Friday, October 24, 2008
October 11th, draft
This Saturday, October 11th, 2008, 40 Velyki Mosty students, adults and teachers embarked to cleanup the banks of their river Rata. The first part of the project involved cleaning up 10 cubic meters of trash along the river, putting it into a truck and taking it to the dump. The second achievement was raising awareness and preventing further littering in the future. The woodworking teacher at school was able to provide 6 anti-littering signs to post on trees where people most often enjoy their chashlyk and fishing. This project was initiated and organized by a group of two students and one school boy. They had attended a summer camp which focused on small project design and management. They wish to thank the school, factory and city council for all it’s help in their endeavors. They are already planning their next project for April, possibly involving tree planting.
Successes
10 cubic meters of trash cleaned up and moved to dump in the woods.
Participation of students, mayor and teachers.
Wooden lacquered signs with ecological slogans posted on 6 trees near the river.
Unfulfilled dreams.
Not all the trash was cleaned up
The small details in the action plan were not clear (what to pick up, which bottles could be recycled, how many piles for the truck, and overall plan of action, prize distribution…
There was no participation by adults other than teachers and the mayor.
Successes
10 cubic meters of trash cleaned up and moved to dump in the woods.
Participation of students, mayor and teachers.
Wooden lacquered signs with ecological slogans posted on 6 trees near the river.
Unfulfilled dreams.
Not all the trash was cleaned up
The small details in the action plan were not clear (what to pick up, which bottles could be recycled, how many piles for the truck, and overall plan of action, prize distribution…
There was no participation by adults other than teachers and the mayor.
October 21
Pepper season has passed without me getting any canned (sealed in jars to save for the long dark months when all fresh fruit and vegetables are out of my budget) but cabbage season is still going roaring. Last night I had my first experience with a big grater grating huge amounts of cabbage and carrots to mix with salt and spices which will now sit for 3 days before being brought to a boil and sealed in jars. Now that I know exactly how to do this, I may try a few kilos myself, though I sure wish it was with peppers or pickles rather than cabbage. The 3 days does not even approach sauerkraut stink and I have come to like the taste of cabbage, especially with all that salt.
I have a lot left to learn about teaching. Last week I had the assistant principle sit in on a class and this week the principle sat in. Both women had useful suggestions on how to improve my lessons. I need to stop making excuses for various shortcomings and work within the system that exists here. Difficult printer access sucks because getting each kid things that he can hold and touch becomes too much work. Kids pay so much more attention if there is some material besides chalkboard and book. I don't understand why, but I think it appeals to the way our species actually learns, easily apparent in any baby. Pick something up, look at it, smell it, taste it, figure out how to use it. I don't know why these instincts must be called upon to learn past continuous tense but even just making flash cards helps immensely.
I still have social/lingual trouble with the difference between thy and you (informal vs. formal personal pronouns). Verbs also conjugate according to this distinction. It is largely a matter of age, and if someone is considerably older than me (+>10) then I use formal. But then sometimes older people call me by the formal out of respect, or because I'm American. When a certain familiarity is reached then informal can be used regardless of the age. The most difficult has been enforcing my students calling me by the formal, because that where some of my control comes from, the difference between them and me. It rubs the wrong way against my quakerness and also against how I remember my best teachers, who treated me as an equal. It's amazing how foreign this built in inequality feels, and how recently it left our own language. I hope we can get rid of capitalization soon, but I'm not too confident. I wonder silently if this is one of those connections between culture and language which might explain certain major differences like parenting authoritarianism.
Planning a camping/cabin trip with other teachers for fall break next week. I will go to longest cave in Europe before that this weekend with my friends from training. My language has gotten rusty as I've been lazy about studying this last month. I never really got back into my routine after summer ended. Ok, time for one more class, a difficult one because nobody, including these 10th graders still want to be in school at 3pm. Then my ecological club of 6-8th graders which is lots of fun will do activities concerning "Leave no Trace". Then Ukrainian tutoring before dinner, studying, reading, violin, writing and bed. Not that much time left in the day.
Monday, October 13, 2008
My blog is always last on my internet 'to do' list
That combined with far less free time this semester accounts for how rare my posts have become.
This saturday I helped clean the river banks in Velyki Mosty with 35 students, 3 teachers, Curtis and the Mayor. This cleanup was organized by the students I took to camp this summer and was generally a success. While we have not yet completed the evaluation, we cleaned up 8 cubic meters of trash and recycled over 200 beer bottles (no other type of glass is recyclable, yet). It was cool to see how the director of the factory gave us money for trash bags, gloves and cookies, the mayor gave us more bags, gloves and a truck, and the school allowed us to recruit students for labor and make no littering signs with the woodworking teacher. Overall a solid small grassroots project. Our next action is already planned for April, and will include tree planting with the cleanup.
Soccer regular season is over, but we are playing in a post season tournament. So much for achilles rest. But the weather has been beautiful, and yesterday I could almost ignore how rusty I was while limping around the goffer pocked field and just enjoy the sunny autum breeze. we won 4-2 thanks to our golie stopping two penalties, one of which I committed. It's also really nice to have that base of friends, sitting up in the pizza place on sunday night rather than getting ready for monday.
Teaching is going alot better this semester. I have completely given up trying to teach out of the book or with methods that the teachers here already use. What's the point of doing that if I'm supposed to introduce new methods. Besides english, i'm teaching or helping to teach sexed, which right now is limited to HIV/AIDS education. We've done exercises on personal impact, now are doing in depth biology, and next will have a unit on stigma and discrimination.
Then I have my other community project dreams, revamping the youth center or getting computers and internet for the public library. Maybe I can turn the old abandoned school building into a community center. Of course saying that I will be the agent of change is an exageration. As I learned very clearly from the cleanup project, the most I can realy do is connect resources in favorable ways. I can't create things or actions from thin air, but I can forge connections and think about problem solving with existing solutions with a unique outsider's perspective.
So this feeling of productiveness, variety of projects and activities has really made V. Mosty feel like home. I'm still reluctant to buy anything, such as a desk lamp, carrot scraper or second plate, but I think this month I will overcome those feelings of impermanence, even as I pass the 'less than one year to go, I'm not really counting any more' mark. It's odd to see how the experiences of volunteers really start to diverge at this point. Some keep counting and don't really get settled. Others have decided to go home after this first year. I'm lucky enough to be on the other side, really taking advantage of the opportunities that having food, rent and a job opens up. That's all for this month. I've got to write an article about our cleanup for a newspaper up in Chervonograd (in Ukrainian, uh oh). Also got to write a letter to a bunch of environmental nonprofits on behalf of the working group that I'm co-heading. The Environmental working group is a volunteer group works to provide and distribute resources to educators, runs an environmental summer camp (or a few this next summer) and works to get other environmental projects off the ground. I'm kind of the talking head, trying to make sure everyone is clear on what they signed up to do and making relatively meaningless executive decisions coin toss style.
That about sums up my last month. This post is going to be really long. Now, can I get some pictures up also?
This saturday I helped clean the river banks in Velyki Mosty with 35 students, 3 teachers, Curtis and the Mayor. This cleanup was organized by the students I took to camp this summer and was generally a success. While we have not yet completed the evaluation, we cleaned up 8 cubic meters of trash and recycled over 200 beer bottles (no other type of glass is recyclable, yet). It was cool to see how the director of the factory gave us money for trash bags, gloves and cookies, the mayor gave us more bags, gloves and a truck, and the school allowed us to recruit students for labor and make no littering signs with the woodworking teacher. Overall a solid small grassroots project. Our next action is already planned for April, and will include tree planting with the cleanup.
Soccer regular season is over, but we are playing in a post season tournament. So much for achilles rest. But the weather has been beautiful, and yesterday I could almost ignore how rusty I was while limping around the goffer pocked field and just enjoy the sunny autum breeze. we won 4-2 thanks to our golie stopping two penalties, one of which I committed. It's also really nice to have that base of friends, sitting up in the pizza place on sunday night rather than getting ready for monday.
Teaching is going alot better this semester. I have completely given up trying to teach out of the book or with methods that the teachers here already use. What's the point of doing that if I'm supposed to introduce new methods. Besides english, i'm teaching or helping to teach sexed, which right now is limited to HIV/AIDS education. We've done exercises on personal impact, now are doing in depth biology, and next will have a unit on stigma and discrimination.
Then I have my other community project dreams, revamping the youth center or getting computers and internet for the public library. Maybe I can turn the old abandoned school building into a community center. Of course saying that I will be the agent of change is an exageration. As I learned very clearly from the cleanup project, the most I can realy do is connect resources in favorable ways. I can't create things or actions from thin air, but I can forge connections and think about problem solving with existing solutions with a unique outsider's perspective.
So this feeling of productiveness, variety of projects and activities has really made V. Mosty feel like home. I'm still reluctant to buy anything, such as a desk lamp, carrot scraper or second plate, but I think this month I will overcome those feelings of impermanence, even as I pass the 'less than one year to go, I'm not really counting any more' mark. It's odd to see how the experiences of volunteers really start to diverge at this point. Some keep counting and don't really get settled. Others have decided to go home after this first year. I'm lucky enough to be on the other side, really taking advantage of the opportunities that having food, rent and a job opens up. That's all for this month. I've got to write an article about our cleanup for a newspaper up in Chervonograd (in Ukrainian, uh oh). Also got to write a letter to a bunch of environmental nonprofits on behalf of the working group that I'm co-heading. The Environmental working group is a volunteer group works to provide and distribute resources to educators, runs an environmental summer camp (or a few this next summer) and works to get other environmental projects off the ground. I'm kind of the talking head, trying to make sure everyone is clear on what they signed up to do and making relatively meaningless executive decisions coin toss style.
That about sums up my last month. This post is going to be really long. Now, can I get some pictures up also?
Monday, October 6, 2008
Autumnal Equinox, September 21st, 2008
Rain again. I am thankful that my body can still run, because without running, this weather would lead to depression. Writing in Californian FB font wishing for some SoCal weather, though I guess this is about right for NoCal.
Umbrellas are silly. If it is going to rain, I want to feel the cold stinging against my face, slight penetration of my old jacket at the shoulders, and full visibility of the racing low dark clouds. I am constantly annoyed by others' umbrellas as I am poked, hit, and bashed. People are blinded by them, stupefied by fear of dampness, unwilling or unknowing to lift them up and let me pass. I weave and duck my way through their colorful domes, laughing when gusts discombobulate their occupant's best efforts to stop nature with a shape that was meant to fly in the wind.
Children have unfathomable amounts of energy. Listening to the teacher less classroom next door, I cannot distinguish the myriad levels of social relations that unite the band in their war against authority.
I look forward to seeing my brothers in December. I dread the 9 hour days and 15 hour nights that are coming. At least there are lots of holiday celebrations and food.
I finally got gmail on my mobile phone. Pretty cool to have that ability, especially on days like today when the internet isn't working in school and Nathaniel is making his way toward me without a cell phone. Super happy that Nathaniel is visiting.
Umbrellas are silly. If it is going to rain, I want to feel the cold stinging against my face, slight penetration of my old jacket at the shoulders, and full visibility of the racing low dark clouds. I am constantly annoyed by others' umbrellas as I am poked, hit, and bashed. People are blinded by them, stupefied by fear of dampness, unwilling or unknowing to lift them up and let me pass. I weave and duck my way through their colorful domes, laughing when gusts discombobulate their occupant's best efforts to stop nature with a shape that was meant to fly in the wind.
Children have unfathomable amounts of energy. Listening to the teacher less classroom next door, I cannot distinguish the myriad levels of social relations that unite the band in their war against authority.
I look forward to seeing my brothers in December. I dread the 9 hour days and 15 hour nights that are coming. At least there are lots of holiday celebrations and food.
I finally got gmail on my mobile phone. Pretty cool to have that ability, especially on days like today when the internet isn't working in school and Nathaniel is making his way toward me without a cell phone. Super happy that Nathaniel is visiting.
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