A New Year Reminder

It's the start of a new school year at the Saturday program where I volunteer. It's called LIFE: Learning is Fun and Exciting. With each semester comes a lot of planning, a lot of frustration, a lot of fun, and a lot of learning. Sometimes I wonder what progress we're making with the 6-12 year olds. 

We only see them once a week  - and that's when school's on. What impact could we possibly make? And when I waver, I think of lessons I've learned from a 9-year-old boy: a boy who taught me to connect, to seek to understand, and to persist. A boy who has become a reminder of why I continue to volunteer at Whampoa with Beyond Social Services.

The first time I met Hamid (not his real name), he was 9 and I had just started volunteerig.

When the other kids were sitting down and doing – whatever – reading, writing, making things. Hamid would suddenly jump out of his seat, run around, bang on tables, throw chairs. He would swear – in Malay. Loud and often.  He would call the other kids names. And he’d do that to the volunteers too, myself included. Then some of the other kids would follow. I’d come home from those sessions tired and disturbed.

“Why do you bother?” one of my friends said. “These kids from low income homes – they’ve got too many issues. You can’t change them – and you’ll just get upset.”

Why exactly? I don’t know. Probably because I was privileged enough to have had great teachers that made me love learning outside the classroom. Adults who exposed me to concerts, plays, books. And I wanted to pass that along.

At the weekend learning program, we make learning fun for primary school kids from low income homes - in a totally non-academic, weekend sort of way.  For instance - after a volcanic eruption in Indonesian a few years ago, we made a plasticine volcano, filled it with red food colouring and baking soda mixture so that when you add water, “lava” bubbles up. Then we have the kids read about and discuss volcanoes. Have them learn how to learn.

The kids were already rambunctious. And Hamid was often a disruptive influence. At first, I would work around them and be grateful if there wasn't trouble. A year into the program, I found him trying to write an English composition assignment for school. The topic: my favourite holiday.

He said he had no idea what to write.

"How about I interview and record you like I'm a reporter and you're on TV news?"

He said OK. Then I turned the iPhone recorder on. He smiled shyly, and he spoke. 

He aspired to be a football player. His favourite team was Man U. Of course.  He represented his school at sepak takraw. He’d been to Malacca to compete. They’d lost. But what mattered was that they’d showed teamwork. He liked mcdonalds. He wanted to be a policeman when he grew up. 

I played the video back to him and showed him that he had an outline for his essay. We talked. He wrote. 

More importantly, Hamid finally became more three-dimensional to me. Not a loud skinny kid who instigated other kids.

Working with him became slightly easier after that. He’d still blow up – but less often. And he’d also help keep the other kids in order. That’s when I learned lesson #1: to lead, you have to build trust. To build trust, you have to connect. To connect, you have to care.

What next?  Because Hamid was also part of other Beyond programs, I decided to exchange notes with a social worker who worked with him. She told me that Hamid had credibility with the other kids. But that he also had a tough home life. He was the oldest of 5 and was often left at home looking after the three boys and a girl while his mother was at work. A pretty heavy responsibility for anyone - let alone a pre-teen. I'd go crazy too.

Now that I had a bit more context, I could understand why he was so angry all the time. I realised he hated academics so I asked him what he wanted to to learn. He said he wanted to play chess. We got a volunteer to teach him. And I brought him to see grandmaster Gary Kasparov speak when Kasparov came to Singapore. He was rapt. Lesson #2: To be understood - seek to understand.

In the intervening months, and years,  Hamid seemed to mature. It wasn't just our program of course, there were the social workers, his school, his sports coach all working with him. There were still issues, but he was more respectful, more calm.

He passed his PSLE. Ended up in Normal Technical. He's now 15. I don’t see him much now as I work with the primary school kids. But I know he’s in the school football team and still part of Beyond. And  here’s my last Hamid story.

A couple years ago, he won an award: $400 voucher to buy a bike. He took the voucher home, gave it to his mother for groceries. The social workers asked him he didn’t get that bike he’d wanted to badly.

We need food and things for my family more than I need a bike, he said.

Hamid had started to grow up.

Lesson #3. Never, ever, give up.

I won't sugar coat it- it's tough working with those kids sometimes. I'm drained after each session. But I've gotten so much from them and I've learned so much. Especially from a skinny 9 year old who frustrated and annoyed me - but in the end taught me to care, to understand and to persist.

Brains and the Five Senses for breakfast

Today's class at Whampoa was all about the brain. Or at least the part of the brain that focuses on our sense of sight.

The science peeps worked on the lesson plan this week. And it was fun!

Wen Cong, our volunteer from Hwa Chong junior college, began with a starter of optical illusions. The kids were really into it. One lesson we learned was that something as simple as seating arrangements can make or break a fun session. Lesson - have more print outs next time and seat the kids closer by removing the table. We'll also use more print outs next time.

With the session on optical illusions Wen Cong also introduced the idea of rods and cones- and how we perceive colour. 

Then, Ching Hua led a session on the brain. She had spent two hours researching age-appropriate reading materials and kid friendly visuals. Paid off in spades.

The kids especially loved the 'ick' factor. You want to get their attention, try saying "this is what it would look like if you sliced my head into half sideways." while you turn your head and hold up a diagram of the brain. Ching Hua got lots of "ewwwww"s but the kids were so into it.

Working with such a wide range of ages, 6-12, is challenging, in the least. And pulling together material isn't always easy when all of us have full time jobs and no curriculum development training. Today's reading materials were geared towards several age groups and we were able to divide up the kids by reading ability.

Having enough volunteers to spend one-on-one time with them today was a real treat. I worked with a 10-year-old who has a reading level of a 7 or 8 year old. She's been fairly moody lately and through her community worker, we found out that one of her triggers is when she feels she's out of her depth and the other kids are "smarter."

So today, it was just Dyana and me. No comparisons, no distractions. We got through only two or three sentences about how our ears work. But hey, I was able to devote all my attention on her, and work with her to help her really read and understand.

More to come next week. Great to have such a fabulous group of volunteers. All in all it took 5 hours from Wen Cong and Ching Hua to put together today's 2-hour program for 8 kids. That's really labour intensive. Would love to have more kids join the program - and have more consistency in attendance among the kids who do come.

Today we also had a 14-year-old who came back to volunteers. She used to be part of our program. She got some of her secondary three year-end exam results back today. She got an A2 for her English final and a B3 English average for the year. Not bad considering she was barely passing last year.

She also got a B3 for her Chinese final. I told her I was really proud of her English grade, but I also said "work harder at your Chinese OK?" She comes from a Chinese speaking family and her Chinese is really really good. So I thought that would have been a A kinda subject.

To which she replied "But I got the highest in my class for Chinese!"

Ah...assumptions.

The Cello Fellow Visits

String and percussion ruled at Whampoa this morning.

We had a great time with Leslie Tan from the T'ang Quartet and his student David. We wanted to bring music into the Whampoa sessions and Leslie's been wanting to help out for a while so this morning, the kids rocked to classical - and some not so classical - music.

Our goals: to give the kids a window into types of music and instruments they're not familiar with, have them make their own "instruments" with rubber bands, ice cream sticks, plates, string (thanks Ching-Hua for the materials) and have them make music. More importantly, we wanted them to have fun while learning and doing new things.

We tried to figure out pop music David and Leslie could play and have the kids sing along to - so we thought - Justin Beiber? Adele? In the end, the kids spontaneously broke into National Day songs accompanied by David on the violin. Surprisingly fun. And they all seemed to know those songs.

Leslie and David started by telling them about the cello and the violin - and how classical musicians were the centuries ago pop stars - kinda sorta. The pair played a waltz, and told the kids that people centuries ago would dance to the music. "Like in a club?" asked Sameer.

They played some Bach, and asked the kids of the music sounded happy or sad. (Both, at various points). Then they played a duet and engaged the kids in a discussion about partnership and collaboration.

Then it was the kids' turn. They picked up their materials to make their own instruments. And wrote several sentences about their instruments - some with the help of volunteers. We found that having the kids write "scripts" before coming up to speak made some of them a lot less hesitant than they usually were and that the quality of what they presented was a lot better as well. So - something to keep.

We gave prizes for the most interesting instrument and best presentation. Some really interesting instruments including ones that looked like a submarine, a gun (don't ask), a UFO/ drum-set, and a string instrument in which one end of a string of rubber bands was anchored to the floor with an ice-cream stick and a kid's feet while the kid plucked the rubberband for sound.

Then David orchestrated them into doing Stand By Me with voice and percussion - using the kids' newly made instruments, along with hands, feet and chests.

At the end of the class, the kids asked if Leslie and David were coming back next weekend and could they please bring other instruments as well. So, here's to next weekend - when the kids will help compose a piece of music that Leslie and David will play - along with the kids.

Will this help the kids pass exams? No.
Will this make them future musicians? Unlikely.
But if this piqued their curiousity by opening a window to something new that they'll maybe enjoy - that's something.

Not quite El Sistema, but - hey, one day.

Yes We Can

What makes a good juggler? Practice.

When you let go, amazing things happen.

Last Saturday at Whampoa, a 10-year-old who had never spoken up or answered questions in class got up and not only led her group in a presentation – she did an entire demo. Brief, to the point, and effective, Anna (all kids' names have been changed)  and her three team-mates told us to stand on one foot, and then close our eyes and continue to stand on one foot. Then she explained why it’s a more difficult to balance when you close your eyes.

Then another group got up and read an entire story they’d written - out loud, in unison. It was about an alien with 24 arms and 5 legs discovering juggling and then practicing really hard to win an intergalactic talent competition. It had a well-organised, credible plot.  Well-illustrated too.

At first I thought the 10-year-old, in the group Andy, had written the story and the rest had just drawn and coloured. It turns out that it was Shah, one of the 8-year-olds, who came up with most of the plot - and Andy was mainly the scribe.

We wouldn’t have discovered what the kids were capable of if we hadn’t let go of the agenda and improvised a little.

At the beginning of the session, we had a guest: the amazing Mickael Bellemene, contact juggler. Link here He gave the kids a preview of his gravity defying act and talked about how much he loved his craft even as a kid (didn’t like school), how much he practiced (the whole day for days on end, at one time - until he got injured) and how important it was to do things well.

Then we asked the kids to get in groups of four, come up with questions of their own, research the answers, and present - to everyone.

As with the past two sessions, we modelled the hour after Sugata Mitra's Self Organised Learning Framework in which four kids choose their own teams, share one PC, research and discuss answers, and present. The adults stayed away unless asked to help. In our case, we discovered that when we did that, the kids tended to copy and paste facts off the web, and then present stuff they didn't really understand.

We've been working on how to get over this - and the solution turned out really differently between the two groups of kids. The volunteers on Anna’s team first helped the girls come up with a narrow enough question. From my end of the room I heard words like fulcrum, flexible, balance from Anna’s group. First-time volunteer, Beverly, engaged the normally shy Anna like no one had been able to before. She and another volunteer, Hui, helped the kids come up with progressively more biteable chunks of information they could work on. 

  

On the other end of the room, Andy's group wanted to find out how aliens juggle. They went online, found some "Roswell" / alien-sighting sites, but in the end, no one could agree if the web could tell them definitively whether aliens exist. Hence the tale of Intergalactic Creatures Have Talent. Worked out fine, in my view. 

If they two things the team took away were:

- Google doesn't know EVERYTHING - really!

- and "hey, I can write and tell a pretty darn good story!"

then we'd done some really nice work that day - both the adults and the kids.

 My lesson for the day: relax, look, listen, learn. Be amazed.

Could Robots Rule the World One Day? Another SOLE weekend.

At Whampoa, our SOLE (Self Organised Learning Environment) experiment continues. It's an education - for us the adult volunteers, the senior high-school/ junior college volunteers, and the kids.

Over the past three Saturdays, we've pretty much followed the Sugata Mitra's SOLE framework: 8-12 year olds get to choose their own groups, one laptop per four-child group to research a question, each group has a helper - the only kid in the group who's allowed to be the conduit between the group and the adults, and the adults step in only when asked/ approached.

Today's questions:
1. Why are bruises purple?
2. Could robots rule the world one day?

The second question got some really interesting answers. The kids talked, wrote stuff, and didn't seem to have a consensus. One of the girls said robots were really smart and could build / make things. And that robots could be very scary - like if they were used in wars. They decided "maybe" robots could rule the world - because they could destroy buildings and could be used as weapons.


But robots could rule the world only if humans were scared of them. "But only god can destroy the world," added one boy earnestly. The oldest kid in the group was maybe 10. And a 5-year-old sneaked in today. He was the group's illustrator. He was also the one who told us, very seriously, that the Transformers are not real. They were drawn by computers - to which a 10-year-old piped up with "CGI!"

Did the group have fun? The Robot team did.

The Bruise team got a little ... bruised because the workload ended up being lopsided and one person ended up doing most of the work. That's something we're going to have to work on.

It's a process of adjustment and tweaking. Step in too much and the groups lose their autonomy. Stand back too much and the groups wouldn't get as much out of this as they could. It's so difficult for most of us adults not to plunge in and "guide" or get involved.

Lots of other kinks to work through - but one step at a time. 

I have learned one thing though. I've realised that if I were to boil down what I wish our education system could deliver to our kids - it's Confidence, Curiousity, and the ability to Collaborate. Much more useful than chasing Cars, Condos and Country Club memberships in my view.

When I was a kid, the acceptable middle class professions were Doctor, Lawyer, Engineer. The path seemed pretty clear cut. In this century however, who knows what types of jobs the future will deliver? 10 years ago, the phrase "Social Media Strategist" hardly existed. What will work look like when these 8 year olds start their professions?

This much I do know - curiousity would propel kids to ask questions, look for answers and find ever better ways of doing things; confidence would give them the self-belief to understand they have to be masters of their destinies. And they could be the smartest kids on earth, but without enough emotional intelligence to collaborate with others, the highest IQ in the world wouldn't help a bright child live up to his or her potential.

How Do Mozzies See - and other big questions

A really astounding morning at Whampoa today!

My friend and fellow volunteer Hui-e and I attended TEDxSingapore a couple of weeks ago and saw a video of TED Prize winner Sugata Mitra talk about his experiments with Self Organised Learning Environments and the future of learning: http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud.html

So, we tried it out at Whampoa with our 7-12 year olds. today. In a nutshell:

• Ching-Hua and Priya (both also volunteers) worked on what Mitra called the "Big" questions - aimed at piqueing kids' curiousity. The questions had to be phrased in a not too concrete manner to leave room for, well, thinking.
• We asked the kids to pick their own groups of four...one group had three because we had 11 kids today. 
• Each group selected a question from our list:
• How do mosquitoes see?
• Why's the sky blue?
• Where does petrol come from?
• Then we left them the heck alone. Kinda. Each group had a "helper" who were the only conduit to the volunteers and vice versa. So, if they had questions, the helper had to speak to an adult. If there were things the kids were unhappy with, they had to go through the helper.

I gotta tell ya - I wasn't sure where this would go. I'd been fully prepared that some kids would run around, not want to do the work, prefer to be at the playground or playing boardgames. But wow, they all got down to it.

Glowing at S-cubed. Or - fun with e.coli

Here's a Saturday with a difference.

 My friend Sierin kindly opened her lab to a small group of students. Her friend's two teenagers, my friend's teenage son, and S, a ten-year-old from the Whampao neighborhood. The agenda: show the kids how scientists make proteins fluoresce and why. She also introduced the kids to her grad students who were researching cancer. The kids could see how the fluorescent proteins acted as "tags" and how they were solving real world issues. Three hours of microscopes, pipettes, e.coli, agar, and anatomy lab time (that was where the microscope was. And the kids knocked down Mr Skeleton - but that's another story).

The older kids had already been taking biology - so, no problem there. Another friend Ching-Hua, from IBM Research, did some extra " translation" for S  - helpful for me too! We were worried that it was all too much for S - but today, a staffer at Beyond Social Services told us how on a recent outing, S told her all about what she saw and did at the lab. S is also writing about it in her personal "newsletter." 

My thought- nevermind if  S didn't get all the ins and outs of e.coli and proteins (I didn't!). She had fun, she learned, she's interested.

A related note - I came across a TED Talk by 2013 Ted Prize winner Sugata Mitra. He's been experimenting with kids self-learning in Indian villages by plonking PCs in holes in the wall and coming back to find the kids were teaching other kids to use the computers - with no adult intervention. He then upped the ante is slight dose of adult involvement aka British Grannies.

He's now experimenting with Self Organised Learning Environments in which kids, in groups of four, are armed with one computer and a "helper"go researching Big Topics like "Why are whales the largest mammals on earth." And the kids research and present. Post-its, markers - and a framework for us adults. 

Check it out at http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_build_a_school_in_the_cloud.html

We're going to try this out at Whampoa. We'll let you know how it goes. 

Meanwhile...we've received feedback from parents that the kids go home saying that they played games and had fun. Parents want to know "why isn't there more rote learning?" I guess we're doing something right. Next step - convince the parents that fun+learning = more effective.

New Quarter, New Program - "ish"

Different (learning) Strokes for Different Folks

It's been an interesting first quarter at the Whampoa Learning program. We received government funding for a reading program and it came with books, lesson plans, games, worksheets, and a trained teacher.

For an entirely volunteer-run learning/ literacy program serving a community in which the kids come from families that don't speak English at home,  those resources were really welcome. Now, that 20-week program's just finished, we've learned a lot. My personal takeaway: materials are just one element of any program. It's really about the individuals: the students and the volunteers.

Having books that were adjusted to 10 or so different reading levels is fab. Having a readymade resource meant untrained volunteers like us (mostly corporate people or high school students) didn't have to go the web looking for what we thought was the right level of material.

The worksheets we were given provided a great framework - but man...which 6-12 year-old would want to spend Satruday morning doing more worksheets - black and white ones at that! The lesson plans that came with those were okay...they were kinda  - dry and academic. (They tried). Again - why come in on Saturdays to do more of the same?

The games: now THOSE were winners. They were board games/ matching games...aimed at having kids learn how words are formed, what letters sound like...and for kids who come from families who don't really speak English, those have been a lot of help and fun.

We also had a KPI that there was no way we could have met: 75% attendance. And ours is a non-compulsory program comprising a mish-mash of neighborhood kids of varying abilities and levels of interest. And believe me - academics is not an interest. Kids were free to come or not come - depending on whether their parents felt it was important, whether they woke up on time that day, whether they felt like coming, whether there was food on the table...a myriad reasons.

We had a class list of about 40 kids of which about 6-12 would show up on any given weekend. And they weren't always the same kids. Absenteeism was a huge issue. Because it meant the previous week's work couldn't be built on. And it also meant that volunteers often outnumbered kids. Or vice versa. Neither provided a good learning environment.

So, now that our 20-week program is done, we're keeping the books, the games, and we're chucking out the worksheets and the uh...regimented lesson plans. The program directors also did something really really key. They culled the kids.

Here's what was different today:

The staff of the organisation we volunteer for, which includes trained social workers and community workers, went through the list to work out which kids should be part of the program. The kids had to want to be part of the program, had to be able to work with others in groups, and we also needed their parents' support and commitment. So, from 40 kids, we now have a list of 15 - of which we're targetting a regular attendance of 10 per week.

We had 8 kids today, almost all of whom showed up on time. On previous weekends, most of them would saunter in 20 minutes late.

Today we started with "Phonics Charade" in which a pair of kids in one team would be given a letter or a pair of letters. Say "E" or "CH". The kids would need to act out a word that started with the letter/s and the team would guess what the word, letter, and sound were.

Then, we got the kids to do some debate prep. Today's motion: Exams are a neccesary part of school. Interestingly, the kids and volunteers self-selected and were pretty evenly divided. Volunteers provided discussion scaffolding to broaden the arguments beyond "Exams aren't neccesary because we don't like them." (Yeah kid, I didn't either. I feel your pain.) Next session, the kids will continue the discussion and present their points in their groups - in whatever way, shape or form. Skit, rap, collage - whatever - it doesn't matter. As long as it's communicated.

Then came reading time. Or, the kids could choose the board games. Most of them chose reading.

In all, a pretty peaceful and productive morning. The kids were the "right" kids. They wanted to be there. So, we're OK for now.

In the meantime, the Centre is working on an assessment program based on Gardner's Multiple  Intelliegences: verbal/ linguistic, logical/mathematical, spatial/ visual, bodily/ kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic. http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=SG&v=l2QtSbP4FRg&hl=en-GB.


His theory is that human beings have different ways of processing and learning information. Our current education system, especially in this country, is mostly geared toward those who do well in the verbal/linguistics and logical/ mathematical part of the spectrum. So now the centre is working on finding out what each kid's strengths are, and then building a curriculum with volunteers from within and outside educational so that the program is adapted to the kids.

After five years volunteering at the program, I'm realising that we're just at the beginning of the journey. I'm excited that a roadmap is being drawn to suit individual kids - and that individual volunteers will be able to contribute based on their strengths as well.

I'm hopeful that this program be impactful - and that impact will go beyond those who do well in the traditionally academic areas of reading, writing and 'rithmetic.

We're in the 21st century after all.

KPIs of a 14-year-old

Conversation with a 14-year-old that I'm working with at Whampoa:

Me: So, for the December holidays, would you rather continue doing mock test papers or do a project on something you really care about - like Education or Environment ...

14-year-old: I'd rather continue with the papers because that's what I get tested on at school.

Me: Don't you do projects at school? Aren't they more fun than assessments?

14-year-old: Projects are only 10% of my school grades. So I think I'll stick to assessments.

 I posted this on facebook, and one of my friends who's in marketing posted back "Same happens in corporates with high variable pay... It's my target... Therefore..."

The education system in Singapore is really, really working on changing. It's been in the media a lot in the past few months and I truly believe it's more than a PR exercise. We're working on putting play into school, building more resilient, adaptable kids. About time too - and I hope this works.

In the meantime, we've already drummed it in many young minds. These young minds will grow up. 

And I hope that one day, someone will tell them, as a teacher in highschool told me when I was 16: "Don't confuse academics with education."

Another told me that if she had to school between the two, she'd rather be wise than clever.

Me, I'm still learning.

Chilling Lessons - from Kids

Interactive Museum Exhibit. Like our classes: organised chaos

Things were going pretty well this morning. Ok - who am I kidding. The kids weren't settling down, they were running around, chattering, banging on the keys on the classroom piano. One boy in particular, let's call him Miko, was refusing to join the group when the other kids finally were starting to quiet down and the control freak in me was going slightly nuts. 

Miko ran to the bookshelf and started pulling on magazines and ... a rag.

Were we regressing? I wondered. Things seemed so much more peaceful when we had the 9-12 year olds only and we had our "one conversation at a time" rule. It had taken a long while, but we'd gotten to the point in which we didn't even need to raise our voices to get the kids' attention - just raise our hand to indicate we were about to talk.

Now we've got everyone from 6 up, proportionally fewer volunteers, and for a few long minutes, it felt like bedlam.

Better than Weekend Brunch

A core group of us have been going to the Whampoa Family Service Centre for more than two years now. Our goal - to help the kids communicate in English, build confidence, make learning fun.

The first six months were pretty confusing and scary. The kids didn't know us, we weren't sure what to expect, and none of us knew anything about working with kids or what a lesson plan even was.

It took us months to build trust. Then the kids started responding. Then they started noticing when we were travelling and when we skipped weekends. The first time a kid said to me "Why you so long never come here?" I felt a mixture of guilt and gratification - wow they remember me!

Two really cool things happened last weekend. One of the girls made us a heart shaped thank-you card for teachers day and gave it to us before class started. A totally terrific surprise.

And, halfway into the session I asked a brand new volunteer how he was doing and he said, "It's great. I'm learning to help the kids learn how to learn."

And that, I guess, is what we've been doing many many Saturdays in a row.

And it's worth it.

Which Comes First: Fun or Structure?

We're two weeks into a new reading program at the Whampoa Family Service Centre and I'm psyched.

It's a 20-week program that's funded - ie. we have REAL books for kids of different reading ability, we have sample lesson plans, worksheets, and a trained educator to help us and show us the ropes. Oh, and I think we'll be gettin' learning games at some point. You cannot believe how great that feels.

We're learning some really valuable skills from Georgina, our allied educator - who's open enough to tell us she hasn't worked with kids like ours before and that she's learning along with us. She's a gem.

Are the kids still doing wheelies on chairs? Yes.
Are they still disrepectful? Yes, some, but a lot less than a year ago and it's nothing that worries me.
Is it still difficult to get them to sit still? Yes - but they're kids. Anyone of you who hasn't been IMing or doing email while on conference calls may throw the first stone.

Snow in Spring

Went to Juizaigou near Chengdu last month, Easter Weekend.

It was snowing when I arrived, not what I'd bargained for. Fortunately, six years in Chicago and NY had taught me the value of layering. Still, I'd been hoping for warmer weather, non-slippery tracks on the mountains, and really nice colours for photography.

So, as I'm climbing down Huanglong (took the cable car up...I'm not THAT tough), I'm thinking - maybe I shoulda come later in the year, like the OTHER tourists. Fewer puddles on the ground, more water in the springs, fewer layers needed...then, I finally got to the "Five Colour Pond"  - and wow. Surrounded by snow, the crystal blue water was in what looked like a series of nature's own infinity pools. I could hear crackles as snow melted and water trickled down the descending lakes. That one moment was worth the trip and worth the trek.

I'd been feeling kinda down about the learning program that my friends and I were working on at Whampoa. Attendance is inconsistent: 18 kids one week, and then 8 for the next few is frustrating. I want to impact more kids, not just a few! And we've got some really great, passionate volunteers who work hard to make learning fun - and they REALLY care about the kids. Engineers, graphic designers and marketing execs have little enough leisure time as it is...wouldn't more kids mean better ROI? I was mentally calculating their billable rates and dividing it by the number of kids in class.

Yes, the kids' behaviour had improved tremendously over the past three years, but was there any way of empirically measuring impact?

Ground Rules Part 1

 At the beginning of the year, we started discussing values with the kids. Got a great curriculum with lesson plans and worksheets called Values: for Lifelong Learners.

It's NOTHING preachy at all. The first exercise revolved around what we value in our friends - there was a list of about 21 words (great for vocab exercise) and then the kids had to vote on their top 5 and say why.

What came next surprised me. Their top 5 were:

1. Kind and caring

2. Honest (tied with the two below)

2. Integrity

2. Hardworking

5. Tough/ strong.

Qualities like curious, articulate, talented were low on the totem pole. Energetic and ambitious were somewhere in the middle. But what gave me pause was...if Kindness and Caring are on top, then how did tough/ strong, which seemed to me like polar opposites of caring - make it so far up the list?

Food For Thought on Vacation

Went to Lombok for a short vacation in the last few days of December. Lombok positions itself as Bali before Bali became commercialised. And it was only in the past decade that tourists have started going there in earnest - thanks to pack backers who led the way.

And to be sure, there isn't that rampant commercialism and development that's descended on Bali. Agriculture is still the main source of income - tourism is only #5. So there aren't the same conveniences, ease of communication and efficiencies that you find in Bali. And it's those little diamond-in-the-rough edges that give Lombok its personality. And keeps mass tourism away.

That's probably the reason villages like Sasak are still around. The Sasaks were the main tribe in Lombok - and now they occupy a series of villages where houses have thatched roofs, mud and dried dung floors, and, according to our guide, is still pretty communal. The money we spent on handmade fabric is to be shared between the villagers, and the money we gave our guide would go to him and ten other that he was training to be guides.

Our village guide spoke really good English - better than most of the staff at our hotel. He learned it from books: five words a day, when he was young he said. He has no e-mail, no smartphone, and is contactable only by SMS. The tribe has no website, even though it gets income from tourist visits (20 a day, mostly from Jakarta). Most of the villagers speak Sasak, not Behasa Indonesia. Kids go to school, but the community inter-marries and no one's left the village yet, he says. Medical care comes in the form of herbal and spiritual healing. It's a close knit community and everything is shared - from income, to home-building, to food.

Of course, education will bring modernity to the young in the village and bring them opportunity. But, in our globally connected world, seeing what others have that we don't also increases our wants, our needs, our goals. It would take a really special education system and community involvement to preserve that closeness and keep the balance between opportunity, community, and our very natural desire to have more, do more, see more.

link to Lombok images here: http://bit.ly/uFCC9j

We are Not Smarter than the Kids We Work With

Every Saturday, the Whampoa Learning volunteers work with kids that usually don't have the best grades in class - far from it. At age 9, many of them can't spell simple words, don't know how letters sound phonetically, and many of them believe they aren't really smart at all.

And it's easy for us adults, no matter how well meaning, to fall into the trap of our own preconceptions.

Last weekend, we were working with 9-year-old D. He looks like he's 7 and he seems to have a max attention span of 10 minutes - or rather, the longest we've been able to hold his attention is 10 minutes. Mark, a volunteer who is an engineer, had alternated b/t reading to / with him, playing a vowel "hotdog" game in the iPad, chasing him around the room to get back to "work".

Then D saw me playing Memory Matrix with another kid, and wanted to play too. It's one of those games where squares flash on the screen, disappear, then you click on where the square were. We saw him getting up to 8 squares, and then 9, and then 12. When he'd gotten the hang of it - he was using two hands. Fingers bouncing on the screen as if he were playing the piano.  

NONE of the other volunteers - engineers, execs - could get close to his score.

So there - D's got an incredible memory. And btw - he also does mental math faster than any of us. But because he can't read, anything above Primary 2 math is a lost cause for him since most everything requires reading and reasoning.

Now - what do we do w/ that information? Where can we get expert guidance on how we can help D learn? Any ideas anyone?

Learning about Ramadan from the Whampoa Kids

Chicken Ham, Lettuce and Cheese sandwich comin' up

Learning about Ramadan from the Whampoa Kids

So, the sandwich/ party project last month was a great success. The older kids made the sandwiches in orderly chaos, and the younger kids kid made little crowns, and Cheryl did the games.

Last weekend, we did a session on Hari Raya where the kids did the teaching and quizzed the volunteers. Cheryl did the lesson plan and this was how it worked:

10am - Kids came and did a word search of Hari Raya related words. (There are sites online you can generate search words and crossword puzzles for free)

10.20am - We split the children in 2 groups. Each group had 1 minute (ish) to list as many words related to Hari Raya as possible. Volunteers prompted by suggesting categories like food, clothes, things they do, see, etc. 



10.30am - In their groups, kids discussed and prepared a mindmap/ presentation on on Ramadan.  3 aspects: a) the religious significance and Ramadan; b) the prep leading up to Hari Raya which culminates in Malam Raya (the night before Hari Raya); c) Hari Raya itself and the month of festivities that follows.

Social worker Khairun and her cousin were advisers since none of the other volunteers are Muslim. 

10.45am - Groups then presented and Volunteers asked questions or clarified.

11am - Kids then came up with quiz questions and quizzed us, the volunteers. They had a blast turning the tables on us. We'd learned a lot ourselves too.

The classes are comin' along. Next weekend we've got a training session with an organisation called Junior Achievement. They're donating a 6-hour module teaching kids about money smarts. Comes with games, lesson plans and course materials. And they'll teach us how to to use 'em.Lookin' f'd to it.

More on Whampao: froma fellow volunteer

It's been nearly a year since I've started working with the kids at Whampao, and every Saturday, the place runs thanks to some very very dedicated volunteers.

Here's a post from my friend Koh Joh Ju, who works with the K through P2 kids, and always reminds me that kids need patience and care from us more than they do discipline.

A story about positive reinforcement

On Saturday, we had a group of really sweet n kind young volunteers, eager to please and help. Completely fresh of the boat. Naturally, the kids were on to them and we had a tough time getting the 4-8 year olds sticking to do any reading, writing & speaking.

Some 15mins to closing time, i managed to get a 5 year old to write 'colouring' into his activity file and i wrote in the remarks column GOOD JOB! i showed that to him and read out the words. Then i went to the next kid with this sample. And another kid. I ended up with 3 kids who wrote without coaxing.

(Very unlike Jan 23rd when every kid wld say 'u write for me' or 'i dunno how to write'.)

So, I know of 3 kids who can write COLOURING, GOOD and JOB. woohoo!

You know, this 'positive reinforcement' thingy is quite infectious. i was so positively reinforced by this tiny milestone that i've started work on a series of worksheets for the young ones. (as in, i created 1 worksheet. will need to crank out a few more before the next class hits!)