The Weather is Chilly
November 10, 2006
3:45 PM
Four Months in Kyrgyzstan.
I start with an apology to an error in my last posting. In quoting my friend Andrew Paul Lewis, some how my computer shadowed more text from his email and placed it into the blog once I copied and pasted from MS Word at the internet café. And in a fine display of the ignorance, the added text made a harsh comment about a dear friend of mind: Mark Moser.
First, the apology to him:
Markus,
I believe I owe you a serious apology. At this moment I will be removing the comment about you in my blog. That was never intended to be in the blog, and I apologize, sincerely, for letting that slip through. I am still trying to figure out what happened with my blog; but nonetheless, I still owe you a sincere apology since, in the end, I am still at fault for posting that (no matter how it was done).
I am not going to patronize you with words of insincere apologies. I merely want to apologize for a wrong I did towards a friendship that I cherish. I could go into details about the good your role as a teacher, no matter the subject, plays for every student you teach. But you already know that; you already know the good you are doing and if I know you well enough, you have dedicated yourself to providing your students with everything you have.
I respect you for taking a role as a Physical Education teacher. I know that many times PE teachers can be the butt of many ignorant jokes. I do not ever want to go down that path with you, or any other person who has dedicated themselves to educating future generations. In many ways, teachers (PE teachers especially), do not get the credit they deserve for changing the lives of so many children for the better. I respect you for choosing a career that is dedicated to helping kids grow, both mentally and physically. I respect you for dedicating yourself to your job (as evidence by the “Mark Moser Basketball Program” soon to be in effect at Iroquois). And I respect you most for writing your email to me and Andy.
I know that I have been an ass in one way or another to you and for that I am sorry; for inadvertently posting that comment, but more so for wronging you as a friend. By calling you a friend, and you bestowing that title upon me, I hold certain responsibilities of upholding a code of friendship. To allow something like this to happen has seriously challenged that code, and that is not what friends do.
I apologize Mark, sincerely.
Next, the apology to everyone else:
To my DP family,
I cherish the friendships I have grown up with, and to let something like this slip into the blog is shot to every friend I have back home. We are a family, and families share in joys together, as well as feel pain together. I want to apologize to you all, we all are human, and human’s make mistakes (even mistakes towards the people we care for and love). My mistake was to loutishly hurt a dear friend of ours. For my mistake I will accept the lashings (both in my own head and from everyone else, including Mark). I deserve them and will accept them in concurrence with the knowledge of my wrongdoing. I ask that you all to please accept my apologies; none of you deserved this, Mark especially.
November 10, 2006
5:00 PM
Ok, I am back after a short break. I took a step outside, in the first real cold day since I have been here, to have some water and some very good chocolate given to me as a gift from a fellow volunteer (for letting her borrow my computer for a few days; I made it through those two days with only a few bouts of the shakes and dry sweats). While eating my Ghirardelli Intense Dark Espresso Escape chocolate, I decided to read the package. I started at the bottom of the front where the (copyrighted) slogan for Ghiradelli was written: Moments of Timeless Pleasure. After my first timeless bite, I flipped the package over to find that the back was an experiment in gorgeous thesaurus poetry (of course, being a thesaurus poet myself, I quickly fell in love with it). Suffice to say, the absurdity of it has required me to share it with you all:
Espresso Escape
The luxuriously deep and velvety 60% Cacao dark chocolate in Ghirardelli Espresso Escape is fused with deep-roasted espresso beans delivering a moment of unrivaled chocolate intensity. Savor a mid-afternoon respite with Espresso Escape. Enjoy as the intense chocolate pleasure lingers and time stands still.
Be sure to also savor a daytime breather with Toffee Interlude; reflect on the simple pleasures of the day with Citrus Sunset or enjoy the pleasurable and relaxing finish to the day with Twilight Delight.
Ah man, good thing I ate this chocolate at the correct time of day. I can only imagine the moment when an innocent chocolate lover sits down at noon to savor some Twilight Delight, only to realize halfway through the package that their chance at pleasure has been missed due to their chocolate timing ignorance. Or imagine if another unwitting person took a bite of Toffee Interlude during a moment of intense work, their entire moment of unrivaled chocolate intensity would be destroyed. Damn, I am very lucky that during my mid-afternoon respite I took a few bites of the deep-roasted espresso fused dark chocolate. If only there was an adjective for excessive. Wait…
Honestly though, the 40 grams of fat I consumed in five minutes was well worth it. Thanks Ghirardelli for making your way across the sea. From San Leandro, CA to the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, you have proven your ability to truly make time stand still. The intense pleasure was savored and, in this country at least, the espresso fusion has proven to be unrivaled. Now if I can only figure out why I am shaking…
From unrivaled pleasure to a pleasurable arrival:
In other news, I should inform all of you that care (and more so those that don’t), that my beloved Aurora University Men’s Soccer Team has finally reached a long sought after goal: the
3:45 PM
Four Months in Kyrgyzstan.
I start with an apology to an error in my last posting. In quoting my friend Andrew Paul Lewis, some how my computer shadowed more text from his email and placed it into the blog once I copied and pasted from MS Word at the internet café. And in a fine display of the ignorance, the added text made a harsh comment about a dear friend of mind: Mark Moser.
First, the apology to him:
Markus,
I believe I owe you a serious apology. At this moment I will be removing the comment about you in my blog. That was never intended to be in the blog, and I apologize, sincerely, for letting that slip through. I am still trying to figure out what happened with my blog; but nonetheless, I still owe you a sincere apology since, in the end, I am still at fault for posting that (no matter how it was done).
I am not going to patronize you with words of insincere apologies. I merely want to apologize for a wrong I did towards a friendship that I cherish. I could go into details about the good your role as a teacher, no matter the subject, plays for every student you teach. But you already know that; you already know the good you are doing and if I know you well enough, you have dedicated yourself to providing your students with everything you have.
I respect you for taking a role as a Physical Education teacher. I know that many times PE teachers can be the butt of many ignorant jokes. I do not ever want to go down that path with you, or any other person who has dedicated themselves to educating future generations. In many ways, teachers (PE teachers especially), do not get the credit they deserve for changing the lives of so many children for the better. I respect you for choosing a career that is dedicated to helping kids grow, both mentally and physically. I respect you for dedicating yourself to your job (as evidence by the “Mark Moser Basketball Program” soon to be in effect at Iroquois). And I respect you most for writing your email to me and Andy.
I know that I have been an ass in one way or another to you and for that I am sorry; for inadvertently posting that comment, but more so for wronging you as a friend. By calling you a friend, and you bestowing that title upon me, I hold certain responsibilities of upholding a code of friendship. To allow something like this to happen has seriously challenged that code, and that is not what friends do.
I apologize Mark, sincerely.
Next, the apology to everyone else:
To my DP family,
I cherish the friendships I have grown up with, and to let something like this slip into the blog is shot to every friend I have back home. We are a family, and families share in joys together, as well as feel pain together. I want to apologize to you all, we all are human, and human’s make mistakes (even mistakes towards the people we care for and love). My mistake was to loutishly hurt a dear friend of ours. For my mistake I will accept the lashings (both in my own head and from everyone else, including Mark). I deserve them and will accept them in concurrence with the knowledge of my wrongdoing. I ask that you all to please accept my apologies; none of you deserved this, Mark especially.
November 10, 2006
5:00 PM
Ok, I am back after a short break. I took a step outside, in the first real cold day since I have been here, to have some water and some very good chocolate given to me as a gift from a fellow volunteer (for letting her borrow my computer for a few days; I made it through those two days with only a few bouts of the shakes and dry sweats). While eating my Ghirardelli Intense Dark Espresso Escape chocolate, I decided to read the package. I started at the bottom of the front where the (copyrighted) slogan for Ghiradelli was written: Moments of Timeless Pleasure. After my first timeless bite, I flipped the package over to find that the back was an experiment in gorgeous thesaurus poetry (of course, being a thesaurus poet myself, I quickly fell in love with it). Suffice to say, the absurdity of it has required me to share it with you all:
Espresso Escape
The luxuriously deep and velvety 60% Cacao dark chocolate in Ghirardelli Espresso Escape is fused with deep-roasted espresso beans delivering a moment of unrivaled chocolate intensity. Savor a mid-afternoon respite with Espresso Escape. Enjoy as the intense chocolate pleasure lingers and time stands still.
Be sure to also savor a daytime breather with Toffee Interlude; reflect on the simple pleasures of the day with Citrus Sunset or enjoy the pleasurable and relaxing finish to the day with Twilight Delight.
Ah man, good thing I ate this chocolate at the correct time of day. I can only imagine the moment when an innocent chocolate lover sits down at noon to savor some Twilight Delight, only to realize halfway through the package that their chance at pleasure has been missed due to their chocolate timing ignorance. Or imagine if another unwitting person took a bite of Toffee Interlude during a moment of intense work, their entire moment of unrivaled chocolate intensity would be destroyed. Damn, I am very lucky that during my mid-afternoon respite I took a few bites of the deep-roasted espresso fused dark chocolate. If only there was an adjective for excessive. Wait…
Honestly though, the 40 grams of fat I consumed in five minutes was well worth it. Thanks Ghirardelli for making your way across the sea. From San Leandro, CA to the mountains of Kyrgyzstan, you have proven your ability to truly make time stand still. The intense pleasure was savored and, in this country at least, the espresso fusion has proven to be unrivaled. Now if I can only figure out why I am shaking…
From unrivaled pleasure to a pleasurable arrival:
In other news, I should inform all of you that care (and more so those that don’t), that my beloved Aurora University Men’s Soccer Team has finally reached a long sought after goal: the
Division III National Tournament!
I must admit, it has been tough to watch an entire season through game summaries and stat sheets, but I have kept a close eye on my boys. Five years studying and working at Aurora has cemented a love for both the school and the soccer program that will never fade. The familiar faces will eventually graduate and new faces will step in; but no matter what, there will always be a place in my heart for AU and the fields I grew up on (mentally and physically). Congratulations Coach Pete and all of my buddies still battling it out on the field. Good luck this Saturday, lets thank Dominican for letting us embarrass them on their own field!
From the lands where futbol is played, I wish you all the drive, the strength, and the joy needed to find the back of the net and prove to the world that Stars do burn out in our lifetime.
Poetry Corner
“Choice”
It’s tough
It’s tough to help with a blind eye;
Dedicate yourself to one cause,
While millions of other die.
It hurts
It hurts to watch in comfort;
Overwhelming to say the least,
Even in the act of a helping effort.
I cry
I cry when I think of the others
I will never meet or never help.
Those who live to die a part of the numbers
I
I am selfish when I help;
Lost in the response I get,
Blind to those I can’t help.
I am alive!
If you haven’t figured it out yet, I am still alive and well after Kyrgyzstan’s latest revolution. I am still not to keen on the details of what went down and how things were settled, but I know for a few days things came close to a scary repeat of the last revolution in 2005. Things seem to have settled down in Bishkek and as well as I know, there was no major violence or riots this time around; a good thing for both the people of Kyrgyzstan and us volunteers.
Finally tonight,
It’s About Time:
I have received the news that after twelve years the Democrats have finally regained control of congress. Congratulations to all the Dems who now have the task of organizing chaos left over from the GOP. Go Nancy Pelosi!
November 10, 2006
6:45 PM
I lied, I am back.
I was just thinking about the wonderful little similarities between America and Kyrgyzstan that I have seen in the past few weeks. As the weather has slowly but surely cooled down and autumn has truly began to displays is colors, the people of Kyrgyzstan have come alive. Autumn is a time of celebrations in Kyrgyzstan (with Ramadan and the Harvest playing a big role); but Autumn is also a time for people to prepare for winter.
Walking through Balykchy the other day I had to smile as I saw an elderly gentleman, dressed to elderly impress in his flannels, overalls, and faded ball-cap, patiently sweep up the leaves from his drive way. He had his leaves-bag leaning up against a tree and as he moved ever so steadily and deliberately down the drive way, scooping up leaves in his dust pan every other step. It reminded me of every grandfather back home I have ever seen rake and sweep up their yards with a diligent pride that seems to linger in all who have lived the better part of a century.
Then upon returning from Balykchy to my village, I walked past a family who were all outside their house lost in the joys of Fall chores. The father was trimming the bushes that surrounded the house out as the mother was trimming the roses below them. As the parents took care of the heavy work, the children were following up behind collecting the branches and stems being removed by their parents. Naturally, like most children, they seemed to be in a different world than that of their chores and were reminded by their parents a few times to snap back to reality and keep helping. It was another nice parallel to see and felt good to see the joys of Autumn chores also being enjoyed by my new country of residence.
November 14, 2006
7:00 AM
I was not able to get to the internet this past weekend (it was not working in town), so my postings were subsequently not put up. This has no real affect on what I wrote, or will write, except for the fact that by now I have found out sadly that AU’s Men’s Soccer team lost in their first round game against Dominican University. It sounded like the season went well, congratulations on a good season boys.
Ok, on to my current bouts with schizophrenia:
As I was standing in the middle of my classroom yesterday guiding the class through a “Classroom Nouns” session, in my head I started a mini-war. The in-class assignment was to take the classroom pictures I had handed out (with numbers on a number of objects in the picture) and list the classroom nouns in their notebooks according to the numbers. The assignment started well with most of the students taking an interest in me doing something other than writing on the board.
But as the session moved on, the divide in the class became entirely obvious. Half of the class was flying through the pictures, the other half were having a difficult time writing the number “1”. In an assignment like this, I can very clearly see who has taken any effort at all during their past nine or ten years of school to learn English. There is a very clear (and large) gap of knowledge and motivation in most of my classes. It is here where my schizophrenia takes hold.
I was watching half the class diligently work and the other half analyze the dynamics of their pen and then it suddenly hit me. This is what every teacher, ever, goes through on a daily basis: the struggle to keep an entire class on track, at the same level, and some how keep the advanced students and the low-level students both interested. It was form this thought process that the war in my head began.
One the one hand, I only have two years here to teach and help as much as I can. I need to use my time wisely and if that means helping the best and motivated students advance and accepting that some will be left behind, then so be it. But on the other hand, being a teacher I am largely responsible for the education of my students (in regards to English at least, but we all know teachers teach much more than their subject entails—as Mark, Vicki, Megan, and all of my other teaching friends back home could tell you). This responsibility requires me to work to help all of my students, to search for a way to guide and educate even the students that lack motivation.
But I only have two years, and some of the students just don’t care, and may never care.
But my job requires me, and the teaching world expects me, to try and help every student as best I can.
But if I spend too much time trying to helping the poor students, eventually some of my best students may lose interest; and worse, their English may never improve due to a lack of attention.
But every student has a right to learn, and it is my responsibility to try and give every student a fair and balanced education.
But I only have two years.
In two years I can change a lot.
AHHHHHH!
All of this happened in a five minute span in the middle of my classroom, in the middle of a class session. Since then I have had more time to think more about this topic, and I still have no idea what approach to take. I have thought about the teachers back home a lot. In many ways, teaching doesn’t change being on the other side of the planet. The resource availability may alter a bit, and the languages are slightly different. But in the end, I am still leading students of varying ages towards a goal. I am still the leader of a class and my job is still to pass my knowledge on to the students I teach. I owe it to my students to do my best to give them what I have, no matter how motivated they are to receive it.
The problem I have now is that I believe at some point, I truly need to make a decision. Do I just accept that some of my students don’t want to learn English and I don’t want to struggle with them; or do I start making a concerted effort to open the minds of the students that are perfectly ok with doing nothing? Many teachers at my school, my counterpart especially, has simply told me: “teach the best students.” That is tough to hear coming from a “No Child Left Behind” education. Yes, the “No Child Left Behind” program is very controversial, and there are many things that I disagree within it. But overall, there is a sentiment within it that aims to give every student, even the worst ones, an education.
I am not sure I am entirely ready to just teach my best students, but I am leaning more that way. In a country where schools don’t have teacher’s aids, student help centers, or personal tutors available for the struggling students, it seems that the most motivated and driven go on to get a university education. The least motivated seem to take a few different paths such as farming or becoming taxi driver. I honestly don’t know how I view the statement, “I can only help those willing to help themselves.” I have the opportunity with many of my best students to give them English education from a native speaker. I have the opportunity to help guide them towards wonderful university educations and, possibly, a career utilizing their English later on in life.
I had a lot of talks about the affect a volunteer can really have by heading to a country for two years to teach English. I really believe that volunteers can play a large role in affecting the lives of the people they educate, talk with, and work with. And in regards to my current discussion, if I am able to help thirty out of the one hundred students I have to go on and become something great, is that not affecting and helping? I know it is a twisted way of looking at my current situation, but in a selfish way, I want to feel like I have helped. I want to leave here knowing that in some way I made a difference. And if that means accepting that some students may be left behind, I am starting to think that I may have to accept that.
Even when I snap into a different reality and question if my teaching methods are the correct ones to get across to these students (which I admitted last entry that they definitely were not), I still accept that at some point, I need to educate someone. Even in my poor first quarter lessons, some students were learning, and the ones that had questions asked. The students that weren’t learning, and didn’t care to, would sometimes come to class, draw pictures, and leave when the class was done. The question I ask myself when I see that: is there more I can do, or should I accept that some students just don’t want to learn English. Again, all of this is very selfish; especially since I am only one fraction of the students’ education. They have a large number of other subjects that they may excel in and languages may not be their thing.
I was once one of these students. I hated Spanish class. Not because it was a bad class or because I had bad teachers, but more so because I am horrible at learning languages (a problem I am still struggling with). I remember how hard it was for me to learn a language that was only used for forty-five minutes, twice a week (exactly the same situation my students are currently in). I barely got through my classes with “Cs” and to this day I am thankful for those “Cs.” Yet in many ways, my situation was entirely different. If I learned Spanish or not, I still had many other opportunities to head off to college and study. For many of these students, an English education (or a German one) can mean a chance to travel, to study abroad and see some the world that surrounds them. There are a few very competitive English programs in this country that give students many opportunities that wouldn’t be available if they didn’t know English.
I don’t want to come off as pompous or overly supportive of the English language. I find many faults in my laziness to not study a language in college; especially a language like Spanish that could allow for many different working opportunities within my own country. There are thousands of languages on our planet, and they all hold a great deal of significance. But in the case of my students, and the difference I wish to make, an English education can have a lot of benefits. Again, I want to make a difference, and so far I have found that along with helping to develop my school’s resources, teaching English and an understanding of American culture to my teachers and students seems to be one of the best ways that I can help.
I joined Peace Corps for many different reasons, and many of the reasons I joined have not come to light until recently. Among many other things, I know that in some way I want to make a difference. I want to help the people I meet, the people I work with, and the students I teach. Volunteers are here for many reasons. Some volunteers see their village simply as their home base for aiming to help larger issues throughout the country (Gender Education, Domestic Violence, and Human Trafficking to name a few). While I see the benefit in helping all of these programs, and plan to help on everything I could within them, I have really taken to my village. I have really come to love the idea of doing everything I can to directly help the village I am living in.
From teaching English to students, to teaching my counterpart how to use a computer, to giving English and American culture lessons to the teachers of my school, I have grown very content with spending the next two years doing all I can to help my village. Other volunteers, even one 15 km down the road, are having entirely different experiences. In many ways, her school simply needs an English teacher. She is struggling with her school and her village. She is the fourth volunteer in her village, and the previous volunteers have done a lot of work already to help out the school and the village. If she is to keep her sanity and keep busy, she may have to start searching for ways to help elsewhere. And it is not just her village, she tends to have more of a desire to get out and see and help larger issues than I do.
Personally, there are a million issues worldwide that I would love to help. But for now, I am becoming more and more content with spending the next two years giving all I can to the village I now live in. There may be many camps and programs that I plan on joining to help with later on, but overall, my village is where I have grown comfortable. My village is where I want to make my difference and where after two years, I hope to have given as much as I can.
November 14, 2006
5:45 PM
I sit down now with a necessity to write. Today was a fairly normal day: I had classes in the morning, came home for lunch, and English club in the afternoon. But as of yesterday, I have begun giving my counterpart English/computer lessons. After talking with my counterpart (who is pretty much fluent in English), we decided that we would meet twice a week for what I have titled Counterpart English Club. Basically, the past two days were beginning computer lessons (another exercise in trying to teach what for me is instinctive). The English parts of the meeting/club arise out the fact that the entire session is in English.
Without trying to justify my poor Kyrgyz, I have outright told my counterpart that I believe all our meetings should be in English. She knows English very well, but struggles with certain aspects like the pace of the language and some of the more modern words in colloquial speech. So by giving her sessions in English, I believe that I am able to attack a large chunk of her needs in one shot. Through conversation, she will become more comfortable with the language’s pace and by merely talking to me, she has begun to pick up on the many colloquialisms of American English.
So on to my reason for sitting down to write: as we were talking while leaving the school, I was curious about how much teachers make at my school. She didn’t know an exact average, but stated that many teachers are paid poorly and are always looking for better jobs elsewhere. I mentioned to her that we have kind of the same situation in America; many of our teachers are also paid very poorly. Little did I know, this statement set me up for one of the most straightforward shots of reality I have received since being here.
Ainagul asked me what the average teacher makes in America (she actually asked me what Vicki’s salary is, since she knows Vicki now through the World Wise Schools program that has just started with Vicki’s school and mine here in Kyrgyzstan). Not knowing Vicki’s salary or the exact average for a teacher in America, I decided to aim not too high and not too low. I told her that I believe the average to be some where around $18,000 a year for a teacher. I may be way off here, but this seemed like a good middle of the line guess (reminding myself that the middle of the line for American teachers is sadly lower than for most other professions).
Ainagul smiled at this, and then proceeded to tell me that she also makes 18,000 a year, but her salary is in Som; which figures out to be about $450 dollars a year. Now I know that the difference in salaries must be figured into the different economies and cost of living. But nonetheless, my counterpart is making in a year what would be half a month’s salary for some of the poorest people in America. Now if that isn’t a shot of reality, I don’t know what is.
Yeah, I know many of you are reading this now (including myself) and saying, “Blah, blah, blah Jason, we have heard this a million times.” I too heard countless numbers and figures thrown at me in America. But I never felt the numbers. The numbers and the effect they have are magnified when you are told them rather than by reading them. My counterpart makes 18,000 Som a year; 18,000 Dollars would be 720,000 Som. While we were talking, I know she did the numbers in her head. I believe that is about the time she smiled and said, “Now you know.”
I am still contemplating the real meaning of this comment, but maybe it is better left ambiguous.
November 16, 2006
7:00 AM
It is cold here. And it’s really not even winter yet. I will forever love the cold, but cold takes a new meaning without central heating. No matter the temperature, I used to always prefer to sleep in shorts, nothing else. No socks, no shirt, just shorts. I was more comfortable that way. In the beginning weeks of the cold here, I have become comfortable sleeping in pajama pants, a sweater, and socks. My feet are still trying to figure out where all of the air went, but they will get used to it.
Yesterday was wonderful day, and very characteristic of my Wednesdays at school. On Wednesdays I have four classes, two 11th forms and two 9th forms. These two forms (grades) are by far my best classes, and combine to make a wonderful Wednesday. I don’t know what happened to the 10th form in the past few years, but they are struggling. They have a few exemplary students, and then the rest seem to have forgotten everything from the past nine years. I know I mentioned in a previous post how challenging the 8th form was going to be this year, and they still are. But that is because they are younger and have not had as much English education. Overall, the 8th form is right on par with what I believe to be their grade’s level of English.
Comparatively, with the exception of a few students, the 10th form is around the same level as the 8th form, and in many ways, lower. Suffice to say, they are a new challenge that I will have this year: trying to not only bring them back up to par, but then also increasing their knowledge to head into next year.
Back to my good day though: my lesson yesterday was simple, and the same one I have been doing all week—classroom nouns. I handed out three different pictures of a classroom with numbers on different objects and then had them list the nouns in English into their notebooks. I have been trying to find a way to cement vocabulary into my student’s minds, which has proven to be a very formidable task without textbooks. I don’t want to just give them a list and tell them to study. I hated that during PST (even though there weren’t many other options), and I do not wish to give my students that same assignment.
I handed out the pictures at the beginning of class and then told them that I was going to give them as little help as possible. If they didn’t know a word, there were two dictionaries in the classroom and then three big nouns charts that I made and put on the wall. If they didn’t know a word, I wanted them to find it themselves; I wanted them to both experience the feeling of a self-initiated discovery. My hope is that eventually I may grab the attention of some students who start taking it upon themselves to study at home and search for more words they don’t know (I have at least two students a week take home my dictionaries for a night)!
The classes yesterday went amazing; it was my second class of the week with the 11th form and we translated all of the words from the pictures on the board. After translating the words into Kyrgyz, we then placed matching verbs with classroom nouns (Teacher – Teach, Student – Study, Pen – Write, etc.). The verb session went great and worked very well as a review session combined with some new words for them to study (calculate, navigate, type, tell time). As for the 9th form, they once again proved to be, as a class, my smartest set of students. They flew through the pictures, and I even had half the class start on their homework (translating the words into Kyrgyz).
Then later in the afternoon I had English Club. My English club on Mondays and Wednesdays started out being a 10th and 11th form club. That has quickly changed and I have begun inviting the better students from all grades to come to Club. Yesterday, I started the session by playing Simon and Garfunkel’s “El Condor Pasa,” a song sent to me by Timothy Brauhn (thank you, Tim), and a lesson idea given to PCVs by Maria during PST (thank you, Maria). I gave the students lyrics to the song with missing words throughout the song.
I played the song and had them try and listen for the missing words. I did this a few times, and eventually most of the students were able to catch on to the sound of the word, but struggled with the actual word, since they were not words they knew. I then handed out sheets with the full lyrics of the song for them to keep. After listening to the song again, and translating many of the words in the song, I nervously moved on to try and explain to them the theme of the song. I didn’t know how they would respond to going after a theme and a few metaphors, but I figured I would have to try.
I mentioned to them that one possible theme to this song could be Freedom; Freedom of Choice or the joy of being a Free-thinker. This seemed to grab their attention, and so I kept moving forward. I made two categories for them on the board: Freedom and No Freedom, and then asked them to list some things from the song in each category. They attacked this and listed objects like “Sparrow, Hammer, Forest, and Swan” in the Freedom category and “Snail, Nail, Street” in the No Freedom category. I moved from here into what it meant to have ‘freedom of choice’ and to give me some things from outside of the song that could fit into each category.
I did all of this with the intent of moving into a session on careers next week with them, and tried to guide them towards the freedom to choose what to do with your life. I tried my best to discuss with them who has the freedom to choose and who may not, but a barrier with my language skills and theirs slowed the discussion down a bit here, so this is where I decided to stop and leave this to next week when I could incorporate this more into a lesson plan. Nonetheless, a great day; days like this keep me moving and make me believe in my power to make a difference.
November 18, 2006
6:35 AM
Very rarely will I sit down and write an Andy Lewis style recount of a day. But in the case of yesterday, I feel that I am kind of obligated to. Yesterday was what I would like to call a “Peace Corps Paragraph Day.” Making reference here to many of the paragraphs on the PC website and all of the books I have that love to briefly describe a typical atypical day for a Peace Corps Volunteer. Here is my ‘paragraph’, with a bit of deviations from the PCV life, and I can guarantee now, with slightly more that just one paragraph:
I have become very comfortable with waking up early since being in Kyrgyzstan. But for some reason, yesterday I woke up abnormally early. My alarm was set for 6:15 AM and I was up and moving by 5:00. The first thing I did, like every morning, was take Canopka (Кнопка), my puppy, outside to the bathroom, and then proceeded towards the toilet myself. Upon returning to the warmth of my room, I flipped on my water heater to make my new favorite drink: the mocha. I started mixing coffee and hot chocolate about a week ago and thought I had discovered a new incredible drink (silly Jason). I was informed by another PCV the other day, “oh yeah, I love mochas.”
Now I know what it is called, but I am going to still allow myself to savor some of this Einsteinein (new word!) discovery I made. Once my Hot Chocoffee was ready, I made my way outside again (this time around 6:00 AM) to have a phone conversation with good ol’ Mr. Brauhn. He had called me that night before at 10:00 PM when I was sleeping, and I decided we need to talk, so I quickly called him and made him call me back, which he did. We talked for about a half-hour, and then I eventually made my way back into my room to search for an English game for class.
I needed a game for yesterday because half of the class for each session had finished the required two pictures in their first class. So yesterday I decided to use my “Critical Thinking Images” as an English game of ‘I see.’ During PST I collected some of the illusions pictures that were handed out to us during a presentation on how to teach critical thinking. Basically, they are those pictures that have two objects woven into one picture (i.e. an old woman in a hat and a young woman with her head turned). I am sure there is a name for these pictures, but at this point, I have no idea what they are called.
Nonetheless, the pictures turned out to work wonders and the students loved them. All of my classes yesterday ended being a ton of fun, for more reasons than one. First of all, all of my classes yesterday (my 8th and 9th grades) started showing some initiative. Slowly but surely, I stopped hearing, “Jason Agai” (the Kyrgyz version of Mr. Jason) and watched as the students started moving around the classroom on their own, searching for words they didn’t know. The best part was, if they needed help, they would ask. They didn’t want an answer; they were just searching for help in how to find the answer, which I was glad to help with.
The students that had finished the session before and were playing the “game” were also impressive. I watched as in one 8th grade class, a group of five girls teamed up to figure out what the pictures were, find the words in English, and then to help each other write an “I see” sentence. Pay attention the “help each other” part of the last sentence. Cheating and copying is a pretty big issue in the classroom here (for me at least, I really don’t know yet how the students act in their other classes). But yesterday, there was no copying, students would actually go over to the student who needed help and briefly guide them through with Kyrgyz and the English they had figured out.
As a teacher, I was standing in the corner of the classroom beaming. It was a bright day in the classroom yesterday. I was very proud of my students, and I really think that this week they took it upon themselves to start learning English (which is a goal of any teacher in any subject: to have students start taking some control of their own fate in the classroom).
Once classes were done, my counterpart came into our classroom where she was going to give her younger classes an extra session. She had a half-hour before that started, so I asked her if she could help me hang some posters in the room. I had bought a world poster the previous weekend and I had also had some grammar charts given to me by some other PCVs during PST. During hanging the posters we were talking and, like is usually the case, we moved into a discussion about the English language. My counterpart turns right back into a student with a million questions when she is curious about the English language. Yesterday she was curious about the differences between, “nice, pretty, beautiful, and handsome.” I gladly helped her with that, and then moved on to asking her a few Kyrgyz questions (I am still very far from being able to use two verbs in a sentence). But unlike me, my counterpart is a sponge and just soaks in everything we discuss. It usually takes me five or six times to even grasp the concept, let alone use it and understand it with confidence.
Following our discussion, I decided I was going to make my way home for some lunch (by now it was 1:00 PM). On the walk home I ran into a few students from class earlier who had a million questions about America, so in a ten minute walk from school to where our roads changed paths, I gave a mini-lesson on America (where is Chicago? How many people are in the USA? What kind of food do you eat? Do you have a bazaar in Chicago? Do you live in a village?).
We parted ways and I left them in a full discussion about America. As I turned to head down my path towards home, I saw two women carrying one of the Kyrgyz ‘floor tables.’ I honestly do not remember the name of the tables, but they are simply a very long table that has been lowered as to allow for people to sit on their ‘tooshiks’ (see previous posts) and still eat from a table. There was only two of them for quite a large table, so I asked them if I may help, in Kyrgyz. They were floored, like most people I have met in the past month, that knew Kyrgyz. I told them I was learning and had been studying Kyrgyz for just under four months.
They loved it, and took the help that was offered. I helped them carry the table what ended up being about a ¼ of a mile to the house where they were apparently going to be hosting a celebration later that evening. After we dropped off the table, I was offered some borsok, freshmade bread, and a bride. Yeah, it has been pretty common here to be offered an ‘Ooz tee’ (have a taste of bread) followed by an invitation to meet their young, single daughter. Like usual, I graciously declined the bride and took the bread and went on my way.
Once arriving home, my host brother asked me if I would like to help sweep the drive-way, which I jumped at. Another sign of many lately that I am starting to become more than just a guest here, they are accepting me into the household. So I picked up the hobbit-sized broom (another story, later) and started to work in tandem with my eleven year-old brother to clear the driveway of its’ nastiness. That was a nice half-hour of work, and felt good to finally be able to do some work around the house.
After sweeping, I made my back to my room to write a few emails that I will be sending later today. Along with some long delayed responses to friends and family, I have a few book donation organizations that I have been corresponding with that I needed to give some information to. I have also been sending countless emails to schools, organizations, family, and friends back home to inform them of the donation drive my University and my parents are helping with. Both are collecting loads of materials for my school here and I am trying to do my best to help spread the word from the other side of the planet.
By the time I finished writing my emails, my host mother was ready to start dinner, and the night before I told her I was going to teach her how to make garlic-bread. Not much teaching was needed (she is already a hell of a cook), but it felt good to pass on the knowledge on something new to do with bread. She loved the result, as did the family, who made sure to not let any of the bread even make it to the dinner table for dinner! I was lucky enough to sneak in a few pieces before the family tackled them all.
We then made our way to the dinner table where the usual collection of joking and Kyrgyz lessons proceeded to take place. About half way through the meal, my host mother hoped up to take my little sister to the toilet, where she discovered a rash all over my little sister’s legs. We all stopped dinner to examine the rash, which is when I made my way to my room to grab my Peace Corps book “Where There is no Doctor.” I skimmed through the book and found what looked like the rash that she had on her legs. My host mother had some Russian green cream that she covered my sister in; after spreading the cream, she was very interested in seeing what the book had to say about some remedies for the rash. She took some mental notes, and asked me if she could look at the book later this weekend, which I told her of course.
Following the family doctor session, we moved back to the dinner table and finished dinner. After dinner, I was fairly tired and wandered back to my room where I was going to eventually crash. But to my surprise and with an added shot of energy, my brother, Casey, gave me a call from back in the states. We talked for about an hour about everything from American sports and the Chicago Bears to his new hobbies (he has begun to enjoy reading, on his own, of his own doing!). It’s always good to talk to Casey, especially to see how much in only four months he has matured. He is still a loser, and he knows that (had to get that brotherly shot in there), but overall he has grown into a damn good brother. As for Matthew, that shit needs to get on the phone/email and do some talking! He too is another great addition to the Lemberg boys, but I haven’t talked to him in over a month, so I may have to commission Casey to kick him in the ass and give me a call.
After talking with Casey, it was definitely time for bed. I made my way back to my room, plugged in my Peace Corps heater, flipped off the lights, and snuggled myself into a nice warm nights rest.
Overall, not a very typical Peace Corps day, with two conversations on the phone with America and some email writing, but this is my life here. I have grown to love my village and my school, and more and more my host family are becoming my family away from home. I am fairly connected to home, with at least one phone call a week with my parents, and internet at least once every two weeks. I know that my life here is different than many volunteers before me, and even the ones that are here in country with me now. But overall, I love my experience here. I am very imbedded into my village right now and my escape once in a while is a phone conversation with home.
Sometimes I wonder how different my life would be here without a cell-phone and internet. How life would be to have snail-mail be my only form of communication. I could move into that lifestyle here if I wanted to, but I honestly really have no desire to. The whole idea of a written letter still holds its romantic feel and I have written a few letters home and to people in country. But in the end, if the technology is available, I am going to use it.
On a quick final note, before you leave the internet, check out the photo-site today. My latest posts are what I would like to call, “How to Keep Yourself Sane.” Enjoy!!!!!
From the lands where futbol is played, I wish you all the drive, the strength, and the joy needed to find the back of the net and prove to the world that Stars do burn out in our lifetime.
Poetry Corner
“Choice”
It’s tough
It’s tough to help with a blind eye;
Dedicate yourself to one cause,
While millions of other die.
It hurts
It hurts to watch in comfort;
Overwhelming to say the least,
Even in the act of a helping effort.
I cry
I cry when I think of the others
I will never meet or never help.
Those who live to die a part of the numbers
I
I am selfish when I help;
Lost in the response I get,
Blind to those I can’t help.
I am alive!
If you haven’t figured it out yet, I am still alive and well after Kyrgyzstan’s latest revolution. I am still not to keen on the details of what went down and how things were settled, but I know for a few days things came close to a scary repeat of the last revolution in 2005. Things seem to have settled down in Bishkek and as well as I know, there was no major violence or riots this time around; a good thing for both the people of Kyrgyzstan and us volunteers.
Finally tonight,
It’s About Time:
I have received the news that after twelve years the Democrats have finally regained control of congress. Congratulations to all the Dems who now have the task of organizing chaos left over from the GOP. Go Nancy Pelosi!
November 10, 2006
6:45 PM
I lied, I am back.
I was just thinking about the wonderful little similarities between America and Kyrgyzstan that I have seen in the past few weeks. As the weather has slowly but surely cooled down and autumn has truly began to displays is colors, the people of Kyrgyzstan have come alive. Autumn is a time of celebrations in Kyrgyzstan (with Ramadan and the Harvest playing a big role); but Autumn is also a time for people to prepare for winter.
Walking through Balykchy the other day I had to smile as I saw an elderly gentleman, dressed to elderly impress in his flannels, overalls, and faded ball-cap, patiently sweep up the leaves from his drive way. He had his leaves-bag leaning up against a tree and as he moved ever so steadily and deliberately down the drive way, scooping up leaves in his dust pan every other step. It reminded me of every grandfather back home I have ever seen rake and sweep up their yards with a diligent pride that seems to linger in all who have lived the better part of a century.
Then upon returning from Balykchy to my village, I walked past a family who were all outside their house lost in the joys of Fall chores. The father was trimming the bushes that surrounded the house out as the mother was trimming the roses below them. As the parents took care of the heavy work, the children were following up behind collecting the branches and stems being removed by their parents. Naturally, like most children, they seemed to be in a different world than that of their chores and were reminded by their parents a few times to snap back to reality and keep helping. It was another nice parallel to see and felt good to see the joys of Autumn chores also being enjoyed by my new country of residence.
November 14, 2006
7:00 AM
I was not able to get to the internet this past weekend (it was not working in town), so my postings were subsequently not put up. This has no real affect on what I wrote, or will write, except for the fact that by now I have found out sadly that AU’s Men’s Soccer team lost in their first round game against Dominican University. It sounded like the season went well, congratulations on a good season boys.
Ok, on to my current bouts with schizophrenia:
As I was standing in the middle of my classroom yesterday guiding the class through a “Classroom Nouns” session, in my head I started a mini-war. The in-class assignment was to take the classroom pictures I had handed out (with numbers on a number of objects in the picture) and list the classroom nouns in their notebooks according to the numbers. The assignment started well with most of the students taking an interest in me doing something other than writing on the board.
But as the session moved on, the divide in the class became entirely obvious. Half of the class was flying through the pictures, the other half were having a difficult time writing the number “1”. In an assignment like this, I can very clearly see who has taken any effort at all during their past nine or ten years of school to learn English. There is a very clear (and large) gap of knowledge and motivation in most of my classes. It is here where my schizophrenia takes hold.
I was watching half the class diligently work and the other half analyze the dynamics of their pen and then it suddenly hit me. This is what every teacher, ever, goes through on a daily basis: the struggle to keep an entire class on track, at the same level, and some how keep the advanced students and the low-level students both interested. It was form this thought process that the war in my head began.
One the one hand, I only have two years here to teach and help as much as I can. I need to use my time wisely and if that means helping the best and motivated students advance and accepting that some will be left behind, then so be it. But on the other hand, being a teacher I am largely responsible for the education of my students (in regards to English at least, but we all know teachers teach much more than their subject entails—as Mark, Vicki, Megan, and all of my other teaching friends back home could tell you). This responsibility requires me to work to help all of my students, to search for a way to guide and educate even the students that lack motivation.
But I only have two years, and some of the students just don’t care, and may never care.
But my job requires me, and the teaching world expects me, to try and help every student as best I can.
But if I spend too much time trying to helping the poor students, eventually some of my best students may lose interest; and worse, their English may never improve due to a lack of attention.
But every student has a right to learn, and it is my responsibility to try and give every student a fair and balanced education.
But I only have two years.
In two years I can change a lot.
AHHHHHH!
All of this happened in a five minute span in the middle of my classroom, in the middle of a class session. Since then I have had more time to think more about this topic, and I still have no idea what approach to take. I have thought about the teachers back home a lot. In many ways, teaching doesn’t change being on the other side of the planet. The resource availability may alter a bit, and the languages are slightly different. But in the end, I am still leading students of varying ages towards a goal. I am still the leader of a class and my job is still to pass my knowledge on to the students I teach. I owe it to my students to do my best to give them what I have, no matter how motivated they are to receive it.
The problem I have now is that I believe at some point, I truly need to make a decision. Do I just accept that some of my students don’t want to learn English and I don’t want to struggle with them; or do I start making a concerted effort to open the minds of the students that are perfectly ok with doing nothing? Many teachers at my school, my counterpart especially, has simply told me: “teach the best students.” That is tough to hear coming from a “No Child Left Behind” education. Yes, the “No Child Left Behind” program is very controversial, and there are many things that I disagree within it. But overall, there is a sentiment within it that aims to give every student, even the worst ones, an education.
I am not sure I am entirely ready to just teach my best students, but I am leaning more that way. In a country where schools don’t have teacher’s aids, student help centers, or personal tutors available for the struggling students, it seems that the most motivated and driven go on to get a university education. The least motivated seem to take a few different paths such as farming or becoming taxi driver. I honestly don’t know how I view the statement, “I can only help those willing to help themselves.” I have the opportunity with many of my best students to give them English education from a native speaker. I have the opportunity to help guide them towards wonderful university educations and, possibly, a career utilizing their English later on in life.
I had a lot of talks about the affect a volunteer can really have by heading to a country for two years to teach English. I really believe that volunteers can play a large role in affecting the lives of the people they educate, talk with, and work with. And in regards to my current discussion, if I am able to help thirty out of the one hundred students I have to go on and become something great, is that not affecting and helping? I know it is a twisted way of looking at my current situation, but in a selfish way, I want to feel like I have helped. I want to leave here knowing that in some way I made a difference. And if that means accepting that some students may be left behind, I am starting to think that I may have to accept that.
Even when I snap into a different reality and question if my teaching methods are the correct ones to get across to these students (which I admitted last entry that they definitely were not), I still accept that at some point, I need to educate someone. Even in my poor first quarter lessons, some students were learning, and the ones that had questions asked. The students that weren’t learning, and didn’t care to, would sometimes come to class, draw pictures, and leave when the class was done. The question I ask myself when I see that: is there more I can do, or should I accept that some students just don’t want to learn English. Again, all of this is very selfish; especially since I am only one fraction of the students’ education. They have a large number of other subjects that they may excel in and languages may not be their thing.
I was once one of these students. I hated Spanish class. Not because it was a bad class or because I had bad teachers, but more so because I am horrible at learning languages (a problem I am still struggling with). I remember how hard it was for me to learn a language that was only used for forty-five minutes, twice a week (exactly the same situation my students are currently in). I barely got through my classes with “Cs” and to this day I am thankful for those “Cs.” Yet in many ways, my situation was entirely different. If I learned Spanish or not, I still had many other opportunities to head off to college and study. For many of these students, an English education (or a German one) can mean a chance to travel, to study abroad and see some the world that surrounds them. There are a few very competitive English programs in this country that give students many opportunities that wouldn’t be available if they didn’t know English.
I don’t want to come off as pompous or overly supportive of the English language. I find many faults in my laziness to not study a language in college; especially a language like Spanish that could allow for many different working opportunities within my own country. There are thousands of languages on our planet, and they all hold a great deal of significance. But in the case of my students, and the difference I wish to make, an English education can have a lot of benefits. Again, I want to make a difference, and so far I have found that along with helping to develop my school’s resources, teaching English and an understanding of American culture to my teachers and students seems to be one of the best ways that I can help.
I joined Peace Corps for many different reasons, and many of the reasons I joined have not come to light until recently. Among many other things, I know that in some way I want to make a difference. I want to help the people I meet, the people I work with, and the students I teach. Volunteers are here for many reasons. Some volunteers see their village simply as their home base for aiming to help larger issues throughout the country (Gender Education, Domestic Violence, and Human Trafficking to name a few). While I see the benefit in helping all of these programs, and plan to help on everything I could within them, I have really taken to my village. I have really come to love the idea of doing everything I can to directly help the village I am living in.
From teaching English to students, to teaching my counterpart how to use a computer, to giving English and American culture lessons to the teachers of my school, I have grown very content with spending the next two years doing all I can to help my village. Other volunteers, even one 15 km down the road, are having entirely different experiences. In many ways, her school simply needs an English teacher. She is struggling with her school and her village. She is the fourth volunteer in her village, and the previous volunteers have done a lot of work already to help out the school and the village. If she is to keep her sanity and keep busy, she may have to start searching for ways to help elsewhere. And it is not just her village, she tends to have more of a desire to get out and see and help larger issues than I do.
Personally, there are a million issues worldwide that I would love to help. But for now, I am becoming more and more content with spending the next two years giving all I can to the village I now live in. There may be many camps and programs that I plan on joining to help with later on, but overall, my village is where I have grown comfortable. My village is where I want to make my difference and where after two years, I hope to have given as much as I can.
November 14, 2006
5:45 PM
I sit down now with a necessity to write. Today was a fairly normal day: I had classes in the morning, came home for lunch, and English club in the afternoon. But as of yesterday, I have begun giving my counterpart English/computer lessons. After talking with my counterpart (who is pretty much fluent in English), we decided that we would meet twice a week for what I have titled Counterpart English Club. Basically, the past two days were beginning computer lessons (another exercise in trying to teach what for me is instinctive). The English parts of the meeting/club arise out the fact that the entire session is in English.
Without trying to justify my poor Kyrgyz, I have outright told my counterpart that I believe all our meetings should be in English. She knows English very well, but struggles with certain aspects like the pace of the language and some of the more modern words in colloquial speech. So by giving her sessions in English, I believe that I am able to attack a large chunk of her needs in one shot. Through conversation, she will become more comfortable with the language’s pace and by merely talking to me, she has begun to pick up on the many colloquialisms of American English.
So on to my reason for sitting down to write: as we were talking while leaving the school, I was curious about how much teachers make at my school. She didn’t know an exact average, but stated that many teachers are paid poorly and are always looking for better jobs elsewhere. I mentioned to her that we have kind of the same situation in America; many of our teachers are also paid very poorly. Little did I know, this statement set me up for one of the most straightforward shots of reality I have received since being here.
Ainagul asked me what the average teacher makes in America (she actually asked me what Vicki’s salary is, since she knows Vicki now through the World Wise Schools program that has just started with Vicki’s school and mine here in Kyrgyzstan). Not knowing Vicki’s salary or the exact average for a teacher in America, I decided to aim not too high and not too low. I told her that I believe the average to be some where around $18,000 a year for a teacher. I may be way off here, but this seemed like a good middle of the line guess (reminding myself that the middle of the line for American teachers is sadly lower than for most other professions).
Ainagul smiled at this, and then proceeded to tell me that she also makes 18,000 a year, but her salary is in Som; which figures out to be about $450 dollars a year. Now I know that the difference in salaries must be figured into the different economies and cost of living. But nonetheless, my counterpart is making in a year what would be half a month’s salary for some of the poorest people in America. Now if that isn’t a shot of reality, I don’t know what is.
Yeah, I know many of you are reading this now (including myself) and saying, “Blah, blah, blah Jason, we have heard this a million times.” I too heard countless numbers and figures thrown at me in America. But I never felt the numbers. The numbers and the effect they have are magnified when you are told them rather than by reading them. My counterpart makes 18,000 Som a year; 18,000 Dollars would be 720,000 Som. While we were talking, I know she did the numbers in her head. I believe that is about the time she smiled and said, “Now you know.”
I am still contemplating the real meaning of this comment, but maybe it is better left ambiguous.
November 16, 2006
7:00 AM
It is cold here. And it’s really not even winter yet. I will forever love the cold, but cold takes a new meaning without central heating. No matter the temperature, I used to always prefer to sleep in shorts, nothing else. No socks, no shirt, just shorts. I was more comfortable that way. In the beginning weeks of the cold here, I have become comfortable sleeping in pajama pants, a sweater, and socks. My feet are still trying to figure out where all of the air went, but they will get used to it.
Yesterday was wonderful day, and very characteristic of my Wednesdays at school. On Wednesdays I have four classes, two 11th forms and two 9th forms. These two forms (grades) are by far my best classes, and combine to make a wonderful Wednesday. I don’t know what happened to the 10th form in the past few years, but they are struggling. They have a few exemplary students, and then the rest seem to have forgotten everything from the past nine years. I know I mentioned in a previous post how challenging the 8th form was going to be this year, and they still are. But that is because they are younger and have not had as much English education. Overall, the 8th form is right on par with what I believe to be their grade’s level of English.
Comparatively, with the exception of a few students, the 10th form is around the same level as the 8th form, and in many ways, lower. Suffice to say, they are a new challenge that I will have this year: trying to not only bring them back up to par, but then also increasing their knowledge to head into next year.
Back to my good day though: my lesson yesterday was simple, and the same one I have been doing all week—classroom nouns. I handed out three different pictures of a classroom with numbers on different objects and then had them list the nouns in English into their notebooks. I have been trying to find a way to cement vocabulary into my student’s minds, which has proven to be a very formidable task without textbooks. I don’t want to just give them a list and tell them to study. I hated that during PST (even though there weren’t many other options), and I do not wish to give my students that same assignment.
I handed out the pictures at the beginning of class and then told them that I was going to give them as little help as possible. If they didn’t know a word, there were two dictionaries in the classroom and then three big nouns charts that I made and put on the wall. If they didn’t know a word, I wanted them to find it themselves; I wanted them to both experience the feeling of a self-initiated discovery. My hope is that eventually I may grab the attention of some students who start taking it upon themselves to study at home and search for more words they don’t know (I have at least two students a week take home my dictionaries for a night)!
The classes yesterday went amazing; it was my second class of the week with the 11th form and we translated all of the words from the pictures on the board. After translating the words into Kyrgyz, we then placed matching verbs with classroom nouns (Teacher – Teach, Student – Study, Pen – Write, etc.). The verb session went great and worked very well as a review session combined with some new words for them to study (calculate, navigate, type, tell time). As for the 9th form, they once again proved to be, as a class, my smartest set of students. They flew through the pictures, and I even had half the class start on their homework (translating the words into Kyrgyz).
Then later in the afternoon I had English Club. My English club on Mondays and Wednesdays started out being a 10th and 11th form club. That has quickly changed and I have begun inviting the better students from all grades to come to Club. Yesterday, I started the session by playing Simon and Garfunkel’s “El Condor Pasa,” a song sent to me by Timothy Brauhn (thank you, Tim), and a lesson idea given to PCVs by Maria during PST (thank you, Maria). I gave the students lyrics to the song with missing words throughout the song.
I played the song and had them try and listen for the missing words. I did this a few times, and eventually most of the students were able to catch on to the sound of the word, but struggled with the actual word, since they were not words they knew. I then handed out sheets with the full lyrics of the song for them to keep. After listening to the song again, and translating many of the words in the song, I nervously moved on to try and explain to them the theme of the song. I didn’t know how they would respond to going after a theme and a few metaphors, but I figured I would have to try.
I mentioned to them that one possible theme to this song could be Freedom; Freedom of Choice or the joy of being a Free-thinker. This seemed to grab their attention, and so I kept moving forward. I made two categories for them on the board: Freedom and No Freedom, and then asked them to list some things from the song in each category. They attacked this and listed objects like “Sparrow, Hammer, Forest, and Swan” in the Freedom category and “Snail, Nail, Street” in the No Freedom category. I moved from here into what it meant to have ‘freedom of choice’ and to give me some things from outside of the song that could fit into each category.
I did all of this with the intent of moving into a session on careers next week with them, and tried to guide them towards the freedom to choose what to do with your life. I tried my best to discuss with them who has the freedom to choose and who may not, but a barrier with my language skills and theirs slowed the discussion down a bit here, so this is where I decided to stop and leave this to next week when I could incorporate this more into a lesson plan. Nonetheless, a great day; days like this keep me moving and make me believe in my power to make a difference.
November 18, 2006
6:35 AM
Very rarely will I sit down and write an Andy Lewis style recount of a day. But in the case of yesterday, I feel that I am kind of obligated to. Yesterday was what I would like to call a “Peace Corps Paragraph Day.” Making reference here to many of the paragraphs on the PC website and all of the books I have that love to briefly describe a typical atypical day for a Peace Corps Volunteer. Here is my ‘paragraph’, with a bit of deviations from the PCV life, and I can guarantee now, with slightly more that just one paragraph:
I have become very comfortable with waking up early since being in Kyrgyzstan. But for some reason, yesterday I woke up abnormally early. My alarm was set for 6:15 AM and I was up and moving by 5:00. The first thing I did, like every morning, was take Canopka (Кнопка), my puppy, outside to the bathroom, and then proceeded towards the toilet myself. Upon returning to the warmth of my room, I flipped on my water heater to make my new favorite drink: the mocha. I started mixing coffee and hot chocolate about a week ago and thought I had discovered a new incredible drink (silly Jason). I was informed by another PCV the other day, “oh yeah, I love mochas.”
Now I know what it is called, but I am going to still allow myself to savor some of this Einsteinein (new word!) discovery I made. Once my Hot Chocoffee was ready, I made my way outside again (this time around 6:00 AM) to have a phone conversation with good ol’ Mr. Brauhn. He had called me that night before at 10:00 PM when I was sleeping, and I decided we need to talk, so I quickly called him and made him call me back, which he did. We talked for about a half-hour, and then I eventually made my way back into my room to search for an English game for class.
I needed a game for yesterday because half of the class for each session had finished the required two pictures in their first class. So yesterday I decided to use my “Critical Thinking Images” as an English game of ‘I see.’ During PST I collected some of the illusions pictures that were handed out to us during a presentation on how to teach critical thinking. Basically, they are those pictures that have two objects woven into one picture (i.e. an old woman in a hat and a young woman with her head turned). I am sure there is a name for these pictures, but at this point, I have no idea what they are called.
Nonetheless, the pictures turned out to work wonders and the students loved them. All of my classes yesterday ended being a ton of fun, for more reasons than one. First of all, all of my classes yesterday (my 8th and 9th grades) started showing some initiative. Slowly but surely, I stopped hearing, “Jason Agai” (the Kyrgyz version of Mr. Jason) and watched as the students started moving around the classroom on their own, searching for words they didn’t know. The best part was, if they needed help, they would ask. They didn’t want an answer; they were just searching for help in how to find the answer, which I was glad to help with.
The students that had finished the session before and were playing the “game” were also impressive. I watched as in one 8th grade class, a group of five girls teamed up to figure out what the pictures were, find the words in English, and then to help each other write an “I see” sentence. Pay attention the “help each other” part of the last sentence. Cheating and copying is a pretty big issue in the classroom here (for me at least, I really don’t know yet how the students act in their other classes). But yesterday, there was no copying, students would actually go over to the student who needed help and briefly guide them through with Kyrgyz and the English they had figured out.
As a teacher, I was standing in the corner of the classroom beaming. It was a bright day in the classroom yesterday. I was very proud of my students, and I really think that this week they took it upon themselves to start learning English (which is a goal of any teacher in any subject: to have students start taking some control of their own fate in the classroom).
Once classes were done, my counterpart came into our classroom where she was going to give her younger classes an extra session. She had a half-hour before that started, so I asked her if she could help me hang some posters in the room. I had bought a world poster the previous weekend and I had also had some grammar charts given to me by some other PCVs during PST. During hanging the posters we were talking and, like is usually the case, we moved into a discussion about the English language. My counterpart turns right back into a student with a million questions when she is curious about the English language. Yesterday she was curious about the differences between, “nice, pretty, beautiful, and handsome.” I gladly helped her with that, and then moved on to asking her a few Kyrgyz questions (I am still very far from being able to use two verbs in a sentence). But unlike me, my counterpart is a sponge and just soaks in everything we discuss. It usually takes me five or six times to even grasp the concept, let alone use it and understand it with confidence.
Following our discussion, I decided I was going to make my way home for some lunch (by now it was 1:00 PM). On the walk home I ran into a few students from class earlier who had a million questions about America, so in a ten minute walk from school to where our roads changed paths, I gave a mini-lesson on America (where is Chicago? How many people are in the USA? What kind of food do you eat? Do you have a bazaar in Chicago? Do you live in a village?).
We parted ways and I left them in a full discussion about America. As I turned to head down my path towards home, I saw two women carrying one of the Kyrgyz ‘floor tables.’ I honestly do not remember the name of the tables, but they are simply a very long table that has been lowered as to allow for people to sit on their ‘tooshiks’ (see previous posts) and still eat from a table. There was only two of them for quite a large table, so I asked them if I may help, in Kyrgyz. They were floored, like most people I have met in the past month, that knew Kyrgyz. I told them I was learning and had been studying Kyrgyz for just under four months.
They loved it, and took the help that was offered. I helped them carry the table what ended up being about a ¼ of a mile to the house where they were apparently going to be hosting a celebration later that evening. After we dropped off the table, I was offered some borsok, freshmade bread, and a bride. Yeah, it has been pretty common here to be offered an ‘Ooz tee’ (have a taste of bread) followed by an invitation to meet their young, single daughter. Like usual, I graciously declined the bride and took the bread and went on my way.
Once arriving home, my host brother asked me if I would like to help sweep the drive-way, which I jumped at. Another sign of many lately that I am starting to become more than just a guest here, they are accepting me into the household. So I picked up the hobbit-sized broom (another story, later) and started to work in tandem with my eleven year-old brother to clear the driveway of its’ nastiness. That was a nice half-hour of work, and felt good to finally be able to do some work around the house.
After sweeping, I made my back to my room to write a few emails that I will be sending later today. Along with some long delayed responses to friends and family, I have a few book donation organizations that I have been corresponding with that I needed to give some information to. I have also been sending countless emails to schools, organizations, family, and friends back home to inform them of the donation drive my University and my parents are helping with. Both are collecting loads of materials for my school here and I am trying to do my best to help spread the word from the other side of the planet.
By the time I finished writing my emails, my host mother was ready to start dinner, and the night before I told her I was going to teach her how to make garlic-bread. Not much teaching was needed (she is already a hell of a cook), but it felt good to pass on the knowledge on something new to do with bread. She loved the result, as did the family, who made sure to not let any of the bread even make it to the dinner table for dinner! I was lucky enough to sneak in a few pieces before the family tackled them all.
We then made our way to the dinner table where the usual collection of joking and Kyrgyz lessons proceeded to take place. About half way through the meal, my host mother hoped up to take my little sister to the toilet, where she discovered a rash all over my little sister’s legs. We all stopped dinner to examine the rash, which is when I made my way to my room to grab my Peace Corps book “Where There is no Doctor.” I skimmed through the book and found what looked like the rash that she had on her legs. My host mother had some Russian green cream that she covered my sister in; after spreading the cream, she was very interested in seeing what the book had to say about some remedies for the rash. She took some mental notes, and asked me if she could look at the book later this weekend, which I told her of course.
Following the family doctor session, we moved back to the dinner table and finished dinner. After dinner, I was fairly tired and wandered back to my room where I was going to eventually crash. But to my surprise and with an added shot of energy, my brother, Casey, gave me a call from back in the states. We talked for about an hour about everything from American sports and the Chicago Bears to his new hobbies (he has begun to enjoy reading, on his own, of his own doing!). It’s always good to talk to Casey, especially to see how much in only four months he has matured. He is still a loser, and he knows that (had to get that brotherly shot in there), but overall he has grown into a damn good brother. As for Matthew, that shit needs to get on the phone/email and do some talking! He too is another great addition to the Lemberg boys, but I haven’t talked to him in over a month, so I may have to commission Casey to kick him in the ass and give me a call.
After talking with Casey, it was definitely time for bed. I made my way back to my room, plugged in my Peace Corps heater, flipped off the lights, and snuggled myself into a nice warm nights rest.
Overall, not a very typical Peace Corps day, with two conversations on the phone with America and some email writing, but this is my life here. I have grown to love my village and my school, and more and more my host family are becoming my family away from home. I am fairly connected to home, with at least one phone call a week with my parents, and internet at least once every two weeks. I know that my life here is different than many volunteers before me, and even the ones that are here in country with me now. But overall, I love my experience here. I am very imbedded into my village right now and my escape once in a while is a phone conversation with home.
Sometimes I wonder how different my life would be here without a cell-phone and internet. How life would be to have snail-mail be my only form of communication. I could move into that lifestyle here if I wanted to, but I honestly really have no desire to. The whole idea of a written letter still holds its romantic feel and I have written a few letters home and to people in country. But in the end, if the technology is available, I am going to use it.
On a quick final note, before you leave the internet, check out the photo-site today. My latest posts are what I would like to call, “How to Keep Yourself Sane.” Enjoy!!!!!
posted by Jason Lemberg @ 11/18/2006 11:08:00 AM
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