Call for Contributions to the Culture of Writing

06 May 2012
By Kith Chamroeun

In poor countries, common people cannot fairly access to information and knowledge. While the leaders or those who help the leadership to keep strong grip on power hold strategic advantages due to this asymmetry of information and knowledge. This asymmetry causes chronic immeasurable social cost for the Nation. In the case of Cambodia, if some tactics and tragic events could be unceasingly repeated because measures which have been taken are clearly not sufficient to reduce this distortion. This situation is clearly not acceptable anymore.

Time comes now to change this inefficient and unsustainable situation for the whole Nation. A big leap needs to be taken far beyond the very usual few lines of comment related to very critical given topics.

Whatever the topics from any field, the contributions will be greatly appreciated. It is not necessarily to deal with something related to the fields as politics, economics, geopolitics and social psychology.A writing on practical aspects as computer, cars repair, water treatment etc... may greatly help people to survive.

Thank you and best regards

Kith Chamroeun

Effect of teachers is long lasting

Heng Soy Note: I would like to personally thank Dr. Peang-Meth for sharing with all of us his valuable insights, lessons, life experience. I have to confess: I can't wait to read his weekly article. Please keep them coming!

September 22, 2010
By A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
PACIFIC DAILY NEWS (Guam)

I was born and raised more than half century ago in the poor Southeast Asian kingdom of Cambodia.

When my parents' financial fortunes took a sharp dive and the family had to split up temporarily to survive, I lived on my own in an empty house, owned a pair of shorts and two shirts -- the second sewn by my older sister. I walked to school barefoot. I cooked rice on a three-legged, baked-mud stove using firewood, and I was scared of the dark. My circumstances had greatly changed from the days when I was driven to a private kindergarten in a black Citroen, attended by some helpers.

'Teacher affects eternity'

I grew up at a time of national insecurity fomented by the Khmer Issarak, the Vietminh, and increasing anti-French colonialist activities. I have written about my elementary school teacher at Russeykeo, a young "progressive" chap whose words greatly affected me. In a leaky, thatched-roof classroom, he untiringly pounded into kids' heads that we are humans, and each of us has "one kilo of brain" that is as good as any other brain, and that "we" are responsible for our future and the country's fate. It was us -- kids in the classroom -- who will or will not make future change happen.

"Bah!" I remember the thought I had then, as I looked around at some of my classmates: clowns, bullies, pants-wetters ... an assembly of the future?

Fast forward. At one time it was unthinkable that I would study abroad. Thanks to a high school exchange program, I graduated from Chagrin Falls High School in Ohio in 1962, returned to Cambodia as required by the exchange program, and came back to Ohio to begin my freshman year at Hiram College in 1963.

My father wanted me to be an engineer or a medical doctor. I didn't care for calculus, I hated dissecting animals and could not stand blood, so I majored in political science after my academic adviser loaned me some books on the making of the United States.

I was a political activist, even in college. In 1970, as a graduate student, I supported the group of Cambodians who opposed the Vietnamese occupation of Khmer soil as base of operations against the Americans and their allies.

In 1980, I received my Ph.D. degree from the University of Michigan, the same year I was naturalized a U.S. citizen. The Cambodian republic experiment failed miserably, and with the U.S. pullout from the region, the Khmer Republic crumbled. Pol Pot took over and more than 2 million died as a result. That regime was ousted by a Soviet-backed Vietnamese military invasion that decapitated the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge in 1979.

In 1980, I joined the nationalist resistance Khmer People's National Liberation Front at the Cambodian-Thai border. The Front opposed Vietnam's invasion and occupation of Cambodia.

I read somewhere that "a teacher affects eternity; he can never tell where his influence stops."

'Living antiquity'

When I stood before a very attentive introduction to political science class of Asians, Pacific islanders and students from the U.S. mainland in 1991 at the University of Guam to introduce myself with a short background as their teacher for the term, an islander rubbed his face and blurted, "Oh, a living antiquity!"

For the next 13 years, I taught political science at UOG, using my comparative analysis training acquired in Ann Arbor, an approach I was fortunate to have tested when I taught a graduate-undergraduate comparative politics course at Johns Hopkins in 1990. I used Western and Eastern political philosophies and theories; I backed them up with my practical experience and real stories from my service at the United Nations as a delegate, in diplomacy, in the resistance, as I sought to bring philosophies and theories alive. We described, analyzed and attempted to forecast what may lie ahead.

As some UOG students wrote in their evaluation of me, one said, "He did not teach to pass tests, but to think in order to live a life worth living."

Continue the traditions

Once one has established oneself as an educator, the act of educating has become ingrained in the person, and I don't know if there's a stopping point.

Though I have retired from formal classroom teaching -- the Guam sunsets, the three-times-a-day swim at Ypao's salt waters that washed away stresses, anxieties and built physical strength; the plumerias that brought unforgettable fragrance, among others, are a thing of the past. The Pacific Daily News continues to provide me with an opportunity to write and share.

And so I write to share. I do have my own political and ideological preferences, which I propound from time to time. Otherwise I keep them to myself. Humility is my value: I respect others' views and ways and I seek to learn from them.

I have disagreed with others, privately or openly, but I do my best to refrain from being disagreeable -- some relationships have been hurt, some others have continued. Some cannot accept disagreement.

I judge from the number of e-mails I receive, and especially a few with strong reactions to my writings from people of both sides of the bench, that my purpose in writing to challenge thoughts has borne fruit.

I am grateful there are faithful readers, and those who anticipate my weekly column. It is freedom that ensures my opportunity to write, and I thank all media outlets that facilitate my exercise of free expression.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yhaoo.com.

Universities Fail at Critical Thinking: Student Advocate

Pich Samnang, VOA Khmer
Phnom Penh Thursday, 15 July 2010

“The quality of education in these skills is still very limited.”

Cambodia’s higher education system has failed to address a lack of critical-thinking and problem-solving curricula among university students, a youth advocate told “Hello VOA” on Monday.

Instead, says Cheang Sokha, head of the Youth Resource Development Program, “student-centered” approaches exist on paper only within higher education.

“The quality of education in these skills is still very limited,” Cheang Sokha said.

“If we want to see a society’s fate, we look at how young people’s education is invested in,” he said. “Now look at the way our current education system invests in young people. How can we hope that our society will have a good fate?”

The Youth Resource Development Program hopes to improve that, he said, and has trained around 2,000 university students since 1999 to make them better thinkers and more attractive in the job market.

“Employers put more value on people with high critical-thinking and analytical problem-solving skills,” he said.

More than that, said one caller, Sun Thun, the education system has also failed to instill the proper sense of patriotism, democracy and respect for human rights.

Use what you know to build better

April 7, 2010
By A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
Pacific Daily News (Guam)

We are living in interesting times when the ether and the airwaves are full of surging angry rhetoric; when talking with one another in civility seems beyond reach and shouts, screams and insults take over.

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me," goes an old phrase that kids repeat on the school ground -- until someone is knocked to the ground in a fistfight.

"Words are alive; cut them and they bleed," said American philosopher and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson; Lord Buddha said, "The tongue like a sharp knife ... kills without drawing blood." And the Turks say, "A knife wound heels; a wound caused by words does not."

Today, I would like to begin with the words from the Foundation of Critical Thinking, which confirms how thinking and writing are no simple matter. The foundation guides us on "How to say something worth saying about something worth saying something about."

In the past two weeks, two columns by Anne Applebaum -- a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, a former member of the editorial board of The Washington Post and wife of Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski -- rekindled my own desire to learn. A mother of two, Applebaum received degrees from Yale and the London School of Economics.

In her March 29 column, "In Poland, lessons in first lady 101," Applebaum wrote how "mythological versions of history attained the status of 'fact,'" as people "argued about them with extraordinary passion." As a journalist, she said, "I know what it is like to incur the self-righteous wrath of people who denounce you for things you didn't say or didn't mean ... the permanent fury of the blogosphere."

Applebaum writes about "an unrecognizable version ... (in) the public sphere" of her husband when he declared his candidacy for president of Poland.

Days earlier, Applebaum wrote in "The GOP's Warterloo warning" about David Frum's "critique of radical right-wing talk-show rhetoric," as she returned from London, where she took a "close-up look" at the state of the British Conservative Party. The Tories ran "angry campaigns that reeked of xenophobia" and lost power for 13 years, since 1997.

While the Tory Party's "nasty public image -- arrogant, mean, small-minded -- is proving difficult to discard," she writes, now, "they have changed the way they speak: No more shouting. No more anger. No more arrogance." And they have become "once again real contenders."

Back to America: Applebaum said she's in favor of universal access to health care, but "horrified by what President Obama's bill is going to cost." She wants "nothing to do with" those screaming "communist" and "fascist" at Obama.

Applebaum advises: An angry campaign that excites the base but loses the center can cost a political party an election.

In the March 31 column "Whose Revolution is this?" in The Washington Post, Northwestern University American history professor T.H. Breen, author of a forthcoming book "American Insurgents, American Patriots: The Revolution of the People," writes about how "when Americans protest" -- whether it's today's Tea Party members or Vietnam Veterans Against the War in 1971 -- "they often lay claim to the ordinary patriots of the Revolution" -- those ordinary American colonists "who risked killing and getting killed" as they resisted British imperial power at the birth of America's independence.

Breen cited the lessons from the colonists: The 13 colonies could have broken up into "small, squabbling units" that trumpeted "narrow regional, ideological or class interests" and doomed resistance to Great Britain, but the "patriots of 1773 and 1774 worked hard to promote unity ... (and) a general American cause." They did not protest taxation, but "taxation without representation."

They appreciated "any disgruntled person can mouth words of protest. But resistance to Britain demanded serious sacrifice" -- giving up something they desired to demonstrate intentions and forge solidarity, rather than angry rhetoric. And, as they were able to distinguish between resistance to "arbitrary rulers" and engagement in "lawless riots" that could turn "tyrannical, imperious, and oppressive," the colonists instituted the Continental Congress.

Today's Americans need to know the history of the early generation's sacrifice in launching "an insurgency that became a revolution that brought independence" and "a new republic dedicated to rights, equality and liberty," Breen wrote.

Of course, knowing what writers tell us above only fills our brain with information. Using what we know to build a better world today and a better world in the morrows, devoid of pitfalls, is what knowledge is about.

A Russian proverb says, "There's no shame in not knowing; the shame lies in not finding out." American physicist Albert Einstein said, "Learn from yesterday, live today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning."
It opens doors to choices.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years. Write him at peangmeth@yahoo.com.

Critical thinking can improve quality of life

August 27, 2008
By A. Gaffar Peang Meth
Guam Pacific Daily News

At 64, I am still learning every day, and as an educator, I will always champion students' right to a quality education. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically."

My focus on critical thinking relies on the Foundation for Critical Thinking as a primary source. The foundation describes critical thinking as "a core social value" and "a requirement for economic and social survival" in the 21st century. It's a "mode of thinking about any subject, content or problem in which the thinker improves the quality of his or her thinking by skillfully analyzing, assessing, and reconstructing it, and asks "essential questions" to deal with what is "necessary, relevant, and indispensable to a matter at hand."

Those who have read my columns know that I am prone to warning against the usual traps that befall humans, such as denial, blaming, gossiping, arrogance, among others. And I usually end up returning to thinking as the key to one's future, and to "living in goodness" as a basis of society.

I applaud the non-partisan Cambodian non-governmental organization in Phnom Penh, the Youth Resource Development Program, www.yrdp.org, which provides non-formal education to third-level college students (high school graduates in special cases), on "critical and analytical thinking skills" necessary to become "committed citizens" and "active members of society."

Founded in 1992 and formalized as an NGO in 1999, the program is located in Khan Tuol Kork, Cambodia. It says students come to its program "by word of mouth," and pay no tuition.

YRDP defines as its mission, "to strengthen Cambodian youth by developing their social conscience and awareness and by encouraging them to take responsibility for their own future, the future of their own family, their society and their country." It describes its program goal "to empower youth and strengthen their life skills, critical and analytical thinking ... to raise self-confidence, foster a sense of responsibility and enable youth to participate actively in building a culture of peace, justice and the sustainable development of Cambodia."

Some readers say peace is "a state of mind," but the generally accepted human aspirations for contentment, good health, and a level of economic self-sufficiency can't be attained in a world of chaos and disorder where the strong devours the weak. It follows that unless there's justice, there's no peace. Without that foundation, economic development can be little more than a mirage.

For YRDP, "implementing critical thinking in daily life" is the way to "improve quality life." And so, YRDP offers training courses in two parts: the required "core skills" concentrate on personal development ("The future of your country and the quality of your life depend on the quality of your thinking; if you want to change your life, change your thinking") and specific skills include a range of courses participants can select.

"As human beings, ... we cannot avoid conflict or problems, ... but we are able to manage and solve them, ... as a step to building peace," according to the course description on conflict and resolution. In its "active non-violence" course, YRDP aims to provide "skills, strategies, and lessons" by examining the "successful experiences" of people such as Mahatma Gandhi, Moha Ghossananda, Aung San Suu Kyi, "to encourage youth to find effective solutions for promoting peace, justice and development."

Among other training courses, YRDP offers leadership and good governance, values within society ("What could we change in Khmer culture to bring better peace and justice in Khmer society?"), democracy and governmental systems.

The "participatory and experiential methods of learning" (field practice) by students are used for each course; facilitators and trainers are university graduates trained in critical thinking and participatory education methods.

The program acknowledges that more than 30 years of warfare has befallen the Cambodian people and has hampered the nascent efforts to create and enforce "law, social justice, accountability, participatory decision-making, transparency and equality."

"Most Cambodian people do not well understand the application of democracy," and "there are many barriers" that include "threats, killings and arrests," a situation that "scares people from implementing their rights, and affects young people in speaking out about their concerns and needs."

YRDP sees its training course on democracy and governmental system as one that will "enable young people to learn to be good citizens in a democratic society through exercising their rights in appropriate ways."

This relatively young NGO is doing the Khmer nation a great service by stimulating the youth to engage in higher level thinking as they work to achieve peace, justice, and development in a country whose citizens have longed for progress for decades.

California's Foundation of Critical Thinking and Cambodia's YRDP may be many miles apart, but they share similar vision and philosophies.

The Foundation posits, "a mind with no questions" is intellectually dead as it doesn't proceed and doesn't process. It counsels, "keep asking new questions" to arrive at the "vast panorama of possible answers" from which to choose.

The power of ideas to foment change and achieve a "good" society should not be discounted.

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam, where he taught political science for 13 years.