What does it mean to be creative? Writer Thomas Disch claimed that “creativity is the ability to see relationships where none exist.” If this is the case, then at PEPY we are imagining all sorts of relationships, while we constantly look for ways to improve our Creative Learning Classes. The CLC team have been busy developing a new curriculum, which will encourage cross-curricular, topic-based learning. Wishing to reinvigorate the goals of the program, the team decided to go back to basics and have spent the past week revisiting and re-learning what it actually means to “be creative.” We are lucky to have Maria Perez (PEPY’s resident graphic designer, artist, and all-round creative person) for the next couple of months, sharing her skills and knowledge with the CLC team. We’ll keep you updated as we move forward with new and creative approaches to teaching and learning, and the revised CLC curriculum. For now, you can check out some pictures from a recent training session about creative displays and our different "thinking hats" on our flickr site.
In the past, some of you have asked to give the gift of a PEPY donation in the name of people you love as a holiday gift. This year, we're making that easy for everyone! If you are still looking for gifts this year or can't find the right thing for someone who "has everything," why not choose one of the gifts below? Your friend or loved one will get a unique and thoughtful gift, and together you support PEPY by investing in educational improvements in Cambodia. Not only will we put your donation to good use, we'll also thank YOU (and you friend!) in our own PEPY way, ranging from an email to a video, to homemade cookies (no, really!)
To give the gift of PEPY this holiday season, please visit www.pepyride.org/donate and fill out this form to tell us the names, addresses and phone numbers we will need to deliver our holiday love!
For $35 your gift supports a part-time assistant leader for our Child-Club Program for one month. These leaders are young people from the local community, who have been trained in Child to Child methodologies, leadership, and life skills. These dynamic young people were hired because of their enthusiasm, positive attitudes and potential to serve as role models in their community. Meet them here!
If you donate in the name of a friend, in addition to supporting rural education:
You and your friend will receive an e-mail sent on the date of your choice which lets them know that you have donated to support an assistant leader for a month in their name. We'll also send you both an e-mail in the new year letting you know how many people joined our holiday support team, and details on the Child Clubs.
For $50 your gift supports one student's participation in our English and XO Creative Learning Class programs for a year.
On the date of your choice, PEPY will e-mail you and your friend a personalized certificate with PEPY pictures and logos, information about what their funding supports, and a message telling them that you donated in their name. Alternately, we can e-mail you and you can print it the certificate out to give directly to your friend.
For $100 your gift supports our Bike-to-School Programwhich is projected to award more than 100 bikes again this year to students entering grade 7.
On the date of your choice, we'll email your friend a personalized certificate with program information and custom message. In addition, we will send you and your friend a hand-written thank you card with photos from the Bike-to-School Program ceremony in October.
For $250 your gift supports a 5 day teacher training course on literacy or mathematics for 20 government teachers.
On the date of your choice, we'll email your friend a personalized certificate with program information and a custom message. In addition, you will be some of the first to receive the PEPY 2010 calendar (which is a bit late this year! Sorry!). You let us know where to send them, and you and your friend will have two calendars to keep you PEPY-fied in 2010! If you like, we'll also send a poem to you and your friend in your honor that incorporates both of your names and your support for PEPY. (If your name doesn't rhyme with anything, we might give you a nickname ;)
For $500 your gift supports an educational field trip temple visit for a class of junior high school students. For 7th graders we plan on visiting the Angkor National Museum, in 8th have environmental projects planned on the Tonlé Sap, and we're still brainstorming with teachers for grade 9! You and your friends can help make these happen!
On the date of your choice, we'll email your friend a personalized certificate with program information and a custom message. In addition, we'll send your friend a beautiful silk photo album with pictures from the field trip in the spring of 2010! Plus, if you give us your/his/her phone number, we can call directly from our office in Cambodia during the last week of December, from 6am-10pm Cambodian time (6pm-10am EST). We'll even sing a holiday song of your choice to your friend!
Both you and your friend will receive the certificate, program information, and a holiday phone call, plus a semi-annual update from your club, giving information and stories about what the club is doing, an album of pictures from the clubs, and a personalized video documenting the Child Club for both you and your friend. We will also make you cookies. No, really, we will! Just tell us where to send them! We have 15 Child Clubs looking for sponsors… Who wants to take this opportunity to be an important part of our team?
This year, instead of XO computer class PEPY is offering Creative Learning Class, with two very creative teachers who recently joined our team. Meet Soun Kimeang and Loem Lida below! Both Kimeang and Lida are recent graduates of CIST (Centre for Information Systems Training). PEPY began working with CIST in 2008, when we learned about their impressive training program in Cambodia. CIST works to recruit bright, motivated young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds across Cambodia, and supports them through a two year high-class I.T. training program. In their own words, their goal is "bridging the digital divide in Cambodia through the creation of an I.T. training centre." We believe in CIST's mission and their team, and have partnered with them for two years now offering
internships to CIST students, and working with them to recruit from our target areas. We hope that one day we will have students from
Chanleas Dai attend CIST, then come back and teach our Creative Learning Classes! To learn more about CIST, click here. Read on to
meet two of CIST's newest graduates who are managing PEPY's CLC programs in Chanleas Dai.
Suon Kimeang is 22 years old and is from Kompong Cham Province. He just finished studying System Network Administration, which is a
diploma degree in computer sciences, at CIST in Phnom Penh. Kimeang first worked with PEPY in 2008 for two months in September and
October during which he assisted Channeang in the XO program. PEPY is very happy to have him back on our team as our full
time Creative Learning teacher. He feels confident that he can practice his knowledge and share with the students. He feels there is
much he can learn from PEPY and much he can teach his students.
Loem Lida is 21 years old and is from Pursat Province. She also just finished her System Network Administration training at CIST. She has worked with CCFC (Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood) and UNDP (United Nations Development Program) on internships in IT support. She has also worked with Project for Asia as an English teacher. Lida will be joining PEPY as a CLC and English teacher and will be helping to make the Creative Learning Classes come alive with ideas! She is excited to help students gain new knowledge and to share what she knows with them.
This month, as we look back at the year, we wanted to share some of the statistics and fun numbers we have kept track of in 2009. Click on the links to read more about each statistic!
Chanleas Dai Villages in our target area of Chanleas Dai Commune: 11 Families in the Commune: 1,700 Percentage of government teachers in the area without any formal teacher training: 40% Typical monthly salary of a government teacher in Chanleas Dai:$35
Percentage of rice yield lost in Chanleas Dai due to severe flooding in October: 50-80%
PEPY Programs Schools PEPY works with: 14 PSDP Pilot Program schools: 2 Government teachers PEPY supports through training: 62 Days of training supported: 64 (and that’s just since we started counting in May!) Schools constructed in 2009: 4
Monthly average of books checked out of our Chanleas Dai library: 1,334 Classroom library shelves installed at 10 schools: 50 Total Classroom Library books: 10,000+ Students who joined PEPY’s second literacy camp: 443 (a 100% increase from last year!) Published Khmer books written by PEPY staff: 3
Children participating in our 15 Child Clubs: 350 Days of life skills training provided for Child Club leaders: 19
AUW scholars recruited: 5 Teachers PEPY is supporting to obtain their high school equivalency: 16 PEPY students and staff who spent the summer in Vermont: 6 Teachers PEPY supported in 2009 through monthly food support: 17 Primary schools with PEPY-supported English classes: 5 Junior high students studying in our English and Creative Learning Classes: 232
PEPY Staff Current Khmer PEPY staff: 36 Current paid foreign staff: 4 Khmer staff who are currently studying: 15 Foreign volunteer staff who have worked with us in 2009: 19 Khmer interns who have joined us in 2009: 6 PEPY staff babies welcomed into the world in 2009: 3 (Congratulations Mama Sak, Papa Aim and Papa Sovandy!) PEPY staff weddings planned in 2010: 5 Countries represented by PEPY's interns in 2009: 12 Collective kilometers PEPY staff ran or biked in last weekend’s Angkor Race and Marathon: 232 Estimated years until PEPY Program Officer Thul Rithy becomes Cambodia’s prime minister: 17
PEPY Dollars Individual donors in 2009: 532 Median donation amount: $40 Funds raised to date in 2009 through individual donations: $298,568 Funds received through the support of Dubai Cares to build three schools and operate educational tours for Dubai Cares volunteers: $238,237 Total funds spent to date on education projects in 2009: $ 499,445 Percentage of your personal donations that have gone/will go directly to program work: 100% (How? Click here!)
PEPY Tours Number of you who have traveled with us in 2009: 103 Number of trips: 15 Youngest trip participant: 5 years old Oldest trip participant: 80 years old Number of returning participants: 4
PEPY Media Number of websites we’ve developed (Thanks, webmaster!): 5 (www.pepyride.org, www.pepytours.com, www.lessonsilearned.org, www.thehipster.org, www.volonourism101.org) Number of Facebook friends: 943 (are you one of them?) Number of Twitter followers: 727 (follow us now!) PEPY’s ranking on Twitter within Cambodia: 1 Number of YOU who subscribed to our newsletter: 4,322 Number of you who read it: well, we’re not sure, but we believe it's higher than the stats say. Why don't you check out some of our Team Journal postings and leave a comment or two? We'd love to talk with you!
Want to join, support or help grow our numbers? Are there numbers you’d like to have included on this list? Get in touch!
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This year,PEPY has two new computer teachers whom we hired through CIST, an organization we believe in. We love that they are building capacity in motivated youth, many of whom come from rural areas like Chanleas Dai, and we are of course hoping that some day there will be people FROM Chanleas Dai who go through their program.
In order to get there, however, the students of Chanleas Dai must have higher
level math skills, as none of the students who took the CIST test last
year in Kralanh District passed the test.
As
such, our computer classes are designed to support math learning and
critical thinking techniques, previously mostly through the use XO computers and an MIT-developed program called Scratch.
In addition, the classes are designed to allow students to express
their ideas creatively and collaboratively as most of their other
classes use rote memorization and lecture-style teaching methods.
When trying to express PEPY’s goals for “Computer Classes”and
how they have little or nothing to do with the COMPUTER, but more to do
with new ways of solving problems and self-expression, we realized
that once again it was a problem of mis-naming something.
(See some thoughts here about how calling the XO Computer One “Laptop”
per Child has caused confusion as this “laptop” does not fit our
prior definition of what a computer should do.) The teachers and students in Chanleas Dai already have a mental image of what “Computer Class” should be:
Computer Classes teach typing. Computer Classes teach Microsoft programs. Computer Classes are designed to give you computer skills, which you can then use in a job that involves a computer!
Computer Classes teach…computers!
This is NOT whatPEPY's “Computer Classes” are meant to be doing!
We recognize that most students who enter 7thgrade in Chanleas Dai will continue to work and live in Chanleas Dai in their future. Hence, the majority of them will probably not be doing a computer-based job.
They might be working in agriculture, fixing machines, generators, or
bikes; they might be taking care of animals, or they might run their
own small business, among other options. None of these requires the Windows OS.
So, we renamed the class. And we think the concept might have stuck! Teachers understand that our main focus is not on the computer now that the classes are called “Creative Learning Classes”. We want these programs to focus on the following two goals:
1.Math and creative thinking skills
2.Creative expression, problem solving, group work, and experiential education
Below is a list of ideas we have already suggested. We’d LOVE to hear your ideas for creative and interesting learning experiences you have had, heard about, or created!
We want these classes to be not only a chance for students to direct
their own learning in areas that will provide skills for their future,
but also a place where students feel they can express themselves in
ways that might have been overlooked in other classes. Let us know your thoughts and add to these ideas, as we’d love a global perspective on what Creative Learning Class could be!
·Design
of a website about Chanleas Dai: maps, census data, videos about
interesting things in their village (the cycle of planting/harvesting
rice, an essay or video about their travels to school and what they see
on the way, etc)
·A semi-annual Chanleas Dai newspaper
·Leadership
games (Awatd has already designed and created low ropes course games at
the pagoda’s school in town, including a spider web you must crawl
through and teamwork “caterpillar” walking sticks!)
·The
good old “make a container to house an egg and we’ll drop it to see if
the egg survives” activity (though we would prefer to do it in a way
that does not waste food!)
·Khmer Literacy learning games with Scratch…
Any more? Share your ideas! We’d love to hear learning activities that you have loved and learned from.
Remember,
anyone who is registered for our newsletter is automatically entered to win a pair of KEEN socks each
month. Then, come leave a comment on our Team Journal!
No, don’t “do it for the socks”, but do it to help us create
conversation and further thought around these articles we spend time
writing, hoping that someone (anyone?!) out there is reading. Of course, if you really have cold feet, do it for the socks too. Both reasons are worth it. Tell us your thoughts! We’d love to hear from you!
On the date of your choice, PEPY will e-mail you and your friend a personalized certificate with PEPY pictures and logos, information about what their funding supports, and a message telling them that you donated in their name. Alternately, we can e-mail you and you can print it the certificate out to give directly to your friend.
On the date of your choice, we'll email your friend a personalized certificate with program information and a custom message. In addition, you will be some of the first to receive the PEPY 2010 calendar (which is a bit late this year! Sorry!). You let us know where to send them, and you and your friend will have two calendars to keep you PEPY-fied in 2010! If you like, we'll also send a poem to you and your friend in your honor that incorporates both of your names and your support for PEPY. (If your name doesn't rhyme with anything, we might give you a nickname ;)
