Lao Primary School Teachers’
Perceptions of the Developmental Stages of Youth in UXO-Impacted Communities
Christy Hicks
Department of Family & Child Ecology
Youth Development Program
Michigan State University
USA
Abstract:
Since 1999, volunteers from Thailand and the United States have worked in
partnership with the Lao Ministry of Education and Consortium Lao to facilitate
workshops in child-centered, multi-sensory learning. The volunteers believed
that teachers attempt to meet the developmental needs of their students based
upon their assumptions about youth development stages. These are the common
physical, cognitive, social, and emotional characteristics of each age group
with whom an educator works. The challenge for the facilitators was to determine
whether perceptions about these developmental stages of youth are consistent
across cultures (U.S., Thai and Lao), or influenced by environmental factors
(i.e. the presence of unexploded ordinance in the community). This paper
explores the similarities and differences in these perceptions, revealed through
small-group discussions among Lao participants in the workshops.