Thailand’ s Sustainable Literacy Competence in Peripheral School: The Bannongkae School Model
Keywords:
Sustainable literacy competence, Peripheral school, Rural student, Lifeworld, Dependency theoryAbstract
This research illustrates a successful case of developing Thai and English literacy of primary students who study in a peripheral school in a rural area of Thailand, i.e., Bannongkae school under Naowarat Thawon’s learning approach over 19 years as a teacher and then a director. This article aims to elucidate how the Bannongkae school succeeded in developing students to be competent in Thai and English. Methodologically, this article will employ Jürgen Habermas’s sociological concept of lifeworld combined with perspectives of Andre Gunder Frank’s dependency theory and Jack Mezirow’s transformative learning as its theoretical frameworks to reconstruct the process of learning the Thai and English language as a transformative practice in creating a more effective, more productive, and more just education in Thai society. Meanwhile, Bannongkae school is a research area in this study with a procedure of qualitative approach, in collecting qualitative data with key informants by using in-depth interviews with a director and her staff and using observation of the school context. The findings have three themes: Bannongkae school model as “decolonizing” traditional practices of teaching literacy; its breakthrough beyond poverty, educational inequality, and dependency; and transformative practices based on the educational perspectives. The implication of this research is the successful model of Bannongkae school in improving sustainable literacy competence for peripheral students might be a new classical pathway that the educational policymakers should reconsider to redeem essentialism for the educational practice and policy.
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