Pedagogical exchanges at Bayon Agroecology School
In March, we had the pleasure to welcome Pauline, Director of the volunteer pole at Planète Urgence. She came as a volunteer during her two weeks of solidarity leaves and worked with our pedagogical team from the agroecology school.
Her role was to support the team of teachers in order to diversify their pedagogical techniques such as the animation of the courses, the place of the teacher and the student. The goal was to succeed in motivating students who were dropping out of school.
Pauline was able to discover Cambodia and observe cultural differences. She underlines the curiosity of the students. The students also show kindness and mutual aid among themselves, which creates a favorable climate for learning and the use of authority is very rare.
Aiming to improve our training to students, her venue brought new evaluation techniques with construction workshops based on collective intelligence. For this, they used photo language with Metafox cards. At the beginning, the feedbacks on the exercise were shy, the students were facing their emotions and feelings, which is not cultural in Cambodia. Gradually, through weekly practice, they were able to free themselves. Moreover, the coaching cards have different meanings with the culture, which leads the students to go further than the meaning of the card and pushes them in their reflection.
This gave her the opportunity to be creative in a way that is not possible in France in terms of teaching. Pauline has lived this experience as a rich human adventure in terms of exchange and understanding of the culture, where it is important to ask questions before the exercise in order to adapt to the students. She particularly enjoyed talking about meditation and body relaxation. Indeed, in Cambodia, a lot of skills are applied but not the emotions and feelings. The students appreciated this new approach.
Our pedagogical team has been very open to improve their training skills and learning more about pedagogy. They are very happy to have benefited from Pauline’s expertise and thus diversify their knowledge. What they remember most is the use of demonstration in their teaching rather than theory. Pauline and our pedagogical team from the agroecology school have been enriched by this sharing and exchange.
We would like to thank Pauline for her involvement and support.
