In August of 2017, we started a new exploration round, which is the White Building Exploration. In order to have a better understanding of the White Building being knocked down, we started the class by skim through the pass eviction that had happened in Phnom Penh. And then we started to get directly into our topic, the White Building. After interviewing different people, I realized that it is really hard to choose between preserve these art communities and develop the urban growth. At the end of this exploration, we will be creating a documentary, podcast, as well as the other mini-final product as well. I really hope these powerful products will be widely spread to the Cambodian new generation, so that they can learn about this historical, amazing architect building, although it had vanished. After learning about all the horrible eviction, I really hope we would try our best provent Phnom Penh from having more of these violence eviction over and over again.
Khmer Sight Foundation Volunteer
On the November 12th, 2017, I had volunteered to work with the Khmer Sight Foundation (KSF) in Phnom Penh. The KSF is working with people with their vision to improve their sight as well as avoiding the chance of losing their eyes. As we arrive that the place, I can see a lot of people, especially the elders are waiting for the eye check. My role is to get them inside the room and start on doing the eye check, which is pointing to the “E” letter and let them tell which way is it turning.
Beside testing the eye, I would be spending time talking with the elders who’s coming and also asking them about their eye problems. I would be there to listen to their question and try to answer them the best I could for example where do I get my medicine and so on. I would be running around find the number of each person and get them to the eye-test room. I was tired, but I’m really happy to do the job. I’m really happy to see the life changes that we had make for them. I really hope to work more with the KSF in helping more people who’s in need.
Liger’s Independent Day
What is Liger’s Independent day? Liger’s Independent day is the one day in each year where we make a different schedule for every school to celebrate the success of our school. It was made after the government officially accept the Liger Leadership Academy learning curriculum. On the 10th of November, our government had signed the paper that says, Cambodian government will accept the certificate that was given by Liger and we won’t require taking the 12th-grade exam. But we have to go through Liger exam anyway.
Liger’s Independent day is a really special day for our school. It’s a day where we can take a break from school and enjoy the games and activities together with everyone in our school. This day had led us to a discussion on two essential questions.
How would Cambodian’s Independent Day change someone’s life?
1. Freedom
2. Free in decision making
3. No more tax from France
4. To be who we want to be
How would Liger’s Independent Day change someone’s life?
1. We won’t get stressed in preparing for the 12th-grade test
2. We can continue on the project we had: we don’t pause to learn all the boring stuff preparing for 12th grade
3. A day to relax and learn things in creative and fun activities
4. A day to remind us to be a change agent from now on
5. A day to be proud of our hard work from the past five year
6. It an inspiration for the other school and we can be a role model for those schools
Short Halloween Story
On November 1st, 2017, in the English Literacy class, we had a writing activity with Halloween theme. Basically, we’re getting a piece of paper where we can begin our story and the next person beside us will then continue the story. We’re repeating this process until we get our paper back. I begin my story with a creepy characters and spooky moments. But as the story continue, it becomes really silly because there’s always a person in the team to ruin the story. So I bold the part that I wrote throughout the story. So this is one of my favorite part from my short story, although it a bit silly. You can also click on the link here to read the whole story. In this case, writing is very fun!
“Then there was a ghost running toward me without legs. I wasn’t sure why and how but I had no time to ask her, so I ran back inside. But another ghost appeared in front of me and asked me a question. If I got it right, I can go in but if I don’t, I have to eat 25 broccoli! The ghost asked, “What is me?””
Transformations in Khanacademy – Math
Currently, Math is one of my most favorite essential of all. But it’s also a bit complicated too. At the first 25 minutes of class, we would start by receiving a mini lesson from our math teacher. This is a time period where I’ll be staying focus as this time period will help me to influence in my learning for the last period of class. In Liger, my math class is somehow a bit different from a normal math class I have had. Beside having our teacher talking with his textbook and whiteboard all the time, we’re also using an internet resource as well, which called “Khan Academy.” Currently, I’m working on a course called “Transformations.” It’s an online course that had played an important role in influence my understanding about this lesson. Looking back to what I had done, I can see a huge progress I made in math. It took be a really short time to do this much work on this course. But, this lesson is still a bit confusing to me though. However, I will commit to myself to put in a lot more work in the sight of improving my ability on math. I strongly believe that by doing a lot of practice, I will soon become a stronger math student and get into the level where I’ll be prepared for the real SAT.
Book Structure – Khmer Literacy
In my Khmer class essential this week, I had have a class time period to go through and observed the structure of each individual book. We kind of doing the observation independently, but it was really fun and I got to learn a lot things from this activity. I carefully looked deeply into each page of the book. At the end, I compare each structure of the book with the other classmates. The structure was really similar to each other, but there was also some part that were different as well. I was really excited to share what I got to my friends in class. After this mini-lesson, we returned back to learn about the research paper again.
Research Paper – Khmer Literacy
Currently, we’re mainly focusing on writing section. In class, we’re divided in groups of 4-5 people to do a brief research on what really is a research paper. Everyone in my team had put in a lot of hard work in researching this, and because of us having a strong researching skill, we had been able to get this work done perfectly. In our group, we’re using internet & technology to find those relevant information. Last, we copied down all the work we’ve done into the paper in order to show it to everyone else in the classroom.