A Personal Space is a space that enables you to learn best.

 

The Personal Space can be as diverse as the uniqueness of each person who

inhabits one.

 

It allows for physical aspects such as furniture, equipment and lighting, or visual and sensory aspects such as colour, fragrances, noises and ambience.  But most importantly, it is the place where you are motivated to learn, where you are in control of your learning and where you can take risks, make mistakes, reflect and learn at your own pace.

 

The Personal Space applies perfectly to my Future Learning Space.  It has no restrictions; which ironically is in direct conflict with the educational environment of the children of Kuk Tnoth, Cambodia.

 

These children have no physical luxuries and I doubt their sensory, visual or health conditions offer positive learning environments.  They have no choice but to learn in the physical personal space they are situated in.  This does not matter; it is their environment and within their community; they know no other.

But the offer of stimulus through visual instruction will enable them to absorb information to begin their journey towards an education and an opportunity to break the poverty cycle. 

 

Due to the lack of clean water, no sanitation and the appalling lack of hygiene, the children of Kuk Tnoth suffer constantly from avoidable and treatable diseases. They are not intentionally unsanitary; they have never been exposed, shown or educated about hygiene and the importance of implementing it to stay healthy.  Combined with the lack of school attendance due to illness, hence, illiterate and uninformed, these children have no bright futures and are condemned to a life of poverty.

 

The enormity of educating and assisting the impoverished children in Cambodia is overwhelming.  The Khmer Rouge created a dysfunctional population. A nations’ culture, religion, music, stories and educated were eradicated in a few short years. As a result, the surviving inhabitants, the majority being children and peasant farmers who had never been given access to education, developed into a population with no skills and a reasoning steeped in superstition and the basic instinct to stay alive.  

 

I aim to help the children of Kuk Tnoth begin to develop their own Personal Space. 

A space where they are motivated to learn. 

A space where they can control their own learning. 

A space where they can learn best.

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The issue of physical attributes do not apply here; comfort, equipment, ambience, colours etc do not initially apply. 

Their Personal Space will be within themselves. 

Their minds.

Their souls.

Their curiosity.

Their desire to be stimulated and to learn.  

 

Every human possesses this space.

In reality, it is the space where all thought grows into knowledge and progress.