Girls are much more independent learners in the classroom, spendingmore time on listening and paying attention. Because many Thaiteachers cover more than one class, leave the classroom during class,miss meetings or sit down at a desk instead of walking around tomonitor, students who are independent will naturally do better in thissetting. Learning in a Thai classroom versus a westernclassroom requires more attentiveness and task persistence since thestudents often have to regulate their own time on task and personal

accountability for their own learning.

A majority of Thai classrooms use a teacher-centered approach. Thistype of lecture-based, note-taking, reading straight from abook approach can be fine for visual and auditory learners, but tendsto lose the more tactile (kinesthetic) student. Boys in Thailand tendto be more active than the girls and therefore could benefit from amore tactile teaching approach. Until that happens, some students arenot having an educationally stimulating experience in the classroom.This can lead students to tuning out, not trying as hard or acting outwhile learning. This behavior can lead to lower success withindependent work and to lower test scores.

But perhaps they are learning differently because they are looking attheir futures differently. Students have different idea about theircapacity to continue education past a matayome level. Some studentsknow what their occupations will be already. They may be helpingwith the family farm, or working in the family store. I tend to see thismore with boys than girls in the small villages. In fact, some studentsknow that their families will not be able to afford to send them to auniversity. Since some students see their future as pre-determined,putting the time and effort into learning is not worthwhile if they willnot need it in their daily life.

Another reason a majority of girls do better academically is that theyare seen as the leaders of the school. Girls tend to volunteer morequickly than boys. In the classroom, the girls tend to be the ones toshow off their academic skills and many teachers tend to choose thefirst person to volunteer or raise a hand, so the girls get picked first.In the case of after school clubs, at the larger school at my site thereare 31 girls and 11 boys who volunteered to study English for anextra hour. At the smaller school, 10 girls and no boys chose to stayafter school to practice their English. At a volunteer program at thelocal matayome school which teaches reading to elementary kids, 18girls showed up, but no boys showed up to the meeting. Because girlsare putting in more effort, they are reaping more benefits,educationally speaking.

My final questions posed to the boys in particular in the highest andlowest classrooms at the larger school were these: What wouldmake you want to pay attention? How do you want to learn? Whattype of teacher do you want? The resounding response was, “Gamesand songs. Funny teachers.” And doesn’t this make sense? Of course

the students will participate more if we turn learning into a game. Ofcourse they will think more critically if they are asked to create,design and come up with new ideas. Songs with total body responseswork because, well, they’re fun. If effort is made to be in theclassroom, motivating all students, making sure lessons are student -centered and both genders are being encouraged to growacademically without “mai bpen rai” allowances being made, then we

might just see a shift.