Thais and math

[torrenova]

I have a couple of cashiers and they are the best of a bad bunch. I don't think it is lack of education, the general ability is low. They use a calculator to add 100 and 85 !!!

[Pescator]

Yeah, I see that all the time too.

I buy a couple of T-shirts at 100 bht each and a belt or such at 80 bht. fron a street vendor and have the correct amount ready to give them by the time they have finished punching in the figures on the calculator.

"Hey, how did you do that?"

 

And don`t even get me started on the time I handed the cashier at a bank in Nong Khai the equivalent of 5.000 baht in foreign currency and she tried to hand me 50.000 baht

No kidding.

 

Cheers

Hua Nguu

[Guest]

Quote

"I graduated from a US high school having had two full years of calculus. What's your point? "

 

I thought calculus was a one year course, or at least it was when I went to school.

 

Thais are a 3rd world country, what would you expect - them to be equivalent to falangland? But then in falangland, I know many who need a calculator for simple mathmatical calculations.

 

Same - same.

[sayjann]

'Someone with a grade 6 education really should be able to subtract 40.50 from 101! That's grade 3 stuff!'

 

what is the answer anyway?.......

i'm still trying to work it out.

the batteries in my calculator have run out and i don't have enough fingers to use..... ::

[Guest]

27.75 baht.

[Central Scrutinizer]

Zaad,

 

Well, there's western logic, and then there is Thai logic. The both are not very compatable at times, nor understood by each culture. I have to dig very deep to get to the "logic" in Thai logic, and even then , when I know what the hell they are saying, and understand "why" they think the way they do on certain subjects it STILL boggles my western mind as to how they can come to these conclusions!! They seem to have the same problems understanding a westerner's logic as well. Culture clash. I find that there are a lot of things in their culture that seems to skew their thinking processes in our "western" view of this. It distorts the outcome and doesn't seem logical to us. Throw in the concept of face, Buddhism, animism, rote teaching, good luck stuff, bad luck stuff, ghosts and goblins and such shit and their thinking takes on a whole different filtering system, which makes the final result come out skewed quite a bit to what our own conclusions would be for a similar problem. Frustrating sometimes for us. I find it interesting at times to dig down and break apart how they come to certain conclusions. Their thought process is definitely alien at times to our own, mostly due to these cultural differences I've found.

 

But they think WE are the illogical ones!

Cent

[pattaya127]

But they think WE are the illogical ones!

------------------------

 

Until they've spent a few years in Farangland, then, IME, they sart losing some of that "thai logic", and even pester against it, as if to the manner.... Unborn!

[Central Scrutinizer]

KS,

 

Yep. Seen this a lot myself in the shops. I do think it's the lower education a lot of these workers have to get by on. The students I see here in the "middle class" neighborhood though have high math skills. The kids that are recieving the better educations, finishing at least high school, and who ALL seem to be going to "after-school" classes for math and such a couple hours a day, and weekends too, seem to have very high math skills. I've seen Math is a BIG priority for these more affluent families for their children. But if your family can't afford this, and you have to drop out of school in the lower grades to go work after only a few years schooling it's no wonder a lot have crappy math skills. The problem is there is NO "free" public education system here, and dropping out is even encouraged, hell, even expected, by the poorer families who need their children to help provide the baht for the family to survive. Or to make the baht to send the "boys" in the family to school and possibly to at least a tech school or a university. Look sow's school costs 30,000 baht a year, and that doesn't include uniforms, pencils and paper and such, some books, the uniform shoes, school projects, after school classes, weekend English and math classes, (she now goes to Samart English classes which cost 2,800 baht a "semester" (one weekend day a week for three months)And the costs of the books for these classes as well. Plus a thousand baht a month for the other after-school classes. A LOT of families cannot afford to do this, especially for ALL the kids in a family, and it seems the families place a higher priority on the boys getting the better education than the girls. So if there is a family of four kids, three girls and one boy, ALL or most of the girls end up leaving school earlier than they should to go work to pay for their brother's education. Or the smartest of the girls who seems to be better suited for education will have this done for her. Hell, some families have to go to borrow money from the loan sharks just to be able to buy the school uniforms for their kids to go to school. This sucks. But the government can waste their money trying to buy a fucking stupid Brit football team, rather than sink that dough into providing a quality public education system with free uniforms if fucking uniforms must be worn (I fail to see the reason for this anyway, but if uniforms are required they could at least provide the funds for the poorer families for these uniform costs.)

 

So, don't blame the kids/clerks for their shitty math skills. Blame the idiots they have in government who don't seem to give a fuck about the people and kids educations. (Unless it's their own kids that is. Then they spare no expense.) It's just another form of discrimination to keep the have-not's down on the farm as far as I am concerned. The fat-cat politicians could give a shit less about the common man and his kids educations. And it shows throughout the country.

 

Cent

 

p.s. I'm also amazed at times how many families up here have older children, and fathers and mothers, from the village working in Bangkok. Pray that the economy doesn't collapse one day soon with Taksinomics. Bangkok will be flooded with people looking for work, and the shanty-towns will explode.

[pattaya127]

Bangkok will be flooded with people looking for work, and the shanty-towns will explode.

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Not wishing to be too political, but thai workers could one in a while flex their muscles and get down to serious street expressions instead of being led by the nose thru all kind of economic experiments. IMO, the status quo of the few "have' and the population of "have nots" has never been seriously questionned. Every national expression of discontent, one happening every 20 years, is about some political stuff, never questioning the basis of the inequaltites.

 

And now, with a budding middle-class wishing to hang on to its miserly western life imitations (miserly by its materialistic values), any PM will have the political mandate to severely crack down on anything questionning the way wealth is attributed by a few..

[Guest]

That was my post you were replying to.

 

whosyourdaddy made the rediculous statement that "to say that Thais are poor at math if far from the truth as far as I am concerned. The curriculum is far superior to North america, England, Australia etc. "

 

I'm American and I had 2 full years of calculus before graduating high school (not one year's worth stretched out into 2 years, but calculus in 11th grade and advanced calculus in 12th). The point is that there are schools everywhere that all sorts of varying curriculum.

 

And also that the experience described by the OP is common everywhere in the world I've ever been. I don't see a correlation with educational curriculum.