Forever a Foreigner

Kids are kids everywhere, but in different cultures there are different cultural practices around teaching, learning, and even play.

As a missionary focusing on children’s ministry, I wanted to develop for myself a style of children’s ministry that would fit naturally into Cambodian culture and be easy for Cambodian Christians to imitate. Just copying and pasting children’s ministry from a culture like America to a vastly different culture like Cambodia might be novel, but perhaps not as effective.

With this in mind, I spent a significant amount of time during my first couple years on the field in Cambodia studying Khmer classroom culture, while also drawing on my own past experience growing up in Cambodia.

The Teacher-Student Relationship

In Cambodia teachers occupy a certain role in society. If you can introduce yourself as a teacher, people immediately know how to categorize you.

I was at a store one day, buying some books, and some small children were browsing the wares on the same isle.

“What are you buying?” a little girl asked me.

“Books for students,” I said, implying my status.

Instantly, the little girl’s attitude changed. “Teacher!” she exclaimed eagerly. “Are you going to give out the books?”

In her mind, I had gone from “strange foreigner at the store” to “Teacher,” a trusted, familiar category (who might pass out classroom materials for free), in two seconds flat. I have also been approached by young children who did not know me personally, but who did know me as a teacher, for random hugs.

Pre-existing cultural norms of respect and relationship will fall into place around you, and, to a certain degree, all you have to do is pick up the harness that is already there and put it on. This can make your job a lot easier, because you are stepping into a clearly established role.

When I first arrived in Cambodia as a missionary, I was hesitant about stepping into the teacher role. I felt unsure of myself, and I did not immediately seize the authority I was culturally due. Once I did, my place in society and even the local church solidified. I became “Teacher Savannah,” along with everything that entailed.

Students’ Respect

Some readers might already be aware that in Asia there is a greater “distance” of respect between teachers and students.

In a way, this is true in Cambodia. There are definitely a lot more rituals of respect that could be considered formal, especially in comparison to the United States.

In a Cambodian classroom setting, students stand as a group to greet the teacher and sompeah, placing their palms together to nose level. Class is dismissed in the same way. Even in less formal settings, students greet the teacher individually as they arrive. Late students will come up to the teacher and personally greet them, sometimes with an apology for being tardy. Students will not leave the class without first asking the teacher, palms together, if they can go, naming their specific reason. Cambodian children are taught from an early age to receive a gift from a teacher with a sompeah and a “thank you, Teacher!” accepting the gift or snack with two hands.

These little rituals emphasize the role of the teacher and lend weight to the teacher’s authority and to the class as a whole.

Not too long ago, I went to teach a kids’ Bible club in an area I had not been to before. Former teachers warned me that this particular group of kids was extremely rowdy, and many kids would leave during the lesson. When I arrived, I took special care to speak and act as though I was running an ordinary Cambodian classroom, expecting the typical standard of respect from the students.

This rowdy group of kids slipped immediately into the familiar lines of classroom discipline. Once the lesson began, one kid made as if to go.

“Where are you going?” I asked.

“He wants to go play,” another kid told on him.

“To play?” I said. “No. Stay for the lesson.”

The kid sat back down. We had no more problems after that.

It’s important to expect appropriate respect from the children you minister to, especially as a religious teacher. This will impact how the kids view Biblical instruction. This means taking time to learn what kinds of behavior are understood as respectful or disrespectful in the culture. The kids are definitely aware of what they should be doing, and if they are skipping culturally appropriate signs of respect just because they can get away with it, that’s a problem.

Teacher’s Authority

In Cambodia, a teacher may very well have more disciplinary power than a parent.

Cambodian parenting is often lacking. They will usually use lies (“If you go near the river, the water ghosts will get you!”) or threats to restrain children’s behavior, threats that are never followed through. The most common disciplinary phrase I hear translates roughly to: “I’m about to hit you!” which seems like a very harsh thing to say to a child. But at most the kid will get a gentle tap. There is often an almost playful air about this type of discipline, as though the adult is half-teasing the child with a threat, half-serious about keeping the child in line. Often the only time a kid will get seriously disciplined is when a parent completely loses their temper, and then what follows could be labeled as abuse.

Parents and relatives fully expect teachers to help discipline their children, and might even ask you to do so. The classroom is one of the few places where children can expect consistency in this area. Every elementary teacher has a (mostly symbolic) ruler or stick on hand to enforce discipline, and rowdy students may be told to stand or be sent out of the room.

At church, parents tell their kids to behave or they’ll have to deal with me. It’s a funny inversion of what I’ve seen in the U.S., where the “final punishment” is to get sent to Mom or Dad. In Cambodia, though I have never asked for this treatment or expected it, I have heard many times a parent telling their unruly child, “Watch out, or Teacher will hit you!” I have never raised my hand against any of the kids in church, and they know it. But, for some reason, the threat works.

Overall, this means that in the Cambodian context, teachers have even more responsibility and authority than elsewhere, and navigating this can take some careful consideration. Biblical principles of discipline are very different from the Cambodian way, and even among Christians convictions differ in this area. What will you do?

Relational Warmth

Even though the role of a teacher in Cambodia carries a lot of respect and authority, there is also a deeply personal dimension to the teacher-student relationship that is more like a mentorship than anything else.

In the West, my observation is that teachers usually have a more intellectual relationship with their students. They interact with the students over the academic subjects that they teach and over life at school. In order to show interest in their students, teachers engage them in questions about likes and dislikes, or thoughts on a particular topic.

In Cambodia, this is not so much the case. Students will basically never challenge a teacher over a lesson’s material, and will rarely ask questions beyond the “can you explain it again?” sort. Teachers do not ask the students for their opinions.

This can sound cold to a Westerner, but from the Cambodian point of view the Western way of doing things is the cold one. Cambodians show interest in each other by focusing on the personal, not the intellectual, and the concrete, not the abstract.

Cambodian teachers know about the students’ lives and ask about them frequently. They ask after their students’ health, what they ate for a meal, and how their parents are doing. They may be familiar with the students’ home situation. If a student is absent, they want to know why. The smaller and more intimate the class, the more informal the relationship can be, especially with older students. Teachers might tease their students about boyfriends and girlfriends (teens) and get teased back for being single. At special times, they may personally treat their students to an outing or to a drink shop (in small groups), where they will not engage in intellectual discussion, but simply spend time together. The students often know where the teacher lives and, if they are old enough, might visit or have private tutoring with the teacher. Relationships are expected to last a long time.

Many younger kids will show their affection through physical contact: hugging, touching, and holding your hand. Some students will want to give their teachers gifts. I’ve received stickers, rings, snacks, and little notes.

This means that a teacher needs to emphasize investing more than just lesson time in the kids’ lives. There should be some time for chit-chat and showing interest in kids’ welfare and their personal lives. How are things at school? How are their families? Did they eat yet? These will be long term relationships where your life impacts theirs beyond a mere lesson.

To Be Continued…

There are many more observations taken from the Cambodian classroom to explore, but in this article we’ll stop with examining the role of a teacher.

Here is a link to part 2: Game Time: Cambodia Style.

This series is derived from a paper I wrote, compiling in detail my observations and analysis of the Cambodian classroom. If you feel interested in a deeper dive, you can access that document below:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MiZh-56Q1ecwl3MCc2rcG3kS5lO8AtD6/view?usp=sharing