Update on Chelsea's future: I'm still in State College through June, and I'm pretty sure now that I'll be in the US for at least the next year. Based on advice I've gotten, things I've read, and common sense, it seems logical to get some teaching experience before trying to teach overseas. I'm hoping to stay in or near PA to avoid completely uprooting myself, since I'd still love to go abroad in the not-too-distant future. Schools hire late, though, so it'll likely be June or July before I know for sure where I'll be teaching.
I'm looking at this year and next year as preparation for life overseas, but I'm afraid I'll forget about my dreams and get too comfortable here. That's why tonight, I was looking at web sites on education in Cambodia (a country that's drawn me for a while somehow).
It's bleak -
1930s: The first modern high school opened.
1960s: The first university was founded.
1975: The Communist Khmer Rouge assumed power, systematically destroying educational resources and slaughtering the educated population.
1980s: The succeeding government (PRK) made a half-hearted, half-funded attempt to re-establish an educational system.
1993-4: The government spent enough on books to buy one book per student every 20 years.
1998: Only 17% of teachers nationwide had attended school beyond ninth grade.
2000: Most Cambodian adults were found to be completely illiterate (36.3%; ) or semi-literate (26.6%); 45% of women were reportedly completely illiterate.
School fees are another problem: parents pay for 3/4 of primary education costs, while the government chips in a mere 13%. Many rural families are subsistence farmers; school is the greatest expense they face each year.
What would it take for me to improve Cambodia's education system? More experience in teaching, so I have something to offer. A decent knowledge of Cambodian. Some good connections to NGOs already at work there. The grace of God. And an inordinate amount of determination/stubbornness/insanity. Will I ever get there? I don't know. But I sure hope that if not, it's because something even more important grabbed my attention, and not because I got too comfortable.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Friday, March 13, 2009
Frozen splinters
Somehow it seemed urgent for me to re-read the story that had so moved me when I was young. For my fairy tales unit at school, my mom sent me a German-language collection of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales, in which “The Snow Queen” was first. I’ve been puzzling over it for weeks, trying to remember how it went, but lacking the time for 35 pages in German. This week during spring break, on the train to Philadelphia to see my dear friends Anya and Capri, I finally got my chance.
It’s a long and roundabout story, but the gist of it is this. Goblins have created a mirror that distorts everything it reflects, so that good and beauty don’t appear at all, while bad and ugly things are magnified. The most breathtaking landscapes look like “boiled spinach” in it. The mirror falls a great distance, splintering into billions of fragments that are blown all over, lodging in people’s hearts and eyes. Infected eyes see everything through the mirror; infected hearts turn to ice.
Kai and Gerda, a young boy and girl, are devoted playmates and best friends. When mirror fragments get into Kai’s heart and eyes, he instantly becomes cruel and aggressive, losing enjoyment in all their old games. He turns his attention to manmade objects or to mocking others. All that is beautiful to him now are the snowflakes he examines through a magnifying glass. The Snow Queen arrives and easily steals Kai away to her home up north; two of her kisses make him forget his old life and numb him to the cold. Thinking he has died, everyone mourns his loss.
The next spring, Gerda learns that he is still alive, and sets out on a quest to find him. That’s all I could remember before re-reading it: that, and my sense of horror with Gerda at the abrupt change in this dear trusted friend. I needed to find out how Kai was saved. What was Andersen trying to say about the human condition? How could I too be a Gerda, and invite people to abandon the splinters that robbed them of joy and peace?
I never expected that in the ending, I would identify even more with Kai’s nearly-frozen-solid heart than with Gerda’s distressed compassion for him. (Doesn't the Bible mention splinters in our eyes?) Andersen’s classic tale for children mostly left me sober at the realization of how my own eyes dull what is beautiful and good and right, and how I instead crave what is artificial and distorted. It reminded me of a freeing and joyous alternative.
If you haven’t let this story confront you in a while, I’d invite you to examine it. Whimsy and light-hearted touches permeate even poignant moments: Gerda discovers a numb Kai mechanically arranging chunks of ice into shapes and words, since the Snow Queen has promised that a certain impossible word will win him not only the whole world, but also a pair of ice skates. But mixed in with the escapades of these two youngsters is a gripping portrait of sin and redemption.
It’s a long and roundabout story, but the gist of it is this. Goblins have created a mirror that distorts everything it reflects, so that good and beauty don’t appear at all, while bad and ugly things are magnified. The most breathtaking landscapes look like “boiled spinach” in it. The mirror falls a great distance, splintering into billions of fragments that are blown all over, lodging in people’s hearts and eyes. Infected eyes see everything through the mirror; infected hearts turn to ice.
Kai and Gerda, a young boy and girl, are devoted playmates and best friends. When mirror fragments get into Kai’s heart and eyes, he instantly becomes cruel and aggressive, losing enjoyment in all their old games. He turns his attention to manmade objects or to mocking others. All that is beautiful to him now are the snowflakes he examines through a magnifying glass. The Snow Queen arrives and easily steals Kai away to her home up north; two of her kisses make him forget his old life and numb him to the cold. Thinking he has died, everyone mourns his loss.
The next spring, Gerda learns that he is still alive, and sets out on a quest to find him. That’s all I could remember before re-reading it: that, and my sense of horror with Gerda at the abrupt change in this dear trusted friend. I needed to find out how Kai was saved. What was Andersen trying to say about the human condition? How could I too be a Gerda, and invite people to abandon the splinters that robbed them of joy and peace?
I never expected that in the ending, I would identify even more with Kai’s nearly-frozen-solid heart than with Gerda’s distressed compassion for him. (Doesn't the Bible mention splinters in our eyes?) Andersen’s classic tale for children mostly left me sober at the realization of how my own eyes dull what is beautiful and good and right, and how I instead crave what is artificial and distorted. It reminded me of a freeing and joyous alternative.
If you haven’t let this story confront you in a while, I’d invite you to examine it. Whimsy and light-hearted touches permeate even poignant moments: Gerda discovers a numb Kai mechanically arranging chunks of ice into shapes and words, since the Snow Queen has promised that a certain impossible word will win him not only the whole world, but also a pair of ice skates. But mixed in with the escapades of these two youngsters is a gripping portrait of sin and redemption.
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