Rikreay Primary School

The second day of my trip was to go to Rikreay Primary School, about 15 minutes or 7 km away from my guesthouse, and observe classes provided by the Our Future Organization that has been supporting the school with English, computer classes and a library in the last decade. The organisation hires 3 full-time teachers to teach grade 4-6 students 5 days a week, complementing their regular public school program. They also have mentoring program, of which grade 6 students help grade 1 kids with their ABC 3 days a week for 15 minutes a day.

Teacher Soknouv, the librarian, picked me up at 7am from the guesthouse so that we could be at school to start the class at 7:30am. So, my first class observation was library session. There were 3 activities in that one-hour session: reading a short extract from a kid story book in English, singing a song or two they had learned before and self reading last.

Then I kept following this group of 6th graders to their next two sessions - English and computer. After that I asked to have a group discussion with them to understand their preferences, their challenges and what we can do better. Very interesting and surprising findings came out of that short discussion such as the teacher behaviour, classroom environment, class activities and what they want to have in the library. It was assuring when most of the students’ suggestions confirmed my own observations. I went on doing the same thing in the afternoon with another group of students and the next day too, so in total I met 2 groups of grade 6 and 1 group of grade 4, and the teachers to also hear about their constraints and needs and how the organization can support them in the future. We also attempted to do a quick brainstorm to address one of the 3 common issues in all schools, i.e. the low student performance. After that heated discussion, Teacher Rom, the English teacher, told me that he was going to test the new idea we came up with, which was wonderful to hear because when students’ basic Khmer knowledge is too low it is also very hard for teachers to teach them English and computer too as they can’t catch up with the res of the class. The other two underlying issues are lack of parental support and bad peers. Many parents either have to migrate for work or get divorced and the kids are left under the care of elder grandparents or other relatives. This group of students often need emotional support, which is not available at school, so they tend to performance worse and would easily follow bad peers.

The kids are amazing and so gorgeous ❤️❤️❤️. They genuinely love visitors and not just foreigners as it was evidenced with my own visit. Perhaps rural life is pretty monotonous, anyone brining something new and different, they will quickly fall in love with as it is fun for them. They are very thoughtful and generous too. Just look at those 3 letters with beautiful drawings I got from 3 girls on my first day!

The 3rd graders who were not part of our program also came by every lunch break to ask me personal questions. They even asked me to play skipping rope with them on the second day. I could not say no to such kind invitation! It was unbelievable that they could jump barefoot with no pain on that red gravel ground. I dared not try without my shoes on. Maybe next time!⁩😆

I was grateful for their genuine kindness and love and this is enough to keep me going on for so long hours those days.Baca selengkapnya