Writing, Teaching and Writing Through Teaching

There is no doubt that in today’s world of writers, teaching plays a big part for most of us. Some teach in university Creative Writing degree programs, but most teach in other places like retreats, writing organisations, schools, prisons, even their own living rooms. The Writing Workshop is everywhere, and takes all forms. I myself have taught many of them, and they have taken on all sorts of formats. Most of my workshops lately, as many know, are taking the form of my Writing Through program, which serves, mostly, Cambodia’s most at-risk teenagers and young adults. But I have also taught workshops on many other aspects of writing, like Writing About Place, which I taught most recently at the New Leaf Book Cafe in Siem Reap.
But lately I’ve been doing a completely different sort of teaching as well, and these are better called training sessions rather than writing workshops. Now that Writing Through is taking on a life of its own, I  have had to begin training others to run the workshops as they spread throughout all of Cambodia, and perhaps beyond. Since September, I’ve run three of these, the most recent, and by far the largest, was in Singapore about ten days ago.
These are very intense, all-day sessions, where I am part history lecturer, anthropology professor and creative writing tutor. I have created a twelve-page manual which lays out everything from the history of Cambodia, to the details of the workshop formats, to the particulars of the pedagogy which I have developed over five years of teaching in these settings. But these students are different. They are all adults, but that is where their similarity ends. They are not all writers. They are not all teachers. They are not all native English speakers. The main thing they share is their inexplicable desire to spend some of their time helping others in an unknown land and a little known culture. Training them has been both fascinating and humbling. It amazes me that so many people are responding to this program I’ve developed in such an open, adventurous and altruistic way. But it’s also great fun and very exciting, as you can see by the photo above.
The next training session, which is free by the way, will be on Saturday, January 17, 2015 in London. So, if any of my UK-based friends are reading this and want to come along, please just leave a comment below or use the contact form on the Writing Through Cambodia website.   I’d love to see you there!!!