It’s in their hands now

I don’t teach children. I don’t have children and don’t play with them either. I know that’s a clear indictment of being a brutishly cold human, but that’s really the way it is.

I can’t even remember how it happened. I have an informal contract now with the provincial government to improve English education at the elementary school level. People don’t even now if that’s 1,200 schools or a few hundred more. How do you count? How do you define “school”? Some schools are building with no students. Some have students with no teachers.

I’ve already visited a half-dozen elementary schools and could easily use up all the memory on my camera. Trainers are doing the sign language now so I have a chance to video the children. Children are high maintenance when they’re unhappy, but when they’re happy, they are undeniably delightful. Sign language makes them happy. And they’re speaking English too.

I’m trying to think how this all happened so quickly. I just finished a 4-day training for 30 elementary school teachers using sign language. The four assistant trainers assigned to me switched from being sceptics to advocates within days. We’re planning on introducing it to the high schools and training college. I’ll have a workshop in Vientiane and they say they’ll set up workshops for any province that catches word and asks for help.

We can all easily choke to death on teaching methodology and second language learning theory.  We can drown ourselves in our own drool in curriculum planning meetings and I won’t add comments about TESOL conventions. With sign language, you don’t even need to explain. Just show them. Let the children show them.

I watched how children worked their magic on the trainers. The teachers come from old school thinking and should have been the last people to be convinced, but once with the children, they were moving around the room helping children make proper bunny ears. The teachers who had come to train were impressed, but their big day came when they tried it themselves in the classrooms. The came back to the workshop thrilled by the experience.

Now, please imagine. You’re a singer, but have gotten only tepid applause at the best. Most are looking at their watches. No, suddenly you’re a rock star. Your audience is literally waving their hands at you and screaming at every chance.

That’s what’s happening with the teachers. They’re thrilled to see every single child in their class looking at them with big eyes of anticipation. They’re thrilled when they teach 20 new words and by the end of twenty minutes, the children can remember them all. They must feel pretty good about themselves.

The workshop went well, but I wanted to reach the final mile on the last day. Some teachers still felt that being a teacher meant holding a stick. Finally, one grandma-like teacher who showed the delight of an 8 year old from the first day came to the front of the room. I couldn’t understand what she was saying, but someone told me she was basically saying, “Take that stick out of your ass. Wiggle your butt, make bunny ears. For chrissakes, these are children!”

Note: I’m not a brutishly cold human as I find these children unbearably delightful.

The golden chedis and red carpets Chiang Mai

I’ve had a good life. I can appreciate things when something good happens, especially after the bad.

It’s rush hour in Bangkok and bicycling to the train station is not like sitting in a hovercraft. The safest thing is to stay in the flow of traffic, but as the road ascends, I realize to my horror that I’m on a one-way highway that spans the Chao Phraya River. There are traffic police ahead. They waving me to come and I hear them saying, “You sucker, this will cost you 1,000 baht.” I wave back, “Uh huh, going back.” The traffic is thick enough that they can’t even chase and arrest me.

The next wrong turn is onto a one-way street so I’m riding over the sidewalk rubble, dismounting and lifting the bike over each cross-street curb, cursing the thought of missing my train.

Somehow, I make it to the station and am relieved when I plop into my seat, facing a man who’s supposed to smile in recognition. Instead he looks puzzled and wants to see my ticket. “How can we have the same seat?” Then it’s clear that my train left a day ago.

There should be another train that night. The ticket guy shows me the last seat on his computer screen, but he does so while simultaneously yawning, stretching and picking his nose. I express my disgust and he gets snotty. “Full” he says, clicking away the last ticket. I trade in my pride for a ticket and buy one for the next day.

Just on a hunch, I go to another window and sure enough there’s a seat that night. We go back to the first window to get my money back. I raise my hands like, “Well ????” but he’s peeling lotus seeds.

It’s a new train. I sleep well. The cars are air-conditioned, sealed and kind of boring, but they’ve kept the old dining car intact, either for historical reasons or because the staff would have protested. In the morning, I head that way for Nescafe and the moment the last automatic door slides open, Thai life rushes in. Thai country music blasts and with each rock of the train, I’m so sure the dining car will erupt into a glorious Thai musical.

Staff have started on their whiskeys and greet each other with the warmth of friends who eat breakfast with each other every morning. Someone has his hand out the window, playing with the sensation of the passing air. When anyone moves their hands beautifully, I check to see if they’re signing something. I don’t know his choice of words, but the message is clear. Lifted by the aerodynamics of the warming mountain air his fingers float like feathers on a hawk, I know he’s expressing every golden drop of this sensational moment.

Golden moments continue in Chiang Mai. I am welcomed by the researchers whom I’ve come so far to see. I’m in awe at the signing software they’re developing and they seem flattered. At the university, the inclusive education department is more than cooperative. On the second day, I’m early for our appointment, but I hear them say, “He’s here” and within minutes everyone is mobilized; tripod in place, signed discussed and prepared. I leave with videos of hundreds of new signs, all done in a painless few hours.
Back in Laos, I’m in a sour mood. “Why can’t Laos seek help from Thailand? Look at how much they’ve done?” Someone explains clearly to me. ‘Martin, you don’t understand. We have to watch Lao people painted black and acting as comic slaves on Thai TV dramas. It’s not time yet.”

He’s right. It’s unfair to compare. Within an instant, I’m back in Laos. I thought I’d never forgot those golden chedis in a land where some people’s profession is to give good service, where some people are happy to share knowledge and a place with perfect cappuccinos on every corner. There are claw marks on the tarmac. “I don’t wanna go,” but it all fades upon impact. Lao charm can do that to me. People will ask, “Where have you been? Haven’t seen you in a while.” They’re saying, “Welcome back.”

Where the sun rises 2011

Happy New Year. 15 hours ahead of the time in Seattle – and in a sleeper car in transit from Ubon to Bangkok.

In search of Thai sign language books, I’m bicycling through traffic in the mega-city of development, light-years away from Savannakhet. Gliding silently over asphalt in what must be the closest experience to being in a hovercraft. I can marvel at everything curious and miraculous, awakened to a new eon, and still stay safely detached.

Even the biggest book store in the biggest shopping mall with the biggest aquarium in SE Asia doesn’t have the books I’m looking for, but the employees are well trained in the service industry and print out directions to the place where I will find them.

I’m tired from walking in this shopping universe without my hovercraft and when looking for the exit, I’m made aware that if I wanted to, I could buy chandeliers, rococo furniture, Hugo Boss suits and even a few cars if I wanted to, but if I really wanted a box of Krispi Donuts, I’d have to wait for at least an hour in a line that looks longer than immigration. What are these people doing? Poor people must be hungry from empty stomaches, but why is it that rich people never feel full? And why does it seem like all roads to development end in a shopping mall?

I will not spend more than five minutes thinking about this. What is more impressive about development in this country is the advances made for the non-hearing. I’ve heard about several award-winning projects done by students which include things like signing robots, speech recognition translation to signing systems and what will be more manageable for me, software to visually digitize signs.

The reason for my anticipation and urgency is that signing will be a part of an elementary school level English language education program in Laos, a mouthful with an acronym that looks like ELELEPL, but in simpler language, I think it’s going to happen. In 2011. 

Dinosaurs are forever

Dinosaurs are extinct. They wouldn’t be happy in this age. Nobody would care for them as pets and they could never find their shoe size. They wouldn’t fit, but only for the reason that they didn’t evolve.

Even at their size, might wouldn’t always be right. These days, we like fair play and finishing off an opponent just because you have car-crushing pincers does not make for good sportsmanship.  Some people say it took a meteor to finish them off. I think they just ate their own babies.

Animation makes them fast, but I think they were slow. A lack of self-reflection retards one’s reflexes and they didn’t have hand mirrors. If they did, they would probably have feared their own image as a threat to their dinosaurisism. It’s not like their genetics resisted change. Sitting at the top of the food chain probably helped maintain their self-deceit.

Oh, I just think about dinosaurs because I saw one in concrete decorating the front of a guesthouse here. While other parts of present Laos were submerged, Savannakhet was a paradise on earth for dining dinosaurs so now their big bones resurface once in a while, if you know what I mean.

Full moon

It was a full moon if that makes any difference. Everything that could possibly go wrong for the speech contest happened. The computer and projector failed, mics went silent, nobody thought about turning on stage lights, MCs froze like deer in bright lights when life didn’t match their scripts.

I saw it coming. I couldn’t track down people for a whole weekend of dress rehearsals. I told the lip sync artists five times to bring a backup CD player. They remembered their false eyelashes, but not their music. Lip sync looks really bad when there’s no sound.

I had told myself to let it go, to keep a calm smile despite the worst. I moved to the back of the hall just to be sure I wouldn’t interfere, but once the videos that I had lovingly spent hours on played at 80 % speed, dragging ever moment into pain and boredom, I found myself in the control room before anyone could strap me down. “Shut it off! It’s so bad! Stop it nowww! It’s only later that I wondered if the whole audience could hear.

The four speakers were unruffled. At least they didn’t show it. They were prepared. Each day I saw them get better. One female student would stay until late in the dark hall, practicing each hand movement and turn of the head. Memory lapses were just prolonged breaths or a flutter of an eye. They were poised and nearly flawless. They rose like phoenixes above the disaster.

The event ended in a scattered mess. Speakers didn’t get their prizes and certificates, pictures weren’t taken and sullen rectors and deputies quickly shook hands and ran home wondering why they had bothered.

People tell me it wasn’t that bad. Students have told me this is usual, but I was disgraced. Was this my lesson? Was it hubris calling for a hard fall?

Trying to repair pride is probably as damaging as tripping over it, but the next day I find myself dusting off my trampled wings and strategizing again. My article about the contest will be in the Vientiane Times the next day. The guests from the northern college say it went “smoothly” (hah) and that they’re ready to implement new ideas back home. They’re talking about a national competition now. Will I be able to look back one day and laugh at this folly?

I feel bad not having had the chance to congratulate the speakers afterwards. The next morning I text messages to them and get one back full of happy icons. I see two in passing, one on a motorbike and another through an open window. We exchange big smiles. It’s a private smile between us that speaks a lot. On this day, it’s a happiness that has no bounds.

I know their day on that high stage is a turning point for them. Passing through the birth canal, prickled with nerves and personal fears, students come out the other end as a different person. They look shiny and confident and comfortable in a bigger world. I think they’ve flown from a nest and that’s why they look so radiant and airborne. I feel privileged to have been a witness and will always hope to see their happy gait again somewhere.

Shining stars

It’s the 30%, maybe the 5% or even the one in a million that reminds me I can’t give up. The reason is because one shining star can save the world and maybe even Laos.

Mr. K is my neighbor. I don’t see him behaving as the best student in his class. I seem him in his daily life, which can be more honest and revealing. This morning I see him dressed and ready to go somewhere with the aura of intention that demands the question, “Where are you going?” After all, it’s a Saturday.

He says he’s going to go to the Internet shop to look for pictures. He’s going to be teaching in a local school from February 2011 as part of his teacher training and wants to prepare things for his students. This is not a homework assignment. This is something motivated by the desire to use a Saturday well. He’s going alone so I know this is his own idea. You can’t start to imagine how exceptional this is.

I recognize his intentions because I have high hopes of spending a productive Saturday too. He’s noticeably deflated when told the electricity is out for the entire day. His plans for a productive day are shot.

He has an urge to search for information and this is very rare. Most are content with what’s fed to them in class, no matter how nonsensical it is. He already knows that there is more outside the little box he’s been trapped in.

His first Internet search did start with a class assignment. Was the teacher really so clever as to know how hard it would be to find “significant female Lao leaders?” They had to be dead too. I helped Mr. K search since I didn’t think he’d think to use the word “significant”. We found cabinet members, but they weren’t dead yet and wiki only had two sentences on them. He didn’t feel it was enough despite my urging and once we clicked away, he couldn’t find the page again for the next few days of searching.

“Martin, I’ve spent 4,000 Kip looking and have to come home with nothing.” I reminded him that he spends much more money at school for many more hours and probably comes home with less. Suddenly, he measures his own learning, be it by the clock or by Kip. It’s a new standard and there’s a new urgency.

He’s already tried the library, but it’s usually closed and the librarians don’t know Dewey from “don’t have”. I made Mr. K promise to get himself to a real library some day in his life, a library where the more esoteric his question, the more respect he’d get.

There are many things I have to ask him to believe since he’s never experienced them before. How would he know? He’s surprised to hear that dress codes aren’t the most important thing in American schools. I tell him, “People are judged by their minds, not by what’s on their feet,” and this surprises him.

Shining stars are lonely people because their lights are not reflected. If anything, they are envied or used by others. They don’t know that they are seeing things that others can’t see yet. People will try to pull them down, at least until their success and truth becomes undeniable dazzling. That’s what I urge them to aspire to.

Mr. K is listening seriously. I know he understands. It’s a weight and responsibility that many shining stars didn’t ask for, but once they’re lit, it is not acceptable for them to go back.

Med students

Sometimes I catch myself becoming a little too Lao. Things that seemed odd at first become natural, like the idea of eating insects. But there are limits. If the smell of burning plastic ever becomes fragrant, I’m going home.

Years ago I remember having a strange conversation in which some guy would pepper every comment with precise percentages. “74% of the people in this district want to study English.” “98% believe that educating their daughters is important.” “I ended the conversation when he said something about 100% of some ethnic minority being liars.

Recently I was pressing medical students for percentages. Being good students, they were resistant. “How can we quantify what you’re asking for?” I wanted to know the breakdown of students at the medical school. How many are studying, how many are drifting and how many are there for completely other reasons. The student gave in and came up with numbers. 30% are learning, 20% are not and 50% are there because their parents want them to be doctors.

I felt that my intuitive assessment had been confirmed and was impressed with the 30%. At the Teachers Training College the rate of competency can’t be over 5%. Some who are more precise say 3%. Just this morning one student asked me in a new hybrid of Lao/English, “Jao si go where?” Does that scare you? These are future teachers.

I’d be really scared if these were the students operating on me, but so far, the med students seem more legitimate. Not only are the books selling like toasted rice balls, there are students with an entrepreneurial streak who have caught on. They’re buying books for 12,000 and selling for 17,000. They pay cash first. You can’t imagine what a relief this is to me and how much of a total nightmare it is to leave books on consignment.

I spent many years and tens of thousands of dollars to develop something I thought could be used as an English language curriculum only to be greeted with blank stares. I made these books in direct response to the miserable things schools are insistent on using. One teacher complained that if they used my books, I would make too much money.

I talked to someone who has done education work in Africa and is convinced that the language education field throughout the world is a dead-end, especially when money is thrown at it. Medicine is not my specialty, but let’s hope the next time you’re on a Lao operating table, this investment pays off.

New book!

This was on my mind for years. Can you imagine? The national medical school doesn’t have texts. It’s all ad hoc. Teachers throw material together for each class. I saw the medical library in Vientiane and the books are a mixture of French, Thai and English and a few rare Lao texts. After all the translations, you might as well be playing pin the tail on the donkey. Would you want medical care here?

I’m taking pictures at the nursing school. There’s a plastic model with removable organs. The stomach lid falls off and a woman is trying to put the liver back in, but she’s approaching it like a puzzle she doesn’t know. “Maybe if I push harder, it’ll fit in here." The liver goes every which angle to find some space.

Who can solve the puzzle? In the case of English, some of the top students in the class speak in a babble I don’t understand. They can get away with it because nobody else understands either.

In the case of math, I’ve heard teachers will give points for “4+6=11” because it’s close. Some students at the teachers’ training college are terrified to become teachers because they know how little they know. Would you want to be under the knife of a terrified surgeon looking for your liver?

A basic medical text in Lao/English doesn’t solve the problem, but English is so unavoidably necessary, we have to start here. Even when education was a bit better in the past, doctors couldn’t agree on standards because they had been educated in Rumania, Cuba, Russia or France. Nursing students feel English is essential if they want to get further education outside of Laos. It’s not imperialistic to say more current knowledge is based in the English language than in Lao. For the sake of everyone’s health, let’s hope they learn quickly.

Among the many NGOs scrambling for a corner of Laos, cleft palate and cataract surgeries are probably the most easily funded. I did my best to appeal to one organization in the past to focus on producing medical texts rather than swooping in and out for intensive care. Texts are not glamorous and I got no response.

Now, I am blessed to be working with Health Leadership International (HLI) based in Seattle. They’re all about education, capacity building and leadership and are not shy to invest in producing texts, no matter how daunting that task is.

I’ve also found a doctor sent from the heavens in Savannakhet who has diligently proofed and translated the text. Thanks too for all the people who let me take photos even though they probably felt really rotten.

So here is the book. A primer, but hopefully a promise for more to come.

Please Ma'am, may I have a drop?

I’ve been hanging out in hospitals these days. Fortunately, not for Dengue or dysentery; diseases that everyone seems to have now.

The pool I go to in Vientiane uses so much chlorine that my teeth get fuzzy after two laps and there shouldn’t be much living there. That’s why I’m surprised, soon after a swim, to feel like something with five fingernails has attached itself to my eyeball. By the next morning, I have to pull my eyelids apart as they’ve crusted together. In Lao, it’s descriptively called red-eye. In English, it’s called conjunctivitis.

Someone tells me it’s caused from watching dogs mate. That’s why I take their advice for cures with a grain of salt. People vow that boiled Betel leaf or the drip of fresh milk does the trick. I’m told, “The next time you see a woman nursing, just go up and ask for a few drops.”

Don’t really know if that’s a joke or not, but when I go to the hospital, not for Dengue or Dysentery or Red-eye, but to take photos for a new text, I’m told that short of a pap smear, I’m perfectly free to take any pictures I want. Privacy of the patient? At first, I try to explain why I’m there, but nobody seems to care a bit. No signs of alarm that someone is walking into their examination room and snapping pictures. Can you imagine that in an American hospital? I’d be arrested.

I took the first batch of 400 pictures on the wrong setting. The next time, I was less shy about asking people to stick out their tongues. The woman in this photo came in for her ears, not her throat.

Let’s call this one “Communion: the consecrated tongue depressor.” Intimate, yes? We always see a sense of intimacy expressed with a mother a child. Sometimes intimacy is suggested in a Vemeer with the pouring of a milk jug. As we can see, intimacy is also created when peering into other people’s orifices. On the other hand, people tend to shut off the lights when having sex so as not to see what’s inside.

Return

I am on the night train from Bangkok to the Thai/Lao border. I’ve taken it many times, but wonder for the first time if riding retro is not a good enough reason for just going cheap. We’re riding through another rainstorm and the water starts to splatter all over the sheets. In the middle of the night I find that the sliding doors on both ends are jammed and I know what claustrophobia is, the panic of knowing there is no exit.

It’s 3 AM and I can’t sleep anyway. I’m heading back to Laos and the thoughts creep in again. The school that won’t pay for a thousand books, the debt, the bleak outlook of making books sustainable.

There is no exit. In the early days, somebody prophesized, “If you leave Laos, you’ll just try the same thing somewhere else and you’d have to be crazy to think it’d be any easier in Cambodia.” In the early days, somebody else assessed that I was in a kind of Lala land.

I pried one door open in the train. Maybe it was a staff car or something, but a group sitting and eating on the floor seemed very displeased that I had intruded. “Go to the other side,” they said. I explained that that door was stuck too and it was pretty scary to know we were locked in a train carriage. The guy who had to answer my plea couldn’t squeeze his body through the opening, but didn’t seem concerned. So we crash, there’s a fuel leak and the train threatens to explode into an inferno while everyone is going to try to squeeze through this space one-by-one?

Chicken little is vindicated because true to my words, the other door is stuck fast too. The guy struggles with it, gets it loose and walks off without saying anything.

I’ll soon be back in Laos. How am I going to make these doors open?

Goodbye

There is a map and I guess it’s pretty consistent. Humans lose interest in food. Our eyes lose focus. We stop talking. In the last stages, our bodies go hot and cold, our feet get splotchy and our breathing irregular.

Then, there is the territory where there is no map. Nothing can prepare us for the final parting. My family was lucky to have had time. We could tell our father how much we loved him, how much we’d miss him and how he was free to leave. Still, nothing is more absolute than when the body goes still. He’s not with us anymore and we lose our bearings.

We had an open house in memory of our father. More than 100 people came. Relatives and friends, distant neighbors and people we didn’t even know. Everone was radiant. They ate and talked and smiled and lingered. It was the singularly sunny day in a month of undependable weather.

It makes me think more about my own end. The amount of time left is a secret. Nobody can tell me the numbers, but I think of death like tent stakes that pull life up taught. It means that there is no slack. Someone told me that I still have at least ten more years of fully productive work. Doing books in Laos makes me weary these days, but that’s not an excuse.

I went through hundreds of photos of my father. He has a radiant and infectious smile in almost all of them that speaks of his spirit in life. He was clear sighted to all the reasons in the world why he shouldn’t smile, but he chose to smile. These days, more than a few people have said that I look like my father. Nobody in my family think there’s a resemblance, but if he could smile through adversity, I would surely like to be more like him.

Dreaming

Some research claims that the only reason humans don’t get confused between nighttime dreams and daytime reality is because once we’re awake, our brain is programmed to erase what we experience in sleep.

Sometimes, during the best of dreams, I am aware in my sleep (if that’s possible) that I must try hard to remember my dream, not necessarily to bring it into daytime reality, but simply because the experience is so precious.

Within minutes after waking, the details begin to erode. Why were we waiting at a ferry dock? Why did I know this person’s entire life story even though we’d just met?

Last night it rained and I slept well. My mind was not occupied with failing students, unsold books or the daily frustrations of doing anything in Laos. Instead, I was told in the dream that I should stop for a day at a certain beach. It started with an “S” and was halfway between Savannakhet and Bangkok.

That map doesn’t quite coincide with present geography. My impeding trip to Bangkok had been smoothed to a convenient arc along a quiet coastline. What is usually a dreary trip was now full of sea breeze.

There is closure in Savannakhet. The students have proved to me that it’s possible to learn. Once young people find their own feet, they are eager to run. They run, but they remember who helped them. Years ago, students in Thailand saw me off at the train. School was finished and our classroom days were over. One student said, “Thank you for helping us to grow up.”

I’m looking at that smooth arc to Bangkok because from Bangkok I go to Seoul and to Seattle. I am going home to be with my father. I hope he won’t mind if I just sit by his side. Parents are the true teachers. We can only thank them by teaching the good lessons we’ve been taught. And then, one day, we have to say goodbye.

Only in Laos

It’s the last night and my neighbours want a memorable meal. There are just three of us. Another student has gone to stay with his monk friend and another has a wife somewhere. Their concession to not use MSG has also dampened what should be a festive moment. “Would be great if we had music,” he says, but we don’t have any. I like the sound of the crickets, but they must wonder why such a common sound pleases me.

Somehow the conversation turns to dragon monsters, spirits and animism. I’m not sure why this one student who can’t speak any English seems to be an anthropological specialist in village belief. He explains that every village has a shaman and that’s where they seek explanations. Someone’s headache goes away after it’s understood that a man must release the lizard he’s captured. There are rules about clearing forests and other violations of the spirits.

I told them I had heard from a Khamu man that they had lost their forest spirits because of Chinese logging and that he no native cosmology to pass on to his children. The two students I was talking to nodded their heads as if this was 9-11.

Devastation of a native cosmology is a form of terrorism, but in the name of modernity, it is executed by one’s own hand. There are no particular government policies against animism, but in the same way that driving a pick-up is more fashionable than riding a tractor, spirit worship gains few followers these days.

The student says these things will not survive because they are not true. Saying that truth is relative only puts them in a post-modern confusion. I’ve never heard of a Lao anthropologist and even if there were I’d be afraid that the research techniques used would undermine the terrain under study. “Modern” education is the Trojan horse that promises development and instead spreads viruses to conquer.

Forcing a bolt as if it were a screw is a good way to bewilder young people. I’ve determined that 80% have given up on trying to understand their teaching methodology courses. Full of rational and logical formulas, they appear clean and modern, but if you use these techniques in a Lao classroom, you might as well ask for the spirits for help.

I don’t know anything about Lao spirits, but there’s a spirit in the students that I recognize. I recognize when they’re dispirited and I recognize when they feel whole. Sign language helps them get back into their bodies. Could there be a way to attach foreign language learning onto their native spirit cosmologies?

Apichatpong Weerasethakul has made another movie recognized at Cannes. At the award ceremony he said that he hopes his achievements will inspire young people to try something new. "We have become too much of a monoculture, with the same logic of narrative," he said. "Minority cultures have been prevented from discovering their own ways of doing things.” Now, as if coming out, he admits that his inspiration comes from the fading spirit world of the Lao-Isan region of Thailand. He doesn’t dare to say exactly what his belief system is, but his movies are infused with this world to the very last drop.

Following a convoluted road, I feel like I’m seeing a light. Why is the most institutional of schools my battlefield? It’s because this is where the most destruction happens. What could possibly happen if these students reclaim their worlds? What kind of super-teachers would they become?

I told my neighbors, ‘I know of no other place in the world as special as Laos.”

How good does it get?

It’s the end of the term. It’s finals time. I’ve taken the students on my own path for the past six weeks, but now if they’re mainstreamed into the standard finals, they’re all doomed to fail. To save them, I’ve successfully negotiated the right to give them a final of my own design.

And then I wonder why I’ve negotiated so vigorously for something so risky. What if the students fail? What if they feel disenfranchised, having been derailed from the status quo?  What if their conclusion is something like, “Is this what we get for being honest?”

But the reason why I’m so confident is because the verdict is already in. The students have changed. They don’t use their phones in class. They don’t use class for chatting with their friends. The absent glaze in their eyes is gone. They’re determined to learn and they’re not letting anything get in their way anymore, including themselves.

I negotiated so that the final was an oral test. The message had to be clear, “There is no way you can cheat on this final.” They had to translate phrases we had studied from Lao to English / from English to Lao. They would have to respond in seconds and had to be very prepared.

80% passed with astonishing confidence. I had the privilege to look every student in the eye and confirm that they owned their own knowledge. Confidence makes the eyes shine. Like winners in a game show, they slam their palm on the button and win the pot. 

The other 20% need more time. I discovered that the 5 boys who sat in the back row couldn’t differentiate key sounds like ch/sh/th/s/z. When all these sounds sound the same, they can't get past the starting block. I offered to help them that night, but they didn’t show up. Like turtles in a protective shell, they weren’t ready yet.

Another 10% thought they could play the old game. Two begged for the chance to try again. Why did they think ten minutes of review would help? Technically, you can’t cheat on an oral test, but they had a friend mouthing the answers behind my back. I wasn’t going to waste time lecturing. I just asked, “Why didn’t you prepare before?” She said she had a sore throat or something. (cough, cough)

It would have been a challenge to win over every single student, but I was finally just getting to know everyone’s name. To be fair to myself, we had already arrived. The culture in the class had changed and we were on a new bus.

My memory scans over the highlights of the last six weeks. The times I’d yell myself hoarse over the din. The day I slammed the door and kept students hostage until they finished their writing. The day students started learning and the day someone told me, “You taught me how to be honest to myself.”

50 students crowded into a 95-degree room. Who could have imagined it could be done. 

How bad is it?

It’s bad. I shudder at the thought of these students being teachers. Most can’t speak or write English. Worse yet, they’ll teach the way they’ve been taught which means we’re back-pedalling into hell.

I was horrified to see that their “methodology” course covers 4 entire semesters. It’s like teaching the techniques of brain surgery to those who haven’t learned what an internal organ is. Most young people learn from example, but I haven’t seen much evidence of reliable modelling even with 4 semesters of theory.

The current international trend in “student-centered learning” came as a welcome laxative to “overworked” teachers. It meant you could turn on a video and leave the classroom. In Laos where there are usually no videos, every exit from the classroom is justified as “self-study”. I do my rounds to try to scoop up the mess of bewildered students.

When students are left to graze on their own, they find there is no grass. Then, they suspect that what they’ve been told to forage for something that’s not digestible anyway. In order to get points and pass the tests, the most sensible thing to do is to copy and cheat.

I can correct 50 “essays” in five minutes because many students don’t bother to change the font when they copy from the Internet. Those who hand copy don’t bother to change a word, so it’s an easy game of pairing the original with the copy. The copier’s writing is sloppy and there are more misspelled words. Some just pay others to do the work.

In terms of cheating, it’s a lost cause with 50 students crammed into a classroom. I have to make two versions of a quiz and that’s how I get entertaining results like, “Have you ever eaten Vientiane?” or “Have you ever been to a goat?" Now, I do two rounds, one student to a desk. When time is called, students have 10 seconds to run and put their papers in my bag. Otherwise, 15 seconds is enough to copy an entire quiz.

Cheating goes down and scores go up. That’s interesting. The daily average is posted and I’ve seen the bottom-line seep into students’ consciousness one-by-one. It’s pass or fail and it all depends on individual effort.

One student who got zeros on tests could now recite by memory two pages of lessons. He said another student drilled him. I also found out that it only took five minutes or practice.

Like the earth spinning, it would take a tremendous effort to change directions. On the other hand, I’ve confirmed that the solutions and potential are there. When will people understand that if you want to go forward, you don’t pedal backwards?

Buggy snacks

I don’t know what they’re called in English. “Maeng Mao” are like unevolved termites that by some evolutionary twist have wings. On rainy nights they come out in swarms in a frenzied flutter of death. So desperate are they to get to a light bulb that they’ll squeeze through window screens and beat their flimsy wings until they fall off. I think that’s the point because maybe it’s a last flap after mating. They don’t seem the fittest insect to me.

My first experience of them was in Thailand. On a rainy maeng night, I was trying to seal my screens in defense when by chance I took a look at my bathroom where they were pouring in through the slotted concrete. The cloud was so intense that there was a disco flicker effect against the light. What scared me most was the big toad in the corner having such a field day that I was sure I’d witness its stomach explode.

They come like a quiet plague. Street lamps attract so many that the detached wings cover the pavement like parchment snow. They’re hard to sweep up because they’re so airborne. It’s a bit strange that the quiet remains of such an orgy of death are delicate brown wings.

I knew that people ate them, but it seemed too easy a prey to make it even delicious. After all, you just sweep your porch, wash them and fry them in oil. The wings curl like roasted tea or tiny kelp. Some say you don’t eat that part, just the body part.

Now, the twist to this whole story is that they are delicious. They’re crisp and salty like seaweed and nutty like peanuts. They would be outrageously delicious over a bowl of hot rice and I’m sure Japanese would love them. I’d eat them with fermented natto beans with a raw egg. They’d make good “Maeng musubi” or “terminte onigiri.”

I told my Japanese friend who runs a restaurant. Surely a new hit on the menu. She told me I had turned Lao.

Happy Lao New Year

I grew up in America so the holiday seasons will always mean turkey stuffing, the smell of pumpkin pie and dreaming of a white Christmas. It's hard to transfer that significance to 40-degree heat, spirit ceremonies with boiled eggs and free-for-all water fights, but that's the way of the world in Laos.

 As with New years anywhere, it’s about washing away the old and bringing in the new. What better way is there than using water? Buddha images are washed with water and water is cupped into parents’ hands in a gesture of gratitude. Then for three days, you will be drenched by water anywhere you go, be it with buckets, hoses or water guns.

Most students at Savannakhet Teacher’s Training College (TTC) go home and I can get a sense of where they come from. One student says he’ll bring me back a wild animal to eat. I request that it be cooked first. The real sense of remoteness though is the fact that most of these students are often the only ones to have left their village in search for an education.

I’m told that in villages just ten kilometers from the city of Savannakhet, it is common for parents to send their children, sometimes as young as 12, to be laborers or sex workers in Thailand. Sometimes they’re married off before they’re 15. Sometimes they’re never heard of again.

The whole story, as I’m told, is that the money sent back is often used to build a house or buy a car. Then, the neighbors get jealous and competitive and that’s how a culture of under-development spreads.

Sometimes I am in awe when I realize how precious some of these students are. One student’s plan is to go back to his village to teach. It’s a five-hour walk from the nearest town and it’s common for the villagers to run out of rice to eat each year. He can teach in their ethnic minority language and even more encouraging, I believe he will actually have the abilities to teach well.

On the other hand, I’m sometimes baffled at how some students can learn so little. Many graduate with a license to be teachers and can hardly spell their name. It’s frightening to think that they will then have unquestioned authority as teachers. But then again, anything can be bought at the right price.

It’s a new year and we can try again.

The future of a nation

According to the local newspaper, 26 million dollars has been granted by ADB (Asian Development Bank) to Laos to upgrade education. I guess there are reasons to grant so much money because obviously they’re not worried about how it will be used.

To put it simply, people who decide budgets are not the people who use them. (figuratively speaking). In other words, teachers’ don’t have much say in this matter. In other words, students have almost no say in this matter.

Policy makers look down into the pond and see their own reflection. Under the water, the fish are the ones who know what to eat.

Today, a student asks what an ALVEOLAR ridge is. It can be easily explained as the place in the mouth where the tongue touches to make some sounds like /t/ and /n/, but he wants to know how to translate it into Lao. The teacher hasn’t come yet so I pull out my own pronunciation texts and we whiz through several sounds including points on reductions. Within five minutes, the students are speaking with an American accent and they understand what they’re doing with their alveolar ridges as well.

Students don’t know what to eat if they’ve only been given fish food. I’m curious as to what will happen if fish are suddenly put in a verdant pond. Over the past three years, I’ve created enough to make a lake. Finally, I’ve found a place to try it out and I’m curious to see if we can create a feeding frenzy. Afterall, seeking good food is a natural instinct.

Students struggle with independent clauses, but have no problems with their phones. I might as well teach through texting. I send sound files through bluetooth. With a new Internet shop across the street, they’ll be learning from youtube.

One female student told me she taught herself classical Lao dance by watching people and videos. I’ve heard about a student who’s taught himself how to hack. Pretty amazing since there were no Internet shop at the college until three days ago. I can’t fight what’s holding the students back, I can only help pave superhighways for them to run with.

All I can say is that I’d be very impressed if after 26 million dollars, students can speak with an native accent after five minutes, regardless of if they know their ALVEOLAR ridges or not.

Modern representations, Laos 2010: Deconstructualism II)

I don’t know why, but I always find striking examples of modern art in Savannakhet. Of course, every place is special, but I especially like Savannakhet. She hasn’t sold her soul to tourism and without any pretty attractions like waterfalls, caves or ancient temples, she has to be sincere to be liked. I think people are nice.

I was reading about the Edinburgh Festival. Maybe creativity is at its best when it is uninvited. The fringe can only happen when the center doesn’t rule all. In Luang Prabang, tourism reigns and any fringe effect would only look staged. Vientiane prides itself on being the capital and I could imagine anything fringy being dismissed as weird. Laos needs a creative center. There’s no sign of it in Savannakhet, but I wonder why I’m so sure it can happen here.

There’s a crumbly French colonial section with lots of empty buildings. There are a couple 60s modernism buildings, one a movie theatre and another unknown in original intent, but spectacular. There are some holes where buildings have been torn down, but for the moment, two spotlights on the chipped wall, a cello or a khaen and you’ve got an outdoor concert. Traffic is not yet the primary soundscape in Savannakhet.

This section of town is only quiet and theatrical because it is neglected. I don’t know how long it will last. If the city gave free residence to 50 artists, Laos would have its creative heart to beat. Imagine performance art on a grand scale. Imagine a city where everyone used sign language. I get startled sometimes when I see people unconsciously using recognizable signs as they speak and gesture. The beggar woman was signing “eat”. When I approached the check-in counter at the airport, the woman signed, “Good day”. How could this be? She said I had taught her the day before in a classroom visit.

When we talk about learning, it is startling when something is observed, shared, remembered and recreated. This is what language learning is really supposed to be about. I’ll be back in Savannakhet to try to make this happen.

Reading out loud (with your hands)

The deaf school in Savannakhet is the only school I’ve had the chance to distribute the signing books directly to each student. I was looking forward to this treat. My bicycle bags were packed and I dropped in unannounced.

The director made sure all 24 students had gathered and instructed them to take care of the books. “Don’t rip the pages. Use it so you can learn to sign well.” In this interaction, I could learn a new sign for “Take care of” It was fun to hand the books out one-by-one.

I gave books for them to take home to their parents too. I figured that everyone would already know all 600 signs in the book, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Without any instruction, students moved into little study groups to look through the book. Through the years of teaching, I’ve spent a lot of energy trying to get hearing students to sit down and use a book. There’s so much chatter. There are mobile phones and endless exchanges. I’ve seen carefully cultivated concentration shattered to bits at the smallest distraction.

I sat with a small group of older boys to sign as I still need as much practice as I can get. I didn’t know the sign for “foreigner” so I made it up by signing “country” + “outside” and the boy gave me an astonished look, “What ARE you saying?” The director is a pleasant, competent and helpful woman and she showed me the proper sign which is “different” + “country”. I’m sure that the boy was saying, “You’re signing is really hopeless” and then repaired his slip of hands with a not completely insincere comment of, “You’re doing OK.” For me, comprehension through signing is like a holographic flash of understanding. I catch myself and think, “Did I really understand that?” It’s so clear, it’s beyond doubt. There’s a particular certainty when we use our right brain.

The girl-group was sitting quietly (well, of course) under a tree and all were intently going through the book. In the way that speaking people would read out loud, they were going through each sign with their hands in motion. It was an very beautiful moment. When I was leaving, the director wanted to tell me. “You know, all the other students are in their rooms reading the book.”

When I bicycle by the deaf school, kids recognize me and wave. I wave back and try not to sign and drive. I don’t dare use two hands to say something.