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Independent Herald
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Teaching with bamboo H
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ow do you teach science in a bamboo school room to a class of 60 Burmese students in a refugee camp? Rob Julian, Johnsonville, talks about instructing future Burmese science teachers on the Thai border. There is no equipment that would be found in a New Zealand school laboratory, says Rob Julian. No Bunsen burners, metre rules, masses, ammeters, voltmeters, measuring cylinders, or chemicals. Nothing except a class of eager students sitting eagerly at desks. Consequently, science lessons are mainly ‘book learning’ and the teachers do what they call ‘dry experiments’. Which is to say, they talk about them. Mr Julian has recently returned from taking a five day workshop for teachers in the Burmese Refugee camps on the Thai Border, to encourage them to do practical activities with the resources they have. He was over on a voluntary basis at the invitation of The Curriculum Project (CP) which organises curriculum resources and training among teachers in the camps and in the migrant schools around the town of Mae Sot on the Thailand-Burma border. The workshops were organised by CP together with the Karen Refugee Committee Education Entity as well as with ZOA Refugee Care, a Dutch Humanitarian organisation. There are some 150,000 to 200,000 Burmese refugees in camps along the Thai border and they have an extensive network of schools providing education to all the children, up to senior levels. And education is very highly valued. Students walking past Mr Julian would be doubled up and when he asked why, was told that they always bow when passing a teacher. He says they might not have ‘science resources,’ but they do have lots of plastic drink bottles which can serve as measuring implements for volume and mass. A one-litre bottle can be divided with a felt pen for 100 millilitres or 100 grams measurements. They can make rulers by getting bamboo strips and marking off lots of three fingers — about five centimetres — to measure lengths and, using these, together with marbles, rubber bands and volley balls (the main sporting activity in
TOGETHER: Teachers at the Mae Sot schools. the camps), they can do a surprising amount of physics activities. They modelled an electric circuit by all the teachers walking around the inside of the classroom, over chairs that represented a resistance, and coming back to the ‘battery’ (the teacher) to get a sweet to replenish their energy. Similarly they used red cabbage juice for acid/base chemistry, vinegar and baking soda for chemical reactions, and studied a huge variety of insects, spiders and plant life in the camp. They even came across a scorpion industriously crossing the main road in the camp. At the end of the last session, Mr Julian was presented with a very handsome Karen ethnic robe and one of the teachers read out a poem she had made up: ‘‘I want to be the best teacher I can be to make my leader proud of me.’’ One issue is the high staff turnover, says Mr Julian. Burmese and Karen teachers who get experience and confidence, are invariably accepted by different countries for refugee status. Some go on to attend university in the host counties. Others have menial cleaning jobs or work in restaurants. ■ Rob Julian is a visiting lecturer at Victoria University’s College of Education, in Science and Professional Development, and was formerly deputy principal and head of science at Newlands College.
Photo: CCN120411ABburma01
THIS AND THAT: Rob Julian prepares an experiment.
Photo: CCN120411ABburma02
BLOW: Checking out Newton’s Laws of Motion. Photo: CCN120411ABburma03
FIDDLY WORK: The teachers construct skeletons Photo: CCN120411ABburma04 from paper.
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