March Weather

Some lessons are just boring.  I hate it when my creativity fails, when the 7^th form is speaking about houses and apartments for the umpteenth time, and there is just no way to make that interesting on a Friday afternoon with beautiful weather outside.  Even the new adjectives fail to make it interesting.  I wish I had more control over the topics, and could skip around and apply the new adjectives to something that would be interesting to them, like what they're going to do after school.

Dream apartment may be over.  The school has found a cheaper apartment, or one that is owned by someone who works at the school, or is a friend.  Since the school is responsible for my housing, I basically have no choice.  If they want to pay their money to a friend rather than my wonderful landlady, I have to move.  The final word will come on Tuesday, when luckily my director is visiting.  He is absolutely fluent in English and Ukrainian.

Finally cut my hair and beard, inspired by the warmer weather.  Of course this morning was well below freezing, so I regretted the decision on my run.  Cold chin.  Razor blades are pretty expensive. 

Got some annoying diarrhea somehow, the compote given to me may have been watered down with tap water.  Started on Sunday, went away Tuesday, came back on Wednesday.  No blood, cramps or nausea, but even so a struggle to stay hydrated and not abrade my butt with the recycled toilet paper.  If it lasts until Sunday, I'll call the PC and get it checked out.  The only reason I'm waiting is I don't want to go to Kyiv again, at least not over the weekend, and if I have enough energy to run and play soccer (albeit slowly and lazily), it can't be that serious.  Right?  Maybe I have a worm.  That would be a good story.

I have decided not to password protect my blog, only to post on it with even greater consciousness of what I say.  With that in mind, if anyone sees anything that could be even remotely offensive, let me know.  There are ways to point out and explain the many differences I find each day without being offensive.  If someone is offended, they are less likely to listen and think about the issue and more likely to just dismiss it.  One of the missions of Peace Corps is to build understanding between nations, and knowing physical and cultural differences is a good start.  Well, got to go to the bathroom, again, then Ukrainian tutoring.  My attempt to learn vocabulary while typing this didn't work too well.

email doesn't work, but blogger does...?

My fellow English teahers got me a hair buzzer for my birthday
I think it's a hint
trying to get some real information online about N. Ireland and Indiginous Americans, because the books they have here range from definitely wrong to completely vague.
ok, got to work

clean water source

yes dad, I know it's not safe to drink

my kitchen

my apartment building

my living room

My office

my stadium

Why...

is it so hard to upload photos? So now I have highspeed, but in order to get lots of photos up, it is necessary to have a program like picassa, and there is no way to download programs onto these pc computers (get it MG, pc). So i'll just put a few up in my last remaining internet minutes, but don't expect descriptions.

So much to say

The last week was crazy

Tuesday my birthday came off beautifully
Chocolate cake with sour creme milk chocolate iceing, banana bread with and without chocolate, the cookies, and ice cream. The teachers brought pizza, salad and alcohol.

Wednesday evening I saw an Edward Curtis exibit in L'viv, the ambassador spoke and I got invited to the reception because I'm a pc volunteer. Stopped to buy dress shoes on the way, good old second hand stores, already broken in.

Thursday I gave a seminar on some communicative TEFL methods to a group of teachers from the surrounding villages. I think I did a good job. Later in the day there was an open lesson for one of our teachers, which means anyone can come watch. It was mostly a performance, because there was no new information introduced, but the teacher did not know in advance that she would be evaluated on the presentation of new material. I thought it was really unfair to not share the basic points of evaluation with the teachers. Hopefully I can somehow set up a meeting to discuss this small point and some others with the 'director' of our group of English teachers. Authority is hard to buck here, or even question, but I figure I'm in less danger of loosing my job if I do happen to make an enemy while questioning the way things are done. If I do it right (in a way that keeps authorities in power and makes it look like changes came from them), there should be no problems.

Friday down to L'viv again for a meeting with other volunteers and my regional director. He asked that we password protect all of our blogs so that we can be sure who is reading them. I always try to write things that I could give to my director or co-teachers without shame, but I do see how explaining my experiences from an american perspective could be offensive, especially when it comes off as "the american way is better", which it's not. It's just different, but the frustrations of different come off as 'better', because harder and easier are easily confused with worse and better. It's not a judgment like that, it's just my personal experience of learning new systems, or fighting old problems, most of which exist in the US and every other country in the world. So, one more week to officially give you warning, because I think it's not hard to get an invite, but you need to contact me. If you are smart enough to find this blog, you are smart enough to figure out a way to contact me. One week warning...

After the meeting, we made chicken volunteers together, really delicious. Then overnight train to Kyiv for environmental working group meeting. We provide resources and support for any environmental project that any pc volunteer might want to do in Ukraine. I did some database updates, and will be helping with the website later this evening. The free internet at the pc office explains the length of this post.

Last night visited my host family in Kivshovata, really nice to see them, they fed me way to much, and I had to prove that I havn't lost weight by weighing myself on the scale. Really glad they care about me so much, also hooked me up with some hard to find food items. Maybe I'll post again later tonight, unlimited internet, a super luxury.

test

The one and only...!
At some point I will give a brief overview of how I spend 45 min on the web. I often briefly scan the above site for general entertainment.

cold snow

Nothing to report. Winter continues. Classes go, students learn, most exciting the tenth form is learning a play for English week. The teacher who brought it in actually got it from some Peace Corps volunteers who worked in her university when she was training to be a teacher. It’s cool to see that some progressive techniques are being propagated by Ukrainians. It’s a version of Cinderella with reversed sex roles and it also plays with the stereotypes of beauty. Unfortunately it doesn’t look like we’ll have time to explore the underlying themes as the vocabulary and memorizing lines is taking up all the time. We only have a week total of rehearsal before the performance, and the tenth graders are very busy. Now it’s time for one of those rehearsals, then Ukrainian tutoring, then to start baking and preparing food for my birthday party.

пів лютого

I wonder if fonts carry over to the blog?  This looks appropriate for a Valentine's day post.  Decided to go ahead and invite 8 teachers over for my birthday.  Now I have to make some food and clean up my apartment.  Tomorrow I'm also having my peace corps neighbors over to cook dinner together and then play games or watch a movie.  Hung-Chi is 60 and lives about 30 minutes north.  Ezra is 26? and lives only 18 kilometers to the East, although the rough road and slow bus makes that also about a 30 min trip.  The peace corps groups volunteers together in little clusters like ours to avoid complete isolation.  This past week was made kind of boring by tests, tests which I will soon retype to reduce typos and maybe improve the tests a bit.  I realize that as much as it sounds like the devil, I need to see the tests way in advance and teach toward them, or at least have them in mind.  What I would prefer to do is change the tests to fit what I am teaching, which is not realistic.  So, I will continue to teach them how to communicate (speaking, listening, writing, reading) but also put more into my lessons that will be on the tests and testing formats that are a reality in Ukraine.  Now it's time to go to my apartment, make some dinner, create some flash cards to improve Ukrainian vocabulary, and practice some violin.  I might read a Newsweek, or some more of that novel my mom sent me.  Come on springtime, snow and wind are blowing.

social willpower

do I have it?
to invite people over and make dinner to celebrate my birthday?
I will to take advantage of valentines day and have all my students write cards in English tomorrow. I prepared a few of my classes for this task, others will be surprised. I have watched the first round of tests in my classes, as they have all covered about one unit since winter break. The cheeting in increadible "we help eachother, it's cultural". What are you going to do on your college entrance exams? I want to write the next set of tests, and administer them differently. I may let them work in teams of two, but they will take the test according to my rules, not constantly bending them. It was hard to watch them open their books when the teachers back was turned, and even pass notes, trade notebooks and shout answers. Weird.

Post 50

Now is a good time for a bit of catch up on my thoughts and actions. I apologize for the upcoming lack of coherence.
Thank you for sending me mail, you know who you are, I don’t know why it is so nice to get mail (Newsweeks from the Peace Corps don’t count), but every postcard, letter and package is savored. The post office calls me when something arrives, and I walk through the park, sometimes bringing the post office employees a cookie or whatever my latest baking success was, then bring my letter back to my kitchen and try to make opening and reading it last as long as possible. Elo holds the current record for fastest letter, 5 days from Philadelphia to my town. Sam has the other end of the spectrum, 39 days. And some things have just not gotten though, which sucks! How can it work so well sometimes and not work other times? If you write to me (and I get it), I will write back, guaranteed.
I finally got new running shoes, though had to pay full US price $73 for Asics Cumulus 9s. I was on a shopping spree this weekend in L’viv, a music stand, soccer cleats and peanuts being my other purchases. There was a store advertising European imports, and sure enough they had a full selection of running shoes, all expensive, all too small, but the owner happened to be working that day and called the other two stores he owned to find a pair large enough. The Asics where what he had. While I was waiting for them to be brought over to the store where I was waiting, he served me sandwiches and tea, true Ukrainian hospitality, even in the back of a downtown shoe store. Also snagged a pair of minimalist cleats (no markings, no extra leather, tiny tongue), so old they say “made in West Germany”, and honestly just leather and plastic, pretty much as light as high tech shoes, but they only cost $15, and if the German workmanship lives up to Porsche standards…
Fighting a rhetorical argument in my head about whether my standards are going down, or whether a focus on smaller successes is necessary in a place where students have never been taught to take a test or think for themselves. My teaching is still on a steep learning curve, and almost every day I wish I would have done something differently. Especially my failure to learn my students’ names and my failure to effectively use grades as motivation are two things that bug me. Having 10 groups of 16 students is a lot of names to learn, and there are so many duplicates (Sasha, Yulia, Dima, SO many), I should have gone for family names from the beginning. Grading is directly related, because so many of the things that I want to give them feedback on are not written, but if after class I can’t remember their names, then how can I give them a grade. Ok, time to make seating charts. It’s just these little things which would have been so much easier to do at the beginning of the semester.
My cooking continues to be and adventure. Surely potatoes don’t really explode. It took a while to get the debris cleared from the oven. Why do I have to discover everything for myself? What can I do with beats besides soup? I tried baking them last night, the result was disappointing. On the other hand, crepes, French toast, buttermilk pancakes, banana bread, cookies, pasta, frittata, home fries, omelets, fruit salad, and curry rice with apple, garlic and onion were all huge successes. Of course often I’m just lazy and eat raw carrots, apples, oranges, bread and some yogurt for dinner. But that’s healthy, I think.
When the yearly flu season hits, schools close down if more than 30% of their students are absent. My school is at 28% today. The lost days are made up on Saturdays or in June, neither option appeals to me. My school is already without spring break because they traded that for a longer winter break. Of course we do have a week of for Easter, but have a while to wait for that.
My English club continues to be a highlight of my week, trying lead the kids to explore what it means to be a citizen, of town, country and globe, and what responsibilities that brings. Then I want to lead a discussion about what parts of their community (local, national and global) are lacking, and then explore each issue that they bring up. I hope that by letting the kids discover and learn about different challenges and exploring their details they might eventually realize that actions they take can directly improve (community, country and world). I have no idea what this will lead to, but I am really excited. The Peace Corps provides money, materials and technical support for a variety of projects, Aids, sexual education, environment, healthy living, domestic violence, drug abuse/needle exchanges, education, teacher training and others, but even if the kids eventually become most interested in some aspect of change that falls outside of these categories, I will do my best to support it (with USA tax dollars) and my knowledge, and peace corps resources.

Ups and Downs...

I can't teach any better if I teach the same things that you teach, from the same books, with the same methods.  If you want me to help, give me a little freedom, let me try some methods that have been proven to work in my own schooling and language learning.  Yes, the first time students are exposed to certain activities they will not get it, but change takes time, and for every improvement, a certain amount of risk must be tolerated.  Yes I know your methods work (for a very few students, and at an overall low level), and mine might not work, but if they do, they may work better.  Finding a balance between what the teachers are used to and what I want to do has been really hard.  Some things are done only because that's how they've always been done, the original reason completely forgotten.  When I question these ways, I run into a brick wall, and told not to make ripples.  This semester they have a review from the district center, and although this school does not have a stellar record, they are afraid to do anything which the district might bring down their score, even a little bit.  What they don't understand is that if the kids can communicate with English, they'll also score better on English tests.  The way that vocabulary is written, always given with a pronunciation transcription is particularly frustrating.  If they never learn how to pronounce English letter combinations, then how will they ever sound out new words when they are reading?  Yes eventually precise pronunciation is desired, but honestly, can't that wait till after basic language command?  Some teachers' insistence that every workbook exercise be covered in class is also ridiculous.  Workbooks are to be done at home, and there are so much more fulfilling and real activities that can be done in the classroom.  I am a teacher, not a workbook-reader.  If the kids don't do their workbooks at home, maybe it's because English class is so boring (because they just do workbooks) that they certainly don't want to do more of it at home.  Maybe if they were actually convinced that English might be useful, or even just one of their fun classes at school, they would do their workbook exercises.

The flu is going around, but I have the flu shot, so I'm invincible?  Weird.  What will my immune system be like in two years when I stop taking the flu shot?  The best thing about European tv is that there is at least one track meet televised every weekend.  I think that the Ukrainians have a fair amount of talent, in the field and the women's sprints and dashes.  Of course it is frustrating when the camera leaves the 3000m to watch a pole vaulter, and then comes back, after you've missed the quarter that split the field.  Indoor soccer time…

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Compost?

I made Huge Soup; I'm going to be eating vegetable soup for days.  But I couldn't think of any other way to make a dent in all of my beats.  All of my other beat preparation experiments ended up rather tastelessly, fried, baked and grated, but in the soup they are quite delicious.  These beats were gifted to me, because they are plentiful, everyone has beats.

         Does anybody know what the best way to do compost is if I actually want to produce rich dark soil up on my fifth story balcony?  I have a giant bucket, and access to chicken wire.  I think it needs some sort of balance between moisture and ventilation, but I have no real idea.  It will probably turn into some giant, out of control experiment, like so much of my cooking.   The reason I really want to start composting is that so much of my waste is food trimmings, skin from onions, potatoes, beats, carrots, apples, oranges, and cucumbers.  Since I have started reusing plastic bags for grocery shopping, the only packaging waste I produce is yogurt and sour cream wrappers (yes, all dairy comes in bags).  I get my milk in a water bottle, and when I want more I bring the empty bottle and get a full one in return.  Bread isn't packaged at all, and my now steady supply of plastic bags takes care of everything else.  I'm really anxious to add as little as possible to the growing pile of trash outside my window.  Trash collection has been suspended for some reason, something about gas prices or mechanical problems with the truck.  Also recycling does not exist, so it really feels bad to know that everything is going into some hole in the forest.

         I also want to grow a bunch of stuff on my balcony, especially peppers, snow peas and tomatoes.  I will probably have to start with some dirt from somewhere else, but it would be great to slowly enrich the soil with my own compost.  Spring is coming, but I have no idea when the best time to plant things is.  It's the first time in years that I will be staying in the same place long enough to actually have a garden.  Even when I travel this summer, I'll just pay one of my students to water a few times a week.

         Classes are going, one failure today when the tape player conked out and my lesson plan revolved around listening to Bob Dylan's "Blowin in the wind".  That left me high and dry, and my backup totally failed because the longest essay that these 10^th graders have ever written, even in Ukrainian class, is half a page, so the idea of thesis, and argument, and independent thinking is non-existent.  I wanted them to cite the passages in the song that had something to do with war, class struggle, death and poverty.  They had no idea how to quote a text and then comment in their own words.  Oh well, baby steps, baby steps…     

February 6th, charging my ipod.

Teaching can be really rewarding, and really frustrating.  I can't figure out if my extreme emotions are a result of the newness of living in an apartment with walking water (it doesn't run(if I didn't have any water, I would actually bathe more quickly, with buckets and ladles, rather than waiting for the trickle of water to get the shampoo out of my hair)) and the frustrations similar to my failure to find dental floss within a 50 mile radius, or if teaching as a profession is punctuated by extremes, kids who make you want to quit, and kids in which you can literally see the light bulbs coming on as they make connections between the strange language of English and the thoughts that they want to express.  Even more rewarding for me than the language part of my teaching is the creativity and free thought that I am pushing.  Only a couple of kids have shown any progress in this part of my teaching, but I expect it to take time to overcome a system of sameness, facts, repetition.  I want my kids to think for themselves, without being afraid of mistakes.  This is hard when in ever other subject, the kids are entrenched a "right answer" culture.

            Last night I found yet another way to avoid lesson planning more than a few hours before my lessons.  Shelling beans.  This land populism really hits home when it takes an hour to shell 3 cups of beans.  Imagine, instead of having to grow your own food, store it, prepare it, clean it, process it, you could spend that time in a specialty, and let other people who specialize in farming, shipping, storing and maybe even have a machine to shell beans do that stuff.  The industrial revolution has many bad side effects, and often efficiency comes at the expense of equality, environment, diversity, and culture, but I think the overall quality of life can be raised by some amount of specialization.  Obviously there are many things in life which need to stay outside the realm of efficiency.  Art, sex, and cooking to start.  Well, it's time to go to my English club.  The only reason I stopped by the computer lab was to give my ipod a bit of electricity.  I haven't found an Eastern European plugged ipod charger, perhaps because no one here can afford an ipod, and they don't need them because phones here for years have had music on them, for a fraction of ipod/iphone prices.  Next time, remind me to write about double scheduling, inflation, and my lack of mail.

Who needs sleep

I had a great weekend, finally deciding to reciprocate and invite some
of the families to my apartment that had invited me over the holidays.
Not only great to see people, make friends, practice language, but
also provided incentive to give my apartment a thorough cleaning, and
make some great food (banana bread and apple pie).
On Sunday after the soccer scrimmage, the pie and coffee party, I
went in to L'viv to meet other volunteers and watch the super bowl.
About thirty people showed up, and we worked together to make
everything from 4-layer dip (too bad corn chips don't exist) to spicy
chicken wings. The game started at 1:30am, and thankfully stayed
close enough to keep me awake, with an absolutely amazing ending. I
wished I could have watched that game with Matt, and thinking about
his passion for the Giants kept me amused. I also feel for the
patriot fans, but I gotta congratulate the underdogs.
By the time the game ended, there was only time to sleep two hours
before I had to head back to teach my first class. Getting through my
three classes, first English club meeting and indoor soccer with few
ill effects from sleeplessness gave me new confidence that I am…still
young.
On the on the flip side, my achilles hurts! I need to learn how to
spell that word. The best remedy would be rest, but I tried that
before, and it just came back, so I am going to try to do some other
exercises my dad did after his achilles surgery. Giving up running
and soccer would make me insane. I need something to help me
recuperate after 7A tries to drive me crazy.
Now I need to get to the post office before it closes so I can send
in my claim for reimbursement for Ukrainian tutoring. I really should
study more and take advantage of this great opportunity, but somehow
it always gets bumped by lesson planning, cooking, violin, Newsweek
reading and even soccer watching (I'll have my notes open, but I
always watch the game). Loving the longer days…

Barriers

Sometimes I just don't know what to do with a class, because the chapter has no good information, or my creativity just runs out.  The students are getting more comfortable with me, which is good for teaching, but bad when their comfortable enough to start misbehaving and testing my limits.  So far, the best method seems to be offering them a fun activity at the end of the lesson if there is some less fun stuff at the beginning.  Even if it's not a great activity, the students will be interested for about 7 minutes in anything.  The trick is constantly changing activities while somehow connecting all of them to the vocabulary, grammar and skill that I am trying to emphasize.  That I have not mastered.

Organization is key, getting a lesson to flow, where each activity builds off of the last.  But a well organized lesson almost always buts against the poorly organized books I am dealing with, that jump around everywhere, doing nothing to build student confidence or giving lessons for lessons with flow.

My landlady has adopted me as her son, even using diminutives (my little son, my little rabbit, etc.)  This is good because she can tell me information about everything, most usefully where and how to buy anything.  The only bad thing is that she now gives me a lot of food, and refuses any payment.  The only thing I have to give is money, since I don't harvest a crop this summer and fall.

Other people have also given me food, and it seems fairly common to trade and exchange food, because everybody still has land.  It's illegal to sell this land (though there is a black market) and it is a direct hold over from serfdom?  There is a specific word for this system, but I forgot.  Some argue that it keeps the whole country poor, because it is inherently inefficient to have one family working their acre of land for food by hand rather than privatizing and having a full time farmer work the land with tractors, crop rotations, fertilizer, and stuff.

Others argue that if you take away the land, if people have no work, and many don't, they will die on the street if they don't have their basements full of potatoes.

Then again maybe if they were hungry, protesters would be numerous enough to actually get their government to do something productive, rather than making rich people richer.  Maybe that's why the government keeps them well fed…