Excursion to the Lhakang

Xavier and I had a nice break from routine this afternoon when we accompanied my class two students on their Dzongkha excursion to the Lhakang (monastery) up the hill behind our house.

It was a very pleasantly warm afternoon so the boys pulled the tops if their ghos down and the girls shed their black taegos (outer blouses). I felt overdressed in my kira for the steep walk up the dusty hill.

It was my first time to go inside the monastery and it was nice to go with all my favourite kids.  The students had worked in groups to compose questions in Dzongkha to ask a monk at the monastery. I was the photographer and videoed the interviews, unfortunately not understanding the questions or the answers. I could tell the students were using their very best manners when speaking to the monk. It was good for me to see my students who are doing their very best to learn English with me as language learners in Dzongkha as well. They are working very hard.

Afterwards we walked back down the hill and the conversation was quite fascinating.  It seems like some of the girls have a crush on their new Australian classmate! Xavier was lapping up all the attention! After a while I joined in with the fun and let them know that Xavier already has a girlfriend in Australia. This encouraged a lot of giggling! Xavier had the last word though by telling us he has a Bhutanese girlfriend! I'll keep her identity a secret!!

It was so nice to have some casual time with the kids, soaking up the sun and mountain views. I loved seeing Xavier so at ease with his new charos (friends), both boys and girls (including his classmate who wants to be king of Australia when he grows up!). He fits in really well in class two and I love that we get to spend so much time together still.

Here's some photos from the day (still no broadband, I would love to write captions!).

A Wish List

When I applied for this job, being resourceful was one of the most sought after qualities in applicants. I think I have been very resourceful, and understand part of working here means making do with what you've got. At home and school we are learning a lot to adapt to local conditions.

I sent two ten kg boxes from home, full of children's story books, card games, art materials, teaching documents and all sorts of other things. Having these helps me lift the interest level as well as the intellectual depth of our lessons.

I have purchased locally a variety of stationery items that students don't all have themselves: felt pens, lead pencils, crayons, scissors, rulers, erasers, pencil sharpeners, paintbrushes, paint, A4 paper, cardboard, marker pens,  staplers etc etc.

And then there are the resources I am finding from reusable materials. All along the side of the road on the way to school are colourful plastic bottle top lids of which I have collected well over a hundred and taken them home to wash. They are my counting materials (imagine teaching place value without paddlepop sticks), and markers for games. Every plastic container, cardboard box or can we use at home finds a new purpose at school.

And I have spent many many hours already making a variety of teaching resources: posters, tens frames, word games etc etc, all without a printer or photocopying.

So after all that I have enough resources to make learning fun and stimulating. Still, I think my students here are no less deserving of a world class education than their peers in Australia.

We sit in classrooms here with broken windows big enough for kids to poke their head out of, long neglected. There is no soap available to wash hands at lunch times or after using the toilet. Tissues are not used so snot runs down the faces of kids, inevitably spreading germs. Many children have rotten black teeth from lack of dental hygiene. I would love to have a magic wand to solve these and other problems I see daily.

So here is the bottom line... I am wondering among my readers if anyone is in a position to organize fundraising for this little school in Bhutan? I know even in Australia and other western countries there are many worthy causes, but I still want to ask. I am also grateful for friends, family and colleagues who already made contributions before we left and don't expect the same people to feel burdened. I ask now as it gives me time to enact some projects.

Also I want to add that I arranged with the principal today to conduct my first Professional Development seminar with teachers so that I can share all the resources and ideas I have brought from home in the hope that my reach is further than just the kids I directly teach. Whatever resources I have brought and made I intend to leave here and I want to know they will continue to be used.

I wish you could have seen the kids today when for English we read a poem about a tree and then went outside to paint a tree! I had eight water paint trays to share and only enough paintbrushes for half the kids (can't buy them locally). It felt like I was handing food out to starving children, they were so desperate to get their hands on these precious items that I would say most do not have at home.

Same scenes in the library, it is like a football brawl, kids grabbing, snatching, fighting to get their hands on a book! Most don't have books at home and the only bookshops I've seen are in the capital 12 hours drive away. I accidentally sent a library book home with each year one student today, but found out later they are not meant to borrow as they probably won't be looked after or returned. Oh dear!

Anyway, my heart breaks for kids who don't have books to read, paint or crayons to draw with and the basics of hygiene. I don't know whether there is enough food on all their plates but that is another issue entirely.

Here is my wish list:
*cash (for the various projects I suggested)
*classroom supplies like felt pens, color pencils, crayons (the ones available here are worse than the cheapest and nastiest at home), colored paper, oil pastels, interesting pens, paintbrushes etc
*teaching supplies like games, dice (I have made some from cardboard but would love a pack of ten like you can buy for $2 at the reject shop) paddlepop sticks and rubber bands, counters, joining blocks, alphabet stencils (I brought 5 but its hard for 28 kids to share something so cool!), stamp pads (I sent alphabet stamps but the stamp pad arrived all broken and ink through everything).

I hope you don't mind my putting my wish list out there. If you know someone who knows someone who may be in a position to help, forward this on!  I look forward to any response, great or small. Kadinche la!!!!

Our School Day

There are moments of our school day that bear a resemblance to school at home, but most of the experience is 'a world away'.

From the moment we leave home we greet all the neighbors and shopkeepers with ' kuzuzangpo la!' and gather a group of kids to walk  with down the middle of the national highway, moving to the verge if we hear the horn of an approaching vehicle. I hold Xavier's hand because it is so cold and explain to him what frost is on the ground and how when I was a little girl in Tasmania it would be frosty in the morning too.

I aim to be at school by 8 am, which gives me a few minutes to get organised. Unlike home there is no computer to set up, no emails to read and respond to, nothing to print or photocopy (not available), no staffroom to linger in with a cup of tea (there is a staff room, but no one lingers there), no parents to meet with (kids all walk to school without parents).

After that the kids have fifteen minutes of Socially Useful Productive Work, mainly cleaning the classrooms and grounds. There are no paid cleaners at the school, so unless the students do it (including the toilets) it doesn't get done. Some students are conscientious and others are openly lazy, but seem to be kept in line by the teachers.

I find this is a perfect time to get through a couple of Running Records. Yes, believe it or not I stumbled on a dusty pile of PM readers in Thimphu and with glee I sorted through them till I had a complete set from level 1 to 25! At only about $1.50 each they were a great buy, so here I am willingly assessing my students' reading where no pre-assessment culture seems to exist.

I have two goals: to track my students' progress as I hope to see dramatic improvements over the year, and eventually I hope to share this resource with the teachers here. So far my best reader is about a level 7, most are more like 2-3. Unfortunately the class texts that I must use as they are assessed by national exams are about level 16 or so. Mmmmmmm.

Xavier and I now have a copy of the National Anthem lyrics in roman letters so we can sing along at morning assembly. Most of the rest of the assembly is conducted in Dzongkha, and it amuses me to watch Xavier looking at the clouds and wriggling in his gho, standing out in his fairness from the locals; he is the only foreign student.

I run my class as much as possible as I would at home... who am I kidding, I have had to change nearly everything about the way I teach!! There is no room for a nice spot on the floor for kids to sit while I read a story or explain a lesson. They are squeezed into their rows of desks as there is no other way to arrange the desks in the tiny space.

Bellevue Park teachers will be pleased to hear I have also assessed my students using the Words Their Way system of teaching spelling. The students all came out in the same beginning 'Letter Name Alphabetic' phase, barely able to spell any words, in fact I stopped at question 11 out of 26 as it was all too hard. Again I am eager to see some dramatic results (Miss R I might ask you to analyse some data for me) !

I have found that the kids just love copying off the board (I'm guessing this is what they are most used to). I allow a bit of this, lets call it modelled writing, to introduce a new phrase. Then I try to get them to innovate on that phrase ie today we did 'How many .....s are there?' ' There are five ......s' etc etc. We also practise saying the phrase a number
times to work on fluency and phrasing.

Bhutanese students are unfailingly polite. The moment I appear with a pile of heavy books, students take them off me and deliver them where I need them without being asked. When entering a classroom (after going to the toilet for example), they wait at the door and ask for permission to enter. Every student greets me with 'Good Morning, Madam'. Australian children could definitely learn a thing or two from these Bhutanese kids.

Today I taught my grade 6 library class some games. They had never played bingo before, so contraction bingo and plurals bingo were a real hit. Another favorite from home is the 'Bang Game' for learning sightwords that had them laughing and enjoying themselves. Xavier (who comes to all my lessons in the library) was my little helper and was in his element!!

Other curious things happen daily and I just have to go with the flow. Today, in the middle of a lesson, my students had to carry their ramshackle stools out through a hole in the fence, across the national highway (unsupervised) down a dusty slippery hill to a workshop where men were repairing the stools. Some were in acceptable condition and were sent back, those that were falling apart were swapped for ones that were marginally better and then back to school again.

School finishes at 2.10pm for the pp and class 1 students, but 3.50 for my class 2. By the end of the day they are losing the plot, poor things, their brains full. With only four subjects, English, Maths, Dzongkha and EVS (social studies), it is a grueling academic schedule. We did a drawing activity this afternoon followed by their new favorite game, Duck Duck Goose. I was very pleased when the bell rang !!

Xavier and I often pop into one of the shops on the way home to see what we can see (you never know what they might have available). Xavier manages to twist my arm and gets a little treat (today a 10c choc bar). Walking home, our landlord's daughter Tenzin tags along (as an aside, her father's name is also Tenzin as is her little sister's. She has a new baby brother and he will also be named by the Dalai Lama, likely to be another Tenzin!!!). She is good at finding the colorful soft drink bottle tops from the side of the road that I am collecting to use as counters/counting materials in the classroom. She often boldly comes inside our home and plays with the boys while I get dinner ready. Tenzin is a sweet little girl, well behaved and it is nice to have her around.

Again, I have to load all my pictures at the end without captions. The internet was meant to be connected Monday this week but the Bhutan Telecom man did another no-show...

Saturday Morning Excursion

I was up bright and early this morning and off to school. Yes, students come to school five and a half days each week here. I didn't know what to expect, as it was my first Saturday since school started.

I have only one class on Saturdays, my homeclass, grade 2 for maths and I thought the library would be the perfect place for the activity I had in mind. We sat around a large table and matched up ordinal numbers and words on cards, and there was a frenzy of activity as the kids caught on what to do.

Then they had to write the words in their maths text book. They took to this seemingly simple activity with such zest. It was loud and chaotic, but I hadn't seen them so engaged in a task, or as eager to complete it. Wow! I actually had tears in my eyes seeing them all work so hard!

The reward for the early finishers was to read one of the library books, and again the gusto with which they selected and read their books made me feel emotional as it was obvious that books are not ordinary household items for most.

After that, the principal's wife, Madam Pema, herself a teacher at the school, took us for an excursion to the local milk processing plant. Behind our house is a non-descript house without a sign our anything to identify it, but now we know this is the place to come for fresh milk, yoghurt and local cheese (a vast improvement on the uht and powdered milk we've had).

As we watched, a local lady came in with plastic jerry cans full of milk from her cows. It was measured and then we had our empty one litre water bottles filled. No milk cartons here!

Next, a big plastic bin full of fermented milk was stirred with a wooden paddle and measured out: yoghurt!  Unfortunately we couldn't buy any of the local cheese, sold in hand-full size balls, as you have to call and 'book' it in advance, but now we know the system and the place there will be nothing stopping us!

Next stop was the post office, rumoured to be just a kilometre up the road. It turns out we had walked past before but not noticed the faded sign hidden in the trees. We were on a mission to collect a parcel from Nana and Poppy for Xavier's birthday next week, and lo and behold, it had arrived!! Thanks Nana, it will make his day.

Walking back, we stopped to look in a 'General Shop' I hadn't been in before. It turns out the owner has travelled in Australia, New Zealand and Canada and they also have a restaurant so we enjoyed some momos and samosas for lunch and an interesting chat, stocked up on beer and I bought a new kira and blouse. Almost like a Saturday morning at Pacific Fair... almost!

Below are some photos, sorry I can't caption them...

Bhutan, Bumthang, Chumey, school, education, maths, volunteer teacher, Bhutan Canada Foundation, cheese, yoghurt, milk, kira, momos, samosa, post office