Finding Pl-space

Posted on January 24, 2017 by amy freya wilson

Welcome to Maleny- video by Beau…

We’ve arrived in paradise. The house is cradled by a massive native fig and when seeds fall on the roof they sound like a shot gun. Quinn’s in heaven dashing around on an acre of rainforest and who lives right next door but a retired…weapons expert.

view from our deck

We’ve got a daily ritual so far out at Gardener’s Falls. Quinn jumps off 10 m drop, and I’ve managed to work on my fear of deep water by jumping off the baby 3 m one with Beau. Quinn is training on smaller rope swings (there’s 3 in total) Beau tried but couldn’t reach the handle yet. Quinn’s desperate to try this big one…maybe next year.

Gardener’s Falls, local waterhole

looking yes/no

First day of school went ok. We had a morning circle of singing and meditation, parents invited. Lots of songs about love and compassion. Then Tim saw a picture of what looked like a swastika encompassed inside the Star of David. We giggled and thought they have all bases covered. The River School is on 100 acres of land along a creek just outside the town. It has been going for 23 years set up by the Ananda Marga community. Below is a view of the garden from the original farmhouse that’s attached to one of the classrooms.

The River School garden

Poly pipe instrument outside Quinn’s classroom

The local IGA has musicians playing right outside every time I’ve been there- from jazz piano to acoustic guitar. We even saw a teenage girl playing the harp in honour of Leonard Cohen when we came up on our reccie in November.

banjotim2016 So needlessly to say, we are feeling quite at home. Early days but bright futures. Here’s to slowing down and opening up to place and space.

Hope this finds you feeling your space too. xx

We all learn differently

Posted on June 15, 2016 by amy freya wilson

I sent my first son off to school in the hope that he’d find water like a duck does. He seemed to enjoy himself and especially loved the bike ride to school.

It wasn’t until we fast forward a few years, I can see how much they have/not learnt, and how differently every individual is in their learning experience. Quinn didn’t miraculously start reading. Far from it. And it’s been quite a road to get his confidence and fluency up. And when your kid isn’t a reader, they basically don’t read by choice. So whilst his peers are eating Harry Potter and coincidentally flexing their reading muscles, my child is doing everything to avoid reading for ten measly minutes a night. So we basically do every second night at gun point. And you can imagine how happy our household is at these times.

I’ve blabbed at many school gates and sought comfort in other parent’s stories. And without any formal testing, we don’t even know if Quinn has some definable label. We can only presume and have got him explicit help that is making a difference. This is no small topic and a very personal, potentially triggering place to find yourself in as a parent. Do we worry too early or leave it too late? Should we ‘wait and see’ and let it ‘work itself out’ or get help early and make a difference but also potentially influence your child psychologically and emotionally in ways you can’t expect. Ah the decisions we face as parents. But positively Quinn is slowly improving with tutoring, remedial assistance and age, it’s a slow burn.

Nothing is straightforward in life so why do we assume learning to be. It’s very interesting to see how diverse we are in our learning styles and strengths. With the rather homogenised learning approach that mainstream schooling uses, it is no wonder some kids fall through the cracks or lose confidence. And that’s not a blanket criticism, it’s just that it suits and inspires some more than others.

On a positive note, I wanted to share Quinn’s creativity when asked to do a recent assignment on a rainforest animal. He didn’t show much engagement at first and recoiled at the idea of standing up there with palm cards he can’t easily read…not to mention sweaty palms. So he wrote a song and played it to his class whilst he jazzed along. I couldn’t help but share. (Be warned: proud mum alert). It does help when your dad is a music producer and backing vocals by your younger brother.

We all have different gifts and it’s about finding them. This was Quinn’s chance to shine in his arena.

Click here to listen to his song, Spider Monkey:

Work Life

Posted on November 26, 2014 by amy freya wilson

This blog has been focused on sharing stories about Cambodian life from a personal perspective. But I get asked a lot about what work we are doing here. Tim and I work as unpaid volunteers for a local NGO, established about 8 years ago by a young Australian woman, a mover and shaker. The NGO provides much needed social support to Battambang’s poorest families. It was once an orphanage but quickly decided to move away from the model due to the perils of institutionalisation and the knowledge that children are better off with family members. Relatives such as aunties or grandmothers have been tracked down and in most cases, they are happy to relocate to Battambang where they get support to care for the kids. For those children who are legitimate orphans without family, they are cared for by devoted foster aunties and uncles who have been working with the organisation for a long time and understand the life long commitment of raising children. In two words: remarkable humans. What has impressed us most about the NGO is their child protection policy is bullet proof and international best practice, the benchmark (and the reason I can’t plaster the kids’ gorgeous mugs here).

Me in work mode

There is a saying ‘Cambodian Time’. A phrase that refers to being patient as things take time, plans change and do complete somersaults only to land back at the beginning. This has definitely been true of the culture shock and adjustment for our family. You can basically double the figure you think it will take and add some. And this is primarily why I’m so glad we didn’t come for a short time (we are fortunate to have no set return date) because you are always working to that date and as it draws closer you begin to mentally withdraw from the place you’re in. In the past, I’ve always travelled to a deadline (like most of us do!) but more than that, it was like I had to cram all these things in (tick it off the list) which is so different from letting life and the journey unfold naturally.

I have been teaching English over the past month as we eagerly await the opening of the School in the Cloud classroom. It’s been a great foundation to get to know all the kids (all 80 of them). First I taught yoga over the summer break and now we sing songs, incorporate yoga and practice English. These kids have had no formal English lessons. The local public schools are fraught with problems. So the level of education is dubious. As is so often the case across the globe, teachers are poorly paid so they often moonlight in other jobs and their attendance rates are low! Often they don’t show up and the class sizes are large, they feel pretty overworked and under appreciated, I’m sure. Again the cycle of clever graduates who could help improve the quality of education choose to work in banking or for foreign corporations where they get more dosh.

The School in the Cloud classroom – it now has walls

The space was previously a cabana where I taught yoga and a much needed shady place for sweaty football players mid afternoon. The design is quite simple and uses easily sourced materials like concrete. But since the School in the Cloud program is about encouraging creative thinking and inspired by Earthship Cambodia the top part of the walls will be recycled bottles letting fractured light decant the space.

We want to put vertical gardens around the exterior walls. The computer stations will have curved edges much like surfboards.

What is The School in the Cloud?

School in the Cloud is the brainchild of an Indian bloke Sugata Mitra who is one inquisitive guy posing lots of big questions about how children can learn for themselves through the use of technology. Let’s face it we are in a period of unprecedented change and the education system needs a face lift. He has his critics (mainly from the academic fraternity who want to see proof) but I’m willing to get involved in the experiment and see what happens. Part of my job is to document observations throughout the SOLE (Self Organised Learning Environment) sessions and funnel this data back to India.

We’ve begun testing the kids’ English levels this week to get a baseline from which to chart their progress over the course of the program. Some of them are so hungry for knowledge. Painstakingly trying to identify letters even though they’ve only learnt the alphabet via the ABC Song and can barely recognise individual letters. It will be very interesting to see where their knowledge goes from here. Another part of the testing is to gain qualitative data relating to their aspirations. All in Khmer, I work with an awesome Khmer counterpart, Chantha who is so perceptive and caring and gets the nature of the work, allowing the kids space to explore. She asks them the perennial question “What do you want to be when you grow up?”. The answers range from ‘”cook rice” to a painter (it “makes me happy”) to the usual suspects of doctor, nurse and teacher. The point of this exercise is to see if their dreams change as a result of access to the internet and School in the Cloud philosophy, and in what ways they transform.

The Mighty ‘Buffalo’ at work

Tim is working on the building helping Buff who is his Khmer counterpart. These two, as thick as thieves, both with a killer sense of humour and matching Buddha bellies (Tim’s is fast shrinking though). For first two months before Tim got his own bike, these two were spotted cruising around on the one moto sourcing potential materials and sites. Tim is also infiltrating the local arts scene working at the NGO’s gallery and undertaking an artist residency (another post).

As you can see we are busy and there is loads we can do.

For any education nerds, you may find this video interesting. A light bulb moment for Tim and I- sparking us to embark on this journey and giving us confidence in our own kid’s education.

Happy Wednesday x

Schooling on the Road

Posted on October 12, 2014 by amy freya wilson

My boys and now a bike

We decided to embark on this adventure as it would peel back the kids’ eyelids. The nitty gritty of schooling was glossed over after a web search popped up a few options.

First port of call when we arrived was checking out the French Montessori School. This was right up our alternative yet still structured alley, and in French only added another feather to its cap.

As all well laid plans or should I say imaginings often pale into a gooey stickiness of reality, we discovered that for our older son at 7, it was not Montessori method but French Classical System. At this point, a small bell rang in my head, especially upon reading the material list required a slate (!) but I pushed it aside. Our son was not showing any linguistic leanings, if anything the opposite and that’s in his mother tongue. We ploughed forward, in the face of parental schoolyard gossip about other schools ranged from:

(1) a breeding ground for colonial superiority whereby foreign cherubs get carried up the stairs

(2) equally frightening, touts sell energy drinks to kids on their way to the toilet

After week 3, Quinn was showing the strain, dark circles under his eyes even after a full night’s sleep. Each day I would probe him getting a blank expression which I imagine he’s had since morning when he began retreating into his world of go cart design and fortification building easier to understand than the banter around him.

Coming from ‘Stralia’, a second language isn’t necessary (no direct neighbours) and maybe we’re all lazy, the Board of Studies has scrapped it from the primary school curriculum altogether. Obviously there is an adjustment phase to second language acquisition and it takes some good ol’ digging deep until you can start making daisy chains out on the frontier.

In the face of Quinn requiring up to 5 afternoons of private tuition just to make some headway, I did some quiet soul poking and saw that this was my dream not his. He prefers to be drawing in his ‘creative book’ that lives under his pillow or stalking muddy puddles on his bike. It was something that the Director of the School said to us

We need to set children up to succeed

Playing to kids’ strengths to build confidence can have spin off effects in areas that niggle them. I also realised that my zeal for him to achieve may actually overshadow his happiness. And even if being well meaning and passionate about education, especially my own kids is not a bad thing, my interest now gets interpreted as pressure. I’m like a single woman’s biological clock ticking and Quinn, a confirmed bachelor.

My captive’s face says it all

Not one to let myself off easily, I probed the onion skin to see a mouldy fear still there from my school days. How the carrot and stick system is geared for little over achievers to get self gratification in every tick on the page or a teacher’s sweet smile. How I became like Pavlov’s dog hooked on praise. Look I could have got into some harder shit than teacher pleasing and studying hard, and yes I got an education, a good one and doors opened, but emotionally, all that striving only reinforced that I needed to be a try-hard.

To feel worthy.

Who knows why I felt this, lack of nurturing in childhood ? genetic makeup? sensitivity ? Maybe there is no singular reason, but recognising this as an adult, is liberating. And now as a parent, I want to take out my own trash and hopefully the stench won’t waft up Quinn’s nostrils.

Where to now? Tim and I will share the roll out of Quinn’s education. And he can go to a local school for socialisation in the afternoons. The literacy book seems to send our potential perfectionist into groans. So the other day, we decided to ditch it and head outside.

In our garden

I took a deep breath and allowed Quinn to lead me. Soon he was digging and we planted tomato, basil, rocket and parsley sent by his beloved Godmother. Soon we were on our haunches making clay men and elephants out of mud.

‘Mum and Me’

Elephant Man

It was a wonderful morning listening to the birds, making up stories to go with our creations. Quinn showed his bravery for worm wielding (they’re huge here!) and told me how that meant we have fertile soil. I feel we do sweet Quinn. And that if I learn to trust that your future will be bright, I will hold your hand and be led along into the unknown. Know that with a full heart and an open ears, I have your back as you tread your own path in life’s learning journey.

Boys will be….boys

Posted on September 15, 2014 by amy freya wilson

A wise friend doing the Battambang life with kids recommended we get outta town regularly. With school holidays limping into their third month, it was definitely time.

We packed ourselves into the back of a taxi for the 3 hour drive to Siem Reap with 2 hyper boys practicing head stands on the back seat. This city is a cultural mecca being the home of the Mighty Angkor Wat and many lesser known cousins. A must see on anyone’s bucket’s list. Its ancient architecture whispers of a forgotten kingdom, patriotically kept alive in the minds of the Khmer as a time of strength and power. Even today a pulipal energy radiates as Buddhist monks still visit shrines daily keeping the spiritual fires lit.

We left the boys poolside in an innocent housekeeper’s care. All went surprisingly well, except for receiving 6 missed calls to say the kids were ravenous and needed to order pizza. Ce La Vie.

We so enjoyed the quiet togetherness. Moving away from family, you rarely get time to relax with one another, rather we tag team our breaks. And try not to bicker over who gets more sanity savers.

We are still adjusting to our new life. From other expats I’ve heard it takes up to three months to acclimatise, but from Battambang locals, who have lived the high and lows that occur on a daily basis, it is more like six months. So whatever the magical figure may be, it is where we are at right now.

The boys still in the throws of missing their friends keenly, and without school or routine AND living in a strange new world, they are emotional. Their sibling relationship showing the strain of being only friend, brother, sparking partner and side kick. Beau has regressed in his toilet training big time which may be influenced by the size of the cockroaches in our bathroom or never knowing what kind of squat, pit, hole or seatless throne may be on offer. Quinn has retreated into this fantasy world of fighting and weapons…whereby he is slaying ninjas in our street every night, and by day hitting plastic swords on a pole, or punching clothes hanging on the line.

Having two boys I’ve witnessed some aggression but it is definitely magnified at the moment. A coping mechanism?

So when Quinn got wind of the War Museum, he came alive so I acquiesced. The word was that it was a government rip off who bullied the more informative Land Mine Museum into moving premises out of town. We arrived to an open field of rusty tanks ready to attack if only they had wheels.

Friendly Staff members play with the boys

With no conservation signage, safety measures dependent on how adventurous you are, the boys clambered over the tanks like monkeys. That was until they spotted the gun exhibit- a bungalow with rows of rifles that you could freely touch.

OMG!

Quinn yells with characteristic Elvis thrusts as he strokes an AK-47, affectionately known from then as ”Gun-ji”.

Heaven on Earth

I was reminded of the gun racks in my Uncle’s bedroom at my Grandma’s farm. And how I never wanted to sleep in that room, let alone touch them.

Tim and I had the whole gun conversation early on, our consensus being no toy guns in the house. But like water wears away at stone, a wooden handcrafted (that makes a difference, right?) toy rifle slipped into Quinn’s clutches at aged 4. I can only describe the whole process as seeing an avalanche coming towards you, and deciding to calmly step out of the way. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve said things about war, and what it means, and how hurting people is bad. They kinda listened the first time but now it is like trying to get your kids attention when they are glued to a screen.

So the boys were in army heaven fondling all the paraphernalia, one of the guides wanders by, I smile and say:

‘My boys love guns. I tell them war is bad’, looking defeated.

As the sky changes to yellow, the same guide returns beer in hand. We are still in the hut, hours gone. I’m scrawling in my notebook, snatching precious time, the boys still enthralled.

He gestures to the boys and tells me I’m a good mother for letting my sons go.

‘Your boys ok, they come from you, they will be good, you must believe that. ‘

Maybe I’m easily flattered, or enjoy validation whenever I can get it, but I was touched by his words. With linguistic limitations and a traditionally patrilocal culture, you don’t get too many conversations with blokes on any deep level.

He continues:

‘I loved guns as a boy. I play with his father’s gun and make him worry. Then at 13, I join the Khmer Rouge, for 14 years’

As a boy soldier for a notoriously brutal regime, he saw what no person, let alone child should ever have to witness.

I lose everything. All my family dead. I see war. Not good. You tell your children that.’

Do you have kids I ask?

’After war, I want for nothing. I become drunk guy’.

With that he’s gone, raising his bottle in a quick salute. And I’m left in that space where someone’s shared a part of themselves that leaves a mark.

As the sky turns to pink, I touch the sleek cold metal of a M-16, feel its secrets and know its been used for real, not just in boys’ war games. And I promise to keep sowing the seeds for love and peace in my little soldiers’ hearts. Teaching compassion for all things, and dropping those crumbs hoping that my boys will always know that it is wrong to hurt others. Maybe it was unwise to let them covet these weapons. But watching Quinn I get a sense of his own dad as a child, who wanted to join the army but has never been in a fight.

I can’t change where their present passions lie, only trust that by allowing them to explore them, they will tire of them and move on, hopefully with equal zeal but less violence. I’ve seen those kids deprived of television, who once they see one, have no self control or discretion, they watch shopping channels verbatim.

I don’t vouch to know what I’m doing most of the time, but raising boys is like a biology lesson. Neither Tim nor I encourage violence. I teach yoga and enjoy Buddhist philosophy. What I’ve been working on is acceptance of my self, no matter what to stay soft and listening. And I’m realising this extends to my kids.

Moving the Family to Cambodia

Posted on August 25, 2014 by amy freya wilson

We commonly get asked, why Cambodia, and how can you do it? So i’ll answer these curlies in this post.

Family Selfie at the Airport

I stumbled upon a blog about an American family who moved to Mexico (www.revolutionfromhome.com)
at the beginning of their journey, and it was a source of encouragement and insight into how it is possible, even with parasitic bouts and tired, resistant children, and the joys and growth all involved shared. It was possible with kids!

But of course, the seed was planted a lot longer ago..

It started with a conversation… Tim and I had about living overseas with kids. I’d always been fond of the idea, especially as I’d spent a year living in Beijing as 21 year old. I arrived green, as part of an Australian government initiative that sends young Aussies across Asia-Pacific to immerse themselves in local culture, share some Australisms and impart their professional knowledge. What a 21 year old thinks they know professionally and what they do, is oceans apart. I had much free time that involved cruising the Foreign Students College making friends with folk from all parts of the globe. Many students were from Russia (pop across a big long border) and Columbia (I met one wealthy kid whose parents realised that it was safer getting educated in China rather than hijacked for ransom in their own town). Even though I had an arsenal of contacts in this strange new world if I needed them, it was still like landing on the moon. It was 2001, and few local Chinese spoke English. I was soon lured into local Primary schools to teach conversational English. Visions of delivering my final uni thesis presentation in broken stutters still fresh in my mind. I think the only thing I achieved in these classes was convincing one 6 year old kid who had chosen the English name of Tomato, that it was a winner as it never ceased to have me in fits of giggles.

Maybe the coconut never falls far from the palm. Once I was out of nest, the poop not even dry, my mum set off on an intrepid backpacker adventure even though she was nearing fifty, from Kathmandu to London inside an old Bedford truck. Once there, she stayed eights years, doing itinerant work between gathering new stamps in her passport and regular visits to her Bedouin lover in Jordan.

And so after years of watering the idea from our Umina suburbian backyard with its dog and two babies later, my dearest Tim decided,

Ok, I’d give it a crack

Green light go, we rented our beach shack to a beautiful young family, escaping city living with dreams of having a pooch and more chicks in their brood.

We were lucky to know of a reputable NGO, a young team of dedicated individuals trying to implement international best practice in social welfare. Supporting over 150 students, they provide income support, training, health care and education to children and their families. Importantly, they are trying to keep the family unit strong and together. Also, they understand intrinsically the role that Westerners should play in skills sharing and ultimately handing over management to the Khmers. We are self funded volunteers and loving the nature of this work. We were able to offer our skills, as artist, all-round handy man, yoga devotee and educator. I have also been approached by local expats to run yoga classes, so a little in the can will help.

One of Tim’s sculptures, recycled steel

There is always a lot of conjecture over children’s education. As the next wave of knock kneed kids reach the playground, more theories pop up about how kids learn, how they can learn better, faster, quicker, even though the brain still remains somewhat of a black box. Personally, I was shaped strongly by my education, and my adult years have been somewhat a period of unschooling. So after recognising the whole disruption to our Grade 1 son’s schooling the move would cause, we decided it was still valuable. If anything, we were heartened by this ideal that maybe he would actually gain more through life experience rather than sight words.

That being said, I came armed with helpful hints from his teachers, and again, idealistic visions of being a cool grammar teacher (yup I am a foxy moron). It hasn’t quite gone to plan. We probably average 10 minutes a day, with Quinn honing his debating skills on why he can’t sit down, I try for calm without resorting to bribery and fail on both counts. If there are jobs going for illiterate lawyers, he’s sure to do well.

So we made it, fumbling our way through and grateful to have this opportunity. We are going to milk it and give it a real hard shake!

Bang On About

Category Archives: Children’s Education