By Liz King
It’s a familiar and heartwarming story: Inspired individual raises funds to build a school in an impoverished country. Building projects are tangible. The cost is quantifiable. Buildings have completion dates, and when they are finished the solid walls and fresh paint bring a sense of vitality and hope to a village. That’s the feel-good picture.

But then what? If beautiful classrooms are not filled with great teachers and the resources needed to teach effectively, a spanking new building in a harsh climate—hot or cold—quickly morphs into an old-looking structure that can become a lasting symbol of dashed hopes or worse, abandonment. Bricks and mortar alone are not enough.

Teacher Training isn’t a particularly sexy term in fundraising circles. Pictures of adults in classrooms don’t tug at the heartstrings of potential donors the way a deserving child does. But in the end, what is an education for a child without great teachers at its center? This question is at the heart of one nonprofit’s mission. That nonprofit’s answer? Schools cannot excel without great teachers.

Seven years ago this month, I was part of a team of international classroom teachers based in Singapore, asked to provide recommendations to the then newly established nonprofit, Caring for Cambodia (CFC). CFC had sponsored three government primary schools in Siem Reap, Cambodia within miles of the Temples of Angkor Wat. The schools served 3,000 of Cambodia’s poorest children. CFC’s Founder, Jamie Amelio, started with bricks and mortar like so many, but she also had the vision and commitment to support these schools and their communities holistically and for the long haul. She sought input from, among others, practicing teachers.

We were not a team of educators with advanced degrees in international education or third world development, which some might argue would have been wise. What we had collectively was a lot of classroom teaching experience—close to a century, on three continents, in a wide range of educational settings. We did not know if this would be sufficient, but we were all committed to the challenge.

Our initial observations were stark. Cambodia remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Fifty percent of Cambodians in Siem Reap Province live below the poverty line. Students were malnourished and most came to school on an empty stomach. Classrooms had up to 60 students and virtually no teaching supplies. Most teachers sat at desks completing paperwork rather than teaching. Perhaps most shocking was that those classes of 60 children sat quietly in rows, impeccably behaved.

Our team learned that attending government schools in Cambodia came with hidden costs to these students’ families, most of whom supported their families on less than 30 U.S. dollars a month. Students were required to wear uniforms that were not provided for free. Teachers received government salaries inconsistently (sometimes going several months without a paycheck), so there was an unspoken agreement that students were to bring money to school each day to ensure their teachers would show up. Families were making significant financial sacrifices for their children to attend school, so on some level we knew they valued education.

As a result of these observations, our essential recommendation was twofold: Feed the school community and focus on teachers. Feeding the school community was the more straightforward of the two. To redress this issue, CFC established Food For Thought, a program with a two-pronged strategy for addressing malnutrition in the school communities. Under the program, CFC each day provides students with a healthy, balanced meal to ensure they can think about learning, not about hunger. Longer term, CFC provides parent education in health and nutrition, arming village adults with knowledge to break the cycle of chronic malnutrition. To deliver the program, CFC sources local produce that is prepared by parent volunteers and paid local cooks, channeling much-needed support into the grassroots economy.

Focusing on the teachers was more complex. Cambodia presents an unusual set of circumstances. Between 1975-1979 an estimated 1.7 million Cambodians were executed, starved or killed by disease at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. Most of those executed were professionals and intellectuals—among them, nearly all of Cambodia’s teachers. Forty years later Cambodia is still recovering from this unimaginable loss. The educational system is certainly no exception.

One CFC teacher, Chan Vandy, provides a typical teacher’s biography in some respects. She was born in 1980, just after the fall of the Khmer Rouge. “My parents had worked so long and hard during the Khmer Rouge that they could no longer work. We had little food and barely survived. It is hard to talk about.” Chan Vandy began school at age six. “At that time we did not have teachers or schools like today. A village woman would gather children together under a tree and we sat on rocks. The teacher had a blackboard and used clay as chalk. We learned basic things.” Unlike her contemporaries – only 9 percent of whom complete secondary education--Chan Vandy remained in school through secondary school. She also completed one year of teacher training “college” in a country where, according to 2007 UNESCO statistics, only 5 percent of the post secondary aged population enrolls in post secondary education. She had no mentors. An entire generation of teachers with experience was missing.

If anyone can help turn around a school in Cambodia, Chan Vandy can. In addition to an unrelenting pride in her country, she has a resolute determination to see her country’s schools improve. She has newly adopted government curriculum documents on a shelf in her classroom that set lofty, internationally recognized goals for her Cambodian students; goals that if met will enable her students to work and raise families above the poverty line.

She also has traits vital to great teaching. New research from the nonprofit Teach for America suggests more than any other variable in education—more than schools or curriculum—teachers matter. With that reality in mind, it has studied the nation’s most effective teachers—nearly all of whom teach in underserved, urban schools in the U.S., and it has identified six common qualities among them. These teachers: 1) set big goals for students 2) routinely reevaluate their teaching and its effectiveness 3) seek the involvement of students and families in the process 4) remain focused on student learning 5) plan exhaustively and purposefully for each school day and 6) work relentlessly despite obstacles such as poverty, bureaucracy and lack of funds.

But what CFC has recognized is that while great potential teachers like Chan Vandy exist in Cambodia, the prevailing means of teacher training have not been sufficiently effective. It also recognizes that stepping into a foreign country and making recommendations about how best to give teachers the hard skills necessary to educate their own students is tough and requires, above all else, acute cultural awareness and appreciation.

Schools prepare citizens. As result, the content and delivery of one country’s curriculum is not a one-size-fits-all for another. With that reality in mind, CFC has established a culturally relevant teacher-training program that is a unique cornerstone of the organization’s work. Unlike large top-down training projects where funding depends on the number of teachers reached (usually necessitating a large seminar format), CFC works from the ground-up, keeping training sessions small, “hands on” and directly applicable to the goals of Cambodia’s curriculum. Teachers are taken through a consistent, systematic learning process with each new skill presented. If, for example, they are being trained to read aloud to students, first they will observe a trainer read, then they will practice reading to trainers posing as students, then they read to a class of students jointly with a trainer and finally they will read to a class independently.” It’s a method better known in teaching circles as “I do, we do, you do”—a lesson flow great teachers know well.

More than 100 international teachers, most based in Singapore, have participated in CFC’s teachers-training-teachers project. Most critical, CFC raised funds to create a fulltime, in-country, Director of Teacher Training staff position, currently held by a master teacher from New Zealand with more than 30 years of classroom teaching experience both at home and abroad. She oversees the development of all training workshops, but her expertise is most powerful when shared on a daily basis in the form of individualized support and mentorship to the ninety-five CFC teachers with whom she works.

How does CFC measure the success of its teachers? One way is through the growing popularity of its schools. CFC now supports five government schools, including a secondary school, serving a total 5,300 students. One of these schools is positioned as a “model school” and receives frequent visits from Ministry of Education officials interested in observing Cambodia’s newly revised curriculum and “child friendly” standards in action.

The level of professionalism among CFC teachers across all five schools is rising. Teachers are paid regularly according to a performance-based salary system with clearly defined expectations they helped establish. Newly installed classroom shelves hold locally purchased supplies and teaching resources developed by teachers with the guidance of mentors. For the first time, classrooms have bulletin boards made with indigenous materials that display student work. Improvements in the primary school environment have generated interest among village mothers in creating village pre-schools. Interested mothers receive early childhood training so that they can become their children’s first teachers. CFC’s pilot pre-school opened March 31, 2009, with 13 mothers participating. Less than one year later 48 mothers are signed up for training. Families want to be involved.

Perhaps most notably, Chan Vandy and several of her colleagues have joined the ranks of CFC’s teacher trainers, training not only fellow CFC teachers, but teachers from neighboring government schools eager for the inspiration and support. These exemplary teachers have been given the opportunity to travel to Singapore and observe international classrooms at work. They take what they see and make it relevant for their own students.

CFC is like the proverbial stone that has been dropped into a pond creating rings of influence radiating outward. This cascading effect is at the heart of what makes CFC’s training model sustainable. CFC’s near-term teacher training goal is clear—to train Cambodian teachers to be teacher trainers capable of directing CFC’s teacher training project. Chan Vandy and her colleagues agree that it is not quite time yet, but the goal is well within reach. Once that goal is met, the stage will have been set for a lifelong professional collaboration among a growing circle of international teachers all of whom strive for nothing less than educational excellence. What could be more encouraging? Afterall, more than any other variable in education . . .teachers matter.

Caring for Cambodia is a registered 501C3. To learn more about CFC’s programs and ways in which you can support them, please visit their website at www.caringforcambodia.org. CFC is preparing to interview international teachers to direct CFC’s K-6 teacher training efforts for the 2010-2011 school year. Get more information on this job listing. If interested, qualified candidates should send a resume and cover letter to teacher.training@caringforcambodia.org.

Article author Liz King currently lives outside Washington, D.C. She was a founding member of Caring for Cambodia’s Teacher Training Project. She serves on CFC’s Board of Directors and works as a Teacher Mentor with the Center for Inspired Teaching, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit.