Making Connections

Students take part in festivities celebrating Global Playground's birthday

I’ll be honest, I was a little nervous to return to Paw Myar. During our brief visit in January the students had been stone-faced, often too shy to crack a smile or even meet our eyes. I was anxious to see if these same serious pupils would be able to open up to Kendall and I or if we would be setting ourselves up for a week of blank stares and awkward silences.

As our taxi rolled into the village I saw the school building, seemingly vacant, and immediately my anxieties began to build. We unloaded our bags and wandered over to the schoolhouse, hoping to find someone who could direct us to where we would be staying during our visit. As we neared the entrance a swarm of children began to flow out to get a peek at us, the two strange looking foreigners with oversized backpacks, carrying a birthday cake. They giggled and pointed and waved. Some would come close, run away, laugh, and repeat. I was so confused. I recognized so many of the 40-some faces, but it was as if their personalities had completely transformed. And this was only an initial glimpse at all the good things that would come out of the following week.

During our stay in Paw Myar, the school was actually on summer holiday, but the two teachers in the village (Mo and Humg) led classes most days of the week so students could continue to study various subjects in Shan language. During the mornings and afternoons they instructed students from ages 5 to 14, while in the evenings they held brief two-hour sessions for those ages 14 to 23. Kendall and I were given the opportunity to essentially teach whatever we wanted whenever we wanted to whoever we wanted. We spent most of our time with the lower ages, teaching them the alphabet and singing “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.” The favorite activity, by far, was making animal masks. This was an activity that we thought would only take an hour or two, but it ended up consuming the better part of a day and a half. The students loved it. They were so proud of their creations that they would even wear their masks around the village. So it was no surprise when on the way home one day we came across a monkey, a lion, a rabbit, and an elephant shooting off small bottle rockets outside the school.

As much fun as singing and playing games with the younger students was, I also seriously enjoyed the night classes. Although these students were many years older than the students we taught during the day, their English skills were relatively the same - seeing as how both age groups could speak very little to no English. I took it upon myself to teach the class how to count and then divided the class into two teams to go head-to-head in a spelling competition. I honestly expected some of the students to lose interest in the game or to be typical teenagers and think they were “too cool” for it, but wow was I wrong. The intensity and energy in the room was palpable. Hearts were racing. Palms were sweating. For all I knew we could have been at a World Cup final that had gone to a shootout. Okay, maybe not, but you get the idea. The students were excited about learning English and there is no better feeling for a teacher than watching their own students eager to learn more.

I’ve been surprised at how much I’ve enjoyed working with the older grades during my fellowship. A year ago, if you had asked me what my favorite age group was I would have said one of the younger grades because they’re adorable and fun and it’s easy to make them laugh. But now I think I genuinely enjoy teaching the older grades more. Don’t get me wrong - little kids are great - but it doesn’t take much to make one crack a smile or to get them excited about a new lesson. As a foreigner teaching English my presence alone in a classroom of younger kids can cause an outbreak of frantic hands waving and ears eager to hear whatever combination of sounds comes out of my mouth next. Older kids are different. More often than not they’ve had more exposure to foreigners so my celebrity status is pretty minimal, meaning I have to find other ways to get them excited and engaged. And I like that challenge. Teenagers in Thailand and Myanmar aren’t much different than teenagers in the States - they can be sassy and apathetic about their schoolwork and they aren’t afraid to talk back. So when I have a classroom full of 14 to 23 year olds jumping up and down because both teams tied in spelling thirty-three correctly, that’s when I feel like I’m doing something right and I’m really making an impact.

While in Paw Myar, Kendall and I also had the opportunity to help out with a mobile library run by our partner organization in Myanmar, Global Community Service Foundation. The library serves students in villages throughout Inle Lake, one of the more touristed destinations in the country. We traveled to each village by boat, carrying boxes of books in both English and Burmese. In each village we visited dozens of children came to exchange their books for new ones. We sorted through the boxes and read aloud a few of our favorite finds and played games with the kids while they waited for their chance to pick a new book. It was incredibly encouraging to see how excited everyone was to read, regardless of what language they were choosing to read in. Reading is such an important thing for kids to do. It improves their vocabularies, widens their imaginations, and teaches them about other cultures and customs all around the world. It was an amazing opportunity to be part of something like the mobile library that provides children with important resources like books that these communities might not have access to otherwise.

After just a six days in Paw Myar it was time for us to leave and my heart was nowhere near ready to go. I will admit that in terms of quantity of material taught, the week was less than average, but in terms of quality, it was superb. I don’t think I can describe how connected I felt to both the students and teachers that we spent our time with every day. In reality, very little verbal communication was actually exchanged since no one in the village could speak English and although a few people could speak Thai, my own Thai skills are not exactly stunning. But regardless of the serious language barrier, I felt like I was able to have more meaningful exchanges than just swapping sentences. Language is a beautiful thing, but forming lasting relationships with people who couldn’t be more different than oneself is even more beautiful.