後醫系一年級鄭馥青出國研習心得

研習時間:1000802~1000911

研習地點:印度 拉達克

研習名稱:國際志工

研習類別:國際志工

This is a miraculous journey. For which, I ascertain what “love is the answer” actually means. Just like Buddha once said, “To see what few have seen you must go where few have gone”, and for that reason, a team of 14 of us flew all the way to the other side of the continent to look for the answer we’ve been searching for. Over a course of 5 weeks, Maoshih and I represent Kaohsiung Medical University to join 9 other Yang Ming University students and 3 senior supervisors to pay our share of community service at Ladakh, India. In there at Guydzin Tantric Monastery (GTM), we met 20+ lama students of age 5-21 and far beyond my own expectation, we built very unique, personal & group collective, and unimaginably strong bonds with them.

My placement in this program highlights with the general science and English teaching, public health education regimen, and medical camp duties. For the first 3 weeks, I have been running in and out of the kitchens, and dedicating for duties between dishes-washings, trash burning/management, Class 3, 6&7 English and science teaching at GTM. I am especially inclined to the 7th graders and made a positive impact on them. 7th grade English in Ladakh somewhat resembles that of Taiwanese’s primary school 6th grade English. Since the 7th graders tend to be older (age group of 16-21), it’s feasible to compile literatures or course materials that tackle difficult concepts or philosophical moral thinking but less lexically twisted structures and vocabularies. In a nutshell, 7th graders’ performance in English classes had mostly been consistent and cooperative. Unlike 7th grade sciences classes, we have neither a fixed regimen/pace of how English classes should be taught, nor a conformed syllabus to be delivered. English free time classes focused more on basic conversational English and creative stories with appropriate moral values that actively provoke critical thinking and promote teacher-students’ interaction. All five students share similar intellectual level of passage comprehension and vocabulary count, although they express their understanding of the material differently. Tenzin Norbu is the most active student in the class. He is quick to respond whenever a question is handed out and he seems to already profess as a role model for his peers. Tenzin Jigmey is quiescent and detail-oriented, he is also a quick learner and he’s capable of grasping complex concepts. However, he is also likely to remain quiet when he has trouble with the material, so it’s better to always ensure he’s catching up with the rest of the class. Tenzin Thokmay is the oldest student in the class, his attitude toward school and education is very mature and he is a hard worker. Thokmay does not plan to attend college after graduation so he sets his goal at the level of passing. What I consider would be helpful to Thokmay is more on the motivation side, that is to encourage him to embrace his ambition or to set his bar slightly higher. Tsering Wangdu is a hardworking student, although he tends to have trouble understanding the class material and he has short attention span, so teachers need to pay further attention on him to assure that he’s following. Rigzin Norphel is the youngest student in the class, he sometimes could be absent-minded but most of the time, he actively participates the class discussion and eager to give the right answers. However, Norphel’s responsiveness adjusts to the difficulty of the question, if he is uncertain, he would look away and refuse to answer. Overall, the 7th graders have positive attitudes toward learning and consistently endeavor to achieve success.
In terms of the course material, some stories are simple to understand yet thought provoking, some are packed with truckloads of ineffectual vocabularies while the storyline doesn’t seem as forthcoming as others’. Students seem to be so caught up with the conventional force-feeding learning methods that allow them to render information without further processing or questioning the validity of such information. Another common misconception that I found through teaching class 7 students was that they tended to evaluate the level of difficulty of a story based on the quantity of unfamiliar vocabularies. Such that, if a story is written in straightforward colloquial English, it’s possible that they might think it’s not worth reading. I believe that our English class is essentially an opportunity for them to practice their conversational English and to learn moral values through English stories. If a story is full of difficult words, despite a chance to enhance their vocabulary counts, it could just as well hinder their progress for improvement because they won’t be able to participate the class discussion. Class interaction may also drastically reduce when the material is difficult, since there exists a common taboo where one would only answer if he is sure of his answer is right. Unlike students in lower grades, Class 7 students are more mature and composed, they are not likely to scream out answers and go to the board to write down their response unless being called for. All class 7 students hold unique perspectives of their own but they find it difficult to express through English conversation or they simply don’t feel as comfortable to transcend their ideas in front of their peers or in a class setting. Therefore, one should consider using writing assignments as an alternative way in the case of succinct interaction. That way, students would be able to practice their essay writing and it helps improve communication between teachers and students. On the plus side, you could also help correct their grammatical errors in the process. In the case when you try to explicitly explain a vocabulary or a concept and yet they still don’t understand, I suggest to either have them checked their Bodhi-English dictionary or simply have those words translated in Bodhi by their matriculated English teacher (Mr. Tenzin) to enhance comprehension. It’s reasonable to assume that some students are quick learners and some are slow to response, so it’s imperative to ensure everyone is on the same page before moving on to the next topic. Since 7th grade English free time class doesn’t conform to a fixed regimen, more patience, resources, and class time could spare when it’s necessary, as long as it attains congruous effects. In general, Class 7 students are diligent and focused and they are enthusiastic toward learning, so, help them become what they are capable of being.

My teaching philosophy leans toward reaching the idealistic stage where students’ interest for learning meets the demand and expectation that sets forth in their education system. Two main parts of my teaching include conversational and written English. I see books and stories as simply the means to open up a meaningful discussion and fruitful communication. With that said, I view communication as it’s both in the forms of speaking and writing. My teaching style is one of the very vivid and comic kinds, I use real life experience as examples and use tools and homemade equipments. I tend to evoke laughter in the class because I aspire to make my classroom a very blithe and enjoyable learning environment. Apart from the provincial difference, Ladakhi Lamas share lots of common rituals and beliefs with that of Tibetan’s so I could see that Confucianism is deeply rooted in their everyday behaviors. Students do keep their “appropriate” distance with the teachers as part of their reverence. Thus, it is difficult to motivate them to speak or view their opinion freely as individuals because they would first pre-filter out what they consider shouldn’t be said. That said, I feel secluded when students are conversing in Bodhi to one another during discussion, they won’t use the language that I could understand until they are ready to give out the right answer in English. When selecting my teaching material, I chose “the necklace” by Guy de Maupassant mostly because of the story’s theme and moral. “The necklace” teaches the value of truthfulness, as for me, passing this idea is far more important than teaching them the myriads of vocabularies that pops out in the story. Once my goal is clear, I come up with ways that would help me assess students’ understanding of the central theme. However, when I asked them whether they had been untruthful to themselves in the past, such making up lies, the class first stirred up whispery discussion then they fell into a dead silence. Neither were class 7 students able to discuss the philosophy of truthfulness (in English), nor were they ready to confess the lies they committed in the past, regardless of its significance. Therefore, I decided to have them written their response in a letter, along with the survey I made to assess their evaluation of my teaching. The response and feedback were great, I couldn’t be happier. Somehow, they find it easier to express freely through writing so it’s a great way to understand and communicate with them when everything else don’t work. Through their writings, I see “the necklace” really made a positive impact on them; that they should always be truthful to themselves even when they found it easy to do otherwise. Teaching the lamas is truly a rewarding experience, especially when they return the favor by learning them so well.

Another main part of my duties includes teaching public health education and raising the awareness of healthy practices. In one week, I taught 24 lama students of age 4.5-14 at Spituk and 16 lama students of age 5-16 at GTM. This health education program is taught by a total of 8 volunteers subdivided into 1 person per chapter, where I was assigned to the chapter of eyes-health protection. This course aims to teach students the basic structures of eyes and ways to protect them. Through this course, students should be able to identify parts of the eyes that contribute to vision and parts that are more susceptible to infections. They also should learn the definition of Myopia (nearsightedness) and the importance of prescribing a pair of glasses (spectacles) when they are nearsighted. It follows that ways to protect them from nearsightedness should also be taught as a complementary. While teaching the right posture to read (ex. Distances of 30cm between eyes and the book), it’s also important to identify the wrong postures and conditions that are commonly misused by the students, such as reading while lying on the bed or when there is not enough light. The course also teaches students ways to deal with red eye (conjunctivitis), by actively seeking aids from the teachers or doctors, using eye drops, and not rubbing itchy eyes or touching eyes with dirty hand. Another key point was to raise their awareness about what harm the UV sunlight could do to their eyes. Essentially, the course accentuates the importance of eye-moving exercises that help students to relax their eyes with 5 drills and catchy slogans.

I notice that a number of students tend to rub their eyes with their bare hands when they feel tired or experience irritation with the dusts or particles in the air. This phenomenon is especially apparent in the lower age groups. Since most students’ hands are frequently in contact of dusts, dirt, and allergens, it is better to make sure they first cultivate a habit of hand washing. Each school has a home clinic where students could find pupil dilator/mydriasis (ex. tropicamide), artificial tears, erythromycin, and 0.02% fluoromethalone when they have an eye-related condition. These aforementioned drugs are also available for sale in the local pharmacies. Most lower grade students do not know how to apply these eye drops/drugs so it’s better to teach them and ask them to demonstrate it back to you.

Since all students are youngsters and have short attention span, teacher and assistants also carry the duty to babysit and render cares and vigilance to keep the class in order. While teaching the basic structure of eyes, we use both poster and drawing and occasionally using our own eyes for illustration. Since most students have no concept about the eye structures and it is difficult for them to tackle the function of each eye component, it is better not to jargon the medical terms, and we should reduce the chart to simply just iris (black portion of the eyes) and conjunctiva (white portion of the eyes). Posters are good for quick illustration but I personally think teaching and drawing on the board at the same time would make the course more straightforward and vivid. For the reading posture, there was a pictorial exercise in the booklet and students were asked to complete them with supervision and they score with high accuracy. Some students also take notes of ways to act when having red itchy eyes and were able to answer when being questioned again. As for the occulomotor exercise, it’s important to have one teacher to demonstrate in the front and have the assistants to watch whether students were able to follow. Moreover, using catchy slogans really boost their interest and memory of the specifics and steps of the exercise. The best way to assess their understanding would be asking them to do a demo. Lower grade students are shy to perform the exercise alone so it’s better to ask at least two students to do together, that way they could also remind each other. In general, most students are very cooperative and were able to reiterate the exercise on their own unless they have no clue or been distracted by others.

Unlike other chapters of the health education, eye protection and preventive medicine has often been neglected. Therefore, to raise awareness of its importance should be included as a main part of this course. As for the posture and occulomotor exercises, I personally found teaching them what to do is just as important as teaching them what not to do. It’s easy to identify what would be perceived as the “correct” posture but it’s also important to reduce doing those that are not. Teaching them one class a year may not be significant but hopefully they’ll improve with yearly exposures.

The last part of my duty was working as a medical assistant at the surgery department of our yearly 4-days medical camp. The only difference we made this year was that we signed up a huge project in corroboration with the NGO-type of organization-Live to Love, for disembarking the unprecedented medical camp at White Lotus School. This project has gone corporate, for which we allotted our medical resources/equipments, staff members, and volunteers to serve over 1,200 patients (out of the 60,000 local Ladakhi residents) over the course of 3 days camp. Working closely next to my mentor, Dr. Liao Wan-Ju, I witnessed she admitted over 600 patients and what health system/medical demands in Ladakh is like. These patients presented faces of diseases, illness, and discomforts. Although 1200 of them came, we could only take care of 600 of them, because Dr. Liao insisted on quality medical check-ups for each patient; she only send them away when she’s confident of her diagnoses and after she’s making sure that each of them receives the best possible cares from our team. It is truly admirable to see all physicians, dentists, and assistants concerted all their efforts in pouring their hearts out for this camp, that they sometimes miss their lunches so they could see more patients. Essentially, we all know that our yearly medical camp is nothing more than a temporary solution to local ladakhis’ medical problems, most of the workload should be carried over by the local hospital and medical endeavors. However, by systematically having a medical camp set up annually will bring fresh breeze of compassionate cares and staff to these people and perhaps raise their awareness about healthcare and bring sustainable lifestyle onto their lives, and help nurture and inspire new volunteers to devote themselves for the benefit of others.

Looking back to 7 months ago, when I first received my assignment to this international volunteer program, I had no clue and wasn’t able to chart Ladakh on the map despite trying. After spending 5 weeks in Ladakh, I develop a personal attachment to this place and people dwelled on it. I believe there is no coincidence in this world and that every experience you have take you to the next, I am fortunate to be given such opportunity to devote myself to the people in Ladakh and in return, I also learn a great deal from them along the way. I am grateful to have the opportunity to work with such compassionate team and staff and they all seem so passionate about volunteering. This is undoubtedly the most significant experience I have thus far, I aspire to return to this land in the future to devote myself and embrace the people selflessly once again, perhaps as a more experienced volunteer or even a more capable physician.

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