Start It Up

"This is a start-up."

A common refrain from last year, this phrase served to remind us that we were still in the throes of massive growing pains. Institutional growing pains, staff growing pains, growing pains as a result of being a start-up in a third world country. At times, it was a relief to hear, as it meant that the detail we were worrying about was negligible in the long run. At other times it served to sink us further into a hole encompassing exactly what we had signed up for. But regardless of how it made us feel, it was true. Last year was Year Zero. It was all new everything.

I want to summarize a few points to give you a better ideas of some of our major challenges.

1. We started with nothing. No formal curriculum materials, no curriculum scope and sequence (what to teach and in what order), no overarching daily schedule, no grouping system, no assessment data (except basic student entrance material), etc. It was ENTIRELY up to us (six teachers and three interns) to design and implement what we wanted to, based on our limited knowledge of what our kids needed. Our library books didn't even arrive until six weeks into school.

2. Last year was very "isolationist." By this, I mean that there was not a lot of collaboration or connection-making among the content teachers. Everyone chose their specialty (Literacy, Math, Science, Art, Entrepreneurship and Technology), kept their head down and created and taught their own curriculum. Certainly there are conclusions to be drawn from this, which I will not get into, but I do want to acknowledge that we all played a role and that it probably resulted from grasping onto the familiar in an endless landslide of new and unfamiliar. Unfortunately, it was every man for himself.

3. We made a lot of changes. All the time. Our students did not know consistency apart from consistent revamping and tweaking. Whoops! (What do you expect? This is a start-up.) But really, what I mean is that we toyed with a ton of ideas. New groupings, new schedules, new content areas, new spaces, etc. In a way it was positive because we were able to immediately stop something that wasn't working and try and improve it. In another way it was a ton of work and most things felt fragmented and fleeting.

At the end of last year, all things considered, I felt overwhelmingly positive. I would never want to go back, but if I did, I would say, "You are one sneaky bastard, Year Zero. You tried to break us. I am glad you are gone and that we are still here. We win. Sucka."
_________________________________________________________________________________

Now we are back.

Students returning from the summer holiday

So far, this year has been incredibly different from last year. Our head of school departed, along with two teachers and one intern. Dom stepped in as head of school/country director, with direct support from Mr. Jeff, a fabulous new counterpart to both the admin staff and the teaching staff. Thankfully, he was able to begin working with us at the end of last year, so by the time we left for the summer we had the first six weeks planned.

This year our curriculum is standardized but flexible. Everything feels more permanent, both for the staff and for the students. We have four major pieces to our daily schedule.

Students are enrolled in two Advanced Enrichments per week. AEs are meant to expose them to more advanced concepts, as well as give them a taste of different areas that they may want to pursue later in life. For the past seven weeks we offered Psychology, Algebra, Botany and Khmer history, Computer Programming, Anatomy and Infographics/Stats. I taught Psychology and really enjoyed it. We covered things like body language, optimism versus pessimism, introversion, extroversion and then moved into a really fun unit about animal psychology. With only two weeks left before they get to sign up for new ones, I will be teaching positive and negative reinforcement and instant gratification (marshmallow test anyone?). The best part has been having my psych kids refer to something they learned in class when telling a story about their friends or family. I love the sprinkling of big vocab words in their otherwise  developing English. Something like: "That monkey is optimism behavior because he determination for open the cup for eat the nut."

Some psych students playing Suspend while their classmates are at the dentist.

Next, we have Foundations. Literacy and Math. Every student gets both every day. No exception. We recently introduced one-to-one laptops to the students and teaching Literacy has taken on a whole new dimension. They are emailing me their verb quiz corrections, logging their daily journal entries in a Google spreadsheet and relishing reading their leveled books on RAZ Kids. It is amazing the engagement level that can be achieved when language is presented on a computer screen.

Students also have one hour of Khmer language each day with the Khmer learning facilitators. I have also learned some more Khmer, including the word for brain, which sounds like coo-cah-bah with the emphasis on the first syllable. I now say "use your coo cahbah," at least ten times a day. Such a linguist.

Finally, we have Explorations. These six-week, project-based learning units are the crux of our curriculum. For example, Jeff's first Exploration was leading an investigation of the Liger water system. His students learned all the pertinent science content (how to test water, what is pH and turbidity, etc.), and took field trips off campus to observe and participate in local efforts to provide filters to the community. His students compiled what they learned in a blog, and their culminating project was to conduct a water tour around campus, speaking in both Khmer and English, explaining how the water gets from the tanks on the roof, through the pipes, under the ground, through two filtration systems, etc. Below is a picture of two of Jeff's students, ready with their props to give me the water tour. If you are interested, the blog link is: www.ligerwater.wordpress.com.

Other Explorations last block included teaching English lessons to local students and studying different learning styles; interviewing local community members and developing multimedia biographies, and creating toys using recyclable materials and knowledge of simple machines. The goals of these projects are community involvement, content knowledge, hands-on experiences and student-led collaboration. So far, the first four were major successes. The Community English group is continuing English lessons as an after-school Extension. The Biographies group ended up profiting on the sale of their photos of community members. The Toys group has thousands of hits on a website where they filmed and uploaded step-by-step instructions on how to build their toy, and they ran a two-day toy building workshop for a school in a nearby province.

So no pressure as I start my first one tomorrow. Ha!

My group is going to learn all about newspapers, visit two local newsrooms, research newspaper history, learn about famous headlines and ultimately create the first Liger newspaper. I am very excited, but also really nervous about it. Running simultaneously is an Ecosystems project with a week-long camping trip to a national park and an elephant sanctuary, a Renewable Energy project with overnights to Kampong Speu province to teach community members how to better save energy, and an Art and Entrepreneurship project in which students are going to design and paint bags to be sold in the city.

Don't you wish your school was like this?

The other two pieces of the week are Extensions and Inspirations. Extensions are after-school activities with purpose. I ran a Magic School Bus activity the first block and had a blast reading the books and watching the TV show with a few kids. Next block I am working with students on a sort of Medic badge, a la the Girl Scouts. I am going to teach basic first aid, etc.

Magic School Bus in the Time of the Dinosaurs (note the loiterers in the window)

On the bus back from Silk Island

Inspirations happen in lieu of a regular schedule on Wednesdays and are aimed at pure exposure. These kids have such a narrow worldview that in order to turn them into "global citizens," we need to dedicate substantial time to exploring what the world holds. We have already covered topics such as optics/light science, student questions (where did the first fire come from? why can some people not see or hear?) and have also taken the chance to explore Cambodia. One trip we took was to Silk Island, where the local women weave silk on their homemade looms. We spent the day in small groups meeting with the weavers and then visiting a silk worm farm.


Our little start up is really beginning to pick up steam. The kids came back extremely refreshed and excited for everything new. They are becoming remarkably self-aware and introspective, and their capacity to absorb content and English never ceases to amaze. It is increasingly funny to interact with them as they learn to use their sense of humor and push back at some of the teasing we hand out. After seven weeks, it looks like this year is going to be tremendous.

I promise the next entry will be about Italy and Thailand.

Some of the silk on the loom at Silk Island