A Surprise School Trip with Chunckee...

In Thimphu they told me that no plans are final in Bhutan until 5 minutes before they happen. Sometimes this can have surprisingly pleasant outcomes. 

Today I went into school in my civvies having failed to style my Gho to an acceptable standard in four tries (I seem to be getting worse). I was expecting to have to teach 6 out of 7 periods with a free first thing. At lunch time I found out there was no Period 7. There was a meeting instead. Great, I thought. Until I remembered the last meeting which ended up being two and a half hours long and I barely understood a word of it. This time I was prepared. I'd scheduled Unit Tests for 5 of my 6 classes, which meant a whole load of marking to do. I have no qualms about marking in meetings that are incomprehensible, so I quietly got on with it, putting down my pen whenever the pitter-patter of administration veered into English. Genius. I marked all of the tests.

Half way through the meeting I became aware of the fact that responsibilities were being divvied out for a day of rituals on Friday, so I put my hand up and explained quite candidly that I had absolutely no idea what was going on, but I would happily volunteer for duty: my silence was merely the dumb silence of a linguistic fool and not the silence of he who shirks responsibility. I got my job (supervising washing up and returning cutlery and bowls to the canteen for subsequent servings) and went back to my marking.

Just before the meeting took place I also found out that upon its completion we would all be going to the Principal's family home to visit his father who has been ill. The Principal has been away from school for the last 4 days taking his father to hospital. At first I was a bit grrr... simply because I had to put all the marks into a spreadsheet and figure out how well my first few weeks had gone. And sleep. Last night I felt obliged to stay up dancing and drinking in celebration of The Good Mr Thukten's child's first birthday, and I was already knackered before I went there. Anyways, I de-grrred myself and got on the bus. I owe the Principal a great deal and to be churlish about a couple of hours of me-time in such circumstances would be poor form.  

I nearly fell asleep on the way. I often do when a passenger along the oddly soporific and bumpy feeder road, but I was glad to have made the journey. Why? Well, for one thing, all the staff of the school were in attendance. We took the school bus and it was like being on a school trip. But the best thing about it was that I found myself in a typical Bhutanese home again. It's easy to forget you're in Bhutan when you live on the campus, right in the thick of the boarding school in a concrete building. To be back in a real-fire hearthed wooden building with local people was a tonic. I resolve to make these journeys more often. In fact, next Sunday, instead of going back to the river, I plan to make the 6km hike through the jungle to go and visit the village again on my own.

Can you imagine the whole school staff of a school in the UK getting on a school bus after school hours to visit the father of a colleague who has recently been ill? This is different. And, as usual, the hospitality was superb. I enjoyed a cup of tea. Then a cup of Chunckee (spelling dodgy), which is the delectable fermented rice drink that's a bit like porridge. It was compulsory for me as an honoured foreign guest to take 5 top-ups. I gladly obliged. Then a cup of filtered Chunckee, topped up a few times for good measure. Then food. 

Food... I am thankful that I am the sort of person who happily eats with his hand and doesn't baulk at a serving of pork that is basically a lump of fat. Tasty fat, but fat nevertheless. It's also genuinely delicious. I fear if the average blighty bloke made a habit of it, the obesity problems we cultivate would magnify.

By the way... eating with hands. At first it was just wrong. Now it makes perfect sense. Cutlery can be a right pain in the neck, especially with tough food. I lost count of how many times I accidentally flung a piece of beef across the table in Thimphu.

In conclusion... Surprises can be good. Especially when you don't expect them.  

Classroom next, I promise. And now I have marks to inform my thoughts... 

PS... I am sorry for those who deserve a personal response to personal messages. I am already spending too much time at the laptop, but I promise I will reply soon.

PPS... Having real problems getting photos up.    

Status Quo Unquestioned…

I’m in my second full week of teaching so I’m getting a clearer idea of what it’s like here. Many of my expectations have been confirmed but there’s been a few surprises. I’ll take it in chunks… first… the curriculum and the exams…


The Curriculum
It’s more challenging and broader than the equivalent in the UK. It’s a spiral curriculum designed to facilitate periodic revisits to previous material through the years. This makes planning difficult if you’re a foreign teacher with no experience of the previous years. You either have to go through all the text books to find out what not to teach from the textbook specific to the year in question, or you make friends with a physics teacher from a neighbouring school and trade hi-tech resources for inside knowledge. I opted for the latter.


When I say it is more challenging and broader, there is material in the GCSE equivalent textbook that isn’t encountered until A-Level in the UK. For example, skills-wise, exponentials are introduced in Year 10 and content-wise, buoyancy and upthrust are there. I have even seen some University level material (though admittedly not examinable). So, its harder. What are the exam papers like?


The Exams
The exams papers I’ve seen are hard. Compared to GCSE’s, they’re a whole world of hardness apart. I shudder to think how the kids back home would fair. We’re in the first examination year in this brand new school, so I don’t actually have any results to scrutinise here, but the nationwide average mark is 55% in the GCSE equivalents. The pass mark is 35%. I don’t know the statistics for the UK, but these numbers seem low to me. If the average mark in the UK is similar, then the Bhutanese students significantly outperform the UK students because the exams are so much harder here. Are the exams are too hard and the kids not up to the challenge, or is it a question of differing expectations on performance in summative testing?  


Everybody wants 70% in the UK, or 80%, or even 90%… 55% does not sound good, but shouldn’t the average be around the half way mark if the tests are functioning properly and are pitched correctly? When I went to University I had to deal with a downgrading of my normally good marks to the 40s, 50s and 60s I commonly scored. It was demoralising. But does the disconnect between secondary and tertiary examinations have its roots in the schools or the Universities?


Schools in the UK  are under intense pressure to deliver good statistics from summative assessments. It’s in every school’s interest to get those marks up higher, hence the widespread introduction of portfolio-based qualifications in the last few decades. Originally designed to offer an alternative pathway for those who were less academically inclined, they have been deployed by many as a means to improve results and have not always been suitable or useful for the candidate. Some schools dropped double award science altogether and shifted whole cohorts on to BTECs. Decisions like these were clearly made for the wrong reasons. The style of qualification may have been the product of the noble dream of useful school-based education for all, but their deployment has lowered standards in education. The students on many portfolio courses would be better served by apprenticeships or other forms of genuine vocational training, the success criteria being employment instead of minimal currency grade outcomes.  


I’m not sure what to call these courses nowadays – they certainly aren’t ‘vocational’. Nobody who does a portfolio-based science course will get a job as a scientist because they won’t have the required skills. They can make portfolios (sometimes), but they can’t solve equations or explain concepts or work out errors in the experiments they hardly ever do (unless you include making paper as a genuine science experiment). They can’t progress to A-Level science, never mind a career. I’m ranting, but with very good reasons. I think I’ll carry on…


Examination Boards
I was amazed when I found out that examination boards in the UK are private companies selling courses as products in a competitive market. The usual arguments for free market competition - innovation and a driving down of cost for the consumer - just don’t apply here. The regulatory bodies should not be monitoring examination boards – they should be the one and only examination board! The national curriculum should culminate in national exams. I don’t know when this function was privatised, or if it was ever under the public aegis to begin with, but the system in its current form is ludicrous. The schools and the students want good results, the examination boards want schools to use their courses, so they want good results too… isn’t there a conflict of interest? I’ve been to CPD with an Exam Board. The whole day was a sale’s pitch for their portfolio style of science course. The speaker performed a fine balancing act between declaring the merits of the course and convincing us that the work load was low and the results would be high.


To my mind, this state of affairs is an example of ‘status quo unquestioned’ – an absurdity in the way we do things that is not tackled because ‘its always been that way, therefore it must be right’. The worst kind of civil society is a complacent one that doesn’t question the institutions that govern it. Who would I direct such a question to? It’s like the debacle with my car insurance claim last year… everybody is responsible but nobody is accountable.    


Rant over…


Back to Bhutan…
As far as I know, it isn’t the same here. There’s no competition because there is no market for courses and the school statistics aren’t published (except for the top ten for celebratory reasons). Free from the influences of free market examining and publication of detailed league tables, the inflation of results does not occur and portfolio courses are not exploited as a means to raise perceived ‘attainment’. The government funds both academic schooling, monastic schooling and informal education for those who missed out (schooling itself is fairly new here). Entry to college by scholarship is by merit, though families can self-fund college education. 


The potential rewards of education cannot be understated in Bhutan, and I think people know this. Almost everybody I met from the government and national institutions in those wonderful initial two weeks in Thimphu received their higher education through scholarships in respected Universities abroad. There is a vibrant history of international education for those who perform well in this country. And a surprising amount of them come back. Harvard and Oxford educated economists who could be filling their boots with all the other morally bankrupt investment bankers are working here to help keep the country on the middle path of development. There certainly are some complex problems to keep them busy too; urban migration for one, and meeting the employment expectations of an increasingly well-educated work force is another. In a country of only 700 000 people, these well-educated, erudite and intelligent officials are very visible.


After a meeting with one such official in Thimphu I reflected on the importance of the interview he had when he was 16 yrs old. As a result of that interview (which was itself a result of high grades), he won a scholarship to Columbia University and progressed to a Masters in Oxford. Did he know back then what a difference it would make to his life? Did the other candidates have any idea what they had missed out on? Education can still open some really big doors here, and it’s all about the grades. Even if the big doors don’t open, there is a considerable gulf between a child’s education and the education their parents’ received. It’s some education over none, and that makes a big difference.


If the student’s here are outperforming their UK counterparts, it might be down to this – they value their education. This is most noticeable in their behaviour, of which I will say more next time when I talk about the classroom. Apologies for the slowing down of this blog. I’ve got 33 periods a week, I’m Head of Science, I’m in charge of all literary activities for the year, I’ve got a student teacher to coach and observe and I’m the chief timetabler for the school. I’m also a strange looking alien that everybody wants a piece of. And I’m trying to rewrite my first novel. 


As Beck famously said… my time is a piece of wax borne by a termite that’s choking on the splinters…  (are those really the lyrics?)

Lost Photographs Found Buried on Hard Drive...

I found the pictures of Rukubji and the Black Necked Cranes...

A Call to Well-Levered Arms from the West...

Right then. I saw my science labs today. I didn't have my camera so I can't show them, but in summary, they aren't exactly supplied. The walls are plain: a far cry from the colourful and inspiring walls we make at home. In short, there's nothing.

I recently made an application for funding to get musical instruments for the school, so I'm hoping with fingers crossed that in a month or so there'll be drums, guitars, and a keyboard.

Sports-wise, the school is currently building a basketball pitch - you can see it in the picture below. The football pitch is scheduled for next year, so for now we play on gravel. There's one or two flat footballs lying around the place and I met a kid who was going up into the jungle to get some bamboo to make some goals but I've got no idea how he'll get them through the gravel. In short... there's very little for kids to do here. There's not much for teachers to do either, except play on the gravel or sit around a bukari chewing the fat. I started constructing a chess set for us. I got as far as Knights and Bishops before a colleague told me he already had one.

A representative of the Japanese government graced our school today to review the progress and meet students and staff. Pakshikha MSS was built with generous Japanese JICA funding. Those funds gave us our buildings and filled them with rudimentary furnishings – tables, chairs etc. The pride of the school is the MPH (Multi Purpose Hall), and it looks good. But the labs remain empty. The sports facilities are lean to say the least. There are no music facilities.

During my time here I intend to make as big a contribution as I can to the family of Pakshikha, and I'm finding out already that I am able to make a real difference. I feel obliged to make the application for music funds – I have access to funding streams that the school does not. I was able to computerize the timetabling because I have access to technology that the staff does not have, a benefit of my privileged western education. If all goes well, there'll be a website so the families don't have to travel to school for results (it can be a journey of days). And of course I'll gradually be introducing different methods of teaching and learning (more about the classroom later).

But here's the rub... I also have access to you guys. This is a call to arms, a mobilisation of forces, and an opportunity for you to do something small that'll make a big difference. There's a surplus of stuff back in Blighty and elsewhere; there's a surfeit out here. So if anybody who works in a school can gather up those posters that languish unseen behind the cupboards, roll them up into a tube and send them to me, I'd be immensely grateful.

You could go one step further... Imagine what would happen if a class set of Newton meters or prisms or protractors were depleted by a mere single item? Compare the barely detrimental impact on those classes to the positive impact that just one of these items would have to teaching and learning over here. One instead of none! Something instead of nothing! And they'd be here year after year.

I never really intended to write an entry like this, and I know it's a long shot, but a surprise parcel from a friend made me realise how easy it is for people back home to make a big difference here. It's like a charity lever... you apply a smidgeon of force from there and by the time it gets to here, the impact is massive.

If you do work in a school, perhaps you could approach your boss and talk it through. Or give the principal this blog message to read and see what they say. If you don't work in a school, you can of course still help. 

Here's the address again:

Pakshikha MSS

Gedu

Chukha

Bhutan

Send things if you can! Ask me if you 're not sure what's appropriate or useful. But not stuff for me - stuff for the school. I have more than everything I need.