Valuable life lessons

“I am now a Thai language teacher at Bangkok Wittaya Mooniti School, but I am due to be transferred to a new school on Nov 11 as a full-fledged civil servant. Once I have worked the required number of years I will be able to transfer back to my home town which is what I want to do.

People may wonder why I chose to teach Thai since everyone can speak Thai, but it is important to speak, read and write Thai correctly.

I am from Ranong, from a large family with nine children. I am the eighth and I started working to help the family since I was in Prathom 6, all the way till I finished Mathayom 6. Because of the large family, my parents could not afford to educate us higher than Mathayom 3. Nevertheless, all my siblings managed to achieve at least a diploma.

I worked in Bangkok for a year and enrolled at Ramkamhaeng University in 2009.

I was about 16 at the time of the tsunami. My village was greatly affected by the devastation and my school closed down for almost a month.

The Bangkok Post Foundation came to help the school and officials went to my house through their recommendation. My career advisor told me that now that I have received this opportunity I should pay attention to my studies to repay the foundation for its good intentions.

I received help from the foundation from Mathayom 4 to 6, after which I had no more funds to study and moved to Bangkok to work in a factory. I took a chance and wrote to the foundation to ask whether I might be considered for a further scholarship, giving my reasons.

To my delight the foundation agreed.

Without the scholarship I may not have completed my studies at all, or taken longer to complete them.

As soon as I become a civil servant teacher I plan to pursue a master’s degree. We are still behind many countries in our education and I would like to help later generations to be equal to developed nations.

If I come across children in the same position as I used to be in I will immediately reach out to them. I fully understand how they feel. As a teacher I will make it my job to know each and every one of my students, to know their names, their family and financial background and adjust my teaching to suit the children.

“We are still behind many countries in our education and I would like to help the later generation to be equal to developed nations”

My principle as a teacher is to be kind and gentle and pay close attention to the students. Education will help lead students along a proper path, with constructive ideas to develop themselves for the future. Good children will lead to a good society and a civilised country.

Today I am proud to have played my part as a teacher, and soon to become a full-fledged civil servant teacher. I hope to be able to continue to develop myself as much as possible.”