Professor Kerri

A few weeks ago, we had a meeting with our school founder.  He wanted me to begin a teacher training class for some of the high school students in the hopes that over the next couple years, they will learn enough to become teachers at our school.  I expressed my many reservation about undertaking such a class - for many reasons - but that did not matter.  During the meeting, I was quickly scribbling down all my comments and questions.  I glanced over at Laum's notes, and he had written, "Make good teachers."  Laum is astute in many ways, but actually running a school is not one of them. 

I opted to teach this class twice a week for two hours in my apartment because I have A.C.  Originally, 5 students signed up, but 10 showed up for the first class.  We are a little cramped, but it sure beats having class in the office where it's hot, loud, and busy.  There are 9 high school students ranging in age from 14-20.  Sophert also wanted to join the class because she wants to improve her teaching skills, even though she has to pay for a substitute for her class during this time.  I find it extremely admirable that she recognizes her weaknesses and is willing to gain more education.  Of course, this means her son, Pheak, is an honorary member of the class as well.  He mostly sits quietly and reads a book or watches us, but sometimes when we are playing a game and laughing hysterically, he gets excited and laughs too.  Then, we all start laughing at him.

Since I get to create the curriculum, I have decided to just teach whatever I want, whatever I think is important, particularly using a wide variety of activities and resources.  It's an activity based class, so I actually have the students do the activities.  There is some lecture, but I try to keep it to a minimum because let's face it, that's boring. 

This class has turned out to be refreshing.  For one, I get to speak only in English.  Plus, I get to enjoy their sense of humor too.  I gave the students my phone number and told them to call me if they were going to be absent or had a question.  One of my boys said, "Cha, I call you all the time."  When I announced that we were going to play Hangman, Sophert started giggling and said, "Hangman.  Not Hangwoman.  Hahahaha." 

The students are all in different grades, so their English skills vary from barely proficient to decent English.  There is one boy who has a wide vocabulary and is more knowledgeable about the world.  I asked the students if they could travel anywhere in the world, where would they go?  The answers ranged from Thailand to South Korea to Canada, but this one boy said South Africa.  I asked why, and he said he wanted to help the poor children there. 

Srey-Inh had her 19th birthday this week.  She wore a t-shirt that said, "You know you're old when the candles cost more than the cake."  Since she didn't have a party, I added one to my lesson plan for the day.  We sang to her, and I handed out a bag of popcorn to everyone.  (The previous day, I saw this guy driving a moto with a bunch of bags of kettle corn, so I hauled after him and honked my horn until he pulled over.  Then, I bought 10 bags for $1.00.)