College Infantilisation and Today's Thai Elite Young Adults

Disclaimers: This story is written from a real occurring situation from a perspective of a fictional character.

She didn't know what was the cause of this loneliness, an isolation from her circle of classmates and teachers, in a society of a tiny room she spent hours sitting inside almost everyday. She had never felt so 'out of place' like this before, and she was struggling to find a way to understand these people, who were calling her a peculiar creature. After many failed attempts and many drops of tear, she finally came to a conclusion: she wasn't the odd one, but those people were in fact 'unusual.'

She was confused at first, of how these rich and literate young adults can be so ignorant, so unaware of their ill-mannered behaviours. To be able to use those vulgar words to describe her in front of her face, and to be able to verbally and physically harass women in a sexual way, all in laughters, how were they raised? Her parents worked hard to pay her tuition of a lot more than a Thai person's annual salary, hence she wondered how would the parents of those people feel, if they know their children are behaving like this at a luxurious educational institution?

Frankly, this college is not treating their students as students. Instead, it is operating merely as a company trying to please customers. She personally considers this as an insult and an exploitation, and hence she secretly condemns this college for its successful attempt to infantilise its students. She is not in a position to simply flee from this place, so she is hoping for a better change in the future.

infantilise verb (transitive): to encourage or force someone to behave like a child — Collins English Dictionary. Copyright © HarperCollins Publishers

A diploma can open one's way to a good life, but what if one has already had that elite life since the first day of one's life? Is the diploma still important? Arguably, the reason that drives one to attend college classes may be subjective. Nevertheless, it can never be argued that mannerisms are a true existing thing in our society — to be punctual, to be responsible, to be honest, and most importantly, to be civil — theses are normal behaviours that every human is universally expected to carry out in public. Strangely, a particular college is not encouraging their students to carry out those proper mannerisms, but rather the opposite things.

A student commented on a teacher, asking her to be punctual, and she was dumbfounded to receive such an egocentric answer: the teacher was being 'generous.' The teacher replied, "I was late to let [you] guys [have] flexible time to get ready and come," in Line app, after asking her students to openly comment on her class. This same student also felt offended and hopeless by an occurrence, in which through her eyes was so disrespectful. Some classmates were given a third chance after they failed three times to meet the deadline, while her delicate work which resulted from her passion and hard work simply had to wait. It seemed those hours and sleepless nights she spent were all pointless. Sadly, these painful experiences had reoccured several times, and she could do nothing to change because everyone liked being given more chances. After realising the indifference to this absurdity of this society, she simply stopped questioning and sinked into her hopelessness and depression.

As a matter of fact, a good college should prepare their student to be a good functional part of the whole society. Life is not a straight line, and so college should arguably be a place for one to experiment being an adult before one becomes an actual adult. To be specific, this college is infantilising its students, by treating them like they are not capable of carrying out proper civil mannerisms. By giving them many chances to submit their work, they are teaching them that deadline and being punctual are not important. By cleaning up after their trash and left over food, they are teaching them that responsibility to their waste is not important. By passing them regardless of how poorly done their work is, they are shaping these students to become adults who believe they are always privileged, always capable of doing anything, even if their actions are oppressive and disrespectful.

Moreover, it is frightening to notice how well this infantilisation is working, in relation to the fact that the majority of the students is not honestly bothered by the unusual and low quality of the college system they are a part of. In other words, they simply do not care about learning, because eventually someone will hand them elite adult privileges, disregarding of their lack of academic knowledge and civil mannerisms. It has become clear now that these students are already indifferent to the college's overpriced tuition, the lack in qualified staff members, the shortage of necessary equipments, and overly crowded classes. Furthermore, it seems that the authorities of this college are not having much human compassion towards their passionate staff members. By forcing high work loads into the teachers' hands, the authorities are obstructing the developing of both its students and teachers as individuals and members of the society. Ironically, they are blocking themselves away from advancing into a better college as well.

Unfortunately, this situation in this particular college can be predicted to result in an indifference of these young adults to the wider society as they grow up too. Can all of this possibly be a result of an ignorant upper class living in Thai bureaucratic society? Or is it a normal phenomenon resulting from the unavoidable competition in today's consumerist society? The answers to these questions are subject to your beliefs and ideologies, but at least there is one thing we all can agree: if we continue to live unbothered and quiet, nothing is ever going to change.

"Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it." —Proverbs 22:6