If you spot any of the following environmentally unfriendly characters around the school, please contact the K2-3 students and their homeroom teachers.

These unfit characters have polluted our children’s model green city and need to be carefully re-used, reduced or recycled. Help us clean up our city and its environs, and claim your reward today!

by Neil Amas
Panyaden School Director

There is a common misunderstanding that in Buddhism, all desire is ‘bad’ and leads to suffering. In fact the Buddha recognised that there are 2 different kinds of desire. One is desire borne of ignorance, an unwholesome or negative desire (tanha) which gives rise to suffering. The second is wholesome desire, or chanda, which originates from a clear understanding of the way things are. It means doing the very best that you can in the present moment. It’s a basic Buddhist idea of wise effort.

As explained by Ajahn Jayasaro during a talk at Panyaden last year, this is an important principle in the education of children or in the raising of children by parents. We should not be overly obsessed with results, but, rather, look for quality of action in the present moment. There will be disappointments and things will not always work out how you want them to be, and there will be outside influences that you cannot control, so the best you can do is put effort into things that you can. This is right motivation. Ajahn Jayasaro explained, “An over-emphasis on results in the future tends to have a number of negative consequences in the present, such as anxiety, restlessness, boredom, dissatisfaction, or very easily can lead to dishonesty because if you feel that something you do in the present is merely a means to get what you want in the future, the temptation to take short cuts becomes very strong.”

As parents and teachers we all want our children to be healthy and happy. But if this desire is not wise it may lead to us becoming overly protective causing our children to become too dependent on us, or we may become over-controlling and create alienation and rebellion in our children.

Chanda, then, is positive desire and arises from compassion and unconditional love. In the classroom, as well as at home, this means encouraging our children to be enthusiastic in developing their own learning and knowledge, to try hard to succeed no matter the consequences and to maintain and create good behaviour. For example, a sister who helps her younger brother get dressed for school purely out of love and a desire to help him has chanda. A group of students who are enthusiastic about learning a new subject at school solely from their love of learning and desire to work hard at it regardless of the results, are displaying chanda.

We all know how precious a parent’s praise is to a child. If we concentrate on praising effort, we will help them develop chanda, a wise habit for life.

ความยินดีในกิจที่ทำ (ฉันทะ)

The Kung Fu Chef  has come with his special pot of soup again! He congratulated K2-3 students for sending him more letters than any other class giving examples of how they had practiced last week’s habit, ‘Mattannuta’ (‘knowing the right amount’) and invited them to help him put the ingredient into his big shiny pot.

Deftly kicking his right leg out and raising his left arm, our Kung Fu Chef then demonstrated this week’s new wise habit ‘Chanda’ or ความยินดีในกิจที่ทำ (ฉันทะ), which means ‘desiring truth, knowledge and goodness.’ For more on the meaning of ‘Chanda’ (pronounced Chanta), read Panyaden School Director Neil Amas’ upcoming post on the subject.

Native English Speaking Teachers

We are looking for native English speaking teachers to join us for our next school year, starting March/April/ 2012. We require pre-school and primary homeroom teachers and a Maths/Science specialist teacher.

You must have teaching experience, be comfortable working in a bi-lingual/cultural environment and hold a teaching qualification. Importantly, candidates should be open-minded, resourceful and flexible and be committed to the school’s values and educational approach.

Please send a personal statement and your CV to administration@panyaden.ac.th. Or call 053 426 618 for more information.

  ]]> http://www.panyaden.ac.th/blog/career-opportunities-4/feed/ 0 http://www.panyaden.ac.th/blog/summer-school-2012/ http://www.panyaden.ac.th/blog/summer-school-2012/#comments Mon, 23 Jan 2012 10:50:51 +0000 lili http://www.panyaden.ac.th/blog/?p=11924 [...]]]>  

Our Environment, Our Future

Panyaden Summer School April 2012

Our 2012 Summer School will be five weeks of fun and educational activities based upon experiencing, appreciating and taking care of our environment. With a focus on learning through experience, using our hands and hearts as well as our minds, we will explore and appreciate our environment through a combination of field trips around Chiang Mai and school-based activities. Bringing together trained teachers and experts in sustainable development and traditional methods of preserving nature, your child will learn how to love and care for all living things, to find creative ways of living in harmony with our environment and to develop good habits and self-discipline in regards to consumption. The course will be run in both English and Thai (50/50).

AGE GROUPS

The Summer School will be taught in three groups:

Group I: Nursery and Kindergarten 1 (2 – 4 year olds)

Group II: Kindergarten 2 to Prathom 2 (4 – 7 year olds)

Group III: Prathom 3 to Prathom 6 (7 – 11 year olds)

TIMES, DATES, FEES

April 2 – May 4, 2012

Mon-Fri 8.30pm to 3.30pm (apart from national holidays)

3,000 baht per week

INFORMATION and CONTACT

For more information and details on enrolment, please contact

Khun Boy 0800 785 115 (English and Thai)

Boy@panyaden.ac.th

www.panyaden.ac.th

The Wise Habits of Panyaden are 12 core virtues for all of us to understand, learn and practice. Given to us by the school’s spiritual advisor, Taan Ajahn Jayasaro, we are looking at fun and creative ways to teach both our children and ourselves good habits which will last a lifetime.

So each Monday morning in assembly, enter stage left ….the Kung Fu Chef. (The what?!) The Kung Fu Chef teaches us a kung fu move to represent each habit and tells us to practice that habit all week. This week is ‘Mattannuta’ (knowing the right amount). The king fu move helps students remember while having fun at the same time.

The next week, if we have all practiced well, he puts the ingredient ‘Mattannuta’ into a big soup pot. After all 12 ingredients have been added, he promises to make a delicious soup….

For the past five weeks, the Butterfly class (K2-3) has been studying bugs. The students voted on 3 types of bugs (butterfly, ladybird and spider) that they wanted to study in-depth. They gathered their previous knowledge about each bug and worked out questions they would like to find answers to. They learned about each insect’s life cycle, habitat, food and special characteristics.

As our final project for the unit, the students applied the knowledge they have acquired to create their own bug species. The students drafted their own ideas about the physical characteristics of their insects before making 3D models. Next they provided facts about how they grow (life cycle), what they eat (food) and where they live (habitat) before they created models based on these facts.

The Create-A-Bug Fair allowed our students to present their very own bug species to their parents, schoolmates and teachers, and to role-play as scientific experts.

ใน 5 สัปดาห์ที่ผ่านมา นักเรียนห้องผีเสื้อ (อ.2 – อ.3) ได้เรียนเรื่องแมลงและนักเรียนได้ลงความเห็นว่าต้องการเรียนรู้เรื่องแมลง 3ชนิด ได้แก่  ผีเสื้อ เต่าทองและแมงมุม ซึ่งนักเรียนได้รวบรวมช้อมูลเกี่ยวกับแมลงทั้ง 3 เท่าที่รู้  และตั้งคำถามที่เขาสนใจ เพื่อค้นหาคำตอบ  นักเรียนยังได้เรียนรู้เกี่ยวกับวงจรชีวิตของแมลง แหล่งที่อยู่อาศัย อาหาร และลักษณะพิเศษของแมลงแต่ละชนิด

หลังจากเรียนเรื่องแมลงจนจบขั้นสุดท้ายของหน่วยการเรียนรู้นี้ คุณครูให้นักเรียนรวบรวมความรู้ทั้งหมดที่ได้รับ เพื่อสร้างจินตนาการและประดิษฐ์แมลงของตัวเองขึ้น โดยนักเรียนต้องร่างความคิดเกี่ยวกับลักษณะของแมลงในจินตนาการนั้นขึ้นมา  แล้วก็อธิบายถึงวิธีการที่แมลงเติบโต (วงจรชีวิต) อาหาร  และที่อยู่อาศัย โดยอิงข้อมูลความจริงเรื่องแมลงที่เรียนมา หลังจากนั้นก็สร้างแบบจำลอง 3 มิติขึ้น

การจัดงาน Bug Fair นี้ เปิดโอกาสให้นักเรียนได้แสดงบทบาทเสมือนเป็นผู้เชี่ยวชาญด้านวิทยาศาสตร์เพื่อนำเสนอสายพันธุ์แมลงที่นักเรียนได้จินตนาการและประดิษฐ์ขึ้นมา แก่ผู้ปกครอง เพื่อนๆ และครู 

More photos here.

Dhamma Talk by Taan Ajahn Jayasaro

Panyaden School’s Spiritual Advisor, Taan Ajahn Jayasaro, will be visiting this Thursday, 19 Jan 2012. He will give a Dhamma talk on “Happiness and Raising Children” from 11.30am – 12.30pm. The talk will be followed by a Q & A session.

Open to all parents and the public. Welcome!

What a huge turnout at Panyaden School’s booth this weekend! It was wonderful to see so many smiling faces on a day that honours and celebrates all children.

Little ones were cheerfully making friendship bracelets for their friends and family while others drew, coloured and cut out paper dolls. Many children (and, ahem, quite a few adults) were delighted to learn about basic cotton fabric making. They spun, threaded and weaved cotton fibre into small pieces of fabric.

We are happy that so many of you came out to play and learn with us. Lets also give a big hand for our school staff and teachers who came out to help make the weekend such a success.

Happy Children’s Day always!

The photos can be found here on the blog. We also have photos of other Children’s Day activities at our school here.

Happy Children’s Day! Here’s an update on activities you and your children can look forward to this weekend at our Central Airport Plaza booth.

• Learn about cotton and how this amazing little plant can be used to make cloth
• Weave small pieces of fabric
• Make colourful friendship bracelets for your friends and family

Join us!

• Date: Sat 14 – Sun 15 Jan 2012
• Time: 10.00-18.00 daily
• Location: G Floor, D Zone (map below)