Meet the Teacher – Desta Olds, International School of Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Desta Olds is an elementary performing arts teacher at the International School of Phnom Penh, Cambodia's first international school. Originally from the USA, Desta worked in South Korea and Hong Kong before joining ISPP a few years ago, and she kindly answered a few of our questions about her current teaching work, covering equipment, teaching spaces, using technology and more!

Tell us about yourself as a musician and teacher

I am a cello player and ukulele enthusiast. In Phnom Penh I have the privilege to be part of the Ukulele Circle of adults that jams together once a week and I am also the conductor of the Phnom Penh Symphony Orchestra. I also play cello with the symphony when they bring in guest conductors. At school, I'm a Performing Arts teacher so I mix in drama with my usual music lessons, and dance as well. I am very enthusiastic about using technology, since that seems to be how artists get seen these days, so I always make sure to do some music production and video editing projects.

My favourite is our Oscar awards show where students vote on the best Grade 5 Exhibition videos, aiming to make a difference relating to the Sustainable Development Goals from the United Nations. I'm the type of person who will regularly come up with a new idea and start doing it with my students, figuring out with them how to make it work. I love adding the students' input into my lessons and creating something new with each class. I think this stems from my background with Orff, where you are always playing and creating!

The Orff Approach - a music education method combining many different learning elements including singing, dance, acting and the use of various percussion instruments.

Describe the teaching spaces at your school

I am very fortunate to have a double size classroom as well as 3 connecting rooms to it. I use the extra rooms for my office, instrument storage and drama storage but keep the middle spaces of each room clear so students can use them as practice rooms. I label every shelf so students can easily find things and more importantly, put them away properly. My classroom is carpeted to help soak the sound, with wood vinyl flooring at the front of the room. This change in flooring helps create the feeling of "stage" in the front of the room which is great for student presentations. Also, that's where the projector screen is so students naturally have some space away from it.

What is the one piece of equipment you couldn’t manage without?

Microphone headset! Some call it a Britney Spears mic but I call it my saviour! I had a year where I taught PE and Music which caused me to develop vocal nodes and completely losing my voice. Since then, I have been more cautious about how my voice is feeling and how I'm using it. My classroom has speakers near the 4 corners of the room which my voice projects through with the headset mic. This gives every student a front row seat, and I never have to work hard to project my voice. Imagine how wonderful that is when there are 23 xylophones being played all at once!

What is on your wishlist?

A Bass Xylophone cart with wheels. We are constantly moving the basses in and out of the storage room and it takes 2 children or 1 adult. It would be so much easier if we just had our 3 basses on wheels so 1 student could simply pull them out. Also, this would retain the quality of the instruments for longer because they wouldn't get dropped.

Anything else?

I miss having a Smart Board that you could write on and all of the students' work would be saved automatically. I find myself having to type up student ideas after class so I don't lose them. I wonder what the next solution is for interactive white boards…

To find out more about Desta's life and career, listen to her appearance on the Music Teachers in International Schools podcast with Chris Koelma.

Desta has also written about her experience of the Phnom Penh music scene on her own blog.