Montessori education for children in Golden Triangle

Doi Tung is a mountain of the Thai highlands in Chiang Rai province.  It is located in the area known as "Golden Triangle" that overlaps the mountains of three Southeast Asia countries – Laos, Thailand and Myanmar. 

It used to be one of the most extensive opium-producing areas of the world in the 1970s. Its population are mainly Akha, Lahu, Tai Lue and Lawa and Han. Due to various reasons, most of them do not have identity cards granted by  any country so their citizen rights are not ensured.

The Doi Tung Development Project initiated by Her Royal Highness Princess Srinagarindra, the late Princess Mother of Thailand, drew inspiration from her son, His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who had first started efforts to end opium cultivation since1968.

The Princess Mother witnessed the struggle of the people in Doi Tung, who depended mainly on growing and dealing in narcotic drugs, human trafficking and illicit logging to survive. These led to never ending social and environmental problems, which she recognized as but symptoms of people's poverty and lack of opportunities for legitimate livelihoods.

With her determination and guided by the principles she developed, a holistic and integrated development model was initiated. This people-centric approach to address social, economic, and environmental problems has become known as Sustainable Alternative Livelihood Development (SALD).

Its main objective is to transform poor and vulnerable communities from dependency and basic subsistence living, towards full socio-economic sufficiency and independence. 

The Doi Tung Development Project was initiated in 1988 on 93,515 rai (150 square kilometers), covering large portions of Mae Fah Luang and Mae Sai Districts in Chiang Rai province. Its nearly 11,000 people of six ethnic minorities live in 29 villages.

Nowadays, Doi Tung does not grow opium and its citizens’ living conditions are improved thanks to development of forestry economy and tourism. Local people are guided to plant Macadamia, coffee and other trees.

Under the framework of the project, the Mae Fah Luang eco-tourism site was formed and became an attractive tourist destination.

Local people are provided jobs by coffee, tea, and Macadamia processing plants, paper and silk workshops and travel agent companies and have stable income. Their children are able to go to school.

VOV reporter came to Doi Tung, visited a school and talked to Mr Anthony Herings, an English teacher who has been working for The Doi Tung Development Project for 11 years in Chiang Rai, Thailand.

He said to reform education with the student-centric approach, the project has applied many support methods. One of those is to pay to have more teachers in the school (1:12, better rate than average in Thailand). It was initially started in 1997 by paying local care-givers (5 people), who had no citizen ID, to work at daycare centres. 

In 1998 the project began to support teachers in both primary and secondary levels of education. During this period of time from 1997 up to today the highest number of teachers they have employed in one year is 20 teachers, this year they are supporting 13 teachers. Currently the project is paying 204,850 baht a month, or 2,458,200 a year (about US$68,000).

Although the project pay teacher’s salaries, English coodinators are not actually able to influence how they should work or perform as teachers, teacher-centred vs learner centred approach.

Anthony Herings said “Our underlying objective have been to acquire specialist teachers for Thai language, vocational training and more personalised learning”.

“Changing mindset is a very complex operation. So many factors and layers, culture, environment, context, resources and personality to mention a few, go into it’s formation that I would not be able to approach answering your question systematically. To approach changing the mindset of teachers for one that is more compatible and empathetic towards the implementation of Montessori.

I believe you must first make explicit the teachers own views of the child and how they learn then make a comparison to the Montessori view and her educational philosophy. 

Important pedagogic concepts in the Montessori approach include being able to follow the child, nurture independent learning, design a dynamic learning environment and making observations. The teachers with professional help must then develop themselves a personal and procedural roadmap for achievable transformation. Essentially self-realisation and self-determination are key”, he said.

And he thinks that the introduction of Montessori & Vocational training have been reasonably successful. Independent change, (change outside of required government policy and procedure) in terms of pedagogy and mindset, are difficult to promote and attain in Thai schools and many other school in Asia.

Eleven years ago, Doi Tung was very poor and backward. Anthony Herings and his co-workers had to overcome a number of difficulties to gain such results.

Anthony said, “If you are to take social & educational development seriously you must be prepared for a long, arduous haul. It’s not easy and for progress to be really sustainable the development must be to a large percentage homegrown. One must help by scaffolding the benefactors, helping others help themselves and realise a vision for themselves”.

Changing education methods, the project implementers hope to train a new generation who will develop Doi Tung sustainably and say farewell to its notorious past.