In Thailand, students are discouraged from actively participating in class. This is viewed as 'showing off' here. As a result, most students in my classes appeared to be slackers. I, like Sap, concentrated on the slackers most because that was by far the largest group. If I had pidgeon-holed MY slackers into the category of 'hopeless basket cases', I'd have taught maybe 5 out of 535 students all year.

My point is you can never tell from simply teaching kids an hour or two a week who will succeed later in life and who is bound to spend the rest of his life as a motorcycle-taxi driver. That's true ESPECIALLY here.

Like Sap described in his post, I have also encountered what he calls 'closet scholars'. There were lots of closet scholars in my classrooms simply because of the Thai culture. I had to exert tons of effort on the slackers to find the 'diamonds in the rough'--and I did find a few, so it was worth it to me.

I didn't come to Thailand to change Thailand. I came to change perhaps ONE person's life (besides my
own)--that's all I hope to do. After a year in the trenches, I think I've changed the life-courses of many of my students. Students who would have always doubted their own abilities, or students who would have never tried in the first place if I would have never set foot in the land of Thai. I just wish I could have reached more. Yeah--it's aggravating to think back on those days and wonder what could have been.

R747