Elbow Grease

I finally feel as though I’ve started something and done an honest day’s work! Phew! With fresh vigour and brimming with possibilities after the Model School visit in Kampong Cham and a feeling of relief that child-friendly schools actually exist in this country, I have been on somewhat of a mission to start the ball rolling in my district. It’s been a busy month for many school directors and teachers as well as my colleagues as many have been involved in training for the census collection which happens in March. However, I managed to find one teacher, a bit of a gem, a diamond in the rough, who was willing to let me loose in his classroom!

I’ve visited his school a number of times and noticed that he is what I would consider a child-friendly teacher! He acts like he actually enjoys his job, likes children, has the desks organised in groups and with very limited resources has tried to improve the environment for his Grade 1 class. And the children learn every day! through songs, games, actions, chanting, dancing! Oh how I miss being in my own classroom! He’s brilliant and he actually has fun with his class of scruffy kids and you can tell they really enjoy coming to school to learn – unlike some I observe who are almost asleep in their classes due to lacking motivation or working too hard out of school!

I showed the teacher and school director photographs of the Model School in Kampong Cham and talked to them about creating subject areas and organising resources and displays into these areas. The teacher already had many teaching aids he has made himself, from old cardboard boxes and the like, so it was just a case of removing the broken desks at the back of his classroom (many classrooms are also used as storerooms/dumping grounds!), sweeping up a bit and sorting out his resources. Easy! With a bit of elbow grease from all those involved! Of course, I involved the director of the school and a representative from the District Office of Education. Well, this has got to be sustainable afterall! My hope is that the ideas shared here will develop and spread. Schools here are organised in clusters of around 4 and they hold a meeting together once a month on a Thursday (in theory). The idea is that using resources, organising space into subject areas is something that more and more teachers will try out for themselves but I know from my own experience that these things can take an age to develop into the norm.

Pictures before:

Picture after;

We got invited to the school’s monthly Technical Thursday meeting but the school director who had obviously got some vigour and possibilities from our visit to his Grade 1 teacher. We were excited to learn that the focus for the meeting would be making resources. Fantastic! We spoke to the meeting room of teachers for a while about why and how resources and display can be used in classrooms to enhance learning and showed the group around the classroom we had all worked so hard on in the week – they were suitably impressed (I think!) and then it was the directors turn... disaster! The school Director told everyone to split into groups depending on what grade they taught and go away and make resources. Well, the teachers had no idea what to do and had nothing to do it with even if they did know. I could’ve cried! It was an absolute disaster! The teachers sat around the school grounds smoking and chatting all morning apart from a minority who could scrape together a piece of dusty paper or draw some pictures. (My Grade 1 teacher didn’t let me down however and dutifully worked with the other Grade 1 teachers from his cluster and made an alphabet game!) What topped it all off was at the end of the morning when the teachers all gave in the resources they had made to the school director. He meant to keep them and instructed everyone to make the resources again in order to use in the classroom!!!! Aaarrrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!

Oh well! We made a difference to one teacher’s life and if others follow then all well and good! We also managed to take the Grade 1 teacher to see some up and coming model schools in a neighbouring district and he got straight back to his classroom to create more resources! Great stuff!

I have more plans round the corner too... after persuading my colleagues that staggering the monthly meetings schools have would be better for supporting, training and monitoring them, rather than absolutely every cluster in the district meeting on the last Thursday of the month, I now want to be involved in supporting, training and monitoring them... I’d like to get some Leadership and Management training (which already exists by the way!) to School Directors by ambushing their monthly meetings... and possibly repeat this for the DOE staff... take a group of teachers and staff ton a Study Tour to visit some local model schools in the province... and set up a committee of teachers to help spread the ‘Child-Friendly’ message... and go and watch the Formula 1 in Kuala Lumpa... and visit my friends in Battambang again... and get a puppy!