At last – production

When introducing myself to a group of teachers or directors, I tell them I am a VSO volunteer and explain that VSO is not a money giving organisation. Instead, VSO give skilled professionals like me (ahem!) to share skills, build capacity, blah blah blah. It is at this point I often observe fallen faces, waning smiles and small frowns of confusion adorning the brows of my audience. I think I can read their minds: “Eh? You’re here instead of a load of cash? We’d rather have the dosh thanks!” and I can’t say I blame them. Although I really believe in VSO’s ethos of sustainability, I do at times struggle with understanding the VSO motto; “Sharing Skills, Changing Lives”. I think “Sharing Lives, Changing Skills” (N.B. my skills) is rather more apt. It’s great that VSO send people as people are a really valuable and fantastic resource but with the best will in the world, some of these schools simply need cash!

On a slightly more positive note, I managed to apply for a small amount of money from the VSO coffers to buy materials for some schools in Phnom Srok District. The idea was that teachers would use the materials to create their own teaching and learning resources in order to make learning more active. It was March when I applied for this grant, which seems like decades ago now, and it’s taken this long to make a shopping list, buy the materials in Sisaphon, transport said materials to Phnom Srok, plan a workshop with my Khmer colleagues and finally deliver the first workshop and hand out the materials.

There are enough materials for the core schools from each of the 11 clusters of schools in the district (each cluster is formed geographically and made up of a core school and up to 3 other satellite schools) but not enough money in the piggy bank to fund a workshop in each. So, with Daney from the DOE, we will give a 2 day workshop at with the staff of one school, Chey Oudom, and an additional 1 day workshop inviting key staff from the other 10 core schools and using Chey Oudom as the model.

I have been bleating on about how children learn for quite some time now, using a simple diagram of the VAK model (visual, auditory, kinaesthetic) to help explain. We spent much of the morning on day 1 playing games and doing activities relating to our sense and how learning was more effective if you got to see, hear, speak about and practice it. The afternoon was a bit heavier. The teachers read the Learning Outcomes from the National Curriculum for the grade they taught. I don’t think many had ever clapped eyes on such a document as teaching and learning is governed by textbooks. The textbooks are in line with the curriculum but I wanted to encourage the teachers to think outside the very restrictive box these textbooks have created. They highlighted learning outcomes for which they thought they could make a poster, learning game or teaching aid which might help the children see, hear, speak about or do. Thankfully there were lots of examples and ideas of what could be made as some volunteers before me have conducted similar training. The teachers also got ideas from numerous photographs taken at other schools.

And then came crunch time: Day 2 of the training and the materials were spread out on the table (and really didn’t look much when spread out!). I thought one of 3 things could happen now: (a) the teachers would have no inspiration to make anything and we’d all sit in awkward silence staring at a pile of paper and card; (b) the examples given would be copied exactly as they were with no fresh thinking or initiative to apply the examples to their own ideas; (c) that all the paper would get folded into a billion origami animals and flower garlands and used to decorate rather than educate. Oh me of little faith! I managed to restrain the controlling-“I’m in charge”-teacher part of me and sat back and let it all happen.

Everyone was very busy making the whole day. Teachers of the same grades worked together cutting, sticking, drawing, writing and gossiping the whole day long! Even the director and deputy made themselves useful by making wooden frames for the maps to be transported between classrooms for geography lessons. All the materials were used and at the end the teachers proudly shared what they had made, what learning objective it matched and how they would use it with the students in their classrooms. I swear I saw the pre-school teacher stashing coloured paper away to make origami swans with another time but on the whole a very productive workshop – phew! The question is whether the teachers will use their newly made resources in lessons, but that is a headache for another day!

Farewell Mads...x

The perfect end to our holiday together was a helicopter ride over Angkor Wat and the Tonle Sap. Madeline treated us both as a special birthday experience and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. Just the fact that we went up in a helicopter was experience enough, but we also enjoyed a gorgeous day to do it, really beautifully clear skies and a wonderful aerial view of Cambodia. I sat up front (of course) with Captain Mick and we got to wear earphones and everything! Captain Mick communicated with the Siam Reap control tower and then we were off! And all he had to control this machine was a joystick and handbrake! amongst thousands of dials and buttons. My only previous experience of helicopters is watching Airwolf as a kid (remember that one?) and films such as James Bond whereby the baddie usually has a helicopter waiting for a quick getaway which the goodie usually forces to crash into a mountain/building/other helicopter. They seem to be such delicate little things and rather prone to blowing up in a big ball of flames at the slightest malfunction. Well, this certainly didn’t feel at all fragile and after hovering about a metre off the ground for a while we whizzed off into the air. We got a great view of the Cambodian countryside, saw Angkor Wat and many of the other nearby temples before zooming off towards the Tonle Sap where we spied the floating villages from the sky – amazing! A fantastic birthday present!

Not enough time...

These are some of the blog entries from the ‘Madeline does Cambodia’ tour of 2008 that would’ve made it to the blogspot had there been enough time to write them...

“That could’ve been my head!”
How I almost lost my hand in a slight altercation with a ceiling fan.

Hypochondria?
Headache, funny poo, sunburn, bruises, you name it, Mads turns it into some of the worst disease known to man.

Subtitles Rule
How the most frightening film became the funniest thing on TV thanks to some very badly written English subtitles. “Go to your room”!

Roles Reverse
Madeline is begged to come back to Phnom Srok by the locals and I become the worst passenger (on an elephant).

Night of the Bugs
Madeline is attacked by insects during a night in Phnom Srok which really tests her fear of 'lotsoflittlethingsclosetogether'.

Click!

Name of the game: Click

Number of players: 2 +

Best place to play: This game can be played anywhere but the best locations are those with large populations of tourists at a popularly photographed landmark or tourist attraction (e.g. Angkor Wat)

Aim of the game: To win! Game players score points by appearing in the background or foreground of other people's holiday photographs. The winner is the player with the most points at the end of the game.

Rules:

1. The game players should decide on the starting and finishing time of the game before the day of the game starts.

2. Game players say the word 'Click' aloud when a target opportunity is identified. At least one other game player must witness the 'Click' call.

3. As soon as 'Click' is called, the target belongs to the player who called it. The player should then proceed to attempt infiltration into the target's photograph in any way they can. If attempts are thwarted in some way (e.g. the target is aware of the player in their shot and waits for them to move) the target becomes open to other players to 'Click'.

4. Both the player and the witness should truthfully confirm whether the 'Click' was successful or not for the point to be awarded.

5. A player may score an extra point if a target is approached and asked by the player whether they would like help in taking their photograph (this is particularly appropriate in the case of large group photographs in front of major landmarks). Other players may treat such instances as regular play and could call 'Click' and appear in the background for their own point.

6. The game players should decide on a suitable forfeit for the loser of the game. As the game involves innocent unsuspecting members of the public, so the forfeit for the loser should be a public punishment also (such as singing all known verses of "If you're happy and you know it" at the top of your voice in a heavily touristed area.

And most importantly...

7. If at any time the players are on the verge of a major fall out, argument, disagreement, physical fight or the like, the whole game is immediately cancelled and there is no winner or loser.


The temples were beautiful, probably more so than when I first visited in April as the wet season makes the surroundings much more lush and green. We devised the 'Click' game over a beer the evening before our temple visit and even though the stakes were high we abandoned it just after lunchtime using the get out clause stated in Rule 7.

But let it be known, had we carried on, I would definitely have won.