I wrote this blog post about two months ago, after a particularly challenging week. I never posted it. Last week was another such week and after rereading this, I found it still resonates with me. Apologies for the angst.
___________
Living and working in Cambodia has done away with simple, one-dimensional experiences and feelings. Every piece of every event is sunk deep into many layers of emotion and subsequent reordering. As someone who like things to make sense, to be neat and ordered, to follow rules, (even, I will admit, to be under my control), this has caused stress, anxiety, exhaustion and finally, this epiphany.
Let me explain.
For the past few months, Wednesdays at Liger have been planned and carried out by the interns, to allow the teaching staff to come together and plan both the day-to-day and the long-term. We are still in the throes of setting up a functioning, "world-class school of the 21st century," so the planning, reflecting, redoing and documenting are endless. Yesterday was another Wednesday as such. With only the rest of this week and then four days between us and an eleven-day vacation, we had much to discuss involving our kids' departure (transitioning them home and back), as well as a slew of health checks on the horizon shortly after break (eyes checked, hearing checked, immunizations administered, teeth pulled, etc.). As the meeting unfolded and I took up my usual post as note-taker, I realized that it was almost impossible to detail and quantify everything that we were talking about -- firstly, because many of the items on our agenda simply could not be solved or planned in one day and secondly, because as each new idea was put on the docket, my brain became more and more overwhelmed. By lunchtime, my laptop was closed and I had retreated into myself.
Let me explain further.
The agenda itself included more than 25 pertinent items, such as finalizing our schedule for next week and the week back, developing an overarching system of grouping students based on tailored instruction, the physical and technological resources we currently have and those we need, and reflecting on "summer camp," which occurred almost two months ago. For most teachers out there, this list probably doesn't differ all that much from the list on the Post-It note stuck to your desk. However, with only six of us, all of whom are planning and implementing lessons of our own, running after-school activities, supporting the interns, TAs and house parents, assessing, reassessing and documenting everything for future Ligers, etc., it is not so straightforward.
I want to be clear, so I will give an example. About six weeks ago, I spent a Friday away from the students, researching online learning programs. Liger is interested in purchasing an accredited program to ensure that our kids are matching up in their academic subject areas with other kids their age. After a fruitless day of research, it became clear to me that there is not one online learning program out there that will meet our students' needs. Parts of some programs were better than others, but the majority were quite expensive and did not really move online completely until middle school. Robert was not surprised by my findings, and we both admitted to a previous hunch that we were going to have to devise Liger's own online learning curriculum. The reality is, what we are trying to do here has not been done before. There is no currently existing curriculum (online or otherwise) that caters to gifted students who come from the provinces of Cambodia, and balances their English-language limitations with their incredible capacity to understand higher-level concepts. If you know of one, please, send it to me.
So, we went back to the drawing board. Online learning was put on hold and I began reaching out to teacher friends at home to collect different websites and online tools that we could use to fuse together our own curriculum. Then, two weeks ago, Robert tells me that he has been in contact with representatives from an online learning program that he thinks might work. My initial feeling: great. In a way, it was a relief that something was going to be taken care of and removed from our plate. I also knew that we would be able to modify and supplement as needed. Yesterday, Robert told me that he had been under the assumption that this online learning company, like many other companies we have worked with as Liger gets off the ground, was going to offer us a foundation discount. He was incorrect and had received a pricing at $30,000. I laughed out loud when I heard this, because that number is ludicrous and clearly not something that we are able to pay. So, we were really back to square one, which sent me back to relief, this time because we did not have to work around a framework that was perhaps unsuitable for our kids. This relief was kicked swiftly in the ass by dismay and then growing anxiety at the realization that we now (again) needed to develop an online curriculum.
I have started to think of it as living in the gray. I am usually so clear on where I stand on different things. A friend comes to me with a problem and I know the correct solution. An issue is presented in the media and I can speak easily and passionately about my opinion. I strongly advocated to parents, administrators, other teachers and specialists on what I believed to be the best options for my special education students. Since coming to Cambodia and Liger, I have leapt into a pool of uncertainty, where I think I know, but am never sure about anything.
Should we be prioritizing teaching the students English or developing their higher-level thinking skills in their native language?
Should we have the students take a more active role in the Liger campus and ask them to lay the bricks and participate in cooking meals since we are promoting ourselves as an experiential-based lab school that is teaching skills applicable to Cambodia? Or, because they are "gifted," will exposing them to these be a waste of time, as they will not lead a life that requires the ability to lay brick?
Should we start tutoring students who are showing a need for more support based on the assessment data we have gathered or should we reroute the schedule and groupings to allow for more tailored instruction throughout the existing school day?
Should we accept more students in order to maximize our impact on the largest number of eligible students or should we focus exclusively on the 50 that we have?
Are the students too over-scheduled, starting their day at 7:15 and often going until 9pm or does this schedule help them adjust to what will be a demanding academic schedule for their next ten years?
There are no right and wrong answers, and there is no quick fix.
I suppose things that are important and authentic rarely do...
Monday, December 17, 2012
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Regression to the Mean
I guess I should pause my Taylor Swift song to write this properly...
Recently, my Dad commented on one of my blog posts: you're the one who wanted "adventure."
Ah, yes, leave it to Dads and Moms everywhere to remind you that you have chosen this situation about which you so complain. But I wasn't complaining. Per se. I was attempting to realign my perceptions about Cambodia as a whole once new information (the overwhelming tourism in Siem Reap) entered into the equation. This is something that Jeff and I are constantly forced to do. Something happens and we stop, reassess, integrate it into the big picture and move forward. At times, the new information or new experience is a positive one, which lightens our feelings about Cambodia and its people. Unfortunately, we also have to deal with negative experiences, which make us question major things like our safety, the limitations of our neighbors and our overall ability to appreciate each day here. Sometimes the "move forward" part is not so easy.
On Thanksgiving, such an event occurred. We sort of fell into Thanksgiving this year. All of a sudden is was a few days prior and no plans had been made. Being the planner that I am, I researched options in the city, sent an email to staff to drum up some company and ended up booking a reservation for 12 at the Himawari hotel for a Thanksgiving buffet. Although it was a little bit pricey, it was a big enough venue for all of us, and it just so happened to be in the same building as a brand-new brewery turning out top-notch beer (quite a rare find). The night was really enjoyable, with all the traditional Thanksgiving fare: turkey, gravy, chestnut stuffing, mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, corn, squash, lots of bread, two kinds of soup (French Onion, what whaaat) and of course, whoopie pies. Haha, no pecan pie at this dinner, whoopie pies would have to do. And they did -- I had three. Although I missed being with my family and eating Tom's Mom's turnips, Liz's carrot cake and my Mom's creamed onions that she makes especially for me, it was a nice night. We were lucky enough to be joined by Navin, who celebrated her first ever Thanksgiving with us.
After dinner, six of us on three motos headed back to Liger in a bit of a pack. We had all left the hotel at the same time, but we were not intentionally staying together. We just knew that we were all within a few blocks of each other. Jeff and I zipped through town, across the bridge and onto our side of the city, heading back on the road we always take. It was about 8:30 or 9:00pm and although there are always street lights and a few people out, the more rural area we live in is typically deserted by this time. People go into their houses, lock up, turn off their generators and go to bed.
As we came around a bend in the road, the moto in front of us slowed down, its brake lights coming on strong. I whispered to Jeff to slow down too, but within an instant we had taken in the situation and Jeff replied, "not slowing down." The scene that we came upon was eerie in that it should have been more frenetic. It should have involved people screaming, running, sirens, etc., but it was almost silent. We had come upon the aftermath of a bike accident in which a man had been killed. Basically, from what we could deduce once all six of us got home and discussed what each of us had seen, the man was riding his moto without a helmet. He was either drunk and crashed into something, or had been hit by someone else, who had driven away. What we saw was a semi-circle of people standing rather calmly around a body, which looked as if it were asleep on the side of the road. There was no panic. Not very much blood. A few people were jogging toward the individual from up the road. Children were present, but no paramedics. He was certainly dead -- this much we know. How much worse would it have been if he was not? That's a thought I try not to let myself engage with too often.
As we drove past, I immediately worried that the interns on the other two bikes were behind us and that perhaps they would get caught up in the extended melee that this accident could cause. Fortunately, both bikes arrived at Liger just before we did, and everyone in our party was safe.
For the rest of the week, this scene sat with me. I currently live full-time in a country without any emergency response system. And while Jeff and I are vigilant about wearing our helmets in a way that not many Cambodians are, we are still at risk. We never drink and drive, and we don't speed, but we also don't speak the local language. We know first aid and have a list of numbers of Khmer and Western friends who would rush to our side if we called, but even by being here and being foreign, we are at risk. It was sobering to say the least. There was no ambulance coming to get that man. His family probably did not know where he was, and after speaking to Khmer staff at school about it, probably would not know for quite some time. I was told that when there was a death like that, the police were called to investigate and alert the family, but the police go off duty at 8pm in Cambodia, so there is a chance that no one came until the following morning.
I admit, I was unsure if I was even going to bring this up in this forum. I can see many of you reading this with a growing pit in your stomach. And yes, it is a cause for concern, but it is also the reality of where we live and it has served as a lesson in personal safety, heightened awareness and the understanding that no matter how long we live here, this is not our country. It also spoke to the fact that while Cambodia has seen amazing economic growth in the past ten years, they are a country that is still experiencing the vast effects of genocide and civil war; Cambodia has made light-years of progress, but still has quite a long way to go. In many ways, that is the exact reason that we have fallen in love with it -- we are in the right place at the right time to effect maximum change.
Sunday night at about 6pm, we decided to head into town with Nica for dinner at a French place we hadn't tried out yet. It's in the ex-pat part of town that we frequent, so we are all quite familiar with the area. Nica, being only about five feet (five one, to be exact -- I would never shortchange you LBN), fits easily behind me, so we drove in together on the bike. We crossed the bridge and headed down Norodom like always, and after about five minutes, slowed down and got in the left lane to make our turn. Just then, I felt the bike shake and tilt, as if we had been sideswiped. Jeff did not lose control of the bike, but it wobbled and we all held on tightly. Then, I heard Nica start screaming and cursing, pointing at a bike that had just nearly hit us and then peeled off. Two young guys on a nearby moto had tried to grab Nica's purse from where it sat in between my back and her front. The bag had a metal chain and the chain snapped, but she managed to hang on to it. After making the turn and ensuring that no one was hurt, we realized that we were very lucky. Worst case scenario, the bag could have remained intact and the force of their pull could have sent Nica right off the bike. If that happened, there is a good chance all three of us would have tipped over on the street.
Two cocktails later, we talked about how it was great that she had her bag, but that even if it had been stolen, it would have been nothing more than an inconvenience. A chance to get a new cell phone. The worst part was the sense of being violated. They had grabbed her bag, and because it was across her body, had invaded her space. We also assumed that this was not a last minute decision on their part, but that they had probably been following us for a few blocks before they made their move as we slowed down. We remarked at how strange it was to have experienced the accident just two days before, and then have Nica's bag grabbed, something all of us had been warned about since day one but had never had happen.
Rain began to fall as we ate dinner. It is technically the rainy season, but we have not had very much rain. By the time we were finished, it had stopped, but the streets were still wet. We got on the bike, making sure that our bags were tucked carefully away, and headed home. Unfortunately, bad things come in threes -- only minutes after turning onto Norodom, we saw another victim of a bike accident. This time, two men on bikes and a tuk-tuk driver had pulled over to help. Again, the man was helmetless and therefore, dead.
We tried to wrap our minds around this for the second time, and I caustically asked if we should just get used to seeing dead people on the side of the road; Jeff replied that the chances of these things "happening" to us while living here was probably about once a month. We made it through four entire months without seeing any major accidents and without having our bag stolen. Well, it was purely regression to the mean that we now had experienced three such events all within four days.
Just when we thought things were settling, we are reminded that Cambodia is anything but settled...
Recently, my Dad commented on one of my blog posts: you're the one who wanted "adventure."
Ah, yes, leave it to Dads and Moms everywhere to remind you that you have chosen this situation about which you so complain. But I wasn't complaining. Per se. I was attempting to realign my perceptions about Cambodia as a whole once new information (the overwhelming tourism in Siem Reap) entered into the equation. This is something that Jeff and I are constantly forced to do. Something happens and we stop, reassess, integrate it into the big picture and move forward. At times, the new information or new experience is a positive one, which lightens our feelings about Cambodia and its people. Unfortunately, we also have to deal with negative experiences, which make us question major things like our safety, the limitations of our neighbors and our overall ability to appreciate each day here. Sometimes the "move forward" part is not so easy.
On Thanksgiving, such an event occurred. We sort of fell into Thanksgiving this year. All of a sudden is was a few days prior and no plans had been made. Being the planner that I am, I researched options in the city, sent an email to staff to drum up some company and ended up booking a reservation for 12 at the Himawari hotel for a Thanksgiving buffet. Although it was a little bit pricey, it was a big enough venue for all of us, and it just so happened to be in the same building as a brand-new brewery turning out top-notch beer (quite a rare find). The night was really enjoyable, with all the traditional Thanksgiving fare: turkey, gravy, chestnut stuffing, mashed potatoes, carrots, peas, corn, squash, lots of bread, two kinds of soup (French Onion, what whaaat) and of course, whoopie pies. Haha, no pecan pie at this dinner, whoopie pies would have to do. And they did -- I had three. Although I missed being with my family and eating Tom's Mom's turnips, Liz's carrot cake and my Mom's creamed onions that she makes especially for me, it was a nice night. We were lucky enough to be joined by Navin, who celebrated her first ever Thanksgiving with us.
After dinner, six of us on three motos headed back to Liger in a bit of a pack. We had all left the hotel at the same time, but we were not intentionally staying together. We just knew that we were all within a few blocks of each other. Jeff and I zipped through town, across the bridge and onto our side of the city, heading back on the road we always take. It was about 8:30 or 9:00pm and although there are always street lights and a few people out, the more rural area we live in is typically deserted by this time. People go into their houses, lock up, turn off their generators and go to bed.
As we came around a bend in the road, the moto in front of us slowed down, its brake lights coming on strong. I whispered to Jeff to slow down too, but within an instant we had taken in the situation and Jeff replied, "not slowing down." The scene that we came upon was eerie in that it should have been more frenetic. It should have involved people screaming, running, sirens, etc., but it was almost silent. We had come upon the aftermath of a bike accident in which a man had been killed. Basically, from what we could deduce once all six of us got home and discussed what each of us had seen, the man was riding his moto without a helmet. He was either drunk and crashed into something, or had been hit by someone else, who had driven away. What we saw was a semi-circle of people standing rather calmly around a body, which looked as if it were asleep on the side of the road. There was no panic. Not very much blood. A few people were jogging toward the individual from up the road. Children were present, but no paramedics. He was certainly dead -- this much we know. How much worse would it have been if he was not? That's a thought I try not to let myself engage with too often.
As we drove past, I immediately worried that the interns on the other two bikes were behind us and that perhaps they would get caught up in the extended melee that this accident could cause. Fortunately, both bikes arrived at Liger just before we did, and everyone in our party was safe.
For the rest of the week, this scene sat with me. I currently live full-time in a country without any emergency response system. And while Jeff and I are vigilant about wearing our helmets in a way that not many Cambodians are, we are still at risk. We never drink and drive, and we don't speed, but we also don't speak the local language. We know first aid and have a list of numbers of Khmer and Western friends who would rush to our side if we called, but even by being here and being foreign, we are at risk. It was sobering to say the least. There was no ambulance coming to get that man. His family probably did not know where he was, and after speaking to Khmer staff at school about it, probably would not know for quite some time. I was told that when there was a death like that, the police were called to investigate and alert the family, but the police go off duty at 8pm in Cambodia, so there is a chance that no one came until the following morning.
I admit, I was unsure if I was even going to bring this up in this forum. I can see many of you reading this with a growing pit in your stomach. And yes, it is a cause for concern, but it is also the reality of where we live and it has served as a lesson in personal safety, heightened awareness and the understanding that no matter how long we live here, this is not our country. It also spoke to the fact that while Cambodia has seen amazing economic growth in the past ten years, they are a country that is still experiencing the vast effects of genocide and civil war; Cambodia has made light-years of progress, but still has quite a long way to go. In many ways, that is the exact reason that we have fallen in love with it -- we are in the right place at the right time to effect maximum change.
Sunday night at about 6pm, we decided to head into town with Nica for dinner at a French place we hadn't tried out yet. It's in the ex-pat part of town that we frequent, so we are all quite familiar with the area. Nica, being only about five feet (five one, to be exact -- I would never shortchange you LBN), fits easily behind me, so we drove in together on the bike. We crossed the bridge and headed down Norodom like always, and after about five minutes, slowed down and got in the left lane to make our turn. Just then, I felt the bike shake and tilt, as if we had been sideswiped. Jeff did not lose control of the bike, but it wobbled and we all held on tightly. Then, I heard Nica start screaming and cursing, pointing at a bike that had just nearly hit us and then peeled off. Two young guys on a nearby moto had tried to grab Nica's purse from where it sat in between my back and her front. The bag had a metal chain and the chain snapped, but she managed to hang on to it. After making the turn and ensuring that no one was hurt, we realized that we were very lucky. Worst case scenario, the bag could have remained intact and the force of their pull could have sent Nica right off the bike. If that happened, there is a good chance all three of us would have tipped over on the street.
Two cocktails later, we talked about how it was great that she had her bag, but that even if it had been stolen, it would have been nothing more than an inconvenience. A chance to get a new cell phone. The worst part was the sense of being violated. They had grabbed her bag, and because it was across her body, had invaded her space. We also assumed that this was not a last minute decision on their part, but that they had probably been following us for a few blocks before they made their move as we slowed down. We remarked at how strange it was to have experienced the accident just two days before, and then have Nica's bag grabbed, something all of us had been warned about since day one but had never had happen.
Rain began to fall as we ate dinner. It is technically the rainy season, but we have not had very much rain. By the time we were finished, it had stopped, but the streets were still wet. We got on the bike, making sure that our bags were tucked carefully away, and headed home. Unfortunately, bad things come in threes -- only minutes after turning onto Norodom, we saw another victim of a bike accident. This time, two men on bikes and a tuk-tuk driver had pulled over to help. Again, the man was helmetless and therefore, dead.
We tried to wrap our minds around this for the second time, and I caustically asked if we should just get used to seeing dead people on the side of the road; Jeff replied that the chances of these things "happening" to us while living here was probably about once a month. We made it through four entire months without seeing any major accidents and without having our bag stolen. Well, it was purely regression to the mean that we now had experienced three such events all within four days.
Just when we thought things were settling, we are reminded that Cambodia is anything but settled...
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