Individualism or Community

Here is a challenge I have been wrestling with in my teaching. Is it good for me to impose my western ideals of individualism on my students?

Cambodian culture promotes working together for the common good. Traffic patterns are such that one is the safest if you move along with others. It isn’t such a good idea to insert your own independence, even if you are in the right. Many generations in one family live together, the younger ones providing for the older ones, while the older ones care for the children. In school, this means students work together, with often the brightest ones helping those that are weaker.

In each of my classes, I have a class leader. I have seen how he or she takes care of his classmates. If a classmate is late with an assignment, it is he that comes to me and asks how his fellow classmate will be graded. He turns in the late work. When I turn back work, everyone compares their grades. Inwardly I cringe at this – because I think about the problems this can cause in the US, both interpersonal and legal. But they all seem to rejoice in each other’s success, and quite frankly, laugh together at some of the comments I have given them on their work.

I am assigning a variety of written work this semester. While I have encouraged the students to talk about their labs and their conclusions, I have said at nearly every lab session that I want the writing to be their own. And I have promised not to grade grammar. As I collected their first lab reports, I could see that this message really didn’t sink in. I could group the papers into pretty much 3 or 4 piles, within each, the writing was identical. Corruption is certainly a part of the educational system, where it is fine for students to copy from each other and even talk aloud to each other during an exam. Grades can sometimes be bought. In my class, the impetus for copying each other’s work is even greater. I’ve asked them to write in English, and some of them have far better skills than others.

But I keep thinking, am I wrong to grade harshly those who have worked so closely together? In the long run, will this change how the students value community – something that is so different than our individualism in the west and frankly, quite refreshing. Is it really right for me to expect students to work alone? Are they better served working together?

My course in green chemistry is not conceptually difficult. In fact, the content is much simpler than what I’ve seen in student notebooks from some of their other courses. But one of my main goals is to teach them to think critically, and evaluate data and experiments, not just memorize facts. I want each of them to learn these skills, so I ask them to write their own papers. But I’m not sure I’m doing it right.

Roseann

More on Mondulkiri

Janaya has written about our recent elephant trekking, but let me tell you a little more about our recent trip to an eastern province of Cambodia. Mondulkiri is definitely off the beaten track in Cambodia, but we want to see more than just Ankgor Wat and the beach. We were, however, the rare tourist family in the wild east of Cambodia.

It took seven hours to reach our destination. For this trip, we decided to rent a car and a driver. Four of us were in the back seat of the Toyota Camry, Ron in the front. One of our national staff was sure to tell us that 7 Cambodians would fit in this car along with the driver, so we had it easy. The last 40 kilometers were entirely mountainous, and through road construction. A huge project is underway and for the most part, only one lane was open. Five bridges were being built, so each time we were taken on a detour down the side of the mountain / hill, and back up again. The mountains are similar to the Appalachians, not the Rocky’s. In fact, everyone commented on how much it looked like home. Only one flat tire, when our driver crossed a threshold between tar and gravel too quickly. He had a nice spare in his trunk, but we didn’t understand why he stopped nearly in the middle of the road to change it!

We stayed at an eco-tourism lodge on top of a hill, outside of the town of Sen Monorom. It was quiet and peaceful. The kids could get some personal space wandering around the grounds and our cabin. There were cats, horses and a dog for Acacia. The lodge’s restaurant resembled a tree house, built right in the midst of the trees and with lots of plants. Being so far out of town, they pretty much had a corner on the meals for all of their guests. But they had a large menu – western and Khmer, and never were out of a food we ordered. Austin claimed that he was still required to sleep under a mosquito net on this “vacation,” he was only eating western food. The days still were warm, though cooler than here. But it was so nice to sleep under a comforter as it got nice and cool at night.

Although I thought my Khmer was pretty good, I had a terrible time communicating with our driver. We expected that he would go into town and find a cheap guesthouse and Khmer street food. But he stayed with us the whole time, even sleeping in the hammock on our porch. Felt like we had a guard. And he ate very little over the weekend.

Day one was our elephant trek to a nearby waterfall. On the second day we drove out to a plantation we had seen and walked around, seeing all sorts of tropical food growing. We continued on, on a road I would read later to be one of the worst in Cambodia. I think we got our money’s worth out of this car and driver! Very rough and full of big rocks, but alas, when we reached the waterfall, a national ecotourism site, it was beautiful. We saw a few Korean tourists there, but no westerners. Many Cambodians were there, but it was not too crowded. We certainly felt the beauty and the chance to cool off under the spray were well worth the drive. We hoped our driver did as well. He had never been there before. Our Khmer was good enough to bargain for and buy some locally grown pepper, and coffee. Later that day we drove to another waterfall, close to town, where the kids were hoping to swim. We watched some boys jump from the top into the pool, but alas, there was so much trash in that water, that we didn’t let the kids swim.

Mondulkiri – great choice for a long weekend in Cambodia.

Elephants fun or not so fun

Last weekend we went to Mondulkiri, a province in the eastern part of Cambodia. We had a five day weekend so we decided we should go somewhere. My dad wanted to go to Mondulkiri cause its the coolest place in Cambodia the rest of us wanted to go cause you can ride elephants through the jungle there.

So we rode elephants. Let me give you a pre-warning before you start to get jealous- Elephants are NOT comfortable. It was really fun for the first hour, a little scary looking out of the basket you sit in but pretty fun. But by the time we got off for lunch I was glad to. I was sore from being knocked around in the small baskets and not being able to stretch my legs.. But I was still enjoying the ride, we had rode for two hours before we stopped for lunch. Our lodge had packed us fried rice. We had lunch at a waterfall while the elephants rested. We cooled off in the water and Austin and Acacia swam in the pool below the waterfall. What was supposed to be a two hour break turned into a three and a half hour break.
Then we got back in the elephants and went on the two
hour ride back to the village. By the end I was very glad to get on my own two feet and was quite sore the rest of the day. All in all it was a cool experience but not one I think I need twice in my life, once is more than okay with me.

Janaya