Social Justice

11:10 pm. 08/09/2019

Let my brain speak tonight.

Let my brain wander and think deeply into anything that might turn up.

Isn’t it a good way to grow our mind is to think about the thinking?

This weekend is a rare weekend that I dig my head into books, that’s why I am hungry of uttering my thoughts. To be peaceful staying at home most of 3 days is thankfully 3 times being to the well-equipped Gym of TU. I was very committed to my Gym membership in HCMC until June when I almost had no time to even eat. Physical movement should have an intimate relationship with the thinking movement. Indeed, when our body is moving, we hardly worry about any hardships or disarray, just focus in the running and let the sweat go out as the river washing away dust covering across the curious brain. Let be together with this melodious dance for long. Let replenish energy for new days by moving ourselves with the music.

Today is the wedding of my sister who grew up with me, showered with me when I was a kid, cooked for me, combed my hair, fanned for me when the power was cut, asked about my childish relationships, helped me move house in my freshyear,… and I couldn’t come to see her on this special day. I am happy for her. I was selfish when I first heard of the news which I must have congratulated her on the milestone of her life, rather I felt regretful why she has left me so quickly. My expression was as if I had cared much for her but I didn’t. It’s the stage that most of girls probably experience, I don’t want to think about the day. I saw my other sisters’ tears on their important days because of the goodbye, being out of parents’ hand, etc that I can’t understand fully yet.

I truly hope that my sister could be happy with her husband, and she deserves that happiness.

Gender Equality

Today I engaged in the book “Thousand Spendid Suns” of Khaled Hosseini for 4 hours. Could the life of women be that tough? I am not feminist. Per se in the area of inequality, I tend to be concern about opportunity equality rather than gender one. It’s until this week that I have the thirst to discuss about it now.

Begin with the book, the pain and distress of women in Afghanistan in the 80s to 00s were too extreme under the lens of the author. What they had to suffer throughout their entire life is too much for a human to cope with. All kinds of acts caused by men and the society put in their weak shoulders have no sense of humanity and don’t deserve the holistic contribution of those miserable women at all. A girl aged 15 years old was forced to get married with a man 20 years older, or to serve a man as the second wife, to give birth like a machine, to take constant inhumane violence, to be unethically scolded as a trash bin, to cover all dirty work possibly.

Secondly, I have learnt a very interesting theme in Social Life Skill Course, Module “Space and Self” this week namely “Architecture and Social Justice”. I have super enjoyed this course for the past 4 weeks that has sharply changed my normal idea seeing architecture as a dry subject.

Instead, architecture consists of many factors reflecting human’s needs to create built environment.

Furthermore, the lecture helped me to introspect my spacial intelligence in many times of getting lost because I tend to depend too much on the digital map, resulting in the decreased ability to shape a mental map for my own. This time was discussing on how inequitable universal design could be through examining many one-size-fit-all facilities available in the world. The widespread design lead to such huge inconvenience for certain groups of people like the disabled, the left-handed, the old, the women. It is the way the design is taken for granted that some particular need of different individuals is overlooked.

Thirdly, this morning, my Taiwanese shared me about her concern in the fieldtrip to Klongluang high school in terms of whether boys and girls are equally treated in the school. She is concern of this topic since she herself struggled with some ridiculous rules in her female high school like girls. Surprisingly, their findings were even worse that the conditions she handled: girls are not allowed to wear pants or have long hair which are some basic needs of human that there are no appropriate reasons to impose such regulation.

The story raised as an alarm to me to ask: How are the feelings of these girls? What do the teachers in the school think? or Do they empathize with their students? One assumption can be that students thirst for the privilege to be themselves, yet they might not bother to follow the rule. Perhaps this situation has been ongoing for years, no one dares to ever speak up their mind. This come to another concern that has occupied me since that fieldtrip too.

Relationship among teachers and students.

We were arranged to interview some high school students in a good school which has everything better than mine, from facilities to the campus. However, there are always certain issues among the student life. My team wanted to understand more about the healthcare and well-being ‘s status of the students. They honestly confessed some bad situations of food quality and stress of overloaded homework, how they felt and the causes of the issues. The common thing is that all students remain silent and accept the existing circumstance which has never been authentically reported up to the school to be addressed from the ground.

I wondered why the students don’t tell their teachers about there are worms in their food, they feel too mentally depressed and don’t want to take more homework. In retrospect, I also did’t report any negative things in my schools back then. My friends didn’t, either. In the realm of courage, I was not that brave in those old days. A part of my high school time was like a horror movie to recall. Sometimes, I went back from the black board crying because I couldn’t solve the assignments out in Maths and Chemistry (Grade 11). When I found the tasks too brain-hacking, tears soaked my eyes for being scared of my teachers’ warning and scolding. I have never forgot some of the grumbling words from some teachers that a students can’t get into a university if she is good at only one thing (implying my English). I felt insulted more than ever… Can you get even 1 point for Physics in the classifying exam into next grade as your area of focus is group D (Math, Literature, and English)? The question has been ingrained in my brain till the day I die, probably. These are some examples of how some teachers still hold such funny mindset towards their students’ performances.

Why students must be good at everything to meet up their expectation? Do teachers even know about the “Multiple Intelligence Theory” or at least be aware that individuals are different as human being?

What I am trying to say here is miscommunication among students and teachers in high school. High school is the period of time when the young face tremendous changes in their biology and psychology. Those who encounter such mental punishment as I did must also struggle with the communication with teachers in order to make themselves understood. It is so hard to have the right to express in school, let alone make their voice heard.

Overtime, the fear gets bigger, the tendency to avoid conversations gets more often, the misunderstanding gets more serious, the pain of students and the confusion of the teachers get stronger and eventually the gap and the assumptions among them gets unconnectable.

In many Asian countries, I think there is not much difference in the school context regarding this problem. We feel the teachers who are adults under our thinking either don’t listen to our ideas or expect too much on our ability to do things, we end up considering many of the teachers as “the people who deliver lessons, not someone like friends who they can trust to share stories”.

I am planning to have closer look on this scenario in Thailand’s high schools to come up with a project for Civic Engagement Project. I am not sure whether the problem is really compelling and needs solving, but I see there is an urgency to learn about this aspect as part of human development process. Or even I could bring up this point to my old school for the next young cohorts to relate themselves in the current schooling, hopefully they are brave enough to confront whatever they might hear or be enforced. The word “potential” is never mentioned in my rural school, though it meets the national standards which I don’t get what makes sense here. Do the national standards mean that students’ values are disregarded and their potentials are underestimated? No matter what it is, I am still proud of that mountainous school that gave me the platform to be how I am now, the platform to build my own resilience and determination to strive for the better.

Let end the blog by introducing a very costly book (to me) that I bought today. I went to Kinokuniya Bookstore in Siam Paragon to take home “On Writing Well” with an aim to treasure the time I spent for travelling, the money invested on the knowledge and to tailor my writing skill then. I will read every single word of this book.

Cherish the details, to take big steps, right?

#thinking

#retrospect

#empathy