Overdose? Part 1

After my first week of teaching Biology to second year high school (former Filipino streets kids) students in Cebu, it quickly became apparent that it wasn’t going to be enough to teach them theoretical things, and that if I were to try keeping them engaged I would have to somehow come up with something practical for them to do. There were however limitations at Nehemiah – for example, one doesn’t have the normal set of science apparatus which as a science student I had completely taken for granted. There is also no such thing as a science lab – the importance of which I was unaware until now.

And in my Biology classes, I knew it would not do to learn about animal and plant cells by only drawing diagrams on the blackboard without having a look at how such cells actually look. Unfortunately, the only microscope they had at the Nehemiah school is no longer functioning, so short of finding a huge sum to buy a microscope, we would need to be creative and improvise somewhat.

Going through the Biology textbook, dense with long definitions and historical facts which seemed a bit obscure for Filipino students in the 21st century, I was relieved to find an experiment which might just do the job. The hypothesis was this: Paracetamol prolongs the life of plants such as roses.

So, at the start of the second week of school, armed with a dozen of red roses which we bought on the roadside of a church, two tablets of Paracetamol and three empty 1 litre Coke bottles, I presented the project to the excited second years. We got busy filling up the bottles (estimating the same volume as best as we could, though without a measuring cylinder!), cutting the thorny roses (with normal paper cutting scissors) and crushing the Paracetamol (using a plastic bowl and a spoon from the kitchen).

The textbook did not specify how much Paracetamol to use, so I just thought let’s go for the usual human dosage of two tablets (which admittedly isn’t exactly very scientific of me, oh well).

Vaguely remembering that I didn’t use to make much connection between theory and practice in school, I tried to help the class apply what they had been learning the previous week – about scientific thinking and how experiments work, testing them on why they thought a certain way, and keeping the questioning until they gave me an explanation for their answers.

The second years share the chapel area with the first years, the classes being separated by a few blue hand-painted dividers. The chapel was also accessible by students from other classes during recess, so conducting the experiment in their classroom without risking having all the rose petals plucked out by an enthusiastic 9-year-old was impossible. This meant that each day I would have to ask a couple of students to help me transport the bottles up and down from our room on the third floor to the classroom in the basement.

Each day the students examined the roses with excitement and anticipation, but as the week went on, it transpired that perhaps we were discovering a different kind of result than in our hypothesis. The roses in the bottle labelled Bottle B: Experimental 1 – Paracetamol were looking very tired, and it seemed that they would actually be the first ones to bid us goodbye.

Next week I will write about what happened next!

F = m x a

When the summer ended, we discovered two days before school was due to start that the school here at CFA still had not been able to hire a science teacher, whilst the English teacher was no longer available due to personal reasons. What we also discovered, was that we were to step in to take on these lessons whilst they look for replacement teachers.

Within the next 48 hours Rob and I ploughed through the textbooks given to us for secondary school levels 1-3, only to conclude that the content was way too fact-based (and boring!) for children who may not be the most motivated bunch in learning. Most of these kids come from very difficult backgrounds – they either used to be on the street, or lived with abusive or otherwise dysfunctional families. The fact that the textbooks are in the English language (not their first language) doesn’t help either.

So the new challenge was to think of ways of teaching the subjects (General Science, Biology and Chemistry for me; English and Social Studies for Rob) in as interestingly a way as possible – to inspire the children to learn in the first place, but without compromising on having too little content / actual things that they could learn.

I couldn’t really remember how photosynthesis works anymore, or much about Newton’s laws, and was semi dreading my first lesson. I tried to think of why I had studied so hard in school, what motivated me, and why it didn’t seem to bother me that there were loads of facts to memorize, half of which I didn’t quite grasp until years later. The exercise forced me to rethink from first principles – about what is the whole point of learning about science, and its relevance in the lives of the children.

1.5 weeks later, I feel like I’ve been teaching for a whole month! The kids are absolutely amazing – they do want to learn, they are mostly attentive (with good classroom control techniques, which we term Tough Love), and they are actually very bright. But it’s also been very challenging to convey complex ideas to them as they don’t seem to have much of a strong foundation. I also found it slightly amusing to see how, initially, they seemed to be at their best when they were not listening to anything but instead were copying things from the board – I wondered if I was just the same, having been educated in hugely rote learning environments.

Today I just took over a class which my friend had very kindly taught last week when she was visiting the CFA project. It wasn’t the easiest class, as one-third of the kids seemed perpetually distracted. Despite remembering not liking being picked on by teachers in my school days, I found that paying attention directly on the kids who were not “with me” - working through the task with them whilst still standing at the front of the class and really encouraging them when they got anything right – actually worked, and it was fun!

Today we talked about F = m x a.

Perhaps I could reinterpret the formulae this way:

Fun in teaching = massive preparation x attending to the areas where kids have difficulties i.e. don’t move on until they understand what you’re talking about

Farewell to the Summer Holiday (with movie!)

Rob put together a video of the shots and clips we've taken during the summer holiday - going on outings with the kids, learning new things together at workshops and eating lots!

The background songs are by Tim Hughes...!

Enjoy :)

Fun Fun Fun!

Here is a selection of the photos taken of the various summer activities and outings we had with the kids at CFA. Enjoy!

Human Trafficking

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

- Edmund Burke

Last week during a bumpy three-hour drive to a waterfall with some visitors from Germany I listened to an mp3 of a talk which Gary Haugen gave at Holy Trinity Brompton on human trafficking. Gary Haugen, a DC lawyer, is an excellent speaker and his talk brought home to me again the reality of this problem in today’s world. He is the head of International Justice Mission, a Christian organisation dedicated to the rescue of people who have been oppressed or unjustly treated, including those who have been trafficked, and the prosecution of the perpetrators, so that justice may be realised and injustice stopped.

You can listen to the talk HERE.

It’s been said many times before but I still get shocked when I hear that there are more people held in slavery now than more than 200 years ago, before the abolition of the slave trade.

Over lunch, we asked Harald, the German pastor who started CFA some 18 years ago, about the problem of human trafficking in Cebu. Having worked in Cebu for almost two decades, he said the city is actually more dangerous than Manila in terms of children being tricked into being trafficked. He told us the story of one of the girls at CFA. Her family was very poor and lived in one of the feeding areas where CFA visited (and still visits). One day her mother announced, with pride, to one of the CFA staff who was visiting the area, that her daughter had been given a job in Manila. The staff’s suspicions were confirmed as it transpired after much probing that the mother had been persuaded by a stranger to let her daughter go to Manila to work, and in return she would be given some money. In CFA’s experience, instead of the promised new life, the girl would most likely be sold into a brothel. The mother did not intend to sell her daughter into the sex trade, but was unable to support her daughter along with the her many other children. Thankfully the girl was taken into CFA’s care before she left for Manila and she is now a smiling teenager who is petrified of being tickled!

I think the biggest problem that many of us face when it comes to thinking about these things isn’t apathy, but paralysis by despair. We feel overwhelmed by the statistics, dragged down by the facts and helpless because we think the problem is too vast or we don’t know where to begin.

Sometimes I still feel this way, but I’m reminded once and again that:

- if everyone does something, it will count eventually!

- ultimately, it’s a choice that we make, whether we choose to live life as if such things do not happen, or we choose to do what we can to help stop injustice.

So what can we actually do?

Well, I’m not an expert but I think there are at least a few things for starters:

1. We can educate ourselves more about such issues so we can decide what best we can do, and also to tell others about the issues. Here are some good sites - UN Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking, Stop the Traffik

2. Stop the Traffik has a campaign where people are encouraged to only buy trafficking-free chocolate (on top of fair trade) and to urge chocolate producers to ensure that the cocoa they use does not involve exploitation of trafficked labour. And you can even hold your own traffick-free chocolate fondue party! See Stop the Traffik for more information.

3. Support organisations such as STT and IJM in their efforts to combat trafficking and other acts of injustice – by telling others about them and by giving financially.

4. If you’re a Christian, I would say PRAY! Pray for God to intervene to bring justice and restored lives out of these places of darkness and despair. Personally, I found that it was as I began praying, I felt more strength to get more involved in points 1-3 above too.

My obsession with Dust, Sweat and What Not

I think one of the things that most amuse (and infuriate) Rob since our married life started 8 months ago was my (irrational) obsession with dust, sweat, insects and the like. Perhaps many women (and men) wouldn’t find my behaviour abnormal, but certainly Rob has struggled to understand it, whilst over the months I’ve actually found it hard to render a good explanation for it. These “principles” have been such a core part of me that are second nature and hence, to me, the most logical way of life.

Living in a less economically developed country now (albeit in a relatively nice environment), one can imagine that some of these things are even more unavoidable.

Principle 1: If you drop food on the floor (even the cleanest concrete floor), don’t eat it. Depending on what it is, and the state of the cleanliness of the floor, you could possibly rinse it properly under (clean) running water before consuming it.

What is wrong with the floor? Dust? Dust doesn’t kill. There’s dust everywhere.

Principle 2: Don’t sit on the bed whilst in the clothes that you have just worn after a whole day of being outside. The bed should be kept as clean and dirt/sweat-free as possible, otherwise it may attract insects at night!

Again, a bit of dust from the day won’t kill you, and it is nice to be able to relax by sitting on the bed.

Principle 3: The sacredness of the towel. Where we are staying at the moment, there are numerous hooks on the bathroom wall. Dirty clothes should not be hung next to a towel, lest the dirty clothes touch the towel which is meant for drying oneself after a nice shower.

....no harm done by a bit of dust from the day!

Principle 4: If the bathroom is wet and you’re barefooted and your feet are not 100% clean, avoid walking on the wet bits. Instead, tiptoe around them to get to where you want to if possible. If you do walk on the wet bits and start making a mess of the floor (because the water on the floor “dissolves” the dirt on your feet), then please splash some water over the mess and keep the floor clean.

....What a palaver!!

Principle 5: Be on the run as soon as you see any moth/flying ant/flying cockroach/lizard approaching. These are abominable things, and if they land on you, you could get bitten or develop a skin disorder.

These things are friendly and won’t hurt. They are probably more scared of you, this giant human compared to them, than you are afraid of them.

And I could go on and on, about why we shouldn’t hug when one or both of us are sweaty, washing our feet before going to bed, covering the toilet seat when flushing...

Oh the joys of married life!


I should add though, that to his credit, Rob has made tremendous concessions, and we have both made considerable progress moving towards each other’s position.

And it's worth noting that Rob does not always look like the photo at the top - that was taken after a particularly sweaty day cycling down a dusty road in Cambodia!

Taking the Kids Out

When we first arrived in Cebu, we weren't sure what exactly we might get involved with, as we arrived during the children's summer holiday, and the school where we were hoping to help out was closed during the break.

Over a week, it became obvious to us that perhaps we should try to see if we can make the summer holiday for the children a bit more exciting - as their current daily routine seems to only consist of watching endless TV and pirated movies! Unlike a normal home with more finances to spare, CFA does not have the resources to arrange for special activities for the children during the school holidays. Also, as many of these children, delightful as they are, still have many issues to deal with, it is not always a good idea to let them go out on their own.

So we wracked our brains and came up with a month of summer activities before the children go back to school on June 14! For starters we will play games like Pictionary, have competitions in Scrabble, Volleyball, Badminton etc, and running some workshops for those who are interested (Christine: painting, Rob: writing, etc!). We also thought it would be nice to take the children out in smaller groups to hang out - and watch a movie or go bowling or something.

Even though the cost of things in the Philippines is much lower than that in the UK, multiplying anything by 60 (kids) will add up eventually! We've been really blessed though that some friends have given us some money for use towards the children in Cebu. This way we can pay for the outings as well as some materials for the summer activities.

The first outing we went on we took our first group of children to see Iron Man 2. It was heartening to see that even though (I think) the teenagers didn't fully understand the plot, they thoroughly enjoyed the experience and were very grateful for our efforts. For us who grew up with so much, it was a shock that the children had never been to the cinema to see a movie before.

By the time the movie ended most of the eating places were shut except the Filipinos' version of McDonalds, called Jollibee! So we went in for some fried chicken, spaghetti and burgers - there was quite a range of choices I have to say. We gave them a budget to work with when ordering their meals. I was taken aback when even the 16 year olds suddenly became incredibly shy at the thought of ordering their meals over the counter - and then I realised that most, if not all, of them, would not have had any opportunity to eat out, and even if an adult took them out for a meal, they might not have been asked to order the food themselves. So there we were, coaxing and encouraging them to just pick a meal out of the 10 meals shown on the board, whilst they giggled, hid behind each other and looked perplexed at the many choices. I was so proud when they finally made up their minds and managed to tell the person behind the counter what they would like to eat, even though they tended to copy each other and ended up ordering the same thing!