July 2, 2002

Eric Vandenbrink joined our Cambodia rural school project out of high school in Tokyo sandwiched in between college. He had only intended to do this for a year but he did such a superb job coordinating the English instruction of the kids at the Future Light Orphanage, who are sent out to teach other kids in poor, remote, distant village schools, in combination with visiting these schools to update our Web site, that I persuaded him to stay with us an extra year. Without Eric we would not have had such a complete and up to date Web page as we have, and the project itself would not have leaped to its present level. Eric reliably produced regular reports on his activities. This was his final report before leaving for the States and entering Deep Springs College, a unique and wonderful institution:

 --Bernard Krisher                                        

Over the past few months, I have visited each school where we have professional teachers or younger trainers from Future Light Orphanage.

As you know, the purpose of my visit was to evaluate the teaching abilities of the various teachers, to make sure that the students were doing well, to give guidance and instruction where necessary, and to gain an overall sense of the program.

I was very impressed by the teaching at most of the schools. A few that were very successful were the Rattanak Sophorn Nippon Foundation School in Pailin (Tay Khy), the George Mrus School (Tim Sohka), The Taiko Iwase School (Chhorn Chanti, a FLO student-teacher), and of course the Wakako Hironaka School in Preah Vihear, where we have had classes for the longest.

However, I did notice that the less successful teachers were all making the same mistakes. They taught using the old-style Khmer teaching technique: read, memorize, repeat. I believe that this is not the way to teach a language, and have told them so. It is important for our students to learn how to use a language, and the best way to do that is to have them use the language themselves, and not to just memorize stock phrases or conversations. Rather, these should be used as models from which to build, not and end in and of themselves.

When I encountered this, I spent extra time with the teacher concerned, and went over more student-centered, active methods of teaching. In some cases, we brought teachers back to Phnom Penh for more training.

One particularly surprising aspect of the program to me was the success of the Future Light orphans as teachers. All around the ages of 18 to 20, they go out to the rural schools for periods ranging from six months to a year, or more. Despite their youth and lack of teaching experience, some FLO teachers are among the most capable teachers we have. Perhaps their youth makes them more accessible to their students, or their enthusiasm is the cause, but by and large the kids teaching kids aspect of the program has been a success.

I was also able to identify a few areas which I feel could use improvement. 

The first is supervision and communication. Often the schools are beyond range of most telecommunications, which presents a problem when the computer fails, for instance. Informing our office in monthly or biweekly reports are not good enough, as it means that the students are deprived of class for as long as the message takes for us in the office to get and respond to. The solution I propose is to set up a supplementary communication system using ICOM, government radio relays, or something similar. By using such a system, we could cut down on the time it takes to fix or replace broken equipment, or to bring back a sick teacher.

We should also institute a more regular program of school visits, perhaps once every three months or so. This would enable us to keep more accurate tabs on how teachers and students are performing, as well as to proactively solve problems before they get too big. Perhaps we should institute a program of continuous donations, or increase the cost of building a school, to cover the overhead involved in increasing the frequency and duration of visits.

Finally, we need to ensure that we have a teaching presence at a given school for long enough to make a difference. I know that we are on a tight budget and thinly spread already, but it seems like a waste to teach many students just a smattering of English and very basic computer skills. 

Rather, I think we should leave teachers at a given school for four or more years so that they can teach students to at least the intermediate level. 

Yes, fewer students will have the chance to learn, but at least those with the opportunity will have a good chance to learn a foreign language and computer skills, but more importantly to learn them well.

It's been very rewarding to work here over the past year and a half, and I'm sad that the time has come for me to go. Thanks for the opportunity to make a difference.

Best regards,

Eric