Posts tagged Kyiv

Rodent Surprise…in Kyiv, Ukraine

September 14, 2012 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged , , ,

The following is a story about a furry guest to our flat when we taught in Kyiv, Ukraine. I had e-mailed this to family and friends back in March 12, 1999. Maybe it is one of those “you had to be there” but I thought it was VERY funny at the time and even now these 13 years later.

“I just have to tell you about our “book” study tonight.  We usually have about 12-14 people over every Friday night and they are mostly bachelor men.  There were more women tonight but the mix is very international.  We have one Scotsman, one British gentleman and one German. The rest are Ukrainian and all very interesting in one way or another.

Anyway, Nicolai is a very quiet, computer nerd type who comes, but he is always late.  Tonight was no exception, he rang the doorbell after all 12 people were settled in our living room.  He also came in with a rodent which was crawling all over the sleeve of his jacket.  At first I was shocked that he had this white mouse in his hands but he quickly arrested my surprise by producing a cut-in-half, plastic 7-Up bottle that he put his little pet in.

Meanwhile, my husband was overseeing that everyone had recited their memory verses in the adjacent room.  This seems to be the Ukrainians’ favorite part and they do it well.  So as not to disrupt the meeting, I asked Nicolai to bring his little pet into the kitchen and put it on the counter for safe keeping.  I was still in shock that he had even brought it along with him. (I didn’t recall that Ken had asked for “show and tell.”)

So everything went along smoothly until the phone rang when we were in the middle of prayer at the end of our study.  Ken jumped up to answer the phone in the other room and no doubt checked the kitchen to see about treats that we would feed to our guests afterwards (another favorite part of the guests’ evening). What to his wondering eyes did appear but a nice, healthy mouse inside a bottle!!! I could hear movement in the kitchen as our prayers continued in the living room. Judging by the noises, I just KNEW my warrior husband was doing combat with the mouse [I had no idea that the first thing he grabbed was a potato peeler to stab the little creature]  The next thing I heard was his opening the entryway door and throwing the bottle (with mouse inside) down the garbage chute in the outside hallway, it tumbled nine stories below [think "As Good as it Gets" with Jack Nicholson throwing a dog down the chute].

Mission accomplished, my fearless husband had protected me from the rodent surprise in our kitchen.  Immediately after prayers were done, Nicolai headed for the kitchen not knowing the demise of his pet.  I followed close behind him knowing I would have to help smooth out the inevitable outcome for poor Nicolai. This was going to be an unpleasant reality for him.  Keep in mind that the mouse had plunged nine stories to its final resting place, “rat heaven.” As soon as I told Nicolai that my husband had undoubtedly disposed of his pet down the chute, he bolted down the stairs (disregarded the elevator) to check the garbage bin in the basement.

Eventually Nicolai came back to our apartment looking dejected and I didn’t even have it in me to say I was sorry.  I did explain to him that Americans don’t like mice in their kitchens and Ken had only done what husbands feel naturally inclined to do, KILL the rodent!  Nicolai left early knowing that he should never bring his furry pets to our place again.

When all our guests had left, my husband gingerly informed me, “Did you know there was a mouse in our kitchen?” I had to tell him yes and that it WAS Nicolai’s pet.  End of story…or so I thought.

The sequel about Nicolai’s “mouse” was that he did admit to Ken that it was his fault for bringing the pet the other night to our home in the first place.  Then at church the following Sunday he showed me his NEW pet that he had just gotten for “big bucks.”  He told me that I should show it respect and then he informed me that it was a baby rat.  I had to admit that it DID look cute with little beady, black eyes for a white rat. However, my husband is quite adamant about Nicolai NOT bringing him to our home next Friday night.  Hopefully this is the end of story…”

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Who will listen to their stories?

May 30, 2011 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged , , , , , , ,

I’m revisiting my Ukrainian students’ interviews with their grandparents back in 2006, that is when this all started for me in my quest to find out more about Soviet history. Oral histories can be very interesting even if you give your students an assignment that is simply “Tell me about your grandparents.”  With the hundreds of students I’ve taught over the years, I have gotten some amazing results when I taught in Kyiv, Ukraine, Almaty and Astana, Kazakhstan.  I even used this with my American students when I taught English composition in the U.S. I learned some new things from them about what life was like in the golden, olden days.

My wanting to know more about the Soviet Union started when a Ukrainian boy in the back of the room in the early 2000s challenged me about why I didn’t know anything about Ukraine’s terror famine (Holodomor).  He was not aggressive in his questioning me, he was baffled how I could have taught in Ukraine for 3-4 years and not known about this tragic event in the 1930s.  He wasn’t a particularly good student as I had a minor altercation with him the very first day we met. I told him to not come to class with alcohol on his breath, his defense was that he had some alcohol spill on him with his train ride into town from his hometown of Lviv, Ukraine (western border to Poland).  I let it pass with an internal “yeah right.” After that, I wish I could remember his name, I didn’t have any more problems with him.  Apparently his parents were doctors and had lived in Philadelphia and he had been a pizza delivery boy at that time.

When my husband and I left this university, he had very kind words to say about us being there as we represented America to him.  I need to find out how he is doing now, he was certainly a Ukrainian nationalist and LOVED his country.  I have met many other students similar to him who love their country of either Ukraine or Kazakhstan.  They also love their grandparents and what THEY went through in order for them to experience real freedom and independence they enjoy today.

That is why I am wondering if there are people in my blog reading audience who are curious like I am, to find out more about what happened in the Soviet past? Especially from oral interviews?  I believe that is how my husband and I could maintain a presence teaching in the Former Soviet Union for as long as we did.  Total up both places and we were in Kazakhstan and Ukraine for over ten years.  Today, while it rains, I am going over the interviews that my Ukrainian students did with their own grandparents.  I had assigned no more than 500 words and had wanted direct quotations (as much as could be translated from Ukrainian or Russian) in English.  I can still remember many of these students, what they looked like, what they wrote.

I just wonder “who will listen to their stories” once they are retold by me?  What can be changed once read?  I know for a fact that we were able to cope with living in these different cultures. Especially true after finding out how the Ukrainians and the Kazakhs and Kazakhstanis picked themselves up and dusted themselves off after all the Soviet atrocities that were visited upon them. I hope during this Memorial Day that American young people would sit down with their grandparents to listen to them and what stories they have to tell.  Happy Memorial Day to all in the U.S. Time to reflect, listen to older people and think ahead to a future that is bright with promise because of the older people’s sacrifices.  Stories give hope to the listeners, you can think in terms of “If they survived what they went through, so can we!”

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Teaching in the Trenches (Part II)

March 12, 2011 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged , , , , ,

As a follow-up to my last question I posed yesterday about why the money can’t be evenly distributed to the rural areas of Kazakhstan, why the concentration of elite schools in the bigger cities such as Almaty and Astana?  One Kazakhstani answered that for me, because the money can’t be trusted if it were to go to school administrators in the far reaches of this great country.  Corruption abounds, especially in education.  So, how does one educate the young people of Kazakhstan to be honest if even the school administrators and teachers resort to bribes?  Okay, back to what Annemarie talked about with my students the other day…

Annemarie asked my English teachers, “Which English do you teach your youngsters?”  They answered, “British English.”  The next question, “Who do you do business with the most as a country?”  Answers: Turkey, U.S., Saudi Arabia…  Her next strong statement was, “you don’t just teach English, you also teach culture.” When you teach British English, you do it within the context of how Brits interact (and there are MANY kinds of British accents besides R.P. – received pronunciation, the Queens English or BBC).  If you teach American English, you may do so in the context of how Americans interact in business, at play, at home, in families, etc.

What was interesting was that Annemarie took a side path about how Russian, Slavic and Asian people are “person-related” while Americans, Germans and other westerners are “object-related.”  One example was the way Kazakhs shake hands, they have an open palm extended but then they put their other hand over the shaking hand to show that you are not bearing arms.  If one would have their hand behind their back or in their pocket, it would keep the other person wary. Kazakhs and especially Chinese will stand close to each other (depending on the depth of the relationship). For Americans they simply extend the arm at elbow length and expect the distance to not invade their bubble of space.

Another cultural thing that Annemarie had observed when she lived in Odessa, Ukraine, she learned that to be considered truly intellectual one was expected to be witty or tell a good story in Russian.  You may be German or Jewish but if you went into a bread shop in Odessa and you were to buy some bread, it was expected to establish a relationship with the seller of the bread.  You were to make idle conversation because it was person-related, rather than object related.  Then she went on to say how interaction with sales clerks here in Kazakhstan were aggravating because they were not personable but rather perfunctory or rude.  I thought it was multi-tasking or distraction but in any case, the impersonal nature of sales transactions here in some Kazakhstan stores leads one to believe that it is NOT “person related.” I blame it on old communist morals that did not encourage a service mentality or the “customer is always right.”  That is an American value.

Annemarie next asked, “What are the typical Kazakh values?” One important one is “The individual is less important than the group.”  The big family in older Kazakh times travelled together as nomads.  One member of that group could not rebel and say to his family, “I’m not doing this anymore, I’m moving to Almaty!”  No, now you have a shift in the ideas of travelling within the country of Kazakhstan.  People are taking on European values of getting on a plane and travelling one day to Almaty and back to Astana again.  That would be unheard of back in the Kazakh nomad days.  You would not have the speed and time of travel that we “enjoy” today.

Every country has their basic social values and rules to live by.  Annemarie feels accountable and responsible for the money she has been allocated by her German government to make decisions on how it will be properly administered to help the most people in this country of Kazakhstan.  She comes from a background of the Enlightenment period from 500-600 years ago where the individual is the focus.  Her civic society expects her to make individual choices that will not only reflect well on her, but on her country.  However, there are people in Kazakhstan who would pad their budgets or do things under the table with bribes because they see it as normal.

Annemarie ended her talk with citing an example of the Minister of Defense in Germany who resigned because he had cheated on his dissertation thesis.  He had noble background and had been in charge of at least two army universities that graduated young people who should know how to write papers that were not plagiarized.  Yet, he had done that very thing himself, he was supposed to be accountable for his individual action because he was in charge of a group of individuals.  Yes, accountability is a value that we share in the western world and sometimes we as English teachers are not just teaching English but we are teaching culture and cultural values.

What cultural values are being taught when an important dignitary is brought to a university to speak but where MOST of the Kazakh students are not in the auditorium of their own volition? This happened a few months ago when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton came and talked to a university in the old part of Astana during the OSCE conference.  Most of the students in the auditorium didn’t have a good grasp of English but were required to fill ALL the seats.  This also happened in Kyiv, Ukraine as well when the American ambassador showed up.  All the pedagogical students who didn’t know English were to fill up the 350 seats of the auditorium so as to impress the ambassador.  Our western university in Kyiv at that time only had about 120 students. The questions that were asked of the ambassador were all planted and well prepared questions too.  Those are old style Soviet tricks to play it safe when a visiting dignitary comes for a visit, it is meant to impress the said foreigners.

What happened recently at our university, which is supposed to be a new one founded on democratic principles was to close the cafeteria at the very time of the speaker’s engagement so that the “dutiful” Kazakh students were all forced to show up to listen to a dignitary say politically safe things and give vanilla answers in order to be politically correct in his host country’s environment.  You can be sure a long queue was formed by hungry students who perhaps resented having their supper delayed by one hour.

Okay, I’m shooting from the hip but then I’ve been in the trenches teaching in Kazakhstan for three years and Ukraine for seven years.  I think I know a little bit about what is going on with Kazakhstan trying to get out from the Soviet values, embrace their own culture from the past while taking on the modernization of the West’s. It is VERY complicated.

Annemarie and I chatted in the cafeteria after she was through with talking to my students as they took off to the computer lab to do their many assignments.  We were being “person-related” from our own “object-related” backgrounds in a “person-related” environment of Kazakhstan.  This culture is fascinating for both of us, who would dare even write about this for a western audience to read and understand and appreciate?

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My Main Goals for Teaching in KZ (Part IV)

December 28, 2010 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged , , , , , , , ,

“What AM I doing in Kazakhstan?” My husband and I think aloud on that question often, but we continue to prevail when the doubts assail.  We survived when we lived and taught in Kyiv, Ukraine for a total of about seven or eight years.  That former Soviet country was good training ground for what we hope to accomplish while living in Astana, Kazakhstan.  The following is more of the report that I worked on last week that has been translated into Russian for the benefit of those working for the Ministry of Education. Perhaps my future goals seem a bit outlandish, even for my American or British friends.  I realize not everyone is enamored by computers or modern technology, they prefer old school methods and sticking to the textbooks.  However, I think that Kazakhstan was created for such a time as this Information Explosion and to capitalize on it because it can join the global competition electronically. Well, read on, I get carried away on this and I think should go out and cross country ski.  The down side of technology is that it can mean a LOT of sitting at the computer and not as much exercise.

“One last note after looking at the Global Competitiveness Report which is relevant to the goal of achieving the 2030 mandate of being in the top 50 of nations in the world.  There are 130 indicators when measuring whether a country is actually in the upper percentiles with the following nine pillars:

  1. institutions
  2. infrastructures
  3. macroeconomics
  4. health and primary education
  5. higher education and training
  6. market efficiency
  7. technological readiness
  8. business sophistication
  9. innovation

As a teacher and designer of the PDP classes, I am concerned with at least four of these indicators: institutions, primary education, higher education and training, technological readiness and innovation.  I know the President of Kazakhstan wants the future students of his university to be using nanotechnologies.  This can only happen if computer technology is brought to all parts of Kazakhstan even to the rural areas.  I can envision teachers using Kindle readers or Nook readers that have “ginormous” libraries to support them.  This avoids the transportation costs of bringing expensive books and textbooks to the farthest reaches of Kazakhstan.

I also can see distance learning being used from the center of Astana to where students have access to video conferencing and using Moodle where they are living in Kazakhstan. The teachers or guest speakers are viewed on screens and these videotapings can be used over again. Communication is handled through forums or chatrooms between teacher and students on the Moodle platform. I can also predict that something like Edusoft with its pre-packaged instructional programs will help teachers who are computer savvy enough to use the lessons and the quizzes. There are custom made tests that are standardized so that the different levels can be accomplished from beginner to advanced.  Fortunately, there is IT support in Russian for all these lessons in English. Also this Edusoft can be modified where the Kazakh language can be used and learned simultaneously alongside the English lessons.”

(to be continued)

 

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Too busy to write that I’m too busy

November 15, 2010 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged , , , , , , ,

Oops, missing my daily blog two times in one week must mean that I am “up to my ears” in work. Yes, it’s true, not only am I doing the usual teaching and other self-assigned expat duties, but I am reading through apps for a scholarship grant to the U.S. I enjoy this process as I’ve read apps for the past five or six years.  I started this in Kyiv, Ukraine, then Almaty and now here in Astana, Kazakhstan.  I always like to see the perspective of the eager and nervous applicants about what their purpose would be to go to the U.S. to obtain a masters degree if they won in the competition.  They have to show they are worthy of doing volunteer service for the good of their country, prove they have high academic standards, great references and most important to me, that they can write well.

Here’s what I have observed with several of the recent applicants I have judged on.  One person was obviously wealthy, this person’s parents were able to pay for tuition at Miras school.  In Astana that would mean about $18,000 a year. (I’m not sure about the true amount of tuition, I’ve been told $8,000???)  Plus this person had already been to the U.S. or U.K. I can’t remember which.  However, when I put the Statement of Purpose in the good pile, I found out a different story when reviewing the academic transcripts and the references. This app went to my “No” pile which is a red file folder.  The person was a plagiarist, no doubt, because nothing rang true in the essay answers.  Interesting what you can detect from what is written or NOT written.

Another example was a young woman who had gotten her bachelors degree from the U.K. which meant she had studied for four years and was successful.  She was also a beauty queen from her area of Kazakhstan and seeing her photo on her c.v. she looked stunning.  However, her statement of purpose lacked heart.  She had all the head knowledge, she was articulate in all that she wrote but again it didn’t seem like she was the type to help her own people or to volunteer. No, her app went to the red file too. This particular grant is meant for those people outside of Astana and Almaty who need a “leg up” or an advantage they normally wouldn’t get.  Of course, there is always Kazakhstan’s Bolashak program that has helped 1,000s of young people in Kazakhstan. But I’m concerned with our American funded program that helps about 10-12 candidates per year.  A modest number yet there is GREAT interest in going to the U.S. on a full-ride scholarship by many aspiring Kazakh youth.

Another applicant whose proposal I looked at who is memorable in what she wrote was that she wanted to help young Kazakh people with disabilities.  They are the neglected group of people in this country and in some cases parents can no longer afford medical care or raise them.  Therefore, they are placed in orphanages.  (Her app went to my green folder, a possible candidate to interview in Almaty) What is very sad is that if these children don’t get some kind of life-long learning skills to live on their own, they will be put in an insane asylym at age 18.  I know some American friends of mine who personally know heart breaking stories about those children they have gotten to know at a special needs orphanage and when the time for them to leave the orphanage happens, well, some commit suicide or worse stories…

I have a third pile that is my “neutral” pile which means there is nothing that stands out in my mind after reading the “Statement of Purpose” essays.  Vanilla apps goes into my manila file folder. These students have perhaps been trained to not write anything too “edgy” or provocative. Just play it safe and write 1,000 words that are repetitive and says almost nothing. Obvious to me as a writing teacher, some students have not found their “voice” in writing. I pity them because they have not had teachers in school who knew about “voice” and “audience.” Others may plagiarize things but that will show up in the interview.  One applicant that I read last year, not in Education, had copied something off the Internet and it was really different and interesting but it was almost too good, too creative, too outside the box.

What I want to see in the application essays is a person’s heart but also their intellect.  I want to see anecdotes and quotes that show they are thinking about this a long time. The best applications have a tight storyline that helps the reader (me) see that they DO have a purpose and want to help their country prosper and grow by whatever they propose to study and implement once back in Kazakhstan.  Some people write and you can see they are out for “Number #1.” That is sad because if they don’t know where they have come from and they go to the U.S. on a scholarship, they will clearly get sucked into thinking and parroting what their American professors tell them.  I’ve seen this happen over and over again.

That is why critical thinking is absolutely necessary for the students to grasp here in Kazakhstan.  They should be able to decipher what is truth from what PC propaganda is.  That is why I blanched at reading in the app that I blogged about several days ago about “great leaders create great followers.” There are a great many followers here in this country of Kazakhstan, no one dares to raise their head among the rest because they might get clobbered by someone above them. Sadly, those Kazakh students who go overseas on whatever program but when they come back must acquiese to those who don’t know as much, especially about the information revolution we are in.  But since age is deemed to haveultimate wisdom, these Central Asian students have to capitulate to people who don’t really know or understand the West. Such is the struggle that continues here in education, the Old School will not give up their powers to those young people who come back with a western education. All this will take time to sort out but in the meantime, you have Kazakh students who want to help their country improve but are under the thumbs of bureaucrats who don’t know anything different from the way the Soviet five year plans operated.

I guess I’m not too busy to write about this, but there are soooooo many other things on my heart right now that I dare not share on this blog. Something big is coming up in the next two weeks and it will impact all of us in Astana, our schedules, our plans.  The rest of Kazakhstan will carry on with “business as usual” but not us.  Maybe it will be a good thing for me because I will have a chance to catch up on life, something I need to do ASAP.

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Twelve Midnight and where’s my post for today?

October 4, 2010 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged , , ,

So, I’ve been a bit busy at work but being a creature of habit, I KNEW I had to get my blog post for today done, OR ELSE!  Actually, I’ve missed other days in the past three years I’ve blogged about Kazakhstan but I hate doing that.  I have a following of blog readers who just might move on to other blogs and neglect mine if I lapse even for one day.  I know it is past the bewitching hour and I do not have much to write.

What I DO really want to write is not politically correct and it would not help the cause.  I will write this though, I’m very happy that our first of the movie series at our new campus worked yesterday (or Sunday).  I’m calling this the S.A.M. events because it stands for Sunday Afternoon Movies.  We started out with “An Education” and next Sunday we will show “Blind Side.”  Then we will go back to a “chick flick” and feature “Princess Diaries” with Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews and the last weekend of October we will present “Remember the Titans.”

We showed the last American football movie starring Denzel Washington at American Corner on Saturday night and it was fun to get the Kazakh students’ reactions to this. We like to incorporate discussion groups so the students have a chance to ask questions or comment on what they thought of the movies.  About 50 or 60 showed up for the American football movie on Sat. and over 100 showed up for SAM’s event at the new campus. The numbers continue to go up because of our consistency of showing good movies.  What fun to listen to the laughter at the quick lines and funny parts to both movies. We have a nice auditorium at the National library that is close to Baiterek, actually across the street.  However, we only had chairs set up at the new campus to suit 250 students but I’m glad only 100 showed up.

Ken and I needed all of the 45 minutes before the movie start time to figure out where the extension cords would stretch to the very few working outlets. We also had help from the librarians to find how to shut off the lights in the library once the movie started.  There were NO switches anywhere and finally a Turkish guy came with a remote and pointed to the ceiling and the lights were dimmed.  Unfortunately, that left us defenseless once we wanted to go into our discussion corners after the movie.  I headed for one window where we had outside light, another discussant went to the other wing of the library to discuss by window light with her crowd.  Ken went to the back of the large room where there was still electric lights from above so they could all read the movie handouts with vocabulary words and quotes.

All the bugs needed to be worked out with the audio, the laptop that I forgot doesn’t show on the screen when the movie is playing on the wall from our projector.  We brought our own boom box and since my husband is so handy with gadgets, he got that to work.  Ah, what a relief when all students were settled into their seats up close to the front and we sat in the back making sure those who had cell phones and went out the door to talk knew of our displeasure.  Hadn’t I said before the movie started “Turn off your cell phones” and “No talking or walking out in the middle of the movie, that’s distracting to others.” You know the usual teacherly things one says when in front of a big group of young people.

The part our university students REALLY liked was the drawing at the end where we called out numbers and there were two prizes of a dozen each of my homemade chocolate chip cookies.  These kids are getting institution food now at the cafeteria, they are away from their own mom’s home cooked meals.  I don’t know if I’ll always have cookies as door prizes but it looked like those who won, had instant friends clamoring around them for one  cookie.

So, I didn’t think I had much to write about but I am grateful the technology part of the movies worked, thanks in large part to my husband and my experience of doing this every Saturday night in Kyiv for several years to crowds of 350 students.  We have learned that not all will be pleased with our pick of movies, that’s fine.  We just try to provide a service for those students who want to improve their English by having good quality movies with English subtitles and good story lines to discuss in English afterwards.

Mission accomplished on Saturday and Sunday.  The smiles from the students was all the proof we needed.

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“So you think you can WRITE” and my student’s accolade

July 16, 2010 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged , , ,

The above title is a twist on the American t.v. series “So you think you can dance.” A kind of taunting challenge to those people who think they CAN dance.  I will have a four part series related to the subject of writing, something close to my heart as a writing teacher.  It’s always nice to get e-mails from my former students who I taught freshmen composition to.  An e-mail message I got from a Ukrainian student yesterday was a real picker-upper for me!  She CAN write!!!

I first met L.P. in 2006 in Kyiv, Ukraine and she was one of the “Fabulous Five” who had been on the FLEX program in the U.S. Such an exchange program is well worth the American tax payer’s money as it brings talented students from all over the world to U.S. high schools for their last year of study.  Needless to say, it is highly competitive among students in the former Soviet Union to go to the U.S. and L.P. was one of the “lucky” ones. We admitted four other former FLEX students to our freshmen class that year, making for a very dynamic mix with the other Ukrainian students whose English skills were not as high as the Fabulous Five. Now my former student is a newly minted graduate at a westernized university in Kyiv where Ken and I used to work at.  This is what L.P. wrote (I did not change any of her wording except the names of people and places):

Dear Mrs. K: Writing to you again is such a pleasure right now! I do hope you remember me. I was your English Composition student in WIUU about three-four years ago. That was your last year in Ukraine if I am not mistaken.

I have recently graduated. Now I am a Bachelor of Business Administartion and International Management. All these are nice and serious words, aren’t they? You know, four years of living and studying in Kiev, in our university, changed my values and views so much. I do not believe in words anymore. I do believe in actions.

Such a memorable event as a graduation ceremony made me thinking a lot about those four years I spent in the walls of our university, about people I met there, about things I was given. I understood that I do not believe in my diploma with high honors. I only do believe in what I have succeeded to learn and take from what was given to me either materially or spiritually.

Writing is a skill I learned from you. You are the one who has succeeded to awake in me extreme love for writing.  Sometimes writing is my only way out. That is what I want to thank you for, Mrs. K. Many thanks for those energy you invested in working with us, in working with me.

I have heard many things about your new academic achievements! My congratulations! How your life is going on? I do hope you and your husband are doing fine:) Tell him big hello from me))

I enclosed the picture of me in academic cap and with diploma) You might not recognize me as i do wear glasses often) It is me anyway) It would be nice to see some of your pictures also))

So, I would appreciate a lot if you find some time to answer me. … And staying in touch would be a great idea)))

Looking forward for your response)

Sincerely yours,
Lucky Penguin

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“Why We Teach Overseas” (Part IV)

July 3, 2010 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

This story about a ring of Russian spies being caught by FBI is a strange kerfuffle in my estimation. It may be a news media set-up to distract us from where the REAL news stories are happening.  I watched the Wall Street Journal videotaping of the Anna Chapman (not her real Russian name, of course).  She had no substance, didn’t talk like an entrepreneur and I think the WSJ interviewer knew it.  Simply political posturing by those in high places and Anna is being used, her interview was a joke! It must be heady business to get the news media to take a byte out of that whopper.

The following are my last reasons why my husband and I live and work in Astana, Kazakhstan. Look back several days ago and you will see other reasons “why we teach overseas.”

6. I have many years teaching both at home in the U.S. and abroad. I can detect a problem in the classroom that can be remedied quickly.  For instance, when I taught in Kyiv, Ukraine I had 40 students bunched together in a big classroom.  I found that the black leather jacket guys who were enamored by their cell phones and did not care about what I was teaching, were disruptive and rude.  This disrespectful attitude became a terrible distraction for me and the rest of the class who wanted to learn what I had to teach them.

After putting up with this behavior for several weeks, I finally determined to purge 10 of them from my class of good, hard working students and create a new class for them, meeting at a different time.  The dynamics of the class changed drastically once these “characters” were separated out.  It also served notice to the other Ukrainian students who might have considered being absent to show up for my class or else they would be put in the remedial class.

7. I know the Kazakh educational system has many huge obstacles. This reminds me of the Kazakh saying, “Getting an education is like digging a well with a needle.” One problem that impacts the whole country is to require all Kazakh students to be taught tri-lingually (Russian, Kazakh and English) in the elementary and secondary schools.  The pressure is keenly felt by the Kazakhs to realize their own identity after having it suppressed for so long.  Many middle- aged Kazakhs feel they are “shala” Kazakhs because they do not know their own language or even their old customs; they are Kazakh in ethnicity only.

Second, undoubtedly China does pose a threat to Kazakhstan.  This Asian country just east of them is burgeoning with people, and Kazakhstan would appear to the Chinese like an empty, unoccupied land of only 16 million people.  Of course, learning a fourth language, such as Chinese, would be out of the question.  The Kazakhs have gained their independence and they will do what they can to maintain that.  However, the Kazakhs have a proverb they like to quote attributed to their highly revered, wise man, Abay.  Abay highly recommended learning seven languages. “Try to master seven languages and know seven sciences.”

Perhaps because Kazakhstan is close to the Silk Road, knowing many languages was considered good for bargaining power and knowing seven sciences fits with the goals of the new university in Astana. However, Kazakhstan is on a mission and that is one to succeed.  I want to be here in Astana, working with the future of this country. That future sits in the desks of every classroom throughout Kazakhstan and is in the minds of the bright young Kazakh students. They want to work hard to build up their country to be recognized by the rest of the world.  My husband and I are here in Astana to help in whatever way we can to facilitate the new university to reach these achievable goals to educate Kazakhstan’s future.

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UNICEF and Kazakhstan (Part II) and a poem

April 29, 2010 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged , , , , , ,

Yesterday at our Astana International Women’s group meeting, we heard a featured talk given by Hanna who represented UNICEF.  Hanna had many interesting facts to relate about Kazakhstan to nearly 40 expat ladies.  The questions afterwards yielded even more interesting anecdotes from Hanna. Something I just remembered today is that many childbearing women in Kazakhstan are anemic.  She explained that this was due to how the flour in Kazakhstan is milled, it needs the added fortification of iron in it but that is lacking for some reason.  Hanna stated that if it could be legislated that flour be fortified with the iron that women need, they would not die in childbirth or raise children who are also anemic at birth. Simple solutions when facts are known, when people care and are educated.

Kazakhstan enjoys many economic privileges and benefits due to its natural resources but there are still so many needy Kazakh and Kazakhstani people in the rural areas who do not get all the perks.  Hanna’s strongest point yesterday was that if families, who are poverty-stricken, dump their kids off at an orphanage the children’s fate is worse when they turn 18 years of age. They are released from the state-run home and left to fend for themselves. I know that is true because of the work some friends I know in Almaty who work with the disabled “social orphans.”  These unfortunate, cast-off children when they are 18 are put into a mental institution and many of them die or commit suicide.

Hanna emphasized that it is best if the children stay within their family unit or with relatives as the Kazakhs traditionally did in the past before the Soviet era.  Children should not be cast off into an orphanage where there is little hope and where the children are often beaten or mistreated.  Yes, they may be fed but their future is not good.  Another lady from the audience asked “What about the street children?”  Hanna had an answer for that but I don’t remember it.  I think my mind wandered to all the street children I saw in Kyiv, Ukraine.  I don’t see them in Almaty or Astana but I’m sure they are in other cities in Kazakhstan.  It is just too cold in the wintertime for the children to survive on the street in Astana, perhaps they can survive in the winter months in southern Kazakhstan, I don’t know.

Here’s a poem that I like, I’ve probably used it before but it is from Streams in the Desert.  I think that UNICEF can provide a stream of hope in Kazakhstan, they are doing many good works.  But there is much left undone…

Have you heard the tale of the aloe plant,

Away in the sunny clime?

By humble growth of a hundred years

It reaches its blooming time;

And then a wondrous bud at its crown

Breaks into a thousand flowers;

This floral queen, in its blooming seen,

Is the pride of the tropical bowers,

But the plant to the flower is sacrifice,

For it blooms but once, and it dies.

Have you further heard of the aloe plant,

That grows in the sunny clime;

How every one of its thousand flowers,

As they drop in the blooming time,

Is an infant plant that fastens its roots

In the place where it falls on the ground,

And as fast as they drop from the dying stem,

Grow lively and lovely around?

By dying, it liveth a thousand-fold

In the young that spring from the death of the old.

Have you heard the tale of the pelican,

The Arabs’ Gimel el Bahr,

That lives in the African solitudes,

Where the birds that live lonely are?

Have you heard how it loves its tender young,

And cares and toils for their good,

It brings them water from mountain far,

And fishes the seas for their food.

In famine it feeds them—what love can devise!

The blood of its bosom—and, feeding them, dies.

Have you heard this tale—the best of them all—

The tale of the Holy and True,

He dies, but His life, in untold souls

Lives on in the world anew;

His seed prevails, and is filling the earth,

As the stars fill the sky above.

He taught us to yield up the love of life,

For the sake of the life of love.

His death is our life, His loss is our gain;

The joy for the tear, the peace for the pain.

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Globalized Moments: Three Locations in Boston with Friends

March 31, 2010 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

First Globalized Moment:  I went to visit my friend Elizabeth from Phoenix and her parents living in Framingham just west of Boston 30 minutes by car.  Elizabeth grew up in this seven bedroom house and they had a kind of a family reunion with her adorable 6 year old twin niece and nephew, who came up from Philadelphia to visit.  They are very six-ish but very well behaved thanks to their well disciplined mother Sarah who is a pediatrician trained at Harvard.  Elizabeth and I ran into each other at the TESOL conference.

Second Globalized Moment: I saw Jamie and Dasha Peipon who I know from Ukraine this past Sunday. Dasha and I walked around the Harvard campus before we went to her place for tea and cookies to talk to her mother-in-law, my friend Marianna who lives in Kyiv, Ukraine.  We talked on Skype.  Dasha and Jamie live in Cambridge area while he is going to music school at Berkelee (sp?), he is very good on the marimba (check out his YouTube performances)

Third Globalized Moment:  I finally met Frank Thoms who is very much alive living north of Boston.  We met via this blog because almost two years ago I had typed up his astute observations from nearly 20 years ago about Soviet education in my blog.  He “googled” himself and found Kazakhnomad.  Frank is the author of the manuscript “Encounters with Soviet People” that I had used with my Peace Corps volunteers back in Almaty, Kazakhstan in summer of 1993.  Frank and I had a good time catching up before he heads back to Mexico and I return to Astana, Kazakhstan.  His wife Kathleen is an amzing artist with her own studio.

Boston has been an incredible experience.  I am glad that I have my passport back from New York with a one year multiple entry visa.  I am “good to go” as we like to say.  I have done my confusing turns on the streets of Boston, I hope to walk the Freedom Trail on a less rainy day as it is today as I write this.  Lufthansa will carry me away to my next adventures back in Kazakhstan.

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