1. We’re kind of like the Delta Force of PC-C ET3, NBD (No big deal). Also, I recently watched "Black Hawk Down" and learned about Delta Force.
2. I might provide more details about my primary project work in a future post, especially since everything I described in The Primary Project Plan is now obsolete since that didn’t work out too well. And that’s why Peace Corps service is two years and not one.
Lately, he and I have been flexing our teacher training muscles a little bit around northwestern Cambodia. We are in the process of developing training for a school in a local village run by a tuk-tuk driver we know. The school provides free English classes for the children, most of whom are impoverished and can’t afford to pay for the private English classes that would prepare them to begin studying English once they reach grade 7 in the state schools [3,4]. We were also contacted a couple of months ago by Kevin and Kayla, a married pair of Volunteers (one ET3, one CHE) who work in the province to the north of us, Banteay Meanchey [5]. Kevin and Kayla both do work outside of their primary placements (at a local high school and a local health center, respectively) at an orphanage run by an Andorran NGO. They were interested in organizing a training workshop for the teachers who work at this orphanage, as well as teachers who work at the local state schools, and wanted to know if both of us would be interested in developing sessions and attending. Obviously, we said yes, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this post. So, on Thursday, November 21, Delta Force extracted from Battambang in the afternoon after we had finished teaching for the day, and traveled up to BMC.
3. The first lesson in the first book of the existing English curriculum requires students to already know the English alphabet and be able to read and write in English. This is one example of the many curricular issues underlying the larger challenge of improving the quality of education in this country.
4. If you’re wondering, the system of private tutors and private classes that makes up for deficiencies in state-provided education and/or provides distinct educational advantages to the children of families that are better off is known as “shadow education.” It’s a problem in much of the world, but particularly in Asia, even in countries like Japan and Korea that are fully-developed. Up there, it’s more of a function of high-stakes testing determining much about a student’s future life and intense pressure to succeed academically.
5. People who live in BMC like to point out that this translates to “Fortress of Victory.”
From conception to execution, the whole thing came together rather quickly, I’m going to say in large part because neither myself nor Mike were calling the shots [6]. We were first contacted by Kayla in mid-October, at which point she had already fleshed out the essential logistical information. Kevin would be focusing on the content, and since we didn’t expect the workshop to take place until December or January, that could wait for the time being. However, in early November, the orphanage decided they wanted to make it happen prior to December 13th, so after a few rounds of communication on schedules and availability, a date was decided upon.
6. We both spend much of our time and attention on our assignments at the training centers, which can make outside projects challenging.
The bus ride up on Thursday afternoon was relatively uneventful...until we needed to stop. The Cambodian system of transportation is such that bus routes go along the major national highways, and when you’re in the general area of where you want to be, you walk up to the front and ask them to stop and let you off. We were given great directions, including landmarks and a fun little map from Kayla, but the stopping point came up way sooner than we anticipated since the driver was enjoying the smooth roads and relative lack of traffic after leaving BMC’s provincial town, Svay Sisophon. I hopped up to the front with about 3 km (1.85 miles) to go, and tried to explain where we wanted to stop. These situations are generally problematic because the drivers and their assistants tend to be pretty shocked when a big white dude speaks to them in Khmer...which means they didn’t catch whatever it was I said to them the first time. This time, things were complicated by the fact that I asked to be let off at a primary school named after the commune and the fact that the village we were stopping in had the word for “school” in the first part of its name. Basically, it went like this:
Driver: No, we don’t know that place. But we know this other place.
Me: Well, I’m not sure that’s the place.
Driver’s Assistant: <Long string of questions that I didn’t understand, since he went from being shocked I was speaking Khmer to assuming that I was fluent in Khmer, which is a mistake>.
Me: <Shoulder shrug> It’s in about 3 kilometers.
Driver: Well, we still don’t really know what you’re talking about.
Me: <As I see Kevin standing on the side of the highway> There! Stop there! At that green car!
The NGO and the Orphanage
But, the least I can do is tell you about their mission and their work [7]. The NGO, started in 1993, is based in Andorra and is dedicated to leveling the playing field for poor children in developing countries. Specifically, they try to correct the inequality of access to education, adequate nutrition, and health services such as vaccination and medication:
All children have the right to education, nourishment, having a place to live and suitable medical assistance, in order to have a worthy future.
We cannot allow the children to be victims of a reality that we have created.
Aside from Cambodia, they are working in the Philippines, Vietnam, Peru, Chile, and Nicaragua, and look for sponsors to help fund their projects in impoverished villages around the world. This money goes toward constructing schools, digging wells, assisting the sick and the disabled, providing occupational training, and constructing, repairing, or supplying orphanages. Which brings us to “The Home for Children” here in Cambodia.
8. Multi-purpose room, or MPR, is my all-time favorite educational term, typically coming from primary school settings. Really, aren’t all rooms multi-purpose?
9. “Grey water” is the wastewater that comes from hand washing sinks, showers, and baths. While not potable, it can be recycled and used for toilet flushing and irrigation. Don’t feel bad if you didn’t know any of that, I had to look it up myself.
10. Also called LaLa, a nickname she picked up in London because British people pronouncing “Laia” felt like they were calling her “liar.” Just one of many examples of how the American English accent is best. At least, that's well I tell my trainees.
11. Angel is a former nurse, and tended to several wounds of varying severity during the 20 hours we were there.
To help all of these children and to run the Home smoothly, the staff includes Angel, an interpreter, secretaries, youth workers, cooks, groundskeepers/maintenance workers, a guard, and nine teachers [13]. Additionally, they host volunteers from Andorra and the surrounding environs who come to work for three-month stints. They just happened to luck out that there were two Peace Corps Volunteers placed in the area that were looking for some extra work to do outside of their primary assignments at the health center and the high school.
12. I’m not privy to the meaning of these acronyms; they are probably based in French or Catalan.
13. Four English teachers, one Khmer teacher, one mathematics teacher, one physics/chemistry teacher, one pottery teacher, and one computer teacher.
The First Night
With some time before the dinner bell, we sat down at a small table outside of Angel and Laia’s house, opened a few drinks, and started talking. Angel and Laia hand-rolled cigarettes from pouches of “Virginia’s Gold” tobacco, which produced a gentle, sweet aroma as they burned in the evening. As the sun went down, as the drinks were drunk, and as we got to know our hosts a little better, their stories got more animated and we delved into the big philosophical issues facing Cambodia and international development. It was a fascinating blend of different cultures and different generations and different experiences: two Andorrans, who natively speak Catalan, but can also converse in English, Spanish, and French (while speaking just a little bit of Basque and a little bit of Khmer), one who’d been living and working in Cambodia since before any of us PCVs arrived, the other coming up on the first anniversary of her arrival; two Texans, one a psychologist who became an English teacher when he joined the Peace Corps with his wife, who has a degree in philosophy and ended up working in a health center; two guys who grew up on the beaches of southern California, one an incredibly handsome, intelligent teacher, and one who is an expert in TEFL and knows more than a little bit of Spanish and Japanese.
In Apocalypse Now: Redux, the 2001 extended re-release of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam War film [14], there is a long, added scene that sees the crew of Martin Sheen’s boat transport visiting a French rubber plantation near the Vietnam-Cambodia border [15]. It appears out of the mist on the shores of the Mekong, seemingly lost to the ages and stuck in a time vacuum of colonial opulence. After a rich, French dinner, the Americans and their hosts discuss the old days, and the problems the Americans face in the current war. According to a note that I emailed myself so that I wouldn’t forget:
That’s kind of what drinking beer with two Andorran women was like at the orphanage in the middle of nowhere in Banteay Meanchey.
14. Itself based on Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
15. You can try here, but for me, it’s showing “Unavailable in Your Country.” Whether that means Cambodia or if YouTube thinks I’m in America is unclear.
At 7 PM, the dinner bell rang, and we all trekked to the dining room through the dark. We sat at a larger table set aside for visiting dignitaries, we were served special food that is prepared only for guests, and each little Cambodian child came by our table to individually thank us after they ate but before they left for the evening.
It was adorable.
The Workshop
I awoke early the next morning, before the downstairs portion of the big house (the portion with the bathroom) was open for business, so I wandered out into nature to brush my teeth and relieve myself. Eventually, I showered and shaved and got dressed and had a cup of coffee, and we all walked over to the main office building to prepare.
We ended up with about eleven or twelve participants, which included teachers and staff members from the orphanage and teachers of various subjects from local state schools. Kayla started things off with a quick talk about the importance of education, the importance of being a good teacher, and the importance of gradually releasing responsibility to your students by slowly removing the supports and structures you’ve developed to guide them through the learning process. In a visual demonstration of this concept, she had myself, Kevin, Mike, and one Cambodian teacher sit in a square of chairs, each person at a right angle to the one in behind them. Then, each of us leaned back, so our upper body and shoulders were resting on the thighs of the man behind us. At that point, Kayla started pulling the chairs out from under us, one by one. Without the chairs, we were able to remain in position because we were all supporting each other. Finally, she removed one person from the arrangement, and we all fell down into a heap on the floor, much to the delight of the teachers in attendance. The following illustration hardly does it any justice, but absent of any photographs, I thought it might help you visualize what the hell I’m talking about:
When applying this theory to educational methodology, it is typically conjoined with “learning styles,” meaning that students with strength in a particular intelligence will learn new information best if it is transmitted in a way that taps into that intelligence: e.g., if you are a kinesthetic learner, you may remember something longer if you can move your body around while you’re trying to learn it. Whether or not that is accurate is the subject of fierce debate, in no small part because the application of the theory to teaching has not been subjected to strong experimental tests. Dr. Daniel Willingham of the Curry School at the University of Virginia (Wahoowa!) argues that learning styles are a myth because, physiologically, everyone’s brain operates exactly the same way during learning. Dr. Carol Ann Tomlinson, a foremost expert in the field of differentiating instruction who is also at my most recent alma mater, argues that, if nothing else, learning styles relate to the efficiency of one’s learning. That doesn’t mean that each student can only learn in the style they prefer, but it might make the trip more pleasant; this view also posits that all students should continue to develop all of the modalities.
16. So says a text message from fellow K6 ET3 Michela.
Next up was my session, followed by Mike’s. Now, Mike’s role in the workshop was pretty clear from pretty early on: the orphanage was interested in adopting a new textbook for their primary English classes, and he was to show an alternative or two. My participation was deemed necessary, but what I would be doing was a little bit more nebulous. I didn’t really know what I’d be presenting on until about a week before the training was to take place. In my own head, I had this vague concept that I should present about lesson planning, because honestly, who hasn’t worked with a Cambodian teacher who could use a little help with that? Am I right? You guys know what I’m talking about...
Eventually, Kevin and I managed to talk on the phone. He asked what I wanted to present on. I said, well, you tell me. It should really depend on what you think the teachers you work with need. He said, well, I’ve noticed that they don’t really have goals for their lessons, they just kind of follow whatever the textbook says. Alright, I’ve got it, I say. It’ll be about writing objectives.
So that was the starting point. One of the most important developments of my teaching career so far has been learning about “backwards planning” during my graduate studies at UVa. Most teachers will sit down to plan a lesson and immediately think, “What activities can I have my students do to make this content seem fun and interesting?” That’s the wrong approach. You must start with writing your objectives (or goals), then plan the assessments that will let you know whether or not your students reached the objectives. The very last step should be filling out the step-by-step process of your instructional activities, the things that you design to help your students reach your objectives (while slowly removing supports, like in the chair demonstration).
17. The analogy breaks down a bit here, but I explained that before I left for Cambodia, I knew people would want to see pictures, so I had to bring a camera.
I was really proud of this analogy, if not just a little concerned about it landing and about the weak second link in the chain, but it led to a pretty comical moment early in the session. Cambodia had recently celebrated the Water Festival, which is usually a time for people to travel to Phnom Penh for the festivities, which of course, were cancelled for the third year running. I asked if anyone travelled during the holiday. Nope. I asked if anyone had taken a trip outside of Cambodia. Nope [18]. Have any of you ever left Banteay Meanchey? Yeah! Ok, good. What is the first thing you do when you decide you will go on a trip?
“Lesson planning.”
So much for my analogy not landing.
18. Not uncommon in a roomful of Cambodians; international travel is expensive and a great privilege here.
Mike finished up by presenting the Basic English Language program, which has been designed by a VSO volunteer working in Cambodia who is an expert in English education. It’s meant to begin in grade 4 and continue through grades 5 and 6, and to teach public school students the basics of English speaking, reading, and writing to make the transition to English for Cambodia [20] less jarring. It is an outstanding program, and unfortunately will not be utilized by the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports for the usual reasons (which I can’t currently get into). However, it would be a great addition to any primary English classes operating outside of the scope of the Ministry, such as those at the Home for Children.
19. The “Students Will Be Able To/SWBAT” format that haunted my nightmares during my days at Nicolas Junior High School. Not what I prefer to use, given my druthers, but it’s simple.
20. Which, despite its problems, shows no signs of changing or going anywhere anytime soon.
After the workshop, we finished our time at the orphanage with another meal and some more time to sit around and socialize with each other. It started to rain, which was surprising (or not) given how hot it had been the rest of the day, and eventually our taxi to the provincial town showed up (only about 40 minutes late). We shared the taxi with Kevin and Kayla as they travelled back to their site, then with two Khmer women that the driver picked up in a different village. They chose to share the front seat with each other rather than squeeze in with me and Mike in the back seat, officially for the whole gender reason [21] but also because I’m really big and Mike “isn’t handsome” because he has long hair and a beard. Of course, we heard their whole self-narration from the backseat, as well as the ensuing conversation about us on the way to the town...because we can speak Khmer. However, they didn’t know that we knew how to speak Khmer, so it was kind of fun being a fly on the wall while people are yammering about you.
21. It’s not so polite for strange women and strange men to sit next to each other in those situations.
We had to wait at the bus station for a little bit of time until the right bus came around to take us back to Battambang. The road between Svay and Battambang was pretty badly damaged by the flooding, so it takes a little longer and is a little more uncomfortable than it reasonably should be. We fought through the hoard of eager tuk-tuk and moto drivers at the station who simply won’t take “No!” for an answer, and walked to the local hotel where we stashed our bikes the day before. We enjoyed dinner at “Chinese Noodle” (one of the top perks of living in Battambang), and biked on home to enjoy what was left of our weekend.
Mission: Accomplished.
Until next time,
- N
PS (3/28/2014) - As Kevin and Kayla are (unfortunately) no longer Peace Corps Volunteers, I can now divulge more information about the orphanage where they volunteered and where we conducted the teacher training.
It's called Infants del Mon, and you can visit their website for more information.