My New School

EWIS as seen from my apartment



My 6th grade science class



The lower school student where a uniform

I've now been working at the East-West International School for two weeks, a week of meetings and a week with the kids.  It is a K-9 school and next year it will have a 10th grade and then 11th and 12th, it is only 6 years old.  There are about 20 kids per grade so 200 in the entire school.  I am teaching science to 6th through 9th grades.  There are five of us who work with these grades.  We are on the 5th floor of a seven story building  The school has a basketball court on one of the roofs and a pool, so its not exactly third world, but with that said it is missing a lot of things that we take for granted in the states, like complete sets of books for all the students, microscopes, a defined curriculum and accreditation.  The kids are middle class kids that live in Phnom Penh, there are actually many independent/private schools in city.   I've been told that EWIS is unique in its approach and mission.  Strange, one man, forgot his name, owns EWIS and over a hundred other schools.  We are one of the few schools that he continues to support while it operates in the red.  The other school are for profit.  I went out Saturday with Gayla, a fellow teacher and she invited a friend and teacher from another school to come with us.  Tamile was not very complimentary about her school but all the teachers at EWIS say the nicest things.  This all seems to revolve around Sandra Chipps who is the principle and founder of the school.  She seems to have her way and defines the mission of the school.  The faculty are an odd assortment of teachers.  They all have unique stories and some have taught at international schools all their lives.  Many are young, in their twenties and seem to be reformed SE Asian backpackers.  A number of teachers have gotten married to Cambodian women.  I was asking Gayla about that and she said that if we went into a bar down by the river I, not she, would get hit on.  I didn't exactly know what she meant, but apparently it has to do with seeking a western husband, bald or not.  She also said that in talking with the husbands, they say their Khmer wives are wonderful, attentive, faithful, don't push back.  All very interesting but seems out of step with the way the world is going.   I'll have to find out more, so far no one is hitting on me and if they did I would probably start talking birds and that would be that. 

 A couple of my new students doing a lab

      The students are the last but probably most important ingredient in this mix that makes up a school.  Well they are not third world orphans, but middle class kids from families that can afford to pay what I think amounts to about one year average salary.  There are a few western kids whose parents work in Phnom Penh, but most are Cambodian and then some Korean.  The lower school kids are really cute in there uniforms.  They march around like ducks behind their teachers.  The upper school is made up of kids that seem happy to be there.  No real resistance to education and very friendly.  Teachers are placed in some importance here.  With that said these kids are also teenagers and not so much different from teenagers around the world.  Mixed in with the very bright hard working students are the knuckleheads who need to be reminded to stay focused.  My days with them demand effort and energy, but less so than in the US because there is not the resistance to learning.  I am having to use the existing curriculum and I really don't like it and don't understand how it jumps around.  I wish I had a set of PHS text books, believe it or not.  Well that's all for now.  I must write next time about he city, where just the other day I discovered my first loaf of sliced bread.