FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                           RELEASE NO. 52-08

WEST POINT CADETS, FACULTY VISIT THAILAND – July 11, 2008

WEST POINT -- Six cadets and two faculty members from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point completed a 14-day international service project in Thailand from June 11 to 25, 2008 as part of an Academic Individual Advanced Development trip.  The initiative was developed by Lt. Col. Matthew Chapman from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, who has several years of experience working with the hill tribe peoples of Northern Thailand.  This year marked the first time this AIAD was offered to cadets.

The program was designed to provide cadets a unique cultural immersion experience, with the goal of “International Education as the International Educator.”

The first portion of the trip was a country orientation and cultural immersion in the capital city of Bangkok.  In Bangkok, the team visited some of the cities most prominent cultural sites to include the Grand Palace, the Marble Temple and the Temple of the Dawn, according to Chapman.

The primary portion of the service project was conducted at a vocational training center North of Chiang Mai, Thailand.  The cadets developed lesson plans and conducted hands-on, classroom instruction for 38 Thai-Lahu students at the vocational training center.

The Lahu are one of several hill tribes of Northern Thailand, Chapman explained.  The hill tribe people live in small villages throughout northern Thailand and have little opportunity to study the English language, vocational skills, or technical topics.  The Lahu students leave their villages to study at various training centers with the hope of learning skills that will help them find jobs in the cities and suburban areas to support their families back in the villages.  It is not uncommon for unskilled workers to be forced into drug trafficking and the sex-trade for survival.

Prior to leaving West Point, the cadet team designed and resourced the training classes that they would execute in Thailand.  The classes included the following:

Introduction to the English Language: senior Shane Carlos

English Language II: senior Tera Corbari

First Aid and Preventative Medicine: junior Tim Adams

Budgeting: senior Charles Browne

Basic Bicycle and Motorbike Repair: senior Jannelle Allong

Basic Electricity: senior Jonathan Meyers

All faculty and students at the training center attended a daily session facilitated by Chapman and department colleague Lt. Col. Michael Brownfield that covered topics including self-assessment, developing a vision, long- and short-term planning and decision-making.

The Lahu students were eager to learn and extremely grateful for the opportunity to study these topics.  For most of the students, this was the first time they received any formal instruction on these topics.  The cadets themselves enjoyed the opportunity to operate in a multi-lingual environment and experience the issues related to teaching in a vastly different culture and through a language barrier.  While at the training center, the team enjoyed living on-site with the Lahu students and the Lahu meals they shared with the students daily.

“The experience and knowledge I gained from the difficult task of teaching with the assistance of a translator reinforced the importance of good communication skills as a leader in a diverse environment,” Meyers said.

The native language of all the students was a dialect of Lahu.  Some Lahu students were also fluent in the Thai language, but none spoke more then broken English.

“Being an instructor for students of the Lahu hill-tribe was more of a teaching lesson for me,” Allong said.  “Not only did I sample their language, culture and spirituality, I observed determination and desire not only to improve individually, but as a contributor to the global community.”

Carlos and Corbari, who taught the English classes, were not provided language translators and used creativity and ingenuity to execute their classroom instruction.

“The opportunity to teach the students English was remarkably rewarding,” Corbari said.  “Their kindness, respect and desire to learn are lessons that I will never forget.”

Classes requiring more technical explanations were supplemented with Lahu-English translators who assisted in the training.  In classes with translators, the cadets gained valuable experience in interacting with translators and communication with non-English speakers.

After completing the second phase of the trip, the team moved further north in the vicinity of Chiang Rai.  Here the cadets visited an orphanage, where a Lahu couple cared for 29 children.  Through donations from the West Point community, the team was able to provide much-needed wardrobe furniture for orphans to store their clothes and belongings.

“Within minutes of meeting the cadets, the children rushed to show them their rooms and share genuine laughter and smiles,” Brownfield said.  “The cadets quickly fell in love with the children and wanted to return the next day.”  All of the cadets were greatly touched as they played with the children and saw the close bond the children had for one another.  Even without a common language, the cadets and orphan children enjoyed laughing and playing games in their courtyard.

“It is impossible to understand a people without completely immersing yourself in their culture,” Adams said.  “This trip provided us the opportunity to do just that.”

After nearly two weeks of service, the team had a chance to relax and enjoy northern Thailand with a Trek through the jungle on Elephant back and a foot Trek through the jungle where they experienced a native Lahu lunch cooked in the jungle, walked through various hill-tribe villages, and enjoyed a swim in a natural waterfall.

“I could not have been more pleased with the professionalism, motivation, expertise, and compassion demonstrated by our West Point cadets to the Thai and Lahu people of Northern Thailand,” Chapman, the officer in charge of the trip, said.

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