Communication Meanings of The Stick Used for Discipline by Schoolteachers in Thai Films

Abstract

This thesis studied communication meanings of the stick used for discipline by schoolteachers in Thai films. Qualitative research was done with textual analysis, with the study divided into two parts: examining Thai film narrative structure related to the use of corporal punishment with a stick in educational institutions and analyzing semantic communication of the stick as used by teachers in films. Movies were grouped into six released before issuance of the Regulation of the Teachers Council of Thailand on Professional Standards and Ethics, B.E. 2548 (2005; Regulation) and six after. The former group comprised 1) Hello Teacher (1977); 2) Teacher, I'm Lonely (1978); 3) Hello Stick (1982); 4) Kru Suea (1984); 5) Kru Whai, Mean Teacher (1989); and 6) M. 6/2 Habitación Kru Waree (1994). The latter group comprised 1) Sam Chuk (2008); 2) A Little Thing Called Love (2009); 3) Dangerous Boys (2014); 4) The Teacher's Diary (2014); 5) F. Hilaire (2015); and 6) Bad Genius (2017).

Results were that before the 2005 Regulation, films justified the ideology of students behaving because of the teacher’s stick, persuading audiences to enable teachers to exercise their power through the stick as an instrument of moral protection used with good intentions. Storylines and teachers as protagonists solving student problems created acceptance for didactic corporal punishment. After the 2005 Regulation, the use of the stick onscreen was significantly reduced, in films honoring teachers who helped students without beating them. These movies help build societal awareness that good teaching need not equate with corporal punishment.

However, films after the 2005 Regulation still legitimize such methods by having positively depicted teacher characters opt for corporal punishment, justifying the use of the stick even today as an inheritance of admirable instruction techniques of the past. In this way, societal ideas and ideologies are communicated intergenerationally to accept educational authoritarianism systems in the name of goodwill as realistically portrayed on film.