One school year down, one left

This week has been a very important one for me because I have officially completed my first year as a teacher.  Grade 9 students already finished their tests and grade 12 students takes their tests next week, so classes are officially done.  I am really proud of myself for making it through one year, but I still have one more left.  I have learned a lot of lessons that I want to share with you:

            Much like most (if not all) Peace Corps Volunteers, I entered my service a bright eyed idealist.  I still possess those idealistic ideals because frankly, I would be miserable or at home if I didn’t have them.  After training, I was super excited to get into the classroom and make these huge changes.  Well, needless to say, those changes that I was seeking were not as dramatic as I anticipated initially.  I thought that I would defeat cheating, inspire teachers to teach when they are supposed and most importantly see a huge improvement in my students, both with their level of English and attendance.  Well, after about a month or two, it became clear that these changes weren’t going to come so easy, if at all.  I gave up on fighting cheating and learned that when teachers aren’t paid, they simply aren’t going to teach and focused my attention on working my butt off to improve my students’ English.  Most of my students improved their English levels, but I have noticed successes in some really unlikely places.  I was talking to my friend Jacqueline about how at the year mark, it’s so easy to look back on the things that we wanted to change and didn’t, but it is such a pleasure to see those changes that actually took place.  See, it is way more obvious to see the things that did not change, because they seem so important.  But let’s be honest, the system has been this way for much longer than I have been around, and Cambodia is a place that sticks firmly to it’s ideals and customs, which I believe to be its best and worst characteristic simultaneously, so it makes sense that not all battles taken on are going to be victorious.  But, if I could express in words the pleasure that the small successes have brought on, I would not be writing an amateur’s blog, but rather a book.  Although I am setting myself up for another failure, I will attempt to describe this feeling.  On my first day of actual teaching, a sheepish boy came up to me and asked for extra lessons outside of class in the library.  I knew that he worked up the courage the entire class and seemed extremely relieved when we set the time.  Those first few lessons proved that we needed to work really hard, but Vida showed that he was determined to learn English.  We would study grammar and vocabulary, but we got to know each other a little bit.  I learned more about him with every lesson- he hasn’t seen his parents in 3 years and for an 18 year old, that is a really long time.  He also told me that because he is not from here, he didn’t have many friends.  When I started my English Club, Vida was the only boy who came and was really awkward around the girls and I noticed that while he spoke when we studied alone, he hardly said a word while others were there.  He confided in me one day that he felt really self-concious because he is a “pagoda kid”, meaning that he lives with the monks at the pagoda, rather than in his home (which is about 400k in a distant province called Kampong Cham).  Over time, I noticed that with his improved English, many of the boys who sat around him would ask him for help and suddenly, he was Mr. Popularity.  He even ventured so far as making fun of his friend in front of the class.  I asked him to answer the question: “What does your friend like to do during the weekend?” and his response was “My friend likes to look at pretty girls.”  His friend didn’t understand, but he instantly gained more friends.  For the past two months, I have noticed his self-confidence peak.  He has even gone so far as correct me (rather put me in my place) during class when I confuse tenses and write something wrong.  In the English Club, we call him “Cher Vida” because he is so good at English is always looking to help the other kids.  When everyone presented their public speaking assignments, he grilled everyone and offered his expertise to help them out.  He is a completely new kid and it has been a pleasure to watch his progress as a student and also with his confidence.  I am really looking forward to watching next year. 

            As volunteers, it is a tough lesson to learn that not everyone will benefit from your efforts, for whatever reason.  By the end of this school year, I stopped trying to include the students who didn’t want to be there for a few reasons.  If they don’t want to be there, I’m not going to take away from attention and help that I could give to the kids that want to be there.  I know that is such a teacher thing to say, but it’s true.  In a class of 70, when there are about 10 kids who want to do the work, you tend to not care about the other 60.  I wish that this wasn’t the case, but I came here to teach English, not to convince students to listen to me and do their work.  Some of the kids really got their acts together and took an interest, but most didn’t.  It would be foolish for me to believe that I could make everyone interested in my subject.  If I devoted my entire life to that, then maybe that would be worthwhile, but I have other plans.  Most of the kids who didn’t pay attention in class are the kids that pay the most money during private classes with my coteacher, so they can get away with it.  Essentially, my hands are tied because I would be creating a huge fight if I got involved in that.

            Yesterday, I met with my grade 11 English Club and when I asked them if they wanted to study this summer, they all said yes.  Now, this English Club would mean that the students have to take time out of their vacation to study more, which is unlike most 18 year old kids.  They have family obligations and they aren’t getting anything out of this besides knowledge, but that is what they want.  This is a huge success for me because Cambodia is run by stupid certificates that people get for taking part in classes, so no certificate usually means no interest.  Their reading comprehension, listening, writing and speaking skills have sky rocketed.  Before I had to spoon food any metaphor or deeper meaning, but yesterday when we read an article about cholera in Northeast Cambodia, they were connecting the dots and making comparisons on their own.  

 11D students in the library (aka storage room attached to the library)

So where does this leave me?  With renewed spirits and a break to work during the summer, which starts immediately.  Here is a breakdown of my summer projects, just to keep you informed:

• World Map- Thanks to my mom and Aunt Sue, I have enough money to paint the world map on two separate surfaces.  I want to do it at my high school and the university, but the university may not be so keen, but there will definitely be two world maps in Battambang in a few months.  This project will be a really great geography lesson, but more importantly, it will be a good community project.  The students that will paint the map will most likely be the students from my English Clubs, which will be a really fun activity to do.  Likewise, Khmer students tend to be very artistic and rather meticulous when it comes to straight lines and proportion, so I think that they will look beautiful.
• English Clubs- As of right now, I have four English Clubs.  One at the university and one for grade 9, 10 and 11 each.  I meet with the university English Club two Mondays and Thursdays from 2-5 where we discuss a specific topic from the World Book Encyclopedia.  The theme for this month is natural phenomena (such as tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, etc).  The students read the material, we discuss it and then they each give a speech about what they learned.  They are a lot of fun and we have a lot of laughs.  They are very curious about America because most want to study and or live there, so we tend to share information about our countries, which is always a really great cultural exchange.
• Private English Classes- I have three private classes as of right now.  Every weeknight, I teach my host brother Huck and his girlfriend, Navy.  They are great students and it is a great chance to get to know them better and spend time together.  I told Huck that I needed him to speak and be brave, so initially just guessed all the time, which I appreciated, but eventually it led to him getting many questions right.  Sometimes he is so far off, but he tries really hard and doesn’t get embarrassed.  He has improved so much, especially with listening because before if he didn’t understand a word, the entire sentence was thrown off.  Now he is able to pinpoint the word that he doesn’t understand and ask about that word.  It always brings a smile to my face when he uses a phrase that I taught him, such as: check it out, it depends, what’s up.  I also teach lessons once a week to a man who is a bike repair man.  He is really sweet and although the cards are stacked against him, he wants to be an English teacher.  We read articles together from the Cambodia Daily and he gives me free air in my tires.  I also teach English once a week to my vice principal’s daughter, who just married a Cambodian-American who lives in California.  She will be moving there in 6-10 months, so she wants to prepare.  I am trying to improve her level as much as possible while also trying to prepare her for the cultural differences.  I think that she will be ok because she is going to Long Beach, which has a high mount of Khmer people. 
• Health Training Center English- I went to meet the director of the center and after a rather embarrassing exchange (he went to shake my hand, which is very uncommon in Cambodia because they hold their hands in a prayer position and bow just a little, but I was confused and thought he asked me to take a seat…) we went into his office and talked about what the center needs.  He told me that they have many resources, but they are all in English, so the trainers (professors or teachers) have to learn English and then translate them into Khmer then teach them.  He was asking for someone to teach the trainers and the trainees (aka the students).  I still have a lot of thinking to do about this one because if I simply help to translate these documents, when the next documents come in, this health center will be in the same position.  Likewise, if I teach the trainers and trainees, they need to have a high level of English to understand books about health.  So, I am thinking that I will lay the groundwork for some sort of English curriculum for the health center.  I think that this will be best because the better that the trainees are at English, the more that they will understand from these resources and after they graduate, they will be better candidates for jobs if they can speak English.  Also, for many jobs at clinics or organizations that are run by international funders, reporting is done mainly in English, regardless of the country that the organization is from.  This project, though, seems really huge.  Then again, I’m not looking for cushy jobs here and although this project is one that I cannot do alone and will take many years after I am gone to implement, it has the capacity to really help the health sector in Cambodia, which is obviously a big one. 
• Health Workshop- There is an Ngo very close to my house called Child Hope Organization, which works with children, mainly street children, extremely poor children, orphans or children with a parent with AIDS or a disability.  These children go to school in the mornings, but because their families are poor, they are forced to go to parties and schools to collect cans and bottles to recycle.  This organization was established to give them a safe, clean place to come and learn skills.  My plan is to set up a weekly workshop on a health issue with my student, Vida, who wants to get some volunteer experience.  It will be a sort of internship.  We will work on the curriculum and create a book for the workshops.  We will deliver the workshop together, me in English and Vida translating to Khmer.  The issues we will discuss are washing hands, how to handle diarrhea, teeth brushing, drinking clean water, etc.  I will need to submit a project proposal for funding because my plan is to get the children to come to the sessions by offering food in the beginning.  Then we will deliver the workshop and upon completion of a sign to bring home or hang in the organization, the children will get something to bring home to their families to enforce what they learned.  For example, when we do hand washing, the children who complete the lesson will get a bar of soap.  Or when we do teeth brushing, they will get a tooth brush.  Because we will cover many different topics, the children who come to every workshop will get a certificate and some sort of prize (money most likely).  Because being healthy is expensive when you don’t have much, we need to cater to those needs.  We will also implement these values learned in the seminars around the organization, such as making sure that there is always clean drinking water and soap for them to wash their hands with while they are there. 
• Youth Development- There is an Ngo that works with youth development and I think I will work with them to try to find funding, as well as give English lessons and hold various workshops about resumes, applications, etc.  They have a youth club that I would like to be a part of, but that is still unclear too.

That about covers my summer.  It may seem like a lot, but there aren’t too many obligations that I have for the summer and I know myself well enough to know that I will need to stay busy to stay sane.  The next group of volunteers will be here in a month and half and that will be fun to be a part of.  It will be difficult to do anything next summer, so I want to make sure that I really put myself out there this summer.  Some of the programs will most likely bomb, so it’s good to have certain programs that will run.  It also helps that I will be working with places that are established already.  I don’t want to reinvent the wheel, I just want to add to what is already out there.  Most places want an English speaker to help teach or proofread applications for funding, etc and although it is not my ideal summer project, if that is the blaring issue here, then I will do it.  Notice that I am working in a wide range of places, which will help me with the projects.  I have had my fill of teaching from the English for Cambodia curriculum, so teaching my private class will give me some room to teach as I please, as do these other projects.  

As for the 4^th of July, which was something that I was nervous about, I will be heading into PP to celebrate.  Jacqueline and I decided to have a really American weekend- swimming, subs, shopping, eyebrow waxes, and air conditioning.  There is a party at the Embassy on the 4^th, but we are going to make sure that we have a great weekend before that.  It has been a while since we got together to have a break, so we will make it worth it.  

 Me teaching Darlene how to use facebook.  Sometimes we joke that I am her grad assistant.

I have learned more in my first year as a teacher than I did as a student.  It has been a crazy year, but I still feel good about being here, even though there were times when I doubted myself, my work and the ability to help.  Some volunteers have abandoned their optimism for “realism” but they aren’t really happy.  It’s really easy to get down and negative and blame it on being realistic, but if I lost my hope, why would I remain here?  No matter how upset I get with Cambodia, I know deep down that I am doing some good, no matter how difficult it is to see at time.  And if I ever lose that fire, well, it’s time to go home.  I think that after being a teacher for one year, one of my biggest successes is keeping a positive spin on things.  I found a quote in a book that I am reading that I think is perfect in this case.  “But any country is still in the making. Always.” He was talking about America, but I think it is perfect for this situation. I will try to remember that when I think things aren’t going well.

P.S. I changed the settings on the blog so that anyone can comment.  That’s a hint…. :)