Nway Htwe

Prologue

Oso Lasai!

(Hello in Karen)

Summer is truly a time for trials and errors and replay. Before I even started drafting the proposal for my summer agenda, I have kept in mind that things are bound to go disarray but not necessarily in a bad way. My past year of multiple projects and community-oriented ventures have taught me the hard way that things will somehow always end up differently from what you anticipated. Therefore, I have decided to embrace those interesting surprises my summer will bring me. And, it has. My Summer 2017 has been an adventure!

Unfortunately, there were some undesirable changes to my summer schedule due to the outbreak of the H1N1 virus in Yangon and therefore, my third summer project: SEALNet 2017, Yangon was cancelled.

Nevertheless, on the bright side, it did give me more time to write this report as well as help some of my friends in Hpa-an apply for a scholarship program in Yangon. Two of them are even selected for the interview! Summer does come with surprises.

I am not a big fan of writing reports so I plan to make this a more worthwhile experience for the reader by adding some tidbits of my days in Hpa-an and Mawlamyaing. Those little sparks of surprise and inspiration were priceless. I met more amazing people than I initially thought I would. Teaching was harder and more straining than I thought but it has now somehow become a hobby. I know now the joy of seeing someone benefit from my inputs. But then again, in my mind, my students and the people I met—I have learned from them more than they could have ever learned from me.

Project Summer 2017: Hpa-an

Location: Gateway Learning Center (GLC), Hpa-an, Myanmar.

What is Gateway?

Gateway is a private institution founded by two alumni of Asia-Pacific International University, Thailand. Gateway provides English classes as well as leadership and awareness training to high-school graduates.

Facebook page: Gateway Learning Centre- GLC Hpa-an

Duration: Approximately 1 month. 7th July - 28th July, 2017

The Gateway faculty agreed to give me every Friday for my art class. Friday is their extra activities day. I have two sessions every Friday: 9:30am-12:00pm and 1:00pm-3:00pm. There were approximately 140 students so we decided to divide the class in half every morning to make things easier. So, I have 70 students for each session.

Themes: Community art, Collaboration, Critical-thinking

Items: Workshop, group projects, collaboration

Future educational planning: Mawlamyaing|Kyaikmaraw

(July 16 – July 20, 2017)

Overview

Despite the terrible weather, since I have already promised to assist my good friend, Saw Spikey and his Hong Kong University associates on their Mawlamyaing/ Kyaikmaraw project. It was a new and interesting experience outside Hpa-an. Though, I was only assisting them for a few days as a guest speaker/teacher, Spikey and his friends from HKU have been doing this Future Education Planning workshop throughout July.

 Location: The morning sessions were at a monastery right next to Shin Saw Pu Pagoda in Kyaikmaraw. There were over 60 students mostly high-school and high-school graduates. The evening sessions were at our host’s house in Mawlamyaing. About 80 students ranging from high-school graduates to juniors and seniors from Mawlamyaing University and Mawlamyaing Technological University.

 My role: I had three days in Kyainkmaraw and two in Mawlamyaing. In Kyaikmaraw, I mainly taught the students a mixture of performance art andEnglish. In Mawlamyaing,, I gave a full English presentation on contemporary art on the first day and talked about my experiences on the second day.

And then an hour bus ride back to Hpa-an...

Challenges

Time-limit

I did not realize that one month is actually a very short time until it was gone. I was just beginning to get comfortable in my classroom as well as get to know my students when my time was up. There are still so many things I would like to do in Hpa-an now that my students understand me and my concepts better.

Weather

Throughout the course of the project, I could say the weather was not in my favor. There were thunderstorms almost every day with seasonal floods. Due to this, some projects I had in mind which involved climbing the Zwegabin mountain were cancelled. The weather also caused other travel misconnections. I was initially supposed to go back to Yangon between week 3 and 4 but had to stay the whole week due to a severe flood in Kyaik-Hto.

Students

How ever fun and exciting it is, getting over 70 students under control twice a day was a challenge. Explaining my more western ideas of contemporary art and art-making was harder. I realized that there is not fulfilling translation of “art” in Burmese which made things all the more frustrating at times.

Travel

During my solo trips to Hpa-an, Mawlamyaing and back to Yangon, I was achingly aware of my gender. My travels made me more aware of how ageist and sexist Burma is. At times, I felt flustered and unsafe but never in real danger. Overall, I made three round-trips from Yangon to Hpa-an.

Racism

The saddest thing I became aware of during my time in lower Burma was racism. I became more conscious of my dominant “Burman” heritage. There is a great deal of animosity between ethnic groups not to mention civil war between the Karen Nationalists and the Burmese Army. I became more versed in Karen-Burman politics.

The Education System

I was very surprised and sad when I realized that even the third-year students in Mawlamyaing Universities could not write a good English paragraph let alone write a term paper. Some have never heard of Wikipedia while others even have trouble using Google Search. This is the current condition of the Burmese Education.

Conclusions

“Do you want to be rich or do you just not want to be poor?”

Fish was silent after my simple inquiry. It seemed that he had never considered this before.

“I just don’t want to be poor,” he said finally.

I had similar exchanges with the other youths I have talked to. It was interesting how a lot of them have the very same mindset: Money is important. And my message to them was simple: Money is important; no doubt. But not the most important. 

I am glad I had the time to have long and meaningful conversations with a lot of the youths during my project. I prefer to teach my students methods of thinking rather than presenting an answer then explain why such option was most correct. I like to give them space to explore and to rethink what they stand for.

This month and a half experience will no doubt aid me on my future endeavors and my life. I have grown both as a person and as a teacher, a mentor, a sister and a friend. To my students and friends, I am all of the above. 

I am very grateful to my sponsor Dr. Than Win (Rotary Club, Myanmar) for supporting me and my ideas as well as all the others who have shared me their advice and aided me in various ways throughout the project. It was one measure of an experience coming up with my own curriculum and syllabus and making my own changes along the way. It was a pleasure interacting with both the teachers, students and fellow volunteers throughout the project. I am glad I was able to do and experience all this even before I begin my Sophomore year in college. I will most definitely be doing more community and youth-oriented projects in the very near future and I look forward again for your support.

Thank you very much for supporting me thus far. It has been a pleasure.

I hope you enjoy the rest of the summer!

 Thet Thet Nway Htwe