Teaching Tolerance

I returned from Cambodia 10 days ago and am revelling in the bubbles of excitement as I reflect on my experience of working in an orphanage and teaching English at a high school in Cambodia. The optimism, graciousness and genuine hospitality of the people has convinced me I will return to this beautiful country and its people.

A day after my return I was in front of my Year 10 classes sharing with them my experiences. I chose to use the photographs I had taken on the trip as my primary learning tools. Students love photographs. They are visual and engaging so make great learning tools. Apart from being an excellent way to capture the spirit of an event or idea learning aboout how to interpret photographs can be challenging. So my aim was for my students to not only use the photos to teach about Social Justice but also to challenge my students to think more deeply about the issues the photos presented in story format. I wanted the girls to understand how and why people experience injustices, how and why they take action to address injustice as well as develop empathy for people whose experiences differ from their own.

Some essential questions in the use of photographs as teaching tools are:
How do photographs convey meaning? How do viewers contribute to constructing meaning?
How are photographs similiar to and different from other kinds of communication?
What role can photographs play in revealing injustice? What roledo they play in encouraging people to take action against injustice?
How do photographs show activism and activists?
How can the subject of a photograph help reveal the photographer’s point of view on a topic?
How can the specific details in a photograph combine to tell a story?

The results?

The girls were fully engaged, asked heaps of questions and were very curious about so many aspects of my experience that every lesson went overtime. My students had walked along side me throughout the preparation for the trip, the journey itself and my experiences of teaching English in a third world country. I showed them photos of me presenting the resources my girls had made to the children at the orphanage. Many of the picture books the girls made had activities in them and I spent time with some girls and boys aged 8-11 completing the activities.

This was particularly significant for one student who had exhibited signs of “compassion weariness” at the beginning of the Social Justice unit. She, and a few of her peers, had expressed a negative view of humanity and the future of our world. They believed the constant bombardment of information reporting tragic events had paralysed their responses to growing world poverty. This presented the challenge of how I was going to expand their cultural perspectives yet acknowledge their right to a point of view. As it turned out these girls were very inquisitive about my goals in journeying to Cambodia and offered to make some picture books for me to take to the orphanage. I returned to their classroom after my trip armed with photos of the children in the orphanage holding the resources my students had made for them. I then explained to my students how I had used their handmade resources in teaching English at the orphanage. This had a profound effect on the girls-they were able to see results, progress, social action. The “hopelessness” morphed into HOPE and the expression of a belief that individuals can make a difference.

This reminded me of a Khmer saying I had come across whilst in Cambodia:

TORK TORK PENH BAMPONG (Drop by drop fills the bamboo container)

which means “Do things step by step, small acts accumulate “.

Week 2

The start of my second week in Cambodia saw Brian’s arrival with a suitcase of resources for the children. I had been emailing Brian during the first week and continually adding to a list of items that I thought would be useful for the children.

We had the Saturday and Sunday together before returning to the orphanage on the Monday. There was to be no sight-seeing, however, as I had plans that not even flood waters were going to quash. The roads into town were all “floating” so we decided to wade through the water to the local markets. This proved to be a remarkable experience in itself ( by this stage I had grown VERY attached to the yellow plastic poncho which I had sworn I would not be seen wearing in public and Brian had insisted I HAD to pack!!) Women were perched on sandbags outside their tiny flooded bamboo homes weaving baskets, crotcheting and cooking on open fireplates as their children splashed in the floodwaters or took naps in hammocks. Chickens were piled up on the seats of bicycles trying to escape the floodwater, men played cards together and waved to us as we passed. Their day unfolded with apparent ease yet their homes were underwater.

Upon finally reaching the market we headed for the kitchen “department” as I was on a mission to find plastic tablecloths for the timber tables where the children ate together. The markets were completely under water yet were bustling with people gathering their daily necessities. I had to climb over a wall of sandbags to get to the stall that sold rolls of plastic tablecloths and the elderly stallholder reached out her arm to steady me. She looked into my eyes and asked if I was OK. I replied with a laugh that although I had never been on a shopping trip to a flooded market before I was just fine. I then asked her if she was OK. She replied “I not matter”…I wrapped my arm around her and reassured her she did indeed matter.

Next on my shopping list were school books so we waded to the Siem Reap Bookshop dodging kids swimming in the waters, mad moto drivers and massive carts on the back of bicycles transporting produce. I had learnt by this stage that if I wanted to cross a road I just had to grit my teeth, focus my eyes on my destination and keep walking. (Cambodians don’t stop at STOP signs, don’t giveway, rarely wear helmets and have no idea which side of the road they are supposed to be motoring on!!!).

After foraging through the bookshelves we finally found some relevant English teaching resources.I had found the textbook used at the orphanage and high school to be problematic as it was not culturally aligned with the children’s experiences at all. For example, the textbook lesson on everyday language about celebrations had nothing to do with Cambodia. I attempted to adapt the material to Cambodian festival rituals and realised very quickly that they had limited local knowledge.Constitution Day occurred the week I was teaching the children yet they knew nothing about it. This was followed by 3 days of celebration for the Pchum Ben festival but the children had no understanding of the significance of the national festival. The textbook mentioned Mothers Day and Father’s Day-neither of which are celebrated in Cambodia. Similiarly, it referred to birthdays and significant western rites of passage-none of which had any relevance to the children. A young man in my class softly told me only wealthy children celebrate birthdays in Cambodia. I need to stress here this is no fault of the teachers-who are largely untrained. They rely on donated resources and make amazing use of what they have. Nevertheless, I was delighted when I found a 6 series set of “Teaching English in Cambodia” texts. Each lesson was dulpicated in both English and Khmer and all textual representations were taken from Cambodian cultural traditions. Latter in the week I spoke to the teachers about them and they were delighted. I bought spare copies for the older children who were hugely excited to be reading about their own culture-even local place names were now familiar and this boosted their reading and comprehension confidence.

We spent the Sunday roaming around a number of community development centres ( by this stage we both had webbed feet and I was a walking yellow sheet of plastic!). As I teach the Yr 10 Social Justice program at home I wanted to visit organisations which supported community development programs that generate local employment. So we visited “Mekong Quilts” ( http://www.mekong-quilts.org) which is a non-profit organisation that employs and trains local women in the craft of quilt making. We visited “Mekong Creations” ( http://www.mekong-creations.org) which provides valuable skills in the manufacturing of household goods sourced from local materials such as bamboo, water hyacinth and silk. All profits are returned to the villages in which the women live and work.

Next on the list was the “Artisans d’Angkor” workshelters which currently train 50 young crafts people and employ over 1000 people of which 800 involve craftsmen- consequently increasing families’income and slowing down rural depopulation. This was a truly inspiring project. We joined a guided tour of the workshops where local women are trained in one particular handicraft ( eg: silk weaving and painting, stone or wood carving, lacquer work) and a sustainable culture is promoted. Artisans d’Angkor has pioneered a new social policy in Cambodia with contracted level of pay along with social and medical benefits ( 5% of the crafts people have disabilities..due to landmine devastation).The crafts people have a 20% share of the company and the company is an outstanding model of fair trade.The company plays a huge role in retrieving Cambodia’s cultural heritage ( which was decimated by the Khmer Rouge) and nutures the well-being, dignity and self-esteem of employees. We concluded the day with a tour of the War Museum. Our guide had been a Khmer Rouge enslaved soldier who now spent his days educating people about the atrocities committed under the Pol Pot regime and promoting a peaceful philosophy grounded in Buddhist beliefs and practices. He was a beautifully spoken young man who still bore deep shrapnel ( and psychological ) wounds from the war.

An excursion Cambodia style!

I am sitting at Siem Reap International Airport awaiting my flight to Kuala Lumpur, where I will stay overnight and depart via Malaysian airlines in the morning for Brisbane.

Yesterday I said goodbye to the children at the orphanage…whilst shedding many tears…..

…..but first I need to go back to last Thursday afternoon.It is the end of the wet season in Cambodia and last Thursday the rains made a grand finale exit to 2011. The heavens opened and Siem Reap was flooded…or as the locals say “Siem Reap float”. The already pot-holed roadways and dirt paths that snake through the city have overnight become raging torrents and red muddy concourses. In most places water is ankle to thigh deep!! The locals placidly continue their daily tasks ( selling products at the markets, transporting goods on tuk tuks and mottos, feeding their families and manning street stalls etc) whilst waving their smiling hellos with consistent grace and composure. No insurance cover here just determination to keep going.

An excursion for the children had been planned the following day. The rains were not going to stop this adventure! The outing was a result of funds raised by Rotary in Sydney. 2 Aussie girls ( aged 22) had been volunteering at the orphanage while I was there and one of the girls’ grandmothers was a member of Rotary. She and her friends had raised money and donated it to the orphanage. The girls bought food, teaching resources and a roof for the kitchen with the donated money. The Rotary club ladies had also hand knitted a soft toy for every child in the orphanage which the girls proudly distributed to the children. It was just wonderful to see 2 young women so actively engaged in social action- inspiring role models! At home the girls work with disabled young people. Within 2 days of donating the funds to the orphanage the kitchen roof had been designed, timber purchased and constructed!!! No building plans and engineer reports needed here!! A team of eager teenage boys from the orphanage erected the new roof much to the delight of the 2 resident orphanage mothers who no longer had to cook in the rain. The girls used the leftover donated funds to take the entire orphanage out on an excursion for the day.

Due to the distance we would be travelling all 38 children slept at Savong’s home the night before the excursion. His wife and the older children cooked for them. The following morning a truck loaded with all the children collected the girls and I…..screams of delight could be heard from the back of the truck as we made our way out of Siem Reap and through the countryside to Lake Tonle Sap. The sky had now cleared and we loaded 38 children into what the locals call “river cruise boats” but what I perceived to be canoes!!! I was the only adult on one boat and had 21 children with me. All scampered in single file down the pier and stood to attention in front of me as I laced them into life jackets. The boat was made of wood ( with a very crude looking motor) and I was worried sick the children and I would fall through the middle-it looked so rickety. A young man about 20 was the driver of my boat while the girls, Savong and the remainder of the children travelled on the other cruise boat. The atmosphere was intense with the crackle of the children’s excitement and my raw fear -this was an excursion like no other in my experience!!

School excursion habits from home instinctively had me counting heads constantly! The children laughed when they saw me doing it and used the opportunity to practise their counting skills aloud. It wasn’t too long before they were chanting the numbers in unison.

Upon arriving on an island in the middle of the lake we all managed to disembark with backpacks, drink bottles and 38 buzzing, deliriously happy children in tow. Savong’s wife had cooked a meal for each of the children and they all assembled on the timber floor of the hut to eat an absolutely delicious feast of rice, satay chicken and fresh vegetables(provided with funds from Rotary). Without instruction each child cleaned their plates, put their rubbish in the bin and recycled the plastic bag their lunch came in latter in the afternoon for the wet clothes. A lesson Aussie kids could learn here!!

The afternoon was spent playing in the lake ( with me still furiously counting heads!!!). The children had no swimmers or towels so jumped in regardless. Within minutes they screamed for me to join them and I thought well this IS supposed to be an immersion experience so in I went-fully clothed! ( I might not have been quite so enthusiastic had I known what swims freely in the lake…..found that out latter!!!). The boys were leaping out of a tree overhanging the water and paddling a small canoe they had found hidden under a tree. Some kids fished while the younger ones amused themselves hanging off the aussie girls and I ….singing ( and performing actions to ) the PlaySchool song “Bears now asleep” which the girls had taught them the day before when they distributed the teddy bears! What an afternoon!!! Pure joy-untill we commenced boarding the truck latter in the day to return home. Savong had received a call to say that the orphanage and school had flooded. So the children returned to his home for another night.

As we gathered for an excursion photo adjacent to the pier the heavens opened again. Within seconds we were drenched and the kids were all dancing in the puddles ( while I danced with them but kept counting heads!!) The 2 aussie girls and I could not stand the thought of the younger children being in the back of the open truck in the rain so we swapped seats with them. What an experience that was!!! Having never travelled in the back of an open truck before ( let alone in the wet season in Asia) I was dumbfounded but had an absolute ball!!! The rain pierced our bare skin like needles but no one complained ( so typical of Cambodians!) and all laughed as we hit cavernous holes in the road and fell on top of each other ( yes, I was still counting heads in case I lost anyone off the back of the truck!!).

Exhausted and euphoric we all made it back to Siem Reap late in the afternoon. The truck dropped me of at the guest house where I was staying…..the flood waters had risen since the morning so it was a mission to get me home. The staff at the guest house and neighbours came out in the pouring rain to greet me and wave furiously at the children who were nearly falling out of the truck yelling their goodbyes to me. All I could see was huge chocolate eyes with massive smiles!!

This was an excursion like no other I had experienced in my 30 years of teaching. I feel asleep that night counting little heads!!