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You
are here: Enrichment in Action
I originally wanted to establish an Enrichment in Action program in the Angkar Hospital for land mine injred children in Siem Reap, Cambodia. Why there? The reason was in response to an invitation to speak about enriching envirnments to 900 South East Asian overseas teachers in Bangkok, Thailand. Being that close to land mine injured children, I had to go to Cambodia to learn how I could assist with their plight.
When I first visited the hospital, I was inspired by a little boy about 6-7 years of age lying in bed with splints on both legs and the doctor telling me the child had to lie that way for six weeks. We know from our rat experiments that the structure of the mammalian brain can diminish significantly in just four days when exposed to an impoverished environment. What was happening to his brain after six weeks of impoverishment? Later I learned there were not that many land mine injured children with whom to work but there were many orphan children who could benefit from our help.
Accompanied by my friend, Carole Miller, a former research associate at UC Berkeley, we definitely had to be flexible to serve the existing needs determined by the staff at the Angkor Hospital through whom we worked. They suggested we concentrate our efforts on the children in the Wat Racha Sin Khon orphanage (usually referred to as the Pagoda) consisting mainly of boys and one girl* (about 30 children, 10-17 years of age) managed by Buddhist monks.
*We were told that no one could get the girl to smile before we came. Eventually she did!
They lived in the forest adjacent to Angkor Wat which we could see every morning as we drove to work. They had no electricity, running water, septic tank or clothes of their own. Meals, a roof and floor to sleep on were the basic available conditions. The hospital staff brought out clothes from a group equivalent to the Salvation Army.
My introduction on our first day with the children began about the effects of enriched environments on brain development and that no two brains were alike. Each one was responsible for developing his or her own brain. At this point the modest, quiet head monk, Lok Lhovrk, spoke up strongly supporting my message, offering encouragement to our being there. We were on the right track.
You may recall that we had three goals. We wanted to develop a model Enrichment in Action program incorporating what we have learned in the laboratory with our rats:
GOAL ONE:
- Fact: Nerve cells in the brain do not develop adequate branches without healthy diets. Without such branches (dendrites) learning is hindered.
- Action: Provide vitamins and minerals to supplement the children's diets of only fish and rice.
- Results: The children eagerly lined up with extended hands and open palms to receive their multivitamin and calcium/magnesium with zinc pills each morning before class. They definitely wanted to improve their health as well as their height because most were very small for their ages.
We left enough pills to last them through June 2002. A nurse at the Angkor Hospital will take the pills to the orphanage each Friday and one of the older children will be responsible for handing them out each morning. (There is still an abundant supply of pills.)
Since I had visited the hospital in March 2001, a vegetable garden has been planted and greens are now readily available. Greater care has been taken to improve the children's diet.
GOAL TWO:
- Fact: Interaction with stimulating learning games and objects to explore increases the number of branches on the nerve cells in the brain and promotes better learning.
- Action: Provide an environment enriched with learning games and objects to explore in order to build brains which have been subsequently proven to be better problem solvers.
- Results: A good interpreter was essential; Chamroen was a 28 year old Cambodian man with a big smile and a great rapport with both children and adults. He was with us everyday to carry out our enrichment project to teach anatomy to parents at the hospital and to teach art and anatomy to the children at the Pagoda.
The first day we played the game of SET, a visual perception game introduced to us by Judy Timmel at the Lawrence Hall of Science, which did not require language, only symbols of different colors, shapes and numbers. We wanted to establish learning abilities at the very beginning. The children learned quickly as we recorded their results for an initial baseline. We had the eyes tested of those who did not do very well. Everyone had good eye sight except one with nystagmus. We convinced him he should practice eye exercises after giving him the location of the extra-ocular eye muscles.
For the first art lesson each one had a box of crayons and paper and was asked to draw what ever s/he wanted. I was disturbed to see the stereotyped drawings of suns, mountains, and water. Next day to allow for some creativity we suggested they use curved lines crossing in different directions and color the spaces in between. The results showed much more freedom of expression.
We brought bags of leaves the following day to continue to stimulate original drawings. In addition we had colored construction paper which they had never seen before. The enthusiasm for this paper was explosive. Their original drawings of the leaves were varied and colorful. One young monk's stood out above the others I have asked him to draw 12 original pictures which might be developed into a calendar to sell to make money for the orphanage, one of the original goals of our project.
Another challenging art experience included having the children draw what they thought might be in a large brown paper box in front of them. Once they created a drawing they had to answer several questions pertaining to their drawing and present their answers in front of the group. We wanted to teach them several steps from a single lesson. Some were clever, others not.
One of the more successful projects was making cars from plastic bottle caps, tooth picks and a body out of construction paper. Those little cars were soon on the end of long strings behind happy children running around in the dirt outside the compound,. a pleasure not soon to be forgotten.
I wanted them to appreciate their complex bodies early in life and learn to take care of them. For their anatomy lessons we had photocopies of skeletons, skulls, muscles, brains, and hearts for them to color as they learned the names and functions of some of the structures. Take brains, for example. All they knew about them was something to do with learning and intelligence. By the time Chamroen wrote in Khmer some twenty more functions from a list I gave him, they were amazed, but seemed able to learn them as shown in a later review.
The nurses at the hospital commented that they never had anatomy until college. Here these children were learning anatomy readily. They had never had anything like it before. No one could/would provide it for them.
We decided they should learn about their own geography so we provided maps of South East Asia for them to color. They were surprised that their own country was small in comparison with adjacent ones. Also the world map we purchased surprised them in its dimensions.
On the last day they had free choice to do what they wanted. Some played SET, others drew and colored, and others read the books written in Khmer for young people which we had bought for them. We also had them play two last games of SET in order to compare their facility with the game after our weeks of working together. On the whole their abilities were about the same. Those who were very good at the beginning remained good through out; some were poor through out and yet some showed definite improvement.
After class on many days we went back to the hospital and sat out on the benches with the families waiting to be called to see the medical professionals. The conditions of many of the patients were disturbing to say the least. Children had problems from A to Z.
When the parents smiled, their teeth were black stubs on bleeding gums.
Nonetheless, Chamroen and I sat down amongst them with the anatomy books for children and some for adults. Soon we had a crowd around us of eager learners of all ages. The director of the hospital, Jon Morgan, had asked that we try to educate some of the mothers, many of whom he said had little or no education. At least we attempted to introduce them to the basic structures and functions of their bodies.
GOAL THREE:
- Fact: All of us grew up having fun in life at one time or another.
- Action: Try to establish conditions so these children can be in good health to have fun while building better brains to give them a chance to improve their own existence and eventually that of others.
- Results: There is no doubt in our minds that brining bean bags and having balloons for the young people was a great success for all. To start the day and finish the lessons, we began with a few bean bags being thrown about rather gently, but before long they were flying all over the room as fast as we could toss them. We all even learned to catch two bean bags at a time with each hand and throw them appropriately to someone. Undoubtedly, all of our motor control systems dealing with coordination and balance were definitely being stimulated as well as hand eye coordination. Who gained more from these activities, the staff or the students? (like professors at Cal; who gains more, the students or the professors?)
For the last few days I took each young person aside to ask questions from my questionnaire to learn about each personally. What did they like to do best? (learn and play together) Whom did they admire? (mostly the head monk) What did they want to do after they left the orphanage? (A little of everything except work in the rice fields) What did they want to do in life? (Everything from doctors, teachers, work in hotels and become drivers for the tourists. one a nurse, a head of a bakery, etc.) Is there something we could do to help them? (Teach English, provide books, clothing, play with them, etc.)
To be more thorough, I should mention that at the beginning of our stay in Siem Reap,we visited one possible orphanage to work with the 60 children, but the conditions were completely monitored by a single woman. I was not certain we could organize the children for our program and become effective during our beginning five week period. We were invited to other orphanages, but I thought we should start with just one and develop our project well if possible.
I hope this gives you a bird's eye view of the success of these initial steps with our Enrichment in Action program for these bright impoverished young people. Now what next? I have found a teacher for English lessons. He is Cambodian and was my interpret during my stay. What a marvelous, intelligent sensitve, playful young man. I am still learning what kind of books and clothing are suitable to send.
For those who wanted to be doctors, nurses, and teachers I want to make every effort to encourage and keep track of them. I have called the Lawrence Hall of Science to learn about appropriate lessons and materials to add to our project.
Many people have expressed an interest in going to Siem Reap to visit Angkor Wat. We could establish a way for them to be of use at the Pagoda at the same time and make their adventure doubly rewarding.
We will return in Dec. 2002 and January 2003 to bring lap top computers and a printer. The children have learned our alphabet and have written me letters in English after only six months of class for 3 hours each week. They had no light so we provided batteries for their electricity. We are making progress. All of us are extremely grateful for the support we have been given to help us enrich the lives of these children based on experimental work carried out at the University of California at Berkeley.
Dr. Diamond is professor of Anatomy/Neuroanatomy at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a former Director of the Lawrence Hall of Science. She did research at Harvard, and taught at Cornell and the University of California at San Francisco and at Los Angeles, and at universities in China, Australia, and Africa.
She received the Outstanding Teaching Award and Distinguished Teacher's Award from the University of California, and is a member of the American Association of University Women Hall of Fame. In 1989-90, she received the CASE Award, California Professor of the Year, and National Gold Medalist, and she was made a member of the San Francisco Chronicle Hall of Fame. She was the fourth woman to become the Alumnus of the Year at the University of California at Berkeley. She is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the California Academy of Science.
Marian C. Diamond, Ph.D.
Professor, Department of Integrative Biology
3060 VLSB
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-3140
e mail = diamond@socrates.berkeley.edu
FAX = 510-643-6264
Phone = 510-642-4547
© September 2002 New Horizons for Learning
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