montessori

One of the major problems facing hilltribe children is the language barrier when they start school age 6. At home the children speak one of the many hill tribe languages, while at school they must speak the entirely unrelated national language of Thai. In addition, some of the hilltribe languages do not have a written form, so the children are unused to writing or reading.

In 2003, Paul Hancock and Patricia Solar visited the Royal Project at Doi Tung, where they saw Montessori child-centred teaching techniques being used with considerable success to teach pre-school hilltribe children to read and write Thai, as well as elementary maths and other useful subjects.

They thought this was an idea which could be introduced with advantage to other areas, so they arranged a study tour for some interested teachers from the Sahasat School, Chiang Rai, which has 1,600 hilltribe pupils.

In May 2004, Khom Loy offered to sponsor an instructor/teacher, a teacher training course, and the purchase of teaching equipment for one year at the school. By May 2006, 6 forms in the kindergarten are being taught using Montessori techniques and 7 teachers have been trained. In addition to a Thai Montessori trainer, we had a qualified Montessori teacher from Vancouver with us as a volunteer.

After our first year at Sahasat Khom Loy opened a second project with two kindergarten classrooms at Huay Khom school, near Chiang Rai. In preparation, a series of intensive training courses were given to the Thai teachers to introduce them to the Montessori philosophy and equipment. We also provided each classroom with a full-time teaching assistant (also trained by us) for the first year so that the teachers could receive on-the-job training without affecting teaching standards.

On November 22nd 2005, after much preparation, Khom Loy opened a new Montessori classroom at Huay Mae Sai Child Development Center. This center has been extremely successful and prompted the Local Government Authority, which is in charge of 11 Child Development Centers in the May Yao Sub-district, to request that we expand into all 11 of their Centers. They also graciously offered to provide the funding for the classroom renovations. In May 2006 Khom Loy opened the 5th and 6th classrooms at Sahasat Suksa School and one classroom at Likhai Child Development Center, which is under the authority of the Hilltribe Wellfare Center. In September 2006 Khom Loy continued it's partnership with the Local Government Authority by opening classrooms at Ruammit Village Child Development Center, Jataw Village Child Development Center and at the Local Government Authority office. This brings the number of classrooms completely converted to Montessori use to 13: six at Sahasat Suksa School, two at Huay Khom School, and 5 Child Development Centers at Huay Mae Sai, Likhai, Ruammit, Jataw and the Local Government Authority Offices. In addition to the classrooms Khom Loy has held a number of week long training programs and material workshops. In these trainings and workshops Khom Loy has successfully trained 30 teachers from 20 different childcare centers.

Over the years Khom Loy has also designed a range of low-cost Montessori equipment which will allow the programme to be rolled out more generally. (Our first classrooms at Sahasat cost about USD3000 to fully renovate and equip, the cost at Huay Khom was nearly halved. The cost for Huay Mae Sai was again reduced and we have been able to develop low-cost equipment to the point that the three most recent Child Development Centers were opened for under $500 per classroom. Our aim is to reduce this to less than USD200 with the continued use of local materials and laminated paper/cardboard materials made by teachers and other volunteers.)

In addition to expanding the program to other village schools, Khom Loy would like to start an academy for teachers as well as a workshop to make the equipment, so that the program can expand over a larger area.

We are grateful to the Haugland Foundation, the Canada Fund, the Mudita Trust and various private donors for their support of this programme.

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