I work in China with Grade 1 Junior Middle School students - ages 11 and 12. The Chinese approach to teaching sounds similar to how you describe the approach in Thailand. School here is only secondarily a learning process - its main purpose seems to be aimed at regimentation and overworking of students until many of them are burned out in their mid teens. The efficacy of the Chinese education system is shown up by the fact that less than 6% of all Chinese final year students actually make it into university.

In my classes which are capped at 38 students each, (very low for China) I have a large percentage of stars who work hard and take things really seriously. Consequently I take them seriously too - for they deserve it. Each class, however, has a number of low achievers who are incapable of keeping up with the rest and there are a few general layabouts who think it's all a joke.

These people are labelled not by me but by nature having regard to their relatively diminished ability to learn anything at a reasonable speed.

If I am conducting exercises or tests on 38 youngsters, I simply do not have the time to abandon 33 of them while I spend a disproportionate amount of time waiting for the other 5 to struggle for answers that in almost all cases are then wrong anyway.

I am of course aware that when I tell these slower or less-capable students to sit down having failed to answer the question or read the word (or whatever) - they may feel a sense of failure and embarrassment being shown up in front of their classmates. I am also aware that given individual tuition or if transferred to very small groups for special teaching attention, many of these slower ones may greatly improve.

However, the whole purpose of schools everywhere is to teach children the same things but in unified classes. This is so as to achieve the economies of numbers and scale that are essential for all societies to be able to educate their youngsters at all.

In all teaching situations there will be average level students comprising the majority and there will be smaller numbers of both high and low achievers.

In saying that we endeavour to treat the slow ones the same as everyone else so as to save them embarrassment - do you suggest the same approach to the high achievers too? Do you advocate that as teachers we appear not to recognise that they are high achievers and thus embarrass them by ignoring their greater potential in front of their classmates?

We can't have it all ways in a classroom - and neither can the students. I don't for a moment advocate making a spectacle of slow students nor that we should place smart ones on pedestals. A slow student is slow and there is little he or we can do about that. You remark about giving them all high self esteem - yet in order for that to work they have to be given it before they perform and not have to earn it in retrospect. High achievers need to be made to know at all times that they have high potential, because in that way they will redouble their efforts. Of course we need to encourage the low-achievers too - but if it doesn't work pretty fast then we must move on to the rest of the student body.

As human beings no matter how young they may be, students also have to take their fare share of the gritty bits that society hands out to us all. As teachers we cannot help them avoid that but inevitably they are labelled whether we like it or not. I have a room full of youngsters to teach English to in just 45 minutes or thereabouts and there is really no time for a great deal of psychology or individual coaching of slower students. I have to take as I find and do the best with what I have. I am sure you do too and if that involves setting priorities then that's tough but it is a part of life's pattern and an unavoidable responsibility for teachers.

Dave