same adapting phase as you. Among those friends were some Thai students who could translate and show me around they were willing to help me in anyway needed. That made the transition from moving from well structured Holland to chaotic Thailand smoother. After one or two weeks I was completely settled and I felt safe enough to jump on the back of a motorbike taxi, walk along the beach alone (even underneath housing projects built on enormous poles directly over the beach, so you have to pay attention when walking there), and feeling good when I went out and was a little tipsy to not be afraid of getting kidnapped at any moment and sold into white slavery. Yes, unfortunately that is how I felt in the beginning. How multicultural I felt in Europe, how ’white’ and ’western’ I felt in Asia. And about being ’white’, I noticed, how people here are being divided into ethical groups, instead of the ’high school division phase’ of jocks, nerds, fashion queens, and goths, you were either white, black, Asian or plain weird. In contact with people this was emphasised much, for example in conversations quotes like this came up: ’’I cannot believe you said that, you are so white,’’ ’’ you are so white on the inside’’ or ’’you cannot possibly do your own laundry, you are such a Jap (Jewish American princess).’’ Although everyone
was from different countries and ethnical backgrounds connecting with each other, it was apparently important to instead of being a melting pot of different cultures to emphasise where you came from. This was totally strange to me coming form Europe, where everyone is used to cultures melting together, and dividing groups into black and white is just politically incorrect, almost racist even. But not in Asia, here I am the epitome of a white girl - having a light skin, blue eyes, brown hair, gallivanting in shorts and lipgloss in hand, spending far too much money. Although I ate a grilled scorpion, hung out with the locals, and did not dress up as much, the image of me was fixed. Another difference that caught my attention was that how liberal most family life is in the Netherlands, how conservative it is here (in many cases). I befriended some people coming from tight knit Asian families and noticed how involved their parents are in most of their life decisions. Decisions concerning schooling, profession, dating, (arranged) marriages, where to live and how to act. Coming from an individualistic country and a most liberal family in which I was raised with the purpose to find my own person aside from my families standards and opinions, this was a little shocking for me. Although I did not mean to, I probably made some sceptic comments about it sometimes. I am sorry for that! But seeing how they lived and how important family is to them is mostly heartwarming, they uphold many traditions and those cultures have many facets, it was incredibly interesting to be able to visit their houses and interact with their communities. When summer school ended I was not ready to go back yet. At first I was looking into staying for another semester but my university does not offer the courses I need this fall. But one of my friends was going to intern at Expat Ladies this summer, so I decided to ask them if they needed more interns. Luckily they did, I got an amazing opportunity to work at a magazine and gain some significant work experience that will help me taking the next step in my career in marketing, plus I got to stay longer and in live in exciting Bangkok. This summer was full of surprises, wonderful experiences, and more than lovely people, I could not have hoped (and did not expect) it would turn out this way. I definitely faced some fears physically and mentally. I lived in a country where I could not speak the language, did not know the way or where bathrooms do not have toilet paper most of the time. But I loved it. It made me grow as a person and I am now even more eager to live abroad. And yes, I am still a white European girl who loves luxurious bags and overpriced coffee, but I am definitely open to more multicultural changes and experiences in my life.
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Parents as role models: Volunteerism By Julie Nguyen
A Bangkok mother writes about how volunteering can not just a rewarding experience for you, but also ensure positive role modelling for your children
As parents, we are constantly being role models to our children. It is easy for us to see ourselves in our children, whether it is something that we hear them repeat, mannerisms, or similar preferences. We are a great influence on our children, who are learning from us on a daily basis. One way to ensure positive role modelling is by volunteering, since children are learning from us all the time. If we are interested and involved in helping others, then they will be too. Here in Bangkok, there are many organisations that help the underprivileged. Two such organisations are the Foundation for the Development and Education of Children (FORDEC) and the Mercy Centre. I feel honoured that I have been involved in these organisations for over two years now. I volunteer at the Mahawong Day Care Centre, which is affiliated with FORDEC, along with other members of the Samut Prakan International Ladies’ Club (SILC). We provide craft activities to preschool children. SILC members go to Mahawong Day Care Centre, as well as Prakassamai Preschool, which is affiliated with The Mercy Centre. Creative arts activities are provided at these centres, once a month. These are pre planned activities and all materials are purchased and provided by SILC. In addition, Songkran water activities are enjoyed every year, involving a large amount of water guns and pools. Dental care education, including
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dental nurse visits and toothbrush and toothpaste donations, are also done on a yearly basis. There is a regular group of SILC members, who attend these activities. Another programme which I am involved in at Mahawong day care is the English programme. This programme, which is again sponsored by SILC, is a weekly programme that was started in one classroom at Chanukroah Day Care Centre over two years ago. This day care, which was also affiliated with FORDEC, closed last year. As a result, the programme has been both relocated and expanded to include three classrooms at Mahawong Day Care Centre. Some excellent learning opportunities have been introduced in the English programme. The children, age five and six years old, learn the calendar, alphabet, phonics, numbers, colours and other vocabulary. The best part of the learning is through the sing song, when repetitive action songs are introduced. It is always a lively group, with a real enthusiasm for learning. It has been extremely rewarding to see these students make so many gains in their learning, while having fun. I even participated in the graduation of my first reading class, who now attend grade one at a local school. The upcoming school year will again bring continued opportunities for learning at Mahawong Day Care Centre.
Another opportunity for helping others is through FORDEC’s sponsor a child programme. I took the opportunity to sponsor two children. For just 900B per month, one child’s tuition is paid for. Helping in this way has been a valuable experience for me, as well as my daughter. My daughter has also had the chance to meet these children and constantly donate any unneeded items to them. Extra toys and clothing can then be used by someone who needs them more. Having the opportunity to take part in these experiences has been very rewarding for me. I feel that I have been able to show positive role modelling, through my involvement. My involvement shows how important volunteering is to me. Thus, others, especially my daughter, should see that it is important too. I hope
that she will also want to become involved in volunteer opportunities that come her way. I think that there is a lot of power in parenthood and it gives us a great opportunity to influence those who are most important to us: our children. Volunteering is important, as it gives opportunities to help others in more ways than we can even imagine. Important life skills can be taught. Volunteering provides opportunities to engage in new and very real experiences that give opportunities to others. Getting involved is beneficial to everyone: parents, their children and the organisations involved. So for those who have been thinking about it, now is the best time to get involved in the charity of your choice. Go ahead, and get involved!
Helping in this way has been a valuable experience for me, as well as my daughter. My daughter has also had the chance to meet these children and constantly donate any unneeded items to them. Extra toys and clothing can then be used by someone who needs them more.
Congratulations to our Cambridge IGCSE students Florence
Koki
Mint
11 : A* - A 100% A* - A
6 : A* - A 100% A* - B
4 : A* - A 88% A* - C
Sathorn, Bangkok Tel: 02-249-1880 www.gardenbangkok.com email: info@gardenbangkok.com
Eastern Seaboard, Ban Chang, Rayong Tel: 038-880-360-3 www.gardenrayong.com email: info@gardenrayong.com
Your choice. Their future. Our family.
FAMILY & RELATIONSHIPS
Reconnecting with your spouse By Bronwyn Skerritt, ACT Registered Therapist
Feeling disconnected with your partner? Bronwyn Skerritt offers up her tips and secrets to maintaining a successful long term marriage or relationship
Staying connected and keeping the love alive in a long term love relationship is one of the 21st century’s greatest challenges. We have all read the fairy tales of the Prince meeting his Princess and getting married, then riding off happily ever after into the sunset. This is a romantic, idyllic and perhaps even a necessary time for all new relationships to experience. Unfortunately though, there’s no more story to this fairy tale to help explain the rest of the relationship. What happens to the Prince and Princess two years, five years, 10 or 18 years later, plus add two or three kids, a dog, a cat, maybe a guinea pig and a couple of hermit crabs and many relocations later? If you’re lucky enough, or have persevered enough to have made it through a number of years of marriage or partnership in an intimate union you are now experiencing a long term love relationship and just like you are watching your children go through their developmental stages, so too does a long term love relationship have developmental stages. I’m not going to talk about them today; instead I would like to share some simple ideas for couples facing the challenge of keeping their connection alive in this partnership. I would like to start my focus on this
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idea by suggesting that love is something to be put into action on a daily basis with your partner. That’s right, love as an action! ‘But I thought it was a feeling’? Is the most usual response. And yes we do feel love – we feel it every day through our connections with our closest friends, our wonderful children, even the family dog! However, if we aren’t connected to or feeling love or if we aren’t finding love easy with our partner does that mean we have fallen out of love? I don’t believe so … How do we disconnect? To write about reconnecting with your partner can only mean one thing – you feel disconnected from him/her in some way. This sense of disconnection can slip through the inevitable cracks of any long term love relationship in a number of ways; I’d like to visit just one way for the moment – “love and relationship myths”. You know, those unhelpful ideas that seem to get passed around and around and yet don’t cause any long term happiness whatsoever to the world or your relationship. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) guru, well my guru anyway - Dr Russ Harris, in his book ACT with love, shares a number of
big myths that have the potential to destroy any love relationship or cause needless disconnection. Lets just explore three of them. •M yth 1, the perfect partner. This may obviously seem a ridiculous myth to believe in but just stop and think of the last time you started comparing your partner to Mr Yoga guru on level 8, or like me comparing my partner to my guru Dr Russ? How hard is it to stop comparing what you have to others out there? Or to stop fantasising about what you could have had with so and so (who you dated back in 1998!). If you are concentrating on all of your partner’s faults, flaws and bad habits and on what he or she should change, disconnection is not far around the corner.
in love and it feels wonderful! In general this stage doesn’t last much longer than two or three years and in some cases if one or both of the people stop feeling this “feeling-in-love” they buy into the myth that now the relationship is finished because they aren’t having those feelings anymore! So what’s the deal? Of course you can feel love, however the natural state of feelings is that they flow and after the love goggles come off from the honeymoon period (which by now could be four years, seven months and three days ago – but who’s counting!) you start to see stuff, all that stuff from myth #2 starts
Now the next myth is a biggie and what I believe can cause the most harm in long term love relationships. •M yth 2, love should be easy. This is a crazy myth to buy into and I can explain why. When you live intimately for a long period of time with another human being who has different thoughts and feelings, different interests, different expectations about housework, sex, money, religion, parenting, holidays, work life balance, different style of communication, negotiating, expressing themselves … different drives for food, sex, sport, play, and work, different standards of cleanliness and tidiness, friends and relatives that you don’t get on to well with, (and this is the best part) lifelong, deeply entrenched habits and quirks that annoy you … it should be easy? (Harris). It takes courage to admit that love in a long term relationship isn’t easy, yet this can be the beginning of making room for and accepting the natural, inevitable differences between the two of you and with that mindfulness, reduce feelings of tension that leads to disconnection. •M yth 3, everlasting love. The love described here in this myth is the one based on feeling-in-love. The kind of love that I am communicating here occurs during the ‘honeymoon’ stage of the relationship (remember earlier I mentioned that long term relationships have developmental stages). The honeymoon stage is the first part. This is as far as the fairytale stories get! Not very helpful, but this part is real. During this stage you feel-in-love, even fall
magically appearing from nowhere and now love isn’t easy. By now you probably need some solutions to what I would call a natural and inevitable problem that occurs in all love relationships. So let’s apply some clarity to this scenario – if you hang around long enough in a relationship, disconnection will happen i.e. sometimes you won’t feel “in love” with your spouse, so don’t freak out if it is happening right now. However, we can’t simply stop there and stay disconnected. If we want a rich, full and meaningful life and a long, healthy, intimate relationship with a bit of zing in it, learning how to reconnect is the vital next step. Reconnecting Where do we start today? When I am working with a client I always encourage them to start with themselves. Start your reconnection process with yourself and what
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you are bringing to your relationship. Some questions that may help this inquiry are, “What sort of partner are you”? And “What would you really like to be bringing to your relationship”? Are there inconsistencies between the two? If this is the case, Acceptance & Commitment Therapy suggests rediscovering your values. Values are your hearts deepest desires for how you want to be and what you want to do with your time on this planet. They reflect what you want to stand for in life: how you want to behave on an ongoing basis (Harris). This is the time to reflect on your own behaviour, “Are you being the partner you truly want to be”? Values are qualities that require ongoing action; they are not rules of ‘have to’, ‘should do’, and ‘must complete’. Values are like a compass in that they guide your behaviour over a lifetime. They are not goals to be ticked or crossed off. For example, your goal might be to get married. Your wedding day comes, you are married – ‘tick’ it’s done. Whereas, the value’s you bring to this commitment could be – treating your wife with equality, respect, being supportive, caring and paying attention to her needs. These are your personal ongoing actions guided by your values, they are about you, they are not determined by anyone else and they are definitely not rules. The next step of connecting seems so obvious but can so easily be forgotten – give your spouse the gift of your full attention! Put down your mobile phone, shut down your computer, turn the TV off and look at your partner and listen to him/ her. Pay attention to what is happening in your partners’ life. One of the greatest compliments you can pay another human being is to give them your full attention. When you make someone the centre of your attention, they feel important and cared about (Harris). This may not be easy if you have a couple of children hovering around, so maybe break the family dinner rule one or two nights a week and organise for the kids to eat dinner early and then the two of you can sit down as a couple. Better yet, if you can organise a sitter, go out to dinner but remember the idea is not to talk on your phone or to book a reservation with noisy entertainment, make it a quiet place where you can gaze into each other’s eyes and give some attention to each other, maybe even flirt a little! After 20 years of
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marriage, two children and many relocations later, there can be times when you get lost or stuck in the void of discontent. It can be helpful in these times to have an already established routine or habit in your relationship where you have a ‘chill’ night, for example, make Friday night the night you get dressed up in your Hawaiian shirt or beach dress and pretend you are on your annual holiday in your lounge room sipping your favourite drink with the intention to just hang out together! Lastly, nurture appreciation of your partner through noticing things about him/her that you could possibly take for granted on a day-to-day basis. They can be tiny things like the hug he gives you every morning, or the morning cup of coffee; it could be the smile she gives you at the end of her exhausting day! Don’t overlook these moments and brush them off as ‘nothing much’, these are important connections that when consciously recognised add something to your life together simply because they are noticed and a connection is made. Reflect on these small things that your partner adds to your life. This may be easier for you to do if you think about the times your partner isn’t around, maybe because of work travel. Ask yourself the question, “What do I miss about him when he isn’t around”? It can be so easy to think about all the things your partner doesn’t do in your relationship, however do you stop and take some time to reflect and appreciate what he/ she does do? So right now take some time out and think about two or three things. Then it would be great to communicate verbally to your partner these tiny, simple events that you are connecting into. Appreciating your partner will add to your own sense of fulfillment and satisfaction, but what about her? How will she know you appreciate her? (Harris). Let your partner know the connection you are trying to build, then there is the opportunity for your effort to be appreciated and returned. Of course, all of these reconnecting ideas are just suggestions and not an exhaustive list of possibilities. I encourage you to get creative with your own ideas as a couple of how to build and maintain the connection between the two of you.
TRAVEL
How safe is your school bus? By Linda Belonje from KIS International School
Are you children riding the bus to school everyday? Have you ever stopped to consider the safety of the school bus or do you just take the schools word for it that it’s safe enough? Be proactive, make sure the bus carrying your child is as safe as possible
Not long ago there were several horrific stories in the local news about schoolchildren being left behind on the school bus with disastrous consequences. Who hasn’t seen songtaews with young schoolchildren on their way to school - either locked into the truck behind bars, or without any barrier preventing them from falling out?
onto school vans. Modern school vans have detection safety alarms, which detect movement inside the bus after it has been locked. Should someone still be inside, the van will sound an alarm and flash its lights. This information can be transmitted to the school or to a bus command centre, which can monitor all of the buses on and off the road.
Whilst most international schools will certainly maintain at least the minimum safety standards for their school buses, there are numerous devices and measures available for your school’s transport to be as safe as possible.
Another high tech feature that parents will appreciate is a card reader. Some schools already implement electronic ID cards to swipe into and out of school and/or to pay for pupil lunches, but these cards can also be used for bus students to check in and out of the bus. When students board the bus, they check in by swiping their card. This sends a signal to the command centre and an SMS is sent to the parents, letting them know their child is now on the bus. When the children exit the bus, they swipe out again, triggering another message to parents to say they have arrived.
The first thing you may want to check out is whether or not the buses have safety features which will make them recognisable as school buses; such as amber lights and signs that are clearly mark: “School Bus”. These signs warn other road users that they can expect the bus to make regular stops. An additional roof light and flashing stop lights at the back of the vehicle signal when the bus is stopping and that children will be getting out, providing more visual alerts to traffic behind the bus. Some high tech gadgets have also made their way
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We all hope it will never happen, but in case of an emergency, vans should have an “emergency button” which instantly sends a signal to the command centre and request emergency services to the location of the bus. If a command centre is in place, this centre can
track each bus through a GPS locator. The command centre should also be able to track traffic blocks (very useful in Bangkok nowadays!) and suggest faster or safer alternative routes. Other standard features on safe vans are three point seat belts (this type of belt can also accommodate child seats, so smaller children are also safely secured in the vehicle), a fire extinguisher, a crow bar, a window hammer, a lock for the spare tyre and a first aid kit. Moreover, drivers should be trained to use these. Speaking of training, the best gadgets in the world can’t keep the children safe if the driver is not well trained. Drivers should undergo regular practical safety driving skills courses, an engine safety check course and a first aid and CPR course. Of course they must be qualified drivers, but it is also helpful for international school students if they speak basic English. Every morning before starting work, each driver should be breathalysed and have his or her blood pressure taken. Most international school bus fleets will have a bus monitor on board to help supervise the children. The bus monitor should also receive regular checks and training and both the monitor and driver should
be subject to regular check ups for health, vision and communicable diseases, as well as criminal background checks before being employed. A video camera directed at the interior of the bus can support the monitor’s role, while the footage may be kept for 24 hours or longer in case any issues arise. In addition to the physical features and staff training, good schools have transport procedures in place. Ask your school if your child will be supervised by the bus staff until safely in the care of the teachers at school or back at home with their parents. The safest services are door to door and there should be no deviations of the pickup or drop off points for your child unless previously agreed with the parents. The school should have set emergency procedures and maintain open lines of communication with the parents if buses are running late. A code of conduct for students helps keep troubles on the bus at bay. It seems like a lot to ask, but all of these safety measures are in place in the school buses used by KIS International School. We can never completely rule out all of the risks of being on the road, but with all of the features now readily available, we can make the daily ride to and from school as safe as it can be.
TRAVEL
Surviving the flight and jet lag as a parent By Becky Horace
“Please note where your exits are located. All exits are clearly marked and are located at the front and rear of the plane” As an expat family we return to our home country each year, because once is enough. This impending trip always results in my anxiety levels going through the roof. Here are a few tips from a parent who clearly does not have all the answers when it comes to travelling with kids, but can, at least, have a good laugh about it. On our first flight over to Bangkok my son was 18 months old and had never been on a plane. Now my three year old has a passport which is rapidly filling up. In preparation for the flight, I read many articles and blog posts on how to travel with your kid. These cute articles and pins on Pinterest show you all of the fun ‘activities’ you can bring with you on the plane to entertain your child. I have read articles which provide lists upon lists of things you should take with you on your flight. These articles are great in theory, but I really wish one person had given it to me straight.
kid really needs is a new toy. He doesn’t care, HE’S RAGING! This new toy has now become ammunition, and is either being hurled at your face, or about to come into contact the head of the poor person sitting in front of you. I understand toys are supposed to be for when your kid is happy and sitting calmly in their seat, but honestly there was never a point during our flights when my kid was happy. He was uncomfortable, wanted to get out of his seat, tired because his schedule was completely interrupted, and he was completely out of sorts.
Just bring one or two of your kid’s favourite toys Do not pack a bag with tons of toys thinking you will break out a new toy every meltdown and your problems will be solved. I loved the article that I read that said, ‘you can even wrap the toys for an added treat!’ This might work for an older child, but my toddler isn’t going to have a bar of that!
Do not pack snacks: just buy them once you are through security It will save you a huge headache when getting through the airport security check. You can bring all of your own from home before you board the plane, but be prepared to be pulled to the side while they test your milk for explosives. I had a few toddler snack pouches in the book bag when we were flying through Paris, and I thought having those were going to get me thrown in jail due to the language barrier. You would have thought I was smuggling drugs!
I am the fool who bought new toys and loaded our book bag full of fun stuff. When you find yourself mid freak out, while travelling at 30,000 feet, the last thing your
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If you have younger kids, invest in one of the Thermos brand straw cups We have two, one for milk and one for apple juice. These are awesome because if your child is able to sleep on the plane, their drink will be cold when they wake up. I recommend just filling them up whenever it’s time for drink service and you’re getting your wine … I mean Coke. However, if you use this cup at 30,000 feet, please be cautious. Although the cabin of the plane is pressurised, it is not as high as the ground pressure. This means your higher pressure cup becomes an apple juice super soaker water gun you would see at Songkran when your child flips open the lid to take a drink. I have learned you have to twist the lid open very slowly and let the pressure inside the cup gradually adjust. Do not do what I did and hand the cup to your son, hit the button to flip the lid open and apple juice goes flying in his face at 100 miles per hour! That move comes with a 100% guarantee to upset him (later we had a good laugh about it at his expense). If you have younger kids, only bring pull-up diapers The lavatory on a plane is basically big enough for one person to turn around. Changing your child on the changing table is nothing short of a joke! My husband and I have learnt that it takes both parents to be on diaper duty. We have mastered this strange art by having one parent hold the child up and the other slip off the dirty diaper and slip on the clean one. If you have a soiled diaper, good luck. We had to change my son with him standing up on the counter top, at which point he decided he wasn’t finished, and pooped into my hand! No, I am not making this up. I am guessing it was his payback for the apple juice in the face. The next day we had a laugh about this too, but at the time it was a disaster! Skip the booze while on the plane On my first international flight, I was so excited to see
wine was an option that, without thinking my decision through, I ordered one. This was one of my many rookie travel mistakes on my first big flight with my child. After one small glass I felt as if I had been drinking all day, due in part to the dehydration that comes with high altitudes, and exhaustion from not being able to sleep. The ‘hangover’ a few hours later was like nothing I had ever experienced before, and I had the ‘pleasure’ of dealing with my very cranky child. I will never again drink on a plane unless I am flying solo. Jet lag: No one is immune! I always love reading tips on how to get over jet lag but let’s be honest here, there is no getting over jet lag when you are travelling to the total opposite side of the world from your destination. Your child does not understand jet lag and will not sleep when you want them to. I recommend for you to brew some coffee, turn on the news, and enjoy the 3am play time that will happen. During our last trip home, we knew we couldn’t fight the inevitable wakeup call so we went to our local fast food breakfast place when they opened at 4:30am and enjoyed the fresh bread and side dishes as a family. Parents tips to coping with jet lag: coffee and booze - not a healthy option but it works! Not a healthy option, but it works! My husband and I basically pump ourselves full of coffee all day long in order to enjoy the time with our family. As most of you know having a coffee around 7pm will prevent a good night’s sleep, so this is when we decide to pour a glass of wine to help induce our much needed slumber, which will be interrupted around 3am when the next play time begins. When travelling on long haul flights, it is important to remain calm and remember not panic. Yes, travelling around the world is hard, but you are an expat, and as such, you are a pro at travelling! So lastly, let me leave you with these words of advice: remain calm, have a drink, and remember this too shall pass. God speed!
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FINANCE
Cutting the financial cord ... managing the costs of university fees By Helen Couldrey
Raising children is becoming more and more expensive. Never mind the obligatory computer, the latest sportswear or the foreign holidays. The real concern that most parents have in relation to costs is the soaring rise of university fees. When moving an entire family overseas for work purposes, part of the tradeoff is that the employer often funds the children’s school fees. Families face many emotional and financial challenges when moving abroad and having peace of mind that the children will be placed into a good school with the fees covered, whether wholly or partially, is an essential part of the process. However, it is normally the case that an expat employer will cut the financial cord when it comes to the children’s university fess. Whilst some parents may plan for this time carefully, some do not.
Education fee planning forms an integral part of most expat parents’ financial strategy. If your child does want to study away from your home jurisdiction then the fees could be two or three times the regular amount as your child may be deemed an overseas student. Throw accommodation and living costs into the mix and it’s an expensive life event. Now, this is all a troubling thought and we haven’t even accounted for inflation yet. The cost of education globally is growing at around a staggering 7% per annum. This has the unfortunate result that you may need to increase the costs, depending on the age of your child. When your child eventually heads off into the sunset, clutching his or her student cookbook, things will inevitably be more expensive.
Regardless of nationality, people should be encouraged to plan well in advance for their child’s university fees in order to ensure that their children aren’t weighed down with large debts in the future. Starting off as a young professional is tough enough, without having to saddle the additional burden of a large debt.
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Jo and Anthony’s dilemma Jo and Anthony moved to Bangkok from England in 2011. They have 2 children; Sarah aged 4 and Russell aged 6. At this stage they are not sure whether their children will want to go to university however they are fully aware that they need to prepare for all eventualities. One night, over a glass of wine, they run through a few of the options: •S tudying in England This seems the most likely option as they will probably return to England within the next 10 years. However, Jo has heard that unless the children have been resident in England for a period of 3 years before starting their course, they may have to pay overseas rates. Jo has also heard that overseas rates can range from around £9,000 to £18,000 per year, depending on the institution, the level of course and the type of course. If this is the case, the current total cost of tuition alone could be around £54,000 per child for a 3 year course. Taking inflation into account, in 12 years when Russell goes to university, the equivalent amount would be around £121,000. •S tudying in the USA Jo and Anthony know that sending children to study in the USA has become a very popular choice for expat parents. However, again, the costs would be based on oversea rates. This could result in fees in today’s terms of over $100,000 per child for a 3 year course. •O ther options Jo and Anthony feel overwhelmed… so decide to go to bed.
Whilst it is expensive, providing for your child’s university education is one of the greatest investments that you can ever make. So, this all then begs the question: As a parent, how can you prepare financially? How much? Get an idea of how much it will really cost. Sit down with
someone and run through the figures … and be realistic. You may consider factoring in: • Annual tuitions fees •C osts of flights • Accommodation costs • R ealistic living expenses •O ther education costs, such a books, computers etc. • I nflation Save regularly Trying to save over $100,000 per child may feel like hunting for a torch in a power cut. However, the real key is to save regularly by putting monthly contributions into a dedicated and separate plan. Putting just $300 per month over 18 years into a plan that returns 6% could allow you to reach your goal. Don’t make things too taxing Fortunately, there are bona fide ways that expats in Thailand and beyond can use their expat status to their financial benefit. By capitalising on the tax efficient investment opportunities exclusively available to them they are well placed to be able to accumulate a dedicated university fund. If you plan on staying in Thailand for the long term, ideally around 5 years or more, there are also savings vehicles in Thailand which can have tax benefits such as Long Term Equity Funds (LTFs). They can provide current year Thai tax deductions on contributions, and earnings grow free of Thai tax.
Any great building will never stand if you neglect the small bricks. Ring fencing Good financial planning ensures that investments are ring fenced for specific purposes, ensuring that the lines aren’t blurred. Blurred lines can often result in the money being spent elsewhere inadvertently. Value of money And finally, make sure your child or children know the value of money. Budgets should ideally not be new concepts to first year university students. I recall performing the most cost effective supermarket trips known to mankind whilst at university. Knowing how to be thrifty is an extremely valuable trait. Naturally, there are many options when it comes to choosing where to go to university, what to study and how much to spend. There are also many options available in respect of how to plan financially for when that time comes around. Regardless of what choices you and your children make, getting a robust financial strategy in place is essential as it will allow you to give your children the gift of a great education. Helen Couldrey is a wealth consultant, finance writer and qualified lawyer. helen.couldrey@devere-group.com
HEALTH, NUTRITION & FITNESS
Creating Water Babies By Cindy Adair-Bolakoso, head swimming coach, Bangkok Patana School
The benefits of learning to swim from a young age are wide and varied and in some cases surprising! Not only are children who learn to swim more relaxed in and around water but recent research out of the University of Griffith in NSW, Australia shows that children who learn to swim from a young age (regardless of socioeconomic status) enjoy the following benefits: • Reaching physical milestones earlier than their non swimming peers. • Significantly increasing their visual motor skills such as cutting paper, colouring in and drawing lines and shapes. • Accelerated oral expression. • Accelerated understanding of literacy and numeracy. • Improved “school ready” skills such as following instructions, independent dressing and social skills. Children can begin to learn to swim from as young as 4 months of age in formal “Baby & Parent” classes, but you can begin the conditioning process at home from 3 – 4 weeks. Once you and baby are settled at home your child’s first “swimming” begins in the bath. With babies spending nine months suspended in fluid, it’s no surprise that they love the sensation of being in
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water. Familiarising your child with water in the warmth and safety of your own home will start a lifelong journey of enjoyment of water and water sports for sport and recreation. Young babies can be washed with a sponge or small towel and taught to enjoy having water poured over their body, head and face. Never “trick or shock” a baby but instead teach them gently to expect water by using the cue words “insert their name, ready, go” then pour. Over time the baby will come to expect the water. This readiness can then be exploited later at swimming lessons to prepare a child for their first submersions. Start with small amounts of water and build up bigger volumes as your child is ready. Similarly start at the back of their head and work slowly forward over a number of months. Bath time is a great time to explore various squirty toys, bubble mix and more! You can begin to teach your child the fundamental skills of kicking and blowing bubbles all before their first birthday. Please always supervise bath time and never leave a baby unattended or with another child. Remember to check the temperature is comfortable and not scalding too.
Taking formal swimming lessons is also highly recommended. Look for a swimming school which is close to home, clean and well maintained, with trained professional instructors. Learn to swim schools for babies are booming in Bangkok right now and there are loads of great options. You can expect to get into the water with your child until they are 3 years old and then they will be ready to go it alone under the watchful eye of an experienced instructor. Lessons should be fun, social and teach skills. Baby and parent classes usually involve plenty of singing and action songs. Don’t worry if you’re not a great performer – embrace the madness and sing along loud and proud – your baby will love it! Young swimmers respond best to routine and repetition. As an adult you might find the same nursery rhyme over several weeks a bore but remember with their relatively short, long term memory, every lesson is new and exciting for your baby. It would be remiss of me not to mention the water safety aspect of learning to swim in this article. Remember there is no such thing as “water proofing” a child and nothing will ever replace adult supervision no matter how competent your child becomes. Any learn to swim school that makes any such guarantee is lying to you or trying to take your money. In recent times there have been some highly controversial video clips doing the rounds in social media of children as young as 9 months, showing them toddling alone near a pool and then falling in and righting themselves onto their back using a method of teaching known as the Infant Safety Resource. Whilst this is indeed impressive to watch be wary of any teaching method which might traumatise your child to achieve its end. A child centred caring approach which encourages but never forces is far better in the long term. Learning to swim is a long term project with many small steps along the way. Your child may take many months or years to fully acquire all the skills to swim a lap independently. Their development in the water will mirror their development on land. Research shows that year round lessons twice a week are the most effective. Importantly research also shows that
children who supplement formal lessons with regular playtime in the water with family members and acquire skills and proficiency quicker than those who take lessons alone. When attending your first swimming lesson is a big event, to ensure success here are a few tips: •C hoose a lesson time that does not coincide with your child’s regular nap time or feeding time. A hungry, tired child will not do as well as a rested and well fed one. •A rrive early for your lesson to give your child time to adjust to the new surroundings, noises and smells. You might even wish to visit a week before without actually getting in. •P urchase a swim nappy or swimsuit with elasticised legs. Most centres will not allow your child in without this and it ensures you won’t be the family responsible for the “code brown” at your first lesson… oh the shame! •B ring milk (easy if you’re breast feeding) and a snack for your little one to have after their lesson. Swimming is hungry work and this will ensure a smooth ride home afterwards. •D ress for success yourself. This means comfortable swim wear and ideally a T shirt or rash vest which can help you teach your child the important skill of gripping. Ladies avoid makeup as once you are wet it will surely slide off anyway. Water proof mascara is a must. • I f your child cries don’t worry! It’s completely normal, after all that’s how babies communicate. Give your child loads of cuddles and encouragement (skin to skin contact is very reassuring for small children). You might need to take a walk away from the main group to allow your child to settle and observe from afar before rejoining the group. Toys are also a great way to distract children from their worries. •T ake plenty of towels or invest in a baby dressing gown so your baby will be warm while you get dressed after the lesson.
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HEALTH, NUTRITION & FITNESS
• Take your babies favourite bath toy. This will help them link fun time in the bath with fun time in the pool. A common question I get asked comes from non swimming parents who want to give their child the gift they never had. The good news is that you don’t need to be able to “swim” to fully participate in baby swim lessons. As long as you can stand in waist deep water without panicking you can do your part with ease. Be careful to manage any fear or nerves you might have as babies are very perceptive. Try to emote calm and positivity as your baby will take their cues from you. So what are you waiting for? The sooner you take your baby to swimming classes, the more normal the pool and water will be. Babies and children under one have no fear and are more accepting of new experiences although he or she may go through stages where they don’t enjoy swimming. So as long as you’re there to provide plenty of smiles and encouragement, you may even have a little Michael Phelps on your hands … If your child is no longer a baby or a toddler don’t despair, it’s never too late to learn to swim and the benefits of regular swimming can be enjoyed right up until very late in life. Find a friendly and qualified teacher and give your child a gift for life. Not only will you ensure they are safe in and around water but you will also give them a fun and healthy new way to exercise. Older
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children are very driven by their peers so perhaps find a friend for them to learn with. Clare Tomlinson, mother of Tilly who is nearly four, describes some of her experiences of swimming lessons over the last three years. Tilly loves splashing around and playing games in the water especially if it involves mum and dad too. Since we started swimming lessons with Tilly when she was a year old, her confidence in water keeps growing and she is now swimming under the water, picking things up from the bottom of the pool and jumping in unaided. Although our whole weekend tends to revolve around the weekend’s swimming lesson, it has been worth it and we try and make sure that Sunday becomes a totally family day – swimming, followed by lunch and perhaps a visit to an indoor play centre later on. We also try to ensure we take Tilly swimming in the week as well, practising any activities she might have been struggling with during the lesson, and holidays always involve some kind of swimming element too. I think that formal swimming lessons have been great for pushing Tilly that little bit beyond her comfort zone while still making the water fun and social. The instructors have been firm but friendly and persisted in making sure she is doing the exercises in the correct way. I have a little girl in my house who is always excited about any opportunity to go swimming!
A Centre of Excellence
The same is true of a child’s education.
EDUCATION
The benefits of imaginative play By Angela Speirs, senior teacher foundation stage, Bangkok Patana School
Put those gadgets away and encourage your child to play. Angela explains why imaginative play can be beneficial to your child With the ever evolving myriad of digital devices, touchpads and toys with implanted microchips combined with the (unjustified) pressure of getting children ready for literacy and numeracy as early as possible, there is a fear that something vital to the natural development of our children could be on the verge of extinction. I am of course referring to the wonderful world of imaginative play. All too often, play is viewed by adults as time that could otherwise be spent with tutors, revising words on
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flashcards, practicing numbers or doing handwriting. However, as increasing volumes of research show, play should not be viewed as a luxury but rather as something crucial to the healthy development of a child’s cognitive, emotional, social and physical development. In early childhood centres/pre-schools you may often hear talk of “play based learning” or “learning through play”. It is in fact much more straight forward. For young children, play is learning1. Research reviews
show that make believe games are forerunners to the important capacity for forms of self regulation including reduced aggression, delay of gratification, civility, and empathy2. When children use toys to make up scenarios or friends, the representation of multiple perspectives occurs naturally. Children who are allowed to learn by playing are shown to have enhanced capacities for cognitive flexibility and ultimately creativity3. These children also perform better, academically, in the later primary years than do their peers who have not attended play focused pre‑schools4. Unfortunately, we cannot assume that all children actually know how to play imaginatively. Children who have been deprived of the time and encouragement to explore materials, objects and scenarios with all their senses as babies or have been exposed to nothing more than digital devices, TV and toys that talk at them may be at a loss. Through my work, I often see children pick up small plastic figures or animals and immediately re-enact the exact same cartoon violence they have seen on TV, hence bringing nothing of their own experience or originality to the play. So what can we, as carers, do to help our children develop their imaginative play? First and foremost spend time and talk with your child. By showing an interest in what a child is saying, talking to him/ her whilst on a family outing to the park, pointing out things in nature or when stuck in traffic, and posing open ended questions about the things you see, you can help
to build the scenarios that he/she may later act out at home with simple objects. You don’t need to spend lots of money on expensive toys and please limit the amount of time your child is fixed to a screen. Give your child lengths of cloth in different colours and textures. These can be transformed by your child into imaginary cloaks, dresses, an ocean, a tent, a puppet theatre. I also recommend that if your child has to watch his favourite DVD that you supply him with a box of child made props or lengths of cloth to encourage him to be “in” the story that he is watching. The more open ended the materials you give to your child, the more imaginative she can be. Old plastic crates, wooden blocks or PVC piping can enhance your child’s play as she builds ramps, roads, bridges, tunnels or a stage for a performance. I recommend that you keep old boxes, cartons and toilet roll tubes for example, as these items can be developed into whatever your child wants them to be. Reading books to your child is an invaluable way of inspiring him to act out the stories and become the characters. Being a playful adult willing to take on a role in the story also helps to take the play to a higher level. So turn the sofa upside down Dad, hide under it and become the troll from the Three Billy Goats Gruff! Next time your child asks for the latest gadget seen during a commercial break on Disney Channel, give your child the best … switch off the TV and pull out the empty cereal boxes!
References: 1. Joseph Chilton Pearce (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVBXqJ_u8io) 2. Berk, Mann & Ogan, (2006) and Hirsh-Pasek, Golinkoff, Berk, & Singer (2009) (Hughes, 1999). 3. (Russ, 2004; Singer & Singer, 2005). 4. The Marcon Study of the 1990s Statutory Framework for EY Education – Department of Education UK www.early-education.org.uk
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Cyber bullying: It’s real, it’s dangerous, and it can be mitigated By Julia Knight
Do you have a young child, who has been itching to get onto the different social media outlets? If you are worried about the dangers of cyber bullying Bangkok Prep’s, Julia Knight, who has been trained in child protection, shares important information with our readers on how to protect your family
Cyber bullying is a common issue for many young people. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) estimates 38% of youths have been affected. It’s been criminalised in several countries with offenders as young as 12, who have been arrested and convicted. Although, this problem could possibly be far worse because many young people are failing to report incidents to their parents; making cyber bulling a terrifying ordeal for an individual. So what is it? Using Information Technology such as websites, mobile phones or email to send hostile messages to harm another person. This legal definition of the cyber bullying term is used to help police and lawyers decide if someone can be arrested and charged. The NSPCC breaks down this definition so it’s easier for parents, teachers and young
people to understand the different types of cyber bullying, which includes racist, sexist or homophobic language or threats as well as silent or hoax calls. Hurtful messages can be posted on forums, in chat rooms, on social networking sites and online gaming areas. Cyber bullying also includes any sites or individuals that are encourage self harm. If your child has been the victim of cyber bullying, what steps can you take to protect yourself? Internet safety is as important as closing your front door. You wouldn’t leave that open for strangers to walk in so don’t do it on your computer! Make sure your security settings are high and set to friends only. Different social networks have different privacy rules and settings so be sure that you fully understand them. Virtually anonymous The biggest problem with cyber bullying is that it
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can happen almost anywhere and at any time. Easy access to the internet and from different devices almost guarantees that a bully can hide behind their device also known as ‘keyboard warriors.’ Usually only a report to the police guarantees unlocking the mystery of an IEP address. One of the most criticised websites is the AskFM site, which allows users to ask questions whilst not revealing their identity and it has led to some high profile cases of young people who have committed suicide, allegedly because of constant questions from it. These types of sites are common and your child should not sign up for an account as they fuel cyber bullies. Even if their friends use them, make a stand and don’t allow it. Why don’t you just log off? It’s easy for adults to say ‘just switch it off and ignore it’ but the reality is that for many teenagers, social networking is their main way of socialising with friends. To not be on Facebook or Twitter is the equivalent of not having any friends at all. Constant harassment is not nice, it destroys self-esteem and confidence, and victims of cyber bullying must be provided with assistance to deal with the impact. If you feel your child has been affected by cyber bullying please talk to a trusted adult or contact one of the websites listed below to help your family. Another way to protect yourself is to change your child’s phone number and email and only have them give it to
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select people. If the bullying continues, then you can narrow it down but this could create a stronger feeling of anxiety and paranoia. Trust between friendship groups is important and you don’t want to jeopardise true friendships by making, what could be false allegations. What if it has gone too far? The very nature of the internet means that it’s very difficult to control photos, videos and comments once posted online and like all things, prevention is better than looking for a cure. Encourage your children to be responsible; explain to them to not send words, pictures or videos that they wouldn’t want their mum, dad or teacher to see. Remember the three rules of social networking safety •N ever give out personal details online including passwords, address or numbers, as you don’t know who you are talking to •U se an avatar or a picture of your favourite band as a profile picture •A ccept only friends you know in real life Use your social network for positive reasons, share your life carefully. It’s always a good idea to have family members on your friend list so they can keep an eye on your account too. Explain to your children they should not be tempted to have two profiles to avoid the adults in the family. After all, what have they got to hide?
What happens if you do get nasty messages online? Ignore them and never reply back. You don’t know who you are talking to, and it is all too easy to set up fake email addresses and profiles. Your child wouldn’t accept a gift or lift from a stranger in real life, so they shouldn’t do it online. Encourage your children to tell their parents or a teacher at once, and tell them to be sure to show this adult what has been sent so that they can help. Cyber bullying can be nipped in the bud by not responding to it. The more your child responds, the bigger the problem becomes. If what your child has received worries them, tell them they should talk it through with an adult they trust. Talking about things we are frightened of helps to put our minds at rest, whilst keeping the adults in their lives informed. Your rights and responsibilities You can do your bit to protect yourself and others by making a pledge to only post positive things online. Explain to your children they shouldn’t re-share, re-tweet
(RT) or pass on anything that might hurt another person. Don’t be part of the problem, be part of the solution. If you aren’t brave enough to say it face to face, then don’t put it online. Useful websites •h ttp://www.childline.org.uk •h ttp://stopcyberbullying.org Julia Knight KS3 Coordinator Years 7 – 9, Bangkok Prep International School
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Sexting By Julia Knight
Kids will be kids until they start sending inappropriate photos and texts that can spread like wild fire online
Dear Julia, “I am really worried about my friend; she has been talking to a boy online and has sent pictures of herself to him. The first pictures were just of her face but now he wants her to send some of her naked. What do I do?” Sophie, 12 Dear Sophie, You must tell your friend not to send any pictures of herself to anyone. If you suspect this has already happened then you must tell an adult whom you trust - maybe your parent or a teacher. You need to let your friend know she is placing herself in danger and that you have to tell someone. The problem is your friend doesn’t really know where that picture will end up. Once she presses send, she will no longer be in control of who views it or how it passed on. Ask your friend to consider different scenarios - would she feel comfortable with her sister or brother viewing the picture? Your friend is in a dangerous situation, the ‘boy’ she is in contact with may not be who he says he is. You say that she is contact with him online? So no one really knows who she is chatting and sharing her information with. We must also consider that ‘he’ might share the photo with his friends. How would she feel then? How did they meet? Friend requests from strangers should never be accepted even if that stranger seems to be the same age as you. You would never start talking to random stranger you met on the BTS and then offer them naked pictures would you? The same goes for the internet and social networking sites. Make sure your privacy settings are set to only share with friends and not public. Relationships online are not the same as real life, real time relationships. You may reveal far more of yourself and your story than you would normally do. That’s because being online feels safe and it only feels safe because you are in the comfort of your own home. Giving out any personal information online is not safe at all.
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Never send pictures of yourself over the internet. Anybody who cares about you, should never pressure you into doing things you feel uncomfortable with. Sending photos you feel comfortable with your family viewing is acceptable but anything else is not. As yourself - if your grandmother saw it, would you be embarrassed? There are legal and social ramifications for sexting. The Hunter Oasis organisation in Australia surveyed young people and found 59% had admitted to sexting - sending suggestive emails or messages. There are consequences to sexting, apart from damaging your reputation among friends; it can hurt how you feel inside. It lowers your self esteem and confidence because you can feel embarrassed by your actions leading to depression or even suicidal thoughts, because you may feel like you have let your family down. The Australian law is quite clear. Children who share pornographic imagery could be placed on the Sex Offenders Register as the law ‘makes no distinction between sexting and paedophilia.’ There is much debate around sexting but the only question you should ask yourself is: Is it worth it? Julia Knight
RIS Swiss Section - Deutschsprachige Schule Bangkok phone: (66)2 518 0340,42-44 eMail: admin@ris-swiss-section.org 6/1 Soi Ramkhamhaeng 184 Rd., Minburi, Bangkok 10510