By Emma Bowen Meyer
The Herald Bulletin
ANDERSON, Ind. — Only four teachers nationwide were chosen to travel to Cambodia with the American Youth Leadership Program as chaperones of high school students experiencing a new culture.
Brenda Maxfield, English teacher at Anderson Preparatory Academy, was one of them.
“The purpose was a cultural exchange,” she said. “The State Department offered this trip to give young adults exposure to other cultures as a means of developing future leaders. They purposefully chose students that didn’t have a lot of travel experience and that may not have been able to otherwise go abroad.”
Using trips like this to broaden the horizons of the next generation, the U.S. Department of State chose the participants after an extensive application process. Only 34 high school students were selected for the four-week summer journey to Southeast Asia.
Although the students did not have travel experience to draw upon, Maxfield had plenty to share.
“I’ve even done a lot of teaching overseas,” she said. “I taught in an international school in Costa Rica and then moved to counseling for awhile. I missed the classroom, though, and begged to go back.”
Hawaii then Asia
Drawn to Anderson three years ago after her husband, Paul, accepted a job as director of Children of Promise, Maxfield jumped at the opportunity to teach at APA.
Following a course at Indiana University in Eastern Literature, Maxfield began receiving materials from the East-West Connection, a study-abroad program. When they offered this opportunity, she quickly applied.
“I travel a lot, have lived overseas, and love to be with high school students,” she said. “So it sounded like fun.”
Spending a couple of days in Hawaii, the group learned about Cambodia and its people. Prepared with knowledge, they traveled to their destination and stayed in the homes of Cambodian families. By avoiding hotels and posh residences, the students got to truly experience the culture.
“We really got to see how they lived and got close to a family,” said Maxfield. “It was very rustic — some had no electricity. We had to take baths with cups of lake water.”
“Though some participants were assigned to more remote locations than others, each town and its people offered all of us insight into daily life in Cambodia,” said Brian Budik, a junior from Miami. “What I found most interesting was how rapidly Cambodia is developing. In just the past decade or so, Cambodian tourism has skyrocketed.”
By traveling with the East-West Connection, the group gained access to areas that most tourists cannot experience. On some sight-seeing jaunts, they were even able to take some of the Cambodian students who had never set foot outside their own villages.
“In addition to touring the land and learning about the area, we also did some community service,” she added. “We cleaned the Buddhist Temple and painted a school. The last night we cooked for our Cambodian hosts in big pots over fires. We had no idea what to do but the kids had fun serving them.”
Since Maxfield has extensive travel experience, she is able to compare this land to others and noticed some striking differences.
“Only 1.7 percent of the country is online,” she said. “Some of the people have cellphones and can get on Facebook. But you just don’t see computers — and if you do, they are not online. I’ve been in very backwards places but there would still be a little Internet café somewhere.”
Even though the students had to leave so many of their amenities behind for the journey, they fared very well, according to Maxfield.
“Many of them had never been out of the country before, but they did really well,” she said. “They looked on it as an adventure and an opportunity. Even when they were sick they were really troopers.”
“Brenda was the best teacher-leader on this trip,” said Budik. “She was viewed as a caring, motherly figure among the student participants. Brenda is also very knowledgeable, probably due to her experience of both traveling the world and living abroad.”
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