Breakthrough Day

Thursday, December 20

I wake up early to tune the ukuleles. They go out of tune every few minutes because of the heat and because they are brand new. I eat my breakfast quickly and prepare for the 8am class. I use a permanent marker to label all the recorders and ukuleles with numbers. The first and second graders come in and we sit them down in the front row, assigning each kid recorder. We are strict about not playing while I teach. It must be hard for them, since most of these youngsters barely speak any English. One boy, who I later found out has attention deficit problems, won’t sit still and when I ask him to put his recorder down, he whacks it hard on the desk. We ask him to leave, and Xander ends up escorting him out of the room. Half an hour later he comes back with Melinda, who makes him apologize. He does so in the Khmer way: hands together touching his forehead. Hopefully, he will learn that he must be respectful of the instruments if he wishes to use them.

Discipline of Sa Oun turned out to be a good example for the others and they are focused for most of the lesson. Teaching recorders to first and second grade proves difficult, as their fingers are tiny. After 20 minutes or so, we listened to One Love and I taught them to sing along, using gestures to teach the meaning of the words. This was enough of a challenge for this group.

Teaching the third and fourth graders is much more successful for a variety of reasons: more English skills, better coordination, attention span (all common developmental trends with American children of this age). I normally teach recorder starting with 2 notes only, using call and response. However, I am determined to teach a whole song today, so I push hard. I show fingerings for GABC by rote, then draw fingerings on the whiteboard. Unlike the younger kids, this group grasps the concept quickly, and are soon playing the notes while I point at the fingerings. It takes a while for them to learn how the song goes, but I break it up into fragments and teach words to facilitate rhythm. I notice that one boy, Davit, is learning very quickly and have him come to the front and play to the class. This clearly fills him with pride and suddenly all the kids want their turn up at the front. Class comes to an end and I write down the notes for them on scraps of paper because they are keen to keep practicing.  They borrow their recorders with corresponding numbers until the afternoon session.

Grade 5 and 6 would be next and I’d teach ukulele. The kids in this group are 10-12 years old, but are the size of my 7-8 year olds back home. Pressing hard enough on the strings proves difficult at first. I write the chord fingerings on the board and am surprised by their lack of comprehension for this chart. Xander and I go around to all the kids and show them the fingerings and they begin to understand. None of the students have any problem keeping a steady beat, which I find interesting.

During lunch, I decide to change the afternoon schedule so that I don’t have first and second graders and instead have more time with the others, who are making progress. I begin the afternoon sessions by explaining that only the very hard workers will have the chance to perform in the concert this evening, to set the atmosphere of high expectation.

For both recorder and uke groups, we review the song, then I split them into small groups to practice, and I tell them to teach and help each other out. I’m interested to see how this will go, as Melinda told me that teachers in Cambodia have no teacher training and therefore don’t use strategies like group work. In fact, most teachers only have 6^th grade education. Starting out in their groups, they mostly just sit there; some practice alone. I intervene and prompt the more talented kids to help the ones having trouble and slowly, the peer teaching begins to take effect.

At 3pm, we are left with about 20 children who are preparing for the concert. This is pretty good given how little time they had and how hard we’ve been pushing them. We gather everyone into the theater to practice. Some older kids are milling around in the hall waiting for dinner. They’re interested in our instruments and try to take a ukulele from one of the kids. After finally getting everyone on stage and focused, this is the last thing we need, and Xander firmly tells him to leave. It reinforces that there is something serious and worthwhile happening here. We have about four run-throughs of the song, then exhausted and more or less satisfied, we tell the kids to put their instruments away and come back just before meditation.

Two kids in particular, Sam Nang and Davit have been working hard all day, and even joined extra classes. We want to reward their dedication, so we get them just after dinner to practice a duet for the end of the performance. At 6:30, some of the kids put on nice shirts for the occasion and come asking for their instruments. Sam Nang is visibly nervous and tells me he doesn’t want to do the duet anymore. I tell Xander to talk to him, since they seemed to have gotten close in the last few days. Xander encourages him and he agrees that it’s just stage fright.

The 15 or so children left in our committed group assemble on stage. They are focused and ready. We have the recorders and ukes play separately at first, which sounds pretty rough. Playing all together gives some semblance of the song; recognizable if you’d heard it before. Some of the kids were laughing because to them, it didn’t sound like much. Melinda stopped them to make a point about how impressive it was that they did this all in one day. At the end, the duet was performed, followed by a huge applause. Pride filled the stage.

After the meditation, Wayne says he has a special song to share and that it would be okay to sing along. It’s Bob Marley’s ‘One Love’. I am touched by the tribute, an appropriate end to the day. Some first and second graders are doing the actions I taught them and singing along. Everyone in good spirits, some of the kids who didn’t have the chance to perform ask if they can learn now and we have an hour and a half session in the classroom before bed. One high-schooler wants to learn the Titanic theme song on recorder, which he plays me on his flip phone. Sam Nang, who has been following us around since we arrived, knows it is our last night and he stays up with us until we go to our rooms.