Teaching at the Primary School

Our team prepared some fun and amazing lessons for the Primary School.  I wish I could have observed a little bit of every lesson but from what I saw, I was impressed with the quality and the ability to improvise as needed and teach without an translator at times. 

English Lessons:  Most of the group prepared little lessons to help teach English. There were many lessons including: emotions, families, different sports, the differences and similarities between Cambodia and America, all about airplanes, colors, numbers, and even some math.  The kids colored, made paper airplanes and butterflies, played bingo, made finger puppets of their family, and played lots of games while practicing English words.

Medical Lessons:  My medical committee prepared lessons that everyone jumped in to help teach.  We  taught Dental hygiene which the kids loved.  Something that was interesting was when we asked if any of them had been to a dentist, most raised their hands because they thought groups like ours were dentists.  Thanks to some very generous donations we had more than plenty of toothbrushes and toothpaste to go around.  Nicki had the kids dress up like teeth to brush each other and then we handed out supplies, headed to the water pump, and brush brush brush.  We tried to teach about germs with hand hygiene but even our translators weren't understanding very well.  We had to step back and remember culturally that "bad wind" made you sick or something in your blood, and that there were only about 40 doctors left in the whole country after the Khmer Rouge a short 30 years ago.  So we focused on when we wash our hands so they are not dirty.  One day after trash cleanup some kids went to wash their hands with soap because they remembered what we had said.  It was nice to see a return demontration.  We also taught some basic anatomy at the primary school.

Mondo Art:  The Cultral committee had a good time working with the kids on some art.  They painted and drew lots of pictures to represent what they like to do and what life is like in general.  Our last day at the primary school we painted a mural on the side of the new bathroom that turned out wonderful.

Not very many people on our team had any teaching exprience, but I think this quote sums up why it worked so well...

“No man can be a good teacher unless he has feelings of warm affection toward his pupils and a genuine desire to impart to them what he believes to be of value.”  -Bertrand Russell