Field Trip |
The first stop on the field trip to look at different forms of deaf education in Cambodia was at the Krousar Thmey deaf school on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. Here the principal of the school, Ms. Pin Sokha (light blouse, facing camera), welcomes the visitors. This school has 228 students in grades 1 to 7.
A young deaf girl in the first grade shows her practice writing of a letter of the Khmer alphabet for her teacher. Pencils and paper are too expensive for daily use in the lower grades so small blackboards, like old-time slates, are used for writing.
The visitors from Finland are an assistant principal and a teacher from C.O. Malm School in Turku, Finland. They were invited to be presenters in the deaf education workshop on the different methodologies and the different classroom environments used in teaching deaf children. Here they observe a classroom in Krousar Thmey's dedicated deaf school.
After visiting Krousar Thmey's school, the group headed south to the coastal city of Kampot, eight of us riding in a pickup truck with benches in the back. It was a hot and dusty trip over rough roads, and we stopped twice for a break along the way.
We arrived in Kampot at 7:45 PM, checked into a small hotel, and then ate supper in a western-style restaurant along the tidal river through the town. In the morning we gathered at this Prochum Mith Restaurant for breakfast before heading to the deaf school.
Here Jaana Keksi-Levijoki observes Bun Chann, the deaf teacher in a two-person team teaching in the Deaf Development Program classroom in Kampot. In all the classrooms of the DDP, a deaf teacher works together with a hearing teacher. In the provinces, both children and adults are accepted into the same classroom since there are no alternatives.
The trip from Phnom Penh to Kampot is 160 kilometers (96 miles) and it took 4½ hours to drive there along roads that were rough at best and looked like they had been bombed at worst. Here in a small town, vehicles navigate holes and valleys 2.5 feet deep in this national highway. Imagine the same spot in the road in the rainy season, when the holes are full of water, not dust.
The eight of us in the group visiting the classrooms in the provinces took turns riding on the benches in the back of the truck. The wind kept the temperature manageable, but the dust was another story and so everyone donned bandanas. Colorful!