Learning, the old fashioned way

A young student at Cambodia Tomorrow English School reads a storybook from a fourth grader at Onondaga Road as a tool for learning English. Submitted photo.

CNYLink from Eagle Newspapers

By Ami Olson

Students in Camillus and Cambodia exchange lessons without wires, the Internet or the World Wide Web.

In today’s world, children of all ages are able to connect with their peers around the globe through the Internet and modern technology. But sometimes, it takes good old-fashioned, hands-on experiences to offer kids a meaningful, tactile interaction with other cultures and ways of life.

That’s the kind of cross-cultural exchange Facebook doesn’t offer, and that students at Onondaga Road Elementary School were able to be a part of last month, thanks to one local couple.

An unlikely beginning

After Camillus couple Kathleen Hart-Zavoli and Vladimiro Zavoli adopted their two children from Cambodia, they knew their own family was complete.

We didn’t want more kids, but we did want to give back in some way, Hart-Zavoli explained.

They soon discovered they weren’t alone, and a few years later a small but dedicated group of parents from across the country, all of whom had adopted Cambodian children from the same orphanage, created Cambodia Tomorrow. Their mission, initially, was helping supply children at a Cambodian orphanage with essentials - rice, bedding - and sponsoring their education by funding their attendence at an English school in a neighboring town.

After about four years, Hart-Zavoli said one of the representatives from the orphanage told the parents that the children weren’t getting what they needed out of the school, and asked if the group would consider starting a separate school for the kids.

Less than one year ago, Cambodia Tomorrow hired two teachers and started a pilot program; just a few months later, construction began on a school building.

That school, Cambodia Tomorrow English School at Kompong Speu Orphan Center, opened in December.

Tomorrow, today

Currently, 67 young students attend the school, but the facility can carry a maximum capacity of 180 students, Hart-Zavoli said. They will come closer to reaching full capacity soon, when about 30 children from poor local families begin attending school.

One of the biggest accomplishments the school made before it even opened was hiring the two full-time teachers, Hart-Zavoli said.

In Cambodia, where teachers’ salaries are so low educators often hold two or three jobs to make ends meet, the quality of the education suffers, she pointed out. But Cambodia Tomorrow English School was able to hire two teachers and pay them well enough that working on the side is not necessary, ensuring their full attention is on the students.

The organization recently began helping another orphanage: Cambodia Tomorrow donated $1,000 in relief to help the facility supply kids with basics like new beds and toothbrushes, Hart-Zavoli said.

“Basically what our program started off as, was a group of parents that just wanted to give back,” she remembered. On the other side of the world, they are doing just that.

Full circle

The outreach effort came full circle last month when Hart-Zavolli helped create a connection between local students and their peers half a world away.

In February, classes at Onondaga Road Elementary School were able to put their own writing skills to use while helping students at Cambodia Tomorrow.

Jessica Goodnough’s fourth grade class created more than 20 original stories and Virginia Madden’s second grade class wrote 17 letters to students at the Cambodian school, where the letters and stories helped students there learn English.

The stories were the work of Goodnough’s fourth-graders, whose tales included a “pencil boy” who wanted to be an eraser and moving from the Earth to the moon. Many stories were developed into books and included illustrations and narratives about the author, including one book dedicated to the children of Cambodia.

Madden’s students wrote letters telling about life in Central New York and details about Onondaga Road School.

The stories and letters were hand-delivered by Hart-Zavoli at the end of February when she made her second trip to Cambodia.

“It was awesome … I sat in my [hotel] room reading them one night and some of the kids made story books … one child even dedicated her book to children of Cambodia … it was really beautiful,” Hart-Zavoli said.

Upon her return, Hart-Zavoli gave presentations to the two classes at Onondaga Road to share with them her experiences.

Her two children, a son, now 10, and daughter, now 7, are in the classes who participated in the cross-cultural lesson. Their big question?

“‘So when do we get to go?’” Hart-Zavoli laughed.

For more information about Cambodia Tomorrow, visit the organization’s Web site at cambodiatomorrow.org.