Growing downward

When I mentioned to my internship coordinator this spring that I dream of training Cambodian teachers someday, her eyes lit up. “Maybe we could get you doing some of that this summer!” She consulted with someone on the ground here, and they decided I’d work with four English teachers (all native Cambodians) in a middle school and a high school within Caring for Cambodia.

I was really grateful and excited. What a perfect opportunity to get my feet wet and learn more about Cambodian teachers and schools. And surely my six years at Logos had to be an asset, given all I learned there about teaching foreign languages, low-tech lessons, communicating with Cambodians, etc. But I was also a little apprehensive. Eight weeks in Siem Reap. How much could I do in eight weeks?

As much as possible, I concluded. So I jumped into observing them, teaching alongside them, chatting with them, and assembling handouts and presentations for them. I tried to balance proactivity and flexibility, and hoped for the best.

I’ve had exhilarating moments of success reminding me why I love being in the classroom. I’m a natural! I’ve got this down! This is what I was made to do! I’m totally going into this after I graduate! A flash of intuition pans out. Students are angelic. The lesson clicks with everyone. A teacher says, “Wow, can you tell me more about that?” I’ve thrived on chances to replace an irrelevant, teacher-centered lesson from the textbook with something more engaging and student-centered.

And I’ve had moments that brought my ego crashing down. The couple times I’ve been observed, I couldn’t believe how nervous I felt. The handout I’d worked so hard on suddenly seemed impossibly complicated for my audience, a waste of their time. The rapport I was starting to achieve with teachers seemed to vanish, replaced by miscommunications and hemming and hawing. Other times, I haven’t needed an outsider observing me. All it’s taken is a group of students who pay no heed to my attempts to quiet them, or a teacher who greets my sample lesson with apathy and criticism, or my own reflections on a meeting, for me to feel about as competent as your average 4-year-old, and as culturally sensitive as the White Savior Barbie.

I’m realizing that the latter moments, while uncomfortable, have been far more necessary for me than the former. First of all, they’re a good reality check. Being a new teacher was hard and my lessons often tanked. Why would I expect anything different from mentoring teachers? Secondly, my self-consciousness is a good reminder of what I’m putting teachers through as I observe and mentor them. (Even more so as they try to teach a foreign language in front of a native speaker!)

Finally, they remind me of what I learned all year in grad school: Contextualization is vital. I don’t like it when the teachers sometimes blame students for not grasping English lessons that don’t address their needs and interests. But I’ve made the same error (actually worse) when I’ve made minimal tweaks to US-based teaching tips that are a poor fit for these teachers, and then inwardly faulted them for not recognizing the superiority of American education to their methods. That’s not showing them a better alternative to shaming; that’s just shifting the blame up a level. There’s a huge gulf between their educational experiences and mine, and it’s not fair of me to ask them to do the work to bridge it. If I want to partner with them, I need to wrangle with the question of how they can teach well in their context.

A few weeks ago, I saw a great article entitled, “Upward or downward first?” It has two lists: the results of pursuing fruit versus pursuing roots. 

A tree growing out of Ta Prohm temple 

One list reads….

When our greatest desire is to grow upward:

                We think a lot about our reputation, so often swing between pride and insecurity.

                We’re likely known for talking a lot.

                We’re elated when we’re praised and frustrated when ignored.

                We often say, "I need to do more faster."

And so the list continues.  Honestly, a lot of it has described me this summer more often than I'd like to admit.

The parallel and inverse list describes when we long to grow downward:

                We may track outcomes, but we define success most of all by the quality of things that are hard to see at first: hearts, faith, well-being, character.

                We feel the light yoke of self-forgetfulness.

                We’re known especially for listening well.

                We’re grateful when praised and content when ignored.

I want the second list to define me. And not just so I’ll eventually become the most awesome teacher trainer ever, though that motivation has occurred to me a few times. (Argh, pride is so sneaky!) I feel like Eustace when he becomes a dragon in C.S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn Treader, feeling self-satisfied because I’ve scratched off my dragon skin, only to realize what I discarded was a paper-thin shell, and the human is stuck hopelessly deep inside all the dragony self that remains. 

But Eustace finally meets Aslan. “You will have to let me undress you,” Aslan tells Eustace, and Eustace decides his desperation to become human again outweighs his fear of Aslan’s claws.

"'The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I've ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know - if you've ever picked the scab off a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.’"

I’m near the end of my summer in Cambodia, and little wiser than before about how to partner well with teachers here. But maybe that’s OK. While I’d love to see some upward growth – some teachers applying what I’ve taught, some students getting more out of English class, some materials being put to use – that’s no longer my top priority. This girl needs to grow downward into self-forgetfulness, and sometimes that means holding still long enough for God to strip off layers of pride. If nobody else learns a thing from my teacher training endeavors this summer, that lesson will already be well worth it.

Caring for kids by way of their families

Cambodia's not big on institutionalized day care. While many moms have to work outside the home to support their families, childcare is nearly always family-based, whether that means an aunt, a grandma, or even the mom herself while she sells things. 

Photo credit: Bob Bridell
"Take-your-daughter-to-work day has gone international"

Probably also taken by Bob Bridell (years ago)
Don't be alarmed, this butcher's son is still alive!

That can be difficult. Many moms in Phnom Penh have to leave their babies with relatives in their home province until their kids are old enough for school. My close friend Sorphorn is one: she visits her baby girl every weekend at her in-laws' house, and can't wait to bring her home for good in a couple years, when she's ready for preschool. Some caregivers are too old and frail to do a good job; others are distracted or apathetic. 

Sorphorn and her daughter, Pich

On the other hand, I like the Cambodian value of extended families working together to care for their kids. Who loves a child better than his own family? While I haven't been a primary caregiver for my 3 nephews this year, I've certainly savored every minute I got to babysit them. And I was very blessed to have my mom stay home to take care of my 3 siblings and me until we were all in school. While not everyone knows how to raise children well, where possible, I'm a fan of empowering and equipping families versus institutionalizing child care.

Evan, Carson, and Cole make it easy for me to love aunting

So when I found out that Caring for Cambodia (the organization where I'm interning this summer) is emphasizing and expanding its preschool program, I had mixed feelings. But the more I've found out about their program, the more I like it. First of all, it's home-based, so it's still families raising their own kids. In fact, "preschool" is kind of a misnomer - much of the education is aimed at the grown-ups. (It reminds me a bit of Mothers of Preschoolers, a group that my sister and sister-in-law attend.) From what I've heard, each preschool group meets just twice a month. While the kids play with various educational toys, guest speakers conduct trainings for the moms and other caregivers. The trainings cover topics like health, hygiene, nutrition, and child development; participants can earn a certificate by attending 8 sessions and finishing 4 topics. CFC's home-based preschools have maybe 8 locations in the villages around Siem Reap city, each with its own assistant. 

Video footage of moms discussing what they learned in the trainings

I've been learning more about the preschools through one of my internship projects: translating videos of testimonials from some of the preschool moms, so CFC can share their stories with its donors. (I'm collaborating with CFC staff, but it's still great practice for my Khmer listening skills.) The stories are so encouraging! 

For example, one mom said that before, when her child was sick, she always took him to a sketchy uncertified private doctor, who gave him medicine that masked his symptoms for a couple days but didn't really make him better. There are tons of doctors like this in Cambodia (probably outnumbering the legit ones), and they love prescribing random medicine and IV's of saline solution when they're not really needed. Many Cambodians pay a lot of money thinking drugs or IV's are needed, when the sick person could get the same benefits from drinking more water and eating something salty. But when you're not educated and the sketchy doctors are persuasive, it's hard to discern the best course of treatment. After the training, this mom knew she could take her child to a nearby public clinic for a fraction of the price. While the clinic might not relieve symptoms as quickly, it would help her child truly recover. 

Mealea, left, is a preschool coordinator whom I've gotten to know a bit

Another mom said that she had always been impatient and grumpy with her kids when they interrupted her housework. She learned to speak more kindly and include them in hanging out laundry and other tasks instead of just hitting them or shooing them away. Her positive communication style transferred into her relationship with her husband as well, promoting more harmonious relationships in their whole family and breaking cycles of harsh interactions. Most of these moms were born in the years after the Khmer Rouge - a time when few families had the bandwidth or emotional energy to encourage their kids.

One of the moms telling Mealea what she learned

Many moms mentioned hygiene; the idea of washing hands before and after eating seemed to be a new concept for many of them. Apparently it's really caught on with both them and their children, along with properly cleaning vegetables to avoid food-borne illness and using plastic covers to keep flies off their food. These changes will benefit their families for years to come, and will help change norms in their villages.

Since houses are open-air, covers like this are useful to guard food from flies.

Since moms are eligible to attend from their children's infancy through their school enrollment, and most moms have multiple kids, some have been coming for years and are eager to learn new topics. In fact, though many of these moms never completed primary school, several now know more about these topics than the preschool assistants, who have been stumped by their recent questions. (The assistants have a high turnover rate and little formal training in child development.) That's another task that I'll be working on, along with my fellow intern Kelly: gathering FAQ's and making a fact sheet about child development to share with the preschool assistants. I'm looking forward to supporting this program more in the coming weeks. I'm also eager to see the final promotional video featuring these testimonials.

Why, hello again, Cambodia!

May usually finds me packing bags for a journey to the other side of the world, but this time I was going the other way: from the US to Cambodia. Lehigh University is sponsoring my 2-month internship in the town of Siem Reap (home to the impressive Angkor Wat temple complex) at a nonprofit called Caring for Cambodia (CFC). CFC supports various public schools in the Siem Reap area, offering additional resources, teacher training, and classes like English, computer, and career prep. Students at most government schools attend half a day Monday to Saturday, but CFC students attend a full day Monday to Saturday. 

My internship involves supporting English as a Second Language (ESL) classes at 2 middle schools and a high school, supporting English classes for CFC staff, and a smattering of other tasks like translating some testimonials into English for promotional videos. I’ll also be conducting interviews, surveys, and focus groups for my thesis on Cambodia’s Student Council program. I’m excited to learn more about Cambodian public schools (vs. my prior experience at Logos) and to improve my Khmer language, which is already back to where I was last year.

The high school where I'll be working overlooks one of the middle schools 

The timing worked out perfectly for me to have a week in Phnom Penh beforehand. My dear friends Suzanne and Michaela (with her husband Neil) hosted me for 3 nights each. Cambodia has been miserably hot and in the throes of a terrible drought, but the week I arrived was the first week it started raining a bit. While rain levels are still far too low, posing threats to crops and sending Cambodians into debt from buying drinking water, at least the cloud cover and rain have made temperatures much more pleasant. 

High school boys couldn't resist the chance to play soccer in the first big rainstorm 

The timing was also great in the sense that it was the last week of school at Logos. That meant that with exams and final projects winding down, students were fairly relaxed with time to chat, but almost nobody had left yet for summer break - though I subbed for a couple teachers who had to leave early. Another highlight: I got to attend graduation for my former homeroom students. It was wonderful to see everyone again without the usual pressures of report cards or grading final exams, and I was encouraged by a number of stories of God's faithfulness in people's lives this year. I also loved the "Ms. Cooper! What are YOU doing here?!" reactions from several students who didn't know I was coming. 

Chapel made me tear up! I loved hearing seniors share reflections and testimonies.
"Knowing that for every step, You were with us..."

Highlights of graduation included salutatorian Ponhneath’s speech, which she delivered in both English and Khmer, and a video message from Ryan Ketchum, the music teacher who had these students in homeroom grades 8-11. (The Ketchums had to leave suddenly last fall for health reasons.) With Logos' small, intimate classes, graduation is always such a meaningful event. The songs we sang, the photo slides that appeared as each senior mounted the stage, and the speeches all reflected this class's personality. After graduation, I had lunch with two Logos teachers, and two alumni we'd taught happened to be at the table next to ours. Unbeknownst to us, they paid for our lunch! Yet another example of why Logos students are amazing.

Jenny is one of the many grads I taught in both 9th and 11th grade English

Michaela and I enjoyed her personal day to the max

I had a lot of nostalgia, and it confirmed again that I’d like to move back after finishing my master’s degree. Cambodia to me feels paradoxically invigorating and homey in ways difficult to explain. But I was also reminded of the challenges my friends face in Cambodia - from unending goodbyes due to the revolving door of expats, to the bugs that burrow into cereal and other food, to ever-worsening traffic jams on overcrowded streets, to various forms of financial, physical, and emotional strain. My year in the US hasn’t always been easy, but it’s allowed me to be comfortable in many ways that others aren’t, especially because I’m living with my parents. I don’t want to take those comforts for granted, but rather to hold them with an open hand, enjoying them while they last and willingly leaving them behind when the time comes... just as I need to do for now with the joys of Phnom Penh.

Sorphorn (next to me) has been coming to this soup place since she was 7

Even while in Phnom Penh, I was scrambling to prepare two presentations for an English as a Second Language (ESL) conference last week that launched the internship. Two of the other 3 interns also presented. My topics were “Transitioning from primary to secondary school ESL” and “Balancing Khmer and English in the ESL classroom.” None of us felt thoroughly qualified (for example, I’ve never taught English to beginners) or familiar with our audience, which included CFC teachers and other teachers and administrators from the Siem Reap area. But we rolled with it anyway. I loved how engaged and interactive a number of my participants were, even though many didn’t teach English. A particularly hot issue was differentiation, since many students fall through the cracks and end up years behind grade level, whether in English or other courses.

Demonstrating the rhyme "Ten Little Monkeys" with 6th graders

It really helped that my translator, Sitha, was an accomplished ESL teacher himself, who was often able to augment and contextualize my presentations with his own ideas and strategies. Next time, I hope more Cambodian teachers present, because they know this stuff better than we interns do. At one point, Sitha interjected some points about English phonics, and it turned into 30 minutes of the participants eagerly lobbing questions and ideas at him while I just sat there smiling. These participants face some intense challenges - one woman reported having 70 students in her largest class! - but they’re still fighting to do their best by their students, and it’s inspiring to see. I also loved the enthusiasm from the 5^th and 6^th grade students who helped me demonstrate various lesson techniques. I’m looking forward to building relationships with CFC teachers and students over the next 7 weeks.

With my 5th grade assistants and a conference participant

A week of Khmer feasts

I've eaten more Cambodian food this week than I averaged in Cambodia. Granted, I ate a lot of "Asian fusion" and some Western food there, but still, it's been pretty wild. I spent the week organizing for the Cambodian Culture Dinner, an event that I headed up yesterday on campus, so perhaps gorging myself was just another way to prepare for it. But the good news is, I wasn't just huddled in a corner scarfing down stir-fry... I got to hang out with people who love Cambodia, which was good for my heart.

On Sunday, I traveled to the Cambodian embassy in Washington, DC for a belated Khmer New Year party. Several of us from Lehigh were invited by Narin Jameson, who was about to visit Lehigh as the guest speaker and chef extraordinaire for last night's Cambodian dinner, but I ended up being the lone Lehigh rep in DC. Narin was my only connection and I'd never met her in person... good thing Cambodians have a reputation for being friendly. Highlights included the dance performances, the guava with chili salt, the fried bananas, the sour soup... OK, maybe all the food... and the women sitting in front of me, who adopted me for the afternoon and were eager to help me practice Khmer.

Dance performances included traditional Cham dancing, which I'd never seen.

After the performances, it was time for traditional New Year's games, and I bravely went up with my newfound companions, who promised to explain the rules and help me out. (Ha!) All the women faced the men, and the two lines took turns throwing kind of a fox-tail made of a krama scarf with a ball tied inside it. As one of the only non-Cambodians, I became (deservedly) the butt of several jokes as I kept messing up in front of all the participants. I guess I just don't have much experience at knocking two jackfruit seeds together against the knees of a line of guys, so I took longer, kept dropping the seeds, and didn't exactly inflict any pain. (I think it was punishment for them losing a round, because later the tables were turned.) And I missed the part where the giant game of catch turned into a flirtatious game of keep-away... thankfully a woman near me grabbed the ball from me at that point, knowing I was lost. The uncertainty about all the rules was a bit terrifying.

I had to chuckle, though, when the announcer made some remark in Khmer about me being an foreigner. I knew all the laughter was good-natured, and the whole thing was so reminiscent of how people joke around in Cambodia. I felt as if I were on Cambodian soil in the embassy, and in a legal sense perhaps I was. I know well the feeling of being the hapless foreigner, and I'm fine with playing that role at times. It's nice to have a built-in excuse, kind of a "get out of jail free" card. Narin also made me feel better when she told me that since she's from Phnom Penh, she didn't know these games either, which are mostly played in the provinces.

On Tuesday, I used up my last two packets of Cambodian curry paste/powder to make a chicken curry for some visitors: Pastor Bob Schuman, who's been teaching a weekly Bible class on Jesus and salvation that I'm in this semester, and my classmates, Tom and Alicia Vosters. (Yup, this class has only three of us, down from about 15 on average.) Also joining us were Bob's wife and the Vosters' two sons, ages 7 and 9. We enjoyed the curry with some decidedly non-Cambodian sides like oatmeal bread, spinach salad with pecans and goat cheese, and peanut butter brownies. Call it fusion? More like plain old laziness, since they were all repurposed from other occasions.

After dinner, the Vosters and I presented our final group project, on Cambodian beliefs - hence why the curry seemed fitting. Interestingly, while I'd never met the Vosters before our fall-semester Bible class, they're hoping to move to Cambodia in 2017 to serve with World Team, which makes me really happy. That also worked out well because for our final project, comparing Christian views of salvation with another religion's views, we agreed to study Cambodian religious views together. Chendamony Sokun, a former Logos student whose parents are devout Buddhists, told me that Theravada Buddhism is the icing on the cake to most Cambodians - animism is at the heart of their beliefs. She, Laksmie Bunnarith, Megan Roberts, Amy Uecker, and Vuthy Keo were all a huge help on this project! We also drew heavily on this article by the late Jeff Evanson, a former colleague and long-time missionary to Cambodia, whom I deeply respected. The project made for a good conversation with my parents and the Schumans, who have all visited Cambodia before.

Bob (in black) set the bar high for our presentation, so we tried our darndest!

On Wednesday I had leftover curry for lunch, and it was still delicious, but not really noteworthy.

On Thursday, I stopped by the graduate house kitchen for a bit to help three other students peel and slice mangoes on Thursday morning as they made massive quantities of spicy green mango salad and amok curry with tofu. I transporting the curry to the kitchen and helped our guest speaker, Narin Jameson, unload the gigantic pots of banana tapioca pudding and kapit phao/natang (a dipping sauce made with pork and shrimp) that Narin had made back in DC. She told me she spent days preparing everything!

That evening, Sothy Eng, my professor, adviser, and boss (I'm one of his graduate assistants) invited the volunteers for the dinner to his house to welcome Narin to Bethlehem. Sothy made baw baw for us, a rice porridge with chicken, mushrooms, and shrimp, garnished with lime and cilantro. It's such a comforting food, and this rendition seemed especially delicious! Narin used to work for the Cambodian embassy in the US (back in the '70s, pre-Khmer Rouge) and later for the World Bank. Her husband Don, an American, has worked at US embassies in a number of countries, including Cambodia, where they met (also pre-Khmer Rouge). They were both fascinating conversationalists, and Narin is such a sweetheart.

On Friday, dinner was quite the undertaking, despite all the prep that had been done by Thursday. Narin was scheduled to teach two smaller cooking classes, with a large-group dinner in between, where she'd do a cooking demonstration and talk about Cambodian culture. I'd written a grant to get us the funding from three different groups on campus, and we'd been hard at work all month to work out the logistics since there were no ovens or burners for us to use in that building, only two electric hot plates. We heated up our curry in Crock Pots and used rice cookers for the rice. The problem was, the hot plates needed special pans that we didn't have, and so our plan for heating Narin's massive pots of food and having her demonstrate how to cook spring rolls and dipping sauce had to be reworked on the go. Somehow the banana and tapioca pudding got a bit burnt on the bottom before we realized the hot plate issues, but the smoky flavor actually made it even better.

Rice cookers and Crock Pots in the building's former greenhouse, now a cafe area, to free up space in the kitchen for the cooking class

Event organizers and participants at the first of two cooking classes

It got really crowded in the tiny kitchen, as unscheduled drop-ins nearly doubled the number of participants, while most of us organizers ran in and out trying to make appliances work. Not until the middle of the main demonstration did we receive a pan for the hot plate, and the microphone also had a few glitches. Despite all the technical difficulties, Narin bravely forged on, and everyone who attended had plenty of opportunities to eat and learn. After running around from 9 AM to 7 PM (including the whole main event), it was wonderful to finally stop for a minute and eat all the delicious food. Even if the event wasn't quite as smooth as I'd hoped, it was pretty cool to see my grant proposal turn into reality with the help of some awesome classmates.

So thankful for all their help!

Today, Saturday, leftovers from yesterday made a great lunch. So there we have it: I ate Khmer food six days this week, including four different dinners. And while I didn't see any Cambodians today, I talked with Sothy on the phone about my final project for his statistics class (tracking Cambodian high school alumni), which is due on Monday and nowhere near ready. After this festive week, it's good to have some "down time" to finish all my spring coursework. Still, I'm so glad Cambodian culture is still a part of my life while I'm in the US.

Come back soon: A puppy's memorial

I remember the day of the Tennessee flood

The sound of the scream and the sight of the blood

My son, he saw as the animal died

In the jaws of the dog as the river ran by

I said, come back soon

He was fluffy and wriggly and cuddly and mellow, everything a puppy should be. 9-year-old Caely, one of the neighbor kids I babysit, was head over heels. She'd been looking forward to him for six months, ever since her dog (and best friend since birth) had been put down last fall, following aggression toward neighbors. She talked about the puppy probably once a week before he was born and much more frequently after that, eagerly anticipating his arrival.

Her dad carefully researched breeds that were gentle, kid-friendly, and easy to train. He put in a request with a breeder of Labradoodles whose dog had a litter on its way. They decided to name him Art, after an ancient king of Ireland. Caely went wild with nicknames for him. Art the Artist! Arts and Crafts! Artful Dodger! (That last one was my idea, actually... she's not an Oliver Twist fan yet.)

While he technically belonged to the whole family, he was really Caely's dog. She refused to let her younger siblings take the leash when we took Art on his first walk, and was quick to scoop him into her arms when he soon lost steam. She pleaded with me to let her do her homework in the same room as Art. She made me say hi and tell him how adorable he was whenever he came into view. (It wasn't hard to muster up enthusiasm.) At the park, he played Toto to her Dorothy.

She couldn't stop posing with Art. "Look how beautiful your smile is!" I told her after the shots below. "Yeah, I haven't really smiled like that since my mom died," she replied. (Her adoptive mom passed away in fall 2014.) My heart melted. 

I kept warning her that he was going to grow into a Dog, that she'd need to work hard with her dad on training him, that he wouldn't always stay so cute and little and innocent. 

But I was wrong.

It's there on the page of the book that I read

The boy grew up and the yearling was dead

He stood at the gate with the angel on guard

And wept at the death of his little-boy heart

I say, come back soon

Come back soon

I was listening to Andrew Peterson's song, "Come back soon," on my way home from my sister's last Wednesday night. I've always found it moving, but I didn't know how apt it was that night. As I was cruising down the highway, Art was wriggling his way under their gate toward the street, where he was run over seconds later and died before Caely's eyes. He'd been at their house a mere 11 days. Caely felt awful for not stopping his escape. 

We wake in the night in the womb of the world

We beat our fists on the door

We cannot breathe in this sea that swirls

So we groan in this great darkness

For deliverance

Deliverance, O Lord

I know a lot of kids fleeing ISIS, or dropping out to sell street snacks, or fearing a teen marriage to an old man, might envy Caely's childhood. But she's been through a lot more loss in her nine years than I have in twenty-nine. Why is it that my dog, Demi, lived to the ripe old age of almost-seventeen, while Art made it less than three months? Why did the dog who was supposed to help restore Caely's joy end up ripping open her old wounds, reinforcing the fear that everyone she loves will leave her? 

If nature’s red in tooth and in claw

Seems to me that she’s an outlaw

Because every death is a question mark

At the end of the book of a beating heart

And the answer is scrawled in the silent dark

In the dome of the sky of a billion stars 

But we cannot read these angel tongues

And we cannot stare at the burning sun

And we cannot breathe with these broken lungs

So we kick in the womb and we beg to be born

Deliverance!

Oh, deliverance, O Lord!

Caely and I don't have any answers. But we were reminded this week of the power of empathy. A visiting family friend, Mr. Mike, had heard about Art. Knowing Caely wasn't ready to talk about it, he told her, "I put something in your room for you." It was a note that said, "I'm sad about Art too," and a china figurine that looked a lot like Art. I asked Caely if his gift made her sad by reminding her of Art. No, she replied, it actually made her kind of happy.

This Good Friday, I'm realizing that Jesus can empathize with the groans of all creation, the "pains of childbirth," waiting for God to set the world free and make all things new. He wept at the death of a dear friend, and His groans of anguish on the cross guaranteed that our current suffering isn't all there is. Life between the "already" of Christ's resurrection and the "not-yet" of His return can be painful, but it's never hopeless. Death wins battles but has lost the war. 

Because Jesus fully entered our broken world, because He knew pain and sorrow and death, we can trust what He says about them. He says that He's with us through them, that His peace overcomes them, and that their days are numbered. He makes the sad things come untrue, and He's coming back soon.

Globalization and me

I try to blog monthly about what's new in my life or on my mind, but these days the answer to that is often... grad school. It's been kinda hectic. Rather than foregoing a February post altogether, I thought I'd share a recent assignment that was slightly more readable and personal than most. In this class, "Globalization and Contextualization in Education," we're discussing what globalization is and how it affects education, as well as other facets of life and society. So an early assignment had us reflecting on our story, perspective, and context as they relate to globalization.

My experience with globalization began before I was born, when my mom spent five years after college in Austria. She taught me German from the day I was born – it helped that my dad worked for a German company’s Vermont branch and that we spent a total of a year in Munich for his job by my second birthday. After that, though I stayed in North America for the next twelve years and my German lessons dropped off until high school, I still benefited from my parents’ international perspective and visits from their European friends. I also have vivid memories of the three international ESL students in my class: a Chinese girl and two refugees – a Bosnian boy and an Albanian girl; I became friends with both girls in middle school. Despite growing up in a small, homogeneous Vermont town where many residents had deep roots, I grasped early on that the world was bigger than what I could see.

A German family friend taught classical guitar to my brothers and me for years in Vermont. We loved playing with her two girls!

By college, I’d developed a passion for languages and a dream of moving overseas to a developing country – specifically Cambodia, ever since I’d heard a volunteer tell fun stories and show cute pictures. Though I’d mainly considered teaching English, since TESOL isn’t a common bachelor’s degree and I wanted to keep my options open, I studied French and German education. My language classes delved into questions of history and culture that fascinated me, particularly regarding immigration in Europe. My honors thesis focused on the experiences of second-generation Turkish-German and North African-French youth and the role of Islam in their constructed identities. Between that project, teaching English conversation at an international Christian student group, and the friendships I developed with students from Egypt, Malaysia, Japan, and beyond, I began to gain an awareness of non-Western perspectives.

After a brief stint filling in for a German teacher on sabbatical, I attained my dream of moving to Cambodia at the tender age of almost-23. In my job interview, I told the principal of Logos (a Christian international school in the capital, Phnom Penh) that I’d be in over my head as an English literature teacher, and he told me that they were desperate enough to hire me anyway. So I came, hoping I wouldn’t rue my two-year contract. Though most teachers and some students were North American, most of my middle and high school students were Asian, hailing from Cambodia, Korea, Singapore, and beyond. It was immediately clear that our so-called American school was influenced by far more than just US culture, and though it took time, I loved the challenge of finding effective communication styles, humor, and motivational techniques for the unique subculture of “Third Culture Kids” in my classes.

Students in this choir hold passports from 8 countries and have lived in even more.

In my second year, I began a French program in addition to my English classes, and soon began pondering why I was teaching it. In the US, teaching foreign languages felt noble: I was expanding students’ horizons and forcing them to think beyond their own cultural perspectives. In Cambodia, my students were already multicultural and often multilingual, and for every kid who dreamed of traveling to Paris or chatting with French neighbors, there were two who joined my class just to get a break from reading Cambodian. (In their defense, with the world’s longest alphabet and no spaces between words, the Khmer script truly is a beast.) Before my arrival, except for one semester with a Mandarin teacher, students had been required to study Khmer from elementary school through tenth grade. Now that I was there, students could abandon Khmer after eighth grade and switch to French. Besides their dread of the alphabet, there was the power differential: some of my students from wealthier, more “developed” countries disdained all things Cambodian as inferior to their native culture and language. On service trips, I realized many of my non-Cambodian students had almost no Khmer conversational ability. Was I partly to blame by giving them an out and teaching them the language of a wealthy, powerful nation? I encouraged my French students to continue practicing Khmer and did my best to lead by example, studying it myself as much as possible. I looked for ways to celebrate non-Western Francophone cultures in class, even though I was much more knowledgeable about Europe. I also became peripherally involved in developing a Khmer track for non-native speakers, one that included more conversation, less literacy, and more interactive teaching methods, in hopes of empowering and motivating my expat students to communicate more in Khmer.

A beautiful goodbye letter from my dear Khmer friend Thavy

My other hesitance about teaching French pertained to its relevance to my students. Though Cambodia was a French protectorate through 1953, most French speakers were slaughtered in the genocide under Pol Pot, and after 1979 the public schools soon switched to English as their primary foreign language. French is still used in Cambodia’s medical diagnoses, prescriptions, and the labels of some imported foods, but little else. My principal agreed that though French certainly did more to foster students’ English vocabulary, its importance was fading in comparison to Chinese, not only in Cambodia but worldwide. When I announced that my sixth year would be my last, he hired a Mandarin teacher (much more competent than the first one) to replace my French classes. Of course some students were sad to lose the French option, but many enthusiastically dived into Chinese. I was glad and in some ways relieved. It did cause me to ponder, though, how languages wax and wane in conjunction with the economic and political power of their speakers. That was the year that my dad lost his job again, as Asian competitors increasingly conquered his niche of the technology industry.

When Logos’ parent organization started a training program for Cambodian teachers during my fourth year, I was eager to become involved. I’d enjoyed befriending many of them and wanted to deepen my relationships with them. I taught two weekly classes: one on English pronunciation and one on writing. The next year, I assisted a Cambodian teacher (my original Khmer tutor) in simplifying the English for some education resources in order to translate them into Khmer. In my last year, I mentored a new Cambodian teacher at Logos, observing her and helping her set goals for growth. My interest in training Cambodian teachers, along with all my questions about globalization and education, ultimately led me to Lehigh and to the M.A. program in Comparative and International Education. I’d still love to return to that teacher training program after graduating. In the meantime, I’m starting my thesis, which will focus on the Student Council program mandated for Cambodian public schools, exploring its participants’ emotional intelligence and civic identity. I also hope to wrangle through some of my concerns about why, how, and to what extent I hope for Cambodian education to globalize. While Cambodia’s schools are far from perfect, even my stubborn remnants of “white savior mentality” don’t expect foreign meddling or the copying and pasting of other nations’ successes to yield easy progress.

A major influence on my perspective of globalization is my Christian faith, since I believe God created humankind full of diverse languages and cultures in order to mirror his own beauty and creativity. Christians therefore have a moral obligation to not only tolerate but celebrate that diversity, learning from others and considering others’ needs before our own. In my opinion, that includes fighting against isomorphic trendsetters and unseen powers-that-be to revel in the beautiful quirks of the local as unique manifestations of God’s glory. I’ve always been one to root for the underdog, and I hate seeing smaller, less-powerful countries like Cambodia drown in foreign influences or be divided up by global superpowers. I want my Cambodian students to have excellent Khmer; I want them to publish books in Khmer; I want them to preserve their language and culture in the onslaught of English language and Asian Tiger influences, even as they become fluent in English and learn to compete internationally. On the other hand, I don’t believe we can revert to worldwide isolationism; today’s world is inherently connected and interactive, a fact that is likely to be ever-truer in the future. That’s why I believe it’s important for Americans, who have a louder voice than most in shaping the unseen forces of globalization (from corporations to military to media) to learn how to truly see and value smaller groups. That’s far from a comprehensive resolution to the tension, but it’s a first step, and one that’s facilitated by globalization as the world comes to our doorstep through migration and technology. It’s one reason I was passionate about helping my students become effective communicators in English – their stories need to be heard, and others around them need help to raise their voices.

As I reacclimate to US culture after six years of mostly living in Cambodia, I’ve been horrified at some people’s xenophobia and desperation to protect their culture from outside influences. Case in point: How could New Hampshire, where voters pride themselves on attending many campaign events and carefully weighing all candidates, overwhelmingly vote for Trump in yesterday’s caucus? His appeals to fear remind me of similar approaches from reviled French and Cambodian politicians when I experienced elections in those countries, and at the time, I hadn’t imagined that such a politician could rise in the US. While some of his supporters probably believe their group is entitled to dominance in the US, I believe many others are foolishly underestimating their collective power in relation to the power of seemingly threatening newcomers.

Then again, my own grasp of power distributions is also tenuous at best. How accurately and completely do I know current national affairs, let alone the broader global situation and historical context? That’s one thing that’s struck me in recent class readings. Globalization is such a complex, vast, and multifaceted phenomenon that my puny attempts to understand it feel about as effective as an ant trying to map out New York City. I’m hesitant to generalize about our world when my vantage point is so small and there’s so much that I’ve never contemplated, let alone witnessed firsthand. Without excusing racism or wrongdoing, maybe I need to extend a bit more grace to those who strike me as “overly American,” remembering that globalization’s forces can bewilder the best of us. I need to remember that lesson from childhood: the world is far bigger than what I can see. All I can do is keep my eyes and ears wide open, embracing every opportunity to explore new nooks and crannies. I don’t understand globalization, but I want to keep learning.

She-nanny-gans

Since school started, I've been nannying the neighbor kids just part-time, but we've still had adventures in between homework sessions. I'm learning a lot about them and gaining wisdom about how to work with kids this age; it's quite a switch from high school, yet awesome in its own way. I'm glad this is not just a job but a relationship - they've gotten to know some of my family and friends, and vice versa. See the following photos for evidence.

At one of our favorite parks

Enjoying Thanksgiving dinner with one of my former Logos students, Harah, and her roommate Ji Hye

At a local event for preteen girls on healthy body image

On a class trip to the farm (no, Jimmy's boa did not go AWOL during the trip)

At my church's Christmas concert

Guess who was an angel in her school's Christmas program?

Out for an unseasonably warm Christmas walk (they loved my aunt and uncle's dog, Pepper!)

Making Christmas cookies...

... And hot chocolate for their dad's birthday 

(all 3 kids and their dad have birthdays in the month following Christmas)

Someone was sleepy after a nap in the car (not me, I promise!)

Another successful sewing lesson with my mom, yielding 2 scrunchies: one for her, one for a friend.

This girl's birthday pool party had to be postponed due to Pennsylvania's Snowpocalypse, but at least the weather lent itself to her first-ever sledding experience! It was also my first real snow experience in six years. In her words, her 9th birthday was "epic."

Her sister liked sledding too, but preferred eating snow.

All 3 had a great time!

I'm thankful to be in these kids' lives and looking forward to continuing in 2016. I've already seen them grow a lot, and it's been a pleasure!