A few days ago I had the unfortunate experience of attending a parent-teacher meeting here in Pramaoy, Cambodia, and it was even worse than expected.
✍️ First, Drop Monkey-B Off
Our girls had barely attended three days of public school here in Pramaoy before a parent-teacher meeting was called, so I didn't expect much in the way of feedback from such a meeting. The meeting was scheduled for 7:30am, 30 minutes after the start of Monkey-B's classes, so we just decided to hang around the school and kill time until the meeting began.
We watched the students perform the flag-raising ceremony, even though the flag was already raised, something a little out of the ordinary. Usually different students attach, raise, and lower the flag each day, but here in Pramaoy I'm learning things are done a little different. Little did I know the overwhelming majority of parents would show up one hour late to the meeting, and the meeting was held back for those late arrivals.
🗣️ Finally It Begins
Well, after waiting a half hour to make sure we weren't late to the meeting, I was quite displeased and not shocked at all that the parents began trickling in 10 minutes late with the bulk of everyone arriving an hour late. An hour and half had passed before anything substantial had happened, and my back, knees, and butt were already hurting from the preschool table-desks we were made to cram into.
Just when I thought the meeting was going to start by allowing us a short personal conversation with Srey-Yuu's teacher, the school spent 1 hour simply calling out the names of the students to see whose parents were present. It was done in such a disorderly way that it took this long to simply read aloud 30-40 names.
This mess could've been avoided with a simple sign-in sheet and someone providing assistance for illiterate parents to sign in. Finally when all the names had been called, I thought I was going to get my little 3-4 minute with Srey-Yuu's teacher, but that's not how things are done here in Pramaoy, the program was more akin to a 1970s Khmer Rouge village meeting.
The school asked each of the parents to stand up one-by-one and address all of our complaints, thoughts, and ideas very directly in front of a crowd of strangers and powerful local government officials. Needless to say, this prevents the kind of honesty you'd have in face-to-face one-on-one meeting with the teacher.
Half of the parents are from the countryside, very humble, and simply scared to death to speak in a situation like that. This was made very clear to me by watching half of the parents mumble for 10 minutes with nobody able to hear anything, causing side conversations to form and the room to get louder.
😫 I Survived
I could go on and on about the meeting, but the main point is that it was the most disorganized and meatless school meeting I have been to in my 12+ years in Cambodia. The whole program ultimately consisted of the parents asking the teachers to stop their children from using the phone at home. The parents all complained that smartphones are ruining their lives, and they are unable to pull their kids away from the screens.
When it was my turn to speak, I let everyone the phone thing is a simple problem that be fixed with screentime settings and/or simply only allowing your child to physically have the screen device for 15-30 minutes a day, and to sit with them and monitor their activity. I let all the parents know that it's okay for your kid to whine about being bored, and boredom leads to creativity, and imagination.
Everyone clearly understood me, but the xenophobic lady director whom still has not looked at my eyes nor acknowledged my existence stood up and asked my wife to translate what I'd said because she couldn't understand a word. My wife then repeated, not translated what I'd said, because I said it in fluent Khmer. The crowd chuckled because they were impressed with my Khmer and understood me, but the director was simply trying to punk me or something, I really don't know what her intentions were.
A bunch of other boring stuff happened too, but ultimately the meeting lasting so long that when it ended, we were only a few minutes from Monkey-B's school day being over. Nearly 5 hours was spent to ultimately acknowledge the parents are frustrated that their kids are addicted to screens and the parents don't have enough backbone to simply take the damn things away part of the day.
I was so exhausted from the experience that I was unable to work that day, so I missed out on a potential Hive post and earnings of $15 to $18. I definitely think I should get back into teaching here, it's obvious the youths have very little conscious guidance. I'll obviously have to work independently to avoid the outdated systems I'd be forced to adapt to working with any local partner/director.
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