Kirk & Ming, the founders of Isara have been such warm-hearted and welcoming hosts during our stay so far. We've already become good friends with one another. Lara and I were already talking about how much we're going to miss this place! I'll get into detail more about both Kirk and Ming further into this entry and several entries to come!
As I've mentioned before, the intentions for our visit here is to help with the local community through various charity projects along with teaching English to a group of students from local public schools ranging from the ages 5 to even adults as old as 70. The division of students is separated by skill level, which suitably arranges them to their age group. Here, we have 3 groups: beginners (the younger kids), intermediate (some younger, others a bit older-- this class is more populated out of the 3 groups) and advanced (teenagers, a small group). We had the chance to shadow Ming & Kirk on Friday as they taught lessons focused on subjects such as phonetics (ABC's for the beginners), geography (SE Asian countries identifications for the intermediate class), and free write (e-pal writing, basically letter writing to American students in Texas for the advanced group). With the heavy rain from the past few days pouring in, we had less students come in on Friday according to regular attendance. I'm excited to see how many attend today's class. Lara and I are scheduled to teach on MWF's from 4-7 with Ming and Kirk. We're also going to teach at an English camp while the students have time off from school for 'mid-terms', which seems to be the term for the break in between two semesters. I'm curious to see how we'll manage this class without the aid of Ming and Kirk.
Being here has helped me understand the differences in education system. I'm always one to complain about the US government's negligence to fund imperative areas of civil development such as public educational institutions or even retention programs for the youth, but while being here, I've found that impacts of negligence in the actual instruction of education are equally harmful to students as with the lack of funding. I've learned that the educational culture here is restricted to only a handful of occupations. Hearing stories about children only wanting to be either a flight attendant, tour guide, police officer or even immediately settling to just be a felan's (foreigners-- uh, a westerner) wife makes me realize that thinking freely is but an evaporated idea and far from being instilled in their education system here. In the US, it's always been the allowance that “you can be whatever you want to be if you put your mind to it”. We'd like to teach these children that there is a world out there and with the ability to think freely and finally dissolve the instilled ideas that you can only earn money from only working this job, they too can attain goals to be working “unconventional jobs” (in Thai standards) like artists, musicians, designers, computer engineers, etc. As much as I've complained about my parents dictating what I should study and what accomplishments I should be achieving by age, I've realized that they've allowed me to do whatever the hell I wanted to do, really. It was the pressure that caused me paranoia, made me bitter, but in turn, thickened my skin. As I grew older, they simmered down with their nagging pointer fingers and realized that, I'm fine where I am and appreciated what I've achieved because they know that this is not the ceasing point of success (under whatever ambiguous measuring tool they use).
Another thought that has appeared quite often: I'm always so amazed at human compassion. I think about the waves of people who accept and pessimistically believe that there will never be peace or that change and contributing to humanity is much too far-fetched to immediately see any results. Then I think about those who put in the work. I think even more about a quote from Maya Angelou reflecting that, “I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back”, I can genuinely say that both Kirk and Ming have exemplified this very concept with the utmost respect. I'm learning this here and I'm incredibly inspired to help them achieve this charity's mission: "Isara’s mission is to positively impact communities in the areas of education, safety, environmental awareness, and to promote personal effectiveness through global web-based interaction and local volunteerism."
Yesterday, Kirk showed us various videos he made documenting his experience here helping the Thai community. Here is a video about what Isara does for the Nong Khai community and other parts of Thailand.
Tears almost escaped my eyes (had to hold it in!) as he explained the goals of this charity, told stories about the generous donations and previous projects with kids... and with the visual compliments, I couldn't help but feel so much gratitude and respect for people who dedicate their lives to build foundations for children to learn and incessantly grow. Kirk came to Thailand more about 7 years ago and fell in love. He found something of higher significance than to slave at a corporation that was making more money than any member of this community could possibly dream of. He saw that there was work needing to be done. He threw something back in the form of creating this organization to provide free education, campaigning to raise helmet safety awareness (more specifically, his concentrated 12 day helmet safety campaign throughout Thailand--- Motorcycle Diaries, kinda), donating to AIDs patients in a nearby orphanage and I'm sure several other acts of kindness more than my fingers can count. It's impossible to ignore both Ming and Kirk's dedication to this charity. Their hearts are reflected through the work they do here... and it's unbelievable; it's beautiful.
I'm ready to throw something back.
No comments:
Post a Comment