Home Thoughts From Abroad

This one is from a friend and colleague, Corrina Austin, whose blog (http://corrinaaustin.wordpress.com/) keeps me connected to life that I once knew and loved:

Trilliums

Something in the wind, or a glance from the sun
…and in unison, they lift their expectant faces,
pure and white,
this congregation of grandiflorum

I cannot hear it, but their song lifts
into the air
a secret chant, a sigh of strings
an ache of vibrato
disguised as stillness

Later in bed, watching the moon rise
I think of them out there,
trembling in dew-fall,
still waiting
their faces glowing holy in the moonlight.

Cambodia is a moral vacuum. Ruthlessly colonized by the French, who drained the country of its resources and basically brought nothing to the country in return, bombed back to the dark ages by the Americans, who were seeking to cut off the supply route to South Vietnam during that bloody war, decimated by the Khmer Rouge who obliterated the intelligentsia, wiping out an entire generation, and dominated by the Vietnamese who now control the country through a puppet ruler; it is no wonder that they have little idea of how to function as families, as communities and as a society.

What Pam and her organization are seeking to do is to bring moral education, admittedly with a Christian focus, to the people of the villages of Cambodia through health care evangelism, using the existing organizations in the country in a focused and cooperative way. In a couple of weeks both of us will return to Phnom Penh during the Chinese New Year holiday to take part in further training of these health care workers. I am looking forward to providing some teaching first hand as opposed to my usual role of being part of the support network so that I can better understand the issues and the personalities involved in her ministry.

In my own workplace I see the importance of these moral values every day. Asian students, at least those who have not been devastated by generations of war and abuse, are invariably polite, civil and kind. Manners and social graces are important components of their culture, and I must say that my time spent teaching in Asia has benefitted from this aspect of their culture which my students bring to class. Civility breeds respect; incivility contempt. But civility does more than ensure that a respectful tone and atmosphere permeate my classes. It also facilitates inquiry and discussion as students become aware that their questions will be met with not with scorn, but with polite interest and a desire to further their understanding. Inquiry and discussion facilitate understanding and develop confidence in the learning process. Eventually this brings about maturity, as students begin to own the learning process for themselves and begin to develop their own strands of intellectual and social growth.

I wrote recently about the desire of some teachers and administrators to control the process of education through anger and intimidation. It has been my observation that this control is not only detrimental to personal relationships, it is detrimental to the learning process as well. Fear may work to impart facts and even skills, but it fails impart the understanding necessary for future growth, and undermines the self-confidence that is necessary to undergo present difficulties for future gains, which is an essential quality for those who are considering a university education. Kindness and civility do not in themselves lead to advances in education. But they do mold the character that makes this level of education possible. And they do affect a society that can look with hope toward a future when the education of the youth will become a valuable component of that nation’s fabric.

Civility and kindness; such simple virtues, it would seem; so unconnected to the success of a nation; and yet upon examination, how fundamental to that nation’s progress. It is also most pleasant, and most encouraging to my own attitude and teaching effectiveness to be treated with such civility and kindness by my students for the efforts I make on their behalf. To all my students in Malaysia who are reading this, my most appreciative thanks.

Being a teacher is not for the fainthearted. The hours can be incredibly long, the stress crushing, the endless marking mind-numbing. But every once in while you get a little encouragement. I got this a couple of months ago, and thought I would post it. I hope its author, now at the University of Toronto, won’t mind.

Dear Sir:

Regards,

The Canadian Pre-University program is an excellent one: student-focused, skills-driven, staffed by some of the most educated Western university trained professionals working in Asia. Unfortunately it is virtually unknown, not only by Asians, but by Canadians as well who treat their own vastly superior educational product with a great yawn of indifference.

That’s our loss as Canadians, and mine too, as I would love to work in the next CPU program in Cambodia, for example. Except there isn’t one. In fact outside of this program I would be hard pressed to find something like it. Most of the other programs in Asia are very much content-driven, with all the deadening, dreary accumulation of facts ingested merely to be regurgitated at exam time that such a curriculum implies.

The closest thing to what we do in Canada is the IB program. It has a similar focus on skills and is similarly student-focused. If I ever do move on from CPU it would likely be to an IB school. Not that I want to move. But in teaching, as in most careers, it doesn’t pay to put all your eggs in one basket. So this weekend I took some training in the IB program, so if we reach the place where we have to move on, I will now have the qualifications to do so.

I must say I found the courses of study initially off-putting. The restrictions of what books and authors you are allowed to pursue struck me as constrained. But as I made my way through the workshop, I found myself coming to understand the program in a more sympathetic light, and by the conclusion of the workshop had begun to see its rationale more clearly and more enthusiastically. The opportunity to establish a network of teachers throughout the region with similar educational programs and objectives is an encouraging one.

The icing on the cake for the weekend was the opportunity to meet with a former student and his new girlfriend who are now working as educational consultants to students from the Middle East seeking to get further education in Malaysia. As I have mentioned before, this country is an educational hub in South-East Asia, and Anoosh and Ari are seeking to tap into that market and provide a much needed liason service to negotiate visas, scholarships and admissions for prospective students. It was great to see admitedly one of my favourite students again, and to share an outstanding meal and get caught up on each other’s news. A wonderfully fulfilling weekend, that has left me totally exhausted. Fortunately there are only three days this week before the mid-semester break which we plan to spend in Cambodia on a working holiday.

Ok, I admit that I do feel a little guilty posting this one. Gone to Bali for the weekend? How many people in this world get to say that in their lifetime? Like many things in our decision to come to Asia, working for a company that sends their employees on weekend team-building excursions to places like Borneo and Bali was an unexpected perk. However, that is what this company does, and since they were paying the freight, I didn’t mind hauling my weary body off to Indonesia for some free R&R.

The Hard Rock Hotel is situated on what must be the largest bit of prime real estate in this part of the world. The resort is enormous, and it is right downtown in Kotu Beach, one of the great beaches in the world, and a surfing magnet. Yes I did want to try surfing again, but I waited for the friends I was travelling with to come down for breakfast and missed the morning lesson. No lessons in the afternoon, as by then it was low tide and the surf is not good when the water is that far out.

But I did get some body surfing in on a boogie board and had a hard time getting out of the water as I was having too much fun. I was also getting a little too much sun, so I had to quit. In the afternoon I stretched out in one of the cabanas around the enormous pool and read and napped til supper time. For dinner we all went out to a seafood restaurant down the road for roasted crab and broiled shrimp. We also were treated to a formal Balinese dance while we watched the sun go down and listen to the awesome surf thunder into shore.

Taylor’s provided a a tour guide and buses for our stay. On one shopping trip we stopped at a coffee factory where I sat sipping my brew trying to make sense of this odd poster in front of me. There were Jack Nicholson’s and Morgan Freeman’s septinginarian faces grinning at me from their Bucket List movie with a picture of fruit bats and some script in Bahasa. Then it clicked: oh yeah, this was the coffee that was processed through the digestive tract of bats and civit cats before being roasted and ground for consumption! I didn’t finish what I was drinking!! I must admit it was exceptionally good coffee, it is just the thought that is so off-putting.

Our passage through the intricacies of Indonesian customs was also handled by Taylor’s, vastly simplifying the process. Three of my buddies, who had gone off for a last minute jaunt and had to make their own way through check-in, got booted from the flight under the excuse that it was overbooked. Their seats remained empty while I worried and fretted all the way to Jakarta. Apparently this is a fairly frequent scam. Garuda offers a financial compensation in such cases and a rerouting on the next available flight. Airport officials hose the airline by telling people who have a seat that the plane is overbooked. Then they have the unsuspecting tourist sign a release turning the compensation money over to the corrupt officials. This time the scam didn’t work as one of the teachers knew Bahasa and these guys talked quite openly about what they were doing. As a result my friends got the next flight and the money. Fortunately for them we had a three hour layover in Jakarta, so they caught up with us for the last leg back to KL.

In was a long day to get home, but I had brought some marking with me, and I finished it all at the last layover, so the time wasn’t wasted. I am tired though, after getting only four hours sleep last night and working all day today. But I feel great, and really enjoyed the trip. The music at the hotel was outstanding, and so was the room and the food. I went to Bali for the weekend and stayed at the Hard Rock Hotel. How neat is that!

The next step in the writing process is the peer edit. I have students submit their second draft in a typed copy, doubled spaced and then reditribute those essays to other small groups in the class. This serves a double pupose: the students have the benefit of knowing their mistakes before they have to submit it for marking and by encorporating those corrections their mark will improve; and secondly, they gain the additional benefit of improving their own critical editing skills that they can apply to their own written work in the future. It is a great review of the writing process.

Small group work also helps to develop a sense of community and helpfulness to other students that brings about a greater sense of ownship of the learning process and resposibility for group outcomes. It gives students an opportunity to read what others in their class are writing and provides a comparison with their own work that can motivate them to try harder themselves. It also saves me a lot of headaches in that my marking load is also reduced. What is good for others is not wrong because it is also good for oneself. A peer edit is truly a win/win for all of us.

Incredibly the first unit of this term is almost at an end. Tomorrow I am myself assessed, and on Thursday there will be the first unit test on this material. Media Presentations will be prepared Friday and over the weekend (while I am off in Bali on the company ticket) and be presented to the class on Monday and Tuesday. It is a breathless, mad dash to December: an intoxicating, adrenaline rush of content delivery, assessment and deadlines, to which I am unfortunately, irrevocably addicted.

English is a multi-faceted subject. You’ve got your grammar: everyone’s flat out favourite; reading: which we do out loud in small groups and occassionally to the entire class; reading comprehension: which should always follow reading, but doesn’t happen in a lot of programs in Asia; literary analysis: which is reading comprehension on steroids, and requires a basic knowledge of narrative styles, prose and poetic structure, literary devices and critical approaches; and writing: which encompases all of the above, otherwise you couldn’t put a paragraph-long sentence like this together! In addition we also have to cover media studies and presentation techniques. It is a packed program.

Writing comes in a number of varieties as well. I have my students keep track of their reading comprehension answers in a journal that I mark every three to four weeks, and of course they have to write tests and exams as well. But the most challenging aspect of writing is the research essays the students must do at this level. For many of my students a research essay is an alien animal and plagiarism is bacterial slime. They have heard of such things, but never imagined that they would have to do battle with them quite so early in their academic careers. It is a frightening prospect.

I have learned from long experience that you do not want to give your students much time to be terrified. It is much better to throw them in the deep end all at once and learn to swim by thrashing around. Too much thinking about about all the variables in essay writing is paralyzing. I give them a week to dig up some information on their subject and bring it to class. Then I block off the entire day for them to write a first draft – by hand – and have then submit it by the end of the class. No agonizing homework, no staring at a blank page while it mocks your incapacity to think.

Then I help them to organize an essay structure from what they have written. I provide an outline and show them how to identify the missing areas in their essay. I give them a couple of days to whip that into shape while I give them enough lessons on MLA format to get them going, but not enough to choke them. Then I give them a second full class day, this time at a computer, to type out a second draft. Above is one class engaged in that process.

My system isn’t perfect; I still have a few kids fall through the cracks and fall by the wayside. Those I have to devote individual time to rescue.  But I like to think – and conversations with my colleagues seem to bear this out – that I have fewer kids get lost this way than other teachers who take what they consider to be a ‘gentler’ approach. There is nothing gentle about my approach. I do not cluck sympathetically while my students flounder and fail. Instead I demand that they stand up and succeed. The remarkable thing is that by the end of the term nearly all of them do.

The start of each new school semester means the arrival of the latest group of new Canadian teachers.  With nine “newbies” pretty much settled into their new country, homes and teaching routines we finally had an opportunity to actually socialize with them.  There is one retired couple, one younger couple and five single guys so a very nice mix of people.

Amy and Michelle started the weekend by inviting the group over for an evening of poker, and there are some serious poker players in the group. I enjoyed the evening just watching the game and chatting although I have to admit to being totally lost with poker terminology and to not having any real desire to learn it.

The following day we got an early start, somewhat delayed by a major hiccup with the school van.  After coffee at the local Old Town Coffee, the group headed out to visit Putra Jaya, the new administrative center with its man made lake and many beautiful bridges, buildings and of the course the national mosque.  From there it was back into the city center for a very quick tour of  the Twin Towers and its gardens, Aquarium, Bukit Bintang, Chinatown and Central Market.  The tour is not meant to be an exhaustive look at any of these places but really just an orientation to the city, the transit system and a taste of the life here.

Through an inevitable downpour and very heavy traffic we made our way north of the city to Batu Caves where we were able to not only climb up to the caves but also to witness a Hindu ceremony and have a very authentic thosai with lovely dahl and relishes.  I think that everyone will be adding this to their Malaysian favourites.

On the way back to Subang Jaya we made one final stop for supper at “The Curve” which is a huge mall with IKEA and an outdoor garden area with plenty of patio type restaurants.  It was a very long day with some challenges along the way but all in all a great way to welcome new folk to our adopted home.

The school Prom has come and gone; a chance for staff and students to dress up a little and have some fun together after working hard all year getting this graduating class ready the next step in their young lives. It is always a happy time, lots of handsome young men and lovely young ladies enjoying each other’s company and congratulating one another on having survived of the most critical years in their young lives.

The food was great, the music a little loud (is it just me, or did we always have background music so loud that conversation becomes strained and difficult?), and the MC, Victor, very entertaining with an endless string of inane advice to the graduates. I got my picture taken with as many of the students I had taught as I could, and wished them all well as I should. Then once the dancing started I retired to the relative peace of our condo, as watching others dance when my dancing partner was in Canada was just a little too melancholic.

Today we made the final adjustment to the marks in preparation for their report. Friday is the Grad, my last duty before heading home to Canada to see Pam and the rest of the family. This is a time of year when I always get reflective on what has taken place over the past twelve months, the successes as well as the failures, and I will share some of that in a weblog shortly.

Take 350 teenagers and pack them into dense rows in tiny desks and what do you get? In Malaysia you get dead silence. In fact when I took this sepia-toned picture on my phone, a digital shutter noise went off, and half the students looked my way (much to my embarassment), because it was the only sound in the room.

The concentration and devotion to the task at hand that you see in this picture characterize these kids. Quite simply their future success is on the line. They know it, and behave as if it matters every day. If they are successful, the Malaysian government will fund not only this year, but four year’s worth of education at a university of their own choosing anywhere in Canada. If they fail to qualify – and qualification means a graduating average of 80-85% depending on the funding program they are under – they not only do not get to go to Canada, but their families will have to pay back the $5,000 from this year as well.

In return the students must agree to return to Malaysia and serve their country in some capacity – as engineers, technicians, pharmacists, etc – for five years. It is a good deal for the kids, and an expensive commitment from the Malaysian government to the success of the youth and the future wealth of the country.The armed forces in Canada have a similar program, but not nearly so broad in its scope.

Not all the students do return. Some take jobs in Canada and settle down there, which greatly enriches our country. Contrary to the widely misunderstood notion of immigration, foreigners do not steal our jobs, they create them, but that is a post for another day. Let me just say that I am pleased to be part of the effort that this country is making to raise the educational standards of its youth, and greatly admire the dedication to excellence of my students. I also wish them well on a very tough English exam! I will post your marks on BB7 early next week.