Bagan Elementary School
The 5-room school, in trees and countryside, with a big soccer field
Abraham, carrying a bag of notebooks and pencils to give to the students
He chose Justin Bieber-covered notebooks.
Then, we sang a little Justin Bieber to them,
knowing Justin Bieber was a universal pop language,
even in an isolated, poor school in Burma.
The main priority in elementary school is practicing the elegant Burmese script,
over and over and over again
This repetition is truth both in Burma, and in Burmese refugee schools in Malaysia
A moment of international educational and cultural exchange via Justin Bieber
These boy students agreed to write the Burmese alphabet in Griffin's blank notebook.
The round, curving letters float like balloons across the page.
Writing requires intense concentration and a sense of responsibility in Burma.
Abraham, surrounded by his usual flock of Asian followers.
He must look like the glowing, golden one with bright, lit eyes to them.
The work of art that is Burmese handwriting.
They also learn English in school, from an early age.
Click HERE to see a video of us singing the American alphabet song to the Burmese students.
My impression is Grade 3 in Burma is like US Grade 1.
The workbooks are produced by the military junta government,
with clear goals of indoctrination into government propoganda inside.
This drawing in their school workbook depicts Burmese children from every ethnic group,
drawn as members of Burma's greater happy family.
Reality is, many of these ethnic groups are fighting for independence from the military junta.
The famous Burmese child's school bag, worn by adults and children alike,
in Burmese school colors of white and green.
Burmese kids' lunch boxes, in metal canteens
These lunch canteens hold multiple layers with much rice and vege-based sauces and stewed items inside. If you are poor, you can't afford to give your child meat. So, most of these students, who were largely poor, were vegetarian, but not by choice. Click HERE to see a quick video of the canteen lunch, opened.
Alice is about the same age as these girls. That's hard to believe, given the height difference.
She may be much bigger than them since Asians are typically smaller than Westerners.
But, they may also be smaller since they are less well-nourished.
One child with some sort of skin problems on his scalp, making it necessary to shave his head.
I felt guilty about taking this picture of him, since he seemed to realize why I took it,
making him feel embarrassed.
A silly moment of play, imitating my signature silly move with new kids I meet,
especially new kids who speak a different language than me.
I found I became much more non-verbal in my communication after this year in Asia.
A boy who charmed my camera.
He played soccer with my kids.
Click HERE to watch my kids playing soccer with him and the students on their lunch break,
before most of the students went home for lunch with their mother.
So many variations on green and white, not to mention variations on adorable silliness.
The girls weren't playing soccer but were milling about, curious about us and
watching my kids play soccer with the boys, and hoping to get their photo taken by me too.
Teachers during lunch break, watching my kids play soccer with their students,
and waiting to host us in their teachers lounge for the
ubiquitous Burmese welcome snack, waiting for every visitor to someone's home in Burma.
This may be the most welcoming country we've ever been to.
The Head Teacher, or principal, is on the left. Another teacher on the right.
They and other teachers sat with us to feed us and talk, translated by our guide, Myo.
Another teacher pouring us the green tea that seems so necessary in the hosting ritual.
Griffin joined us in the teachers lounge, post soccer game, when the students went home.
The teachers laughed and took great JOY in the fact he was a ravenous mango eater.
They relished his mango appetite so that they went out and picked a mango off the tree for
him to take home with him as a gift.
Griffin and his mango
A happy boy, sweaty from soccer and his thirst quenched with mango
picked fresh off the tree and tea, that he's grown to love after a year in Asia.
The required picture of a military junta general in the teacher's lounge. Symbolic.
I really liked the Head Teacher. She had a calm, competent, patient, laid-back and open presence.
The teachers sat with us for a long time, even letting me do an impromptu, informal focus group with them about their classroom behavioral issue and management. More details about what the teachers said below. And, click HERE to see part of the focus group with them, with Abraham in my lap. Amazing how having Boom present always opens doors and smooths the way towards more open, warm discussions in Asia.
June 9, 2011
I came to Burma on a Fulbright ASEAN travel grant with the goal of seeing what the Burmese refugee teachers in Malaysia and Thailand were constantly referring to: The way we were taught in Burma. The Burmese way of teaching: Teacher-centered, not child centered. The Burmese refugee teachers in Malaysia also talked about how the Burmese students needed the cane for serious corporal punishment since Burmese children were “stubborn.” Well, the Burmese children may be stubborn in Malaysia but they seem downright docile in this Burmese Government school in the countryside around Bagan in Burma.
The docility at this school was striking. A guide from another part of the country here explained to me that docility and obedience is bred from a young age in Burma, usually socialized via fear. Inducing fear is used as a tool by the parents with the children, by the teachers with the children, and by the government with “the people.” If you think a child is naturally “stubborn,” then a parent, teacher, or government may think it has to make the child fearful of them to control them. “Stubborn” may actually be expressing a dissenting opinion. Or, stubborn might be misbehavior and disruptive behavior in the classroom. I have my doubts about this theory, but I find it interesting. How do they socialize this fear, if they do (which is debatable - a couple people knowledgeable about Burma have begged to differ on this point with me)?
In this area of Bagan, the government provides school through age 17, which is not true in the more oppressed areas like the Chin and Karen states. We visited an elementary school with children aged 5 to 9 outside of Bagan, an area like Angkor Wat, filled with 1000-year-old temples in the middle of middle of Myanmar. This area is not oppressed by the government. The children were so excited to meet us, although shy.
We brought 60 school notebooks (covered in Justin Bieber, to the delight of my 4 and 7-year-old) and pencils, since this was a school in a rural area with somewhat poor children who have to buy many items for themselves that the government will not provide – like notebooks, pencils, uniforms, and transport to and from school. You might not think transport is a make-or-break cost for schoolchildren but it is actually the deciding factor that stops the parents from sending their children away to middle or upper school, which are located further away. Even the cost of having to buy a bicycle for their children to get to middle school will stop the parents from letting their children go to school.
Our guide Myo confirmed that boys are more likely to be educated because boys will be a family providers. Ken pointed out that that may be a bad investment since the women, at least in Bagan, seem to be the hardest working, the actual family providers, running the tourist shops, markets, etc, with the men relaxing in the cafes, spitting their red betelnut on the ground. I left that discussion with the girl feeling very emotionally affected, knowing that just for the cost of $60 US per year she could go to school, but she won’t go to school and will just wait to get married, as young as age 16, although many Rohingya Muslim Burmese marry their girls off at age 13.
The elementary school we visited was a semi-rural, government-funded school with a ratio of about 1 teacher to 15 students, tough to beat – in comparison, my kindergartner will be in a class of 25 with one teacher in New York City. The kids at this particular government school had a better ratio than those at expensive international schools like ISKL for oil expat families. It was not posh, though, and had a traditional education system in place, it seemed. Learning was through repetition. The students had a paperback, short textbook with some children’s stories, a poem, a page or two in English, then the typical government propaganda about a unified, happy nation filled with many ethnic groups who were completely pleased to be unified. There was also a Myanmar flag with a government propaganda page, it seemed.
The students’ uniforms seemed a bit scruffy and dirty, for some. The school did not provide a free lunch or breakfast. Most students went home for lunch. There were certain students who could not go home for lunch because it was too far for them or their parents to travel during lunchtime. So, these students brought their lunch in tins that stack on top of each other and can hang from the handlebar of a bike. The tins were filled with rice and vegetable sauces, without any fish or meat since they were too poor.
The education system in the early years was solely focused on penmanship and vocabulary. There was a bit of arithmetic too. Penmanship is very important in Burma where each letter has beautiful round curves and lines. English is taught from an early age, but with a similar approach they take to learning Burmese – a focus on handwriting, with page after page of writing out each letter, like the letter “A”, repeatedly.
Interestingly, the Burmese Chin school in Kuala Lumpur also had the same notebooks with multiple lines and the refugee teachers largely taught the young children how to write out each letter, over and over again.
The teachers invited us to join them in their teachers’ lounge. While my sons were playing a sweaty game of soccer with the kids at lunch, we spoke with the teachers and had an impromptu focus group. I asked, via Myo our guide and interpreter, if there were any behavior problems at the school. They said, None. After a bit of prodding and reasking, they said sometimes the kids quarrel with each other , like over soccer. But, they don’t have a problem with disruptive behavior in class. I still asked if they used the cane and they said yes, but not often, more of a stick from a tree. I finally sussed out that they use the cane for the kids who get the lowest grades. They caned the kids’ hands, behind, and shins when they caned them, they said. The same was true in Thailand for the Burmese Karen school there – they would have an assembly which celebrated those with high grades then there was a public caning of those with the lowest grades.
I was just told that 2 years ago the government started prohibiting the teachers from “beating” the children with the cane but limited it to hitting the children, only in certain spots like hand, behind, and shins. One guide said that the government started the rule because parents were complaining about the teachers beating the children too much. But, that's questionable too, whether or not there is serious beating that used to be employed in school.
It is hard to get a clear answer to any sensitive questions about life as a Burmese student because the military junta blocks access for all foreigners, and pretty much any sort of outsider, to its schools. The junta won't even let World Vision do charitable, free work in their schools, although it lets Unicef do some minimal education work, but doesn't give Unicef permission for more than one year at a time. The junta is a bit more lax about restricting access to elementary schools, but, overall, it puts up high, symbolic walls around its education system. Some said, the junta does so to better indoctrinate the undereducated masses and to keep critical eyes and critical thinking out. So, school practices and policies are pretty non-transparent. And, that's also why our guides need to get permission from the teachers before we enter so that if the military questions them later, our guides can say they got permission from the teachers first.
