re: "Democracy practice" (BP, PostBag, July 3, 2023)
Dear editor,
To Burin Kantabutra's, pragmatic proposals for strengthening allegiance to democracy in schools, it might usefully be added to his third set of suggestions that whether "a given teacher: provide[s] clear explanations? encourage[s] students to ask questions?" applies no less to mathematics, physics and literature than it does to students' instruction in matters of civics and ethics.
It should be the norm that students are not merely told what is right, good, proper, moral, appropriate or the like subjective value claim, but that rational reasons for those claims be given, with opposing views and their counterarguments invited, presented and taken seriously.
Could anything be better for society than a cohort of young citizens trained to critically question rather than mindlessly repeat or follow what others insist they value? Putting society's values to such rigorous public testing in the classroom not only practices democracy, it might also enhance student commitment to what has thereby passed the test of being consciously worth committing to.
Felix Qui
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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.
The text as edited was published in PostBag on July 10, 2023, under the title "Critically speaking" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2608898/sloppy-job
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