Soviet | Kazakhnomad's Blog: A Westerner's View of Kazakhstan

Posts tagged Soviet

Highlights from Kazakh Readers’ Comments on my blog

July 20, 2011 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged Kazakhstan, Russia, Soviet, USSR

I started this Kazakhnomad blog almost four years ago when I returned to Kazakhstan after a gap of 15 years. My intention was to inform a western readership about this amazing country…the good and the bad. If you read the following articulate comments written by Kazakhs, you will see that my base of readers is perhaps not as western as I first thought. I have had comments from Dutch, French, German, Spanish, British, etc. When looking at my daily hits I can also tell that my blog readers are from Italy, China, Singapore, Japan, Korea, etc. What I value most are the comments from the Kazakhs and Kazakhstanis who can inform me about their country. See what you think and feel free to comment…

The following is from one of my former students, naturally she would be flattering. Read tomorrow’s blog entry and there are some contrary comments:

“I like reading your blog. You write so many useful and educating things. My part of work is so easy, I just read what you have analyzed for hours so even days or years. You bring us a ready dish just to swallow. Reading your topics I even wonder: ”How do you find time and power for all of these?”  Concerning the above given quotes I want to add that we also have this proverb “It is better to see once than hear 1000 times”. I think some of suchlike quotes are common for all Central Asian countries. Waiting for your next blog and anecdotes.”

Education

“Hopeful view, I’d really like to think in a similar way, but I don’t. A metaphor. If we see education as a house, there was an imperfect but a solid house built at the time Kazakhstan was part of Russia, then the USSR. Since the independence, education has never been on top 1000 list of priorities of the country’s leaders. Too bad so sad, they said. C’est la vie. Now the house is half-broken half-deserted only a pitiful reminder of the past glory, quality and strength. It’s leaking everywhere, the water, heating and sewage systems work sporadically if they do. Power comes on and off. Basically it’s rapidly deteriorating and is nearing a collapse. A complete rehaul is required. If it had been properly maintained, repaired, reinforced and added to, then it would be the same house or even better, but, alas, now it’s in a really, really bad shape comparing to what it used to be.

Yes, too bad they’re beautifying the tip of the iceberg whereas the bottom part is quickly melting away…”

“Glad to hear such praise about our younger generation. I was a bit pessimistic about the way they are, but you actually gave me some hope and a reason to be proud.”

The following is from another commenter about education in Kazakhstan:

“Yes, teachers are low paid in KZ, it doesn’t matter university or school teachers. I don’t think that there are teachers who work unpaid, at least their salary is government based, so it is paid on time. But nowadays problem of downsizing, every government budget based organization are dismissing their employees, so the others who remain has to work twice. That means much stress, because I think most difficult part of being teacher or for ex: doctor not teach many students or observe many many patients, but the paperwork that has to be done. This takes more time then their direct job duties.”

Bribery and Corruption

“Interesting. Yes, even in the Kazakh army the high-ranking officers force soldiers to build their houses… It’s terrible. There wasn’t much of such shameful exploitation of the vulnerable in the USSR times… It would be something out of the ordinary if something like that happened. The educational system was way, way better at the time. Both of my parents are retired university professors. Many things that you can see happening these days are uniquely Kazakhstan or post-Soviet phenomena rather than rudiments of the socialist system.

And I agree that people in ex-USSR do not trust each other. In the West, the people tend to trust each other except when they see a reason not to. In ex-USSR, people tend not to trust each other except they have firmly proven their trustworthiness to you.”

(to be continued )

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View of Village Schools in Kazakhstan

May 8, 2011 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged Almaty, Astana, brothels, human trafficking, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz, Peace Corps volunteer, Soviet

An American friend has allowed me to reprint an e-mail she sent to her friends back in the U.S. She might as well be a Peace Corps Volunteer based on the experience she describes which could be “Anywhere, Kazakhstan.” What she witnessed is in direct contradiction to what western tourists would see if they only traveled to Almaty or Astana. Tourist be aware! The glitz of these Kazakh cities with their suburbs full of saunas, serve really as brothels. These seamy places house some of the young Kazakh or Kyrgyz people from rural areas who have been trafficked into the city with a promise of a better job.

If you see the poor education the Kazakh children have gotten out in the village schools, they don’t have a chance to improve their lot in life with the high unemployment in their communities. The Ministry of Education needs to reward good, hard working teachers with much higher pay instead of punishing those who know the latest in technology and putting them out in the “sticks.”

During the Soviet Union times, Soviet teachers were given better privileges and their mission was to indoctrinate the young Kazakh students to excel in learning what Moscow dictated. Now, as far as I know, the Kazakh government doesn’t have that in place (yet) and instead there are poorly trained, Kazakh teachers in the village schools doing the best they can with the little they have. The teachers are under paid and overworked knowing they are working with the future of their country. BUT, what is the future of Kazakhstan if the views of village schools continue as they did from the 1950s? Please read on…

“To get to the village, the road was full of potholes and there were a couple of trucks and workers that seemed to be filling the holes. I wondered why the heater for the hot tar was being fuelled with old rubber tires. Then as I looked out over the vast expanse of the steppes, I realized that there was not a tree in sight.

The village has about 5,000 people but only two restaurants. The buildings are old and there is much evidence of Soviet times with old concrete structures that have been stripped and are only a standing shell. Fences and farm equipment are rusted out and most men are unemployed. The roads are dried, rutted mud and difficult to maneuver.

Once we reached the school, I climbed three flights of stairs to teach English to about thirteen 8-15 year olds. Of course I needed to use the “toilet”. It was a large open room with knee to ceiling windows at one end. There were four toilets or I should say “squatty pottys”. Here you must step up about 8 inches and then straddle an oval hole with a drain in it. Two of the 4 were covered with yellow tape so they must have been out of order. One of the toilets flushed, the other one must be flushed with a bucket of water that the cleaning lady has to get from the pump outside the back of the school.

The school is old but clean. The floors are wooden planks that are uneven and have been painted over for many years. The walls are freshly painted over years of cement repairs so they are uneven and crude looking. The windows are hip to ceiling and open to the right or left. The wood has been painted as many times as the floor and it is rough and unsightly though they would hardly notice as they know nothing different.

Old green chalkboards are on one wall, there is no clock or decorations, just some plants on the windowsil. One student took a piece of chalk from her backpack and let me use it as there was none in the room. The board is erased with a wet rag. The next day I had only a piece of chalk the size of a small pea but made it last the whole lesson.

None of the children knew the parts of the body so that was my project for the 3 days I was there. We did body bingo and I gave them a sticker or a napkin with a $100 imprinted on it. They were thrilled and out of
control playing games. Once an administrater checked the class, surely wondering what all the noise was about.

After an hour and half lesson we drove to one of the cafe’s where there were two choices on the menu (rice with meat, carrots and onions or noodles with meat, carrots and onions), The other cafe sells only dumplings. At 1:00 the second class started at another school. Here the students wear uniforms, stood beside their chairs when I entered the room and likewise stood to answer my questions. They were polite and controlled, the complete opposite of the first class. These children also didn’t know the parts of the body in English so it was easy to play games again and give prizes they cherished.

The same green chalkboard, uneven walls, heavily painted window frames and floors graced the place. As I was again looking for chalk, one young girl gave me a small bag full of white rocks which were used as chalk. The second day she had a real piece of chalk for me.

I asked these children what their hobbies were and many said they played the dombre, a national Kazakh instrument much like a guitar. Two boys took crude wooden boxes with some strings with them and I was aware that their dombres were homemade out of wood scraps.

All of the children seemed to live with parents and grandparents and siblings in one dwelling. I kept thinking what a shock it would be for them to visit my town or my country. Their lives are so simple and uncluttered. They don’t have after school dance and sports. They go home to help the family survive. Their lifestyle is a good example to me of being content with whatever they have. We Americans always want MORE and still aren’t satisfied.

Sometimes I struggle with having so much and then watching these children enjoy their lives without the toys and games we think we need. How warped is our perspective and how shallow is our contentment. What a privilege it is to witness another side of life…”

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Haunted by ALZHIR Stories (Part II)

February 24, 2011 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged "Arch of Sorrow", ALZHIR, Astana, Kazakhstan, Soviet, U.S.S.R.

The “Arch of Sorrow” is quite a monument in front of the ALZHIR museum in tribute to those terrified voices and plaintive cries of desperate women that have long since been silenced due to forgetfulness by design or sheer neglect. However, the President of this fine country of Kazakhstan strongly believes it was NOT Kazakhstan’s fault that so many women were brought by train from all over the U.S.S.R. to this barren wilderness near Astana to work hard or to die due to the deprivation. Many of these women, who came were from the elite of the Soviet elite, their only problem was that they were married to Soviet men who were considered traitors to the communist cause.

One of my students commented that the train car in front of the “Arch of Sorrow” shows that the war against “Enemies of the People” did not play favorites even with the Soviet upper crust. The symbolism shows inside of the train car when you see two kinds of individuals. One that is clearly aristocratic in her bearing and clothes, another who is huddled in a weak mass in thin clothes and barely clad. [Actually both are not dressed appropriately for the sub zero weather we have been experiencing in Astana this past week. It will not let up until first of March.] For the women who survived ALZHIR prison life, it was one cold day after another especially without their loved ones to care for.

One of my former students from Almaty wrote about her grandmother living through this dreaded experience at ALZHIR. Please see her research paper from December of 2008 where she used different sources and also an interview of her grandma to reveal just how very difficult life was living in ALZHIR. Looking at all the displays inside the museum and hearing the stories behind the pictures from our guide, after an hour we were all weighted down with just how very desperate and dismal these women’s lives were.

One story still haunts me. Some of the Kazakh people in the nearby area of the ALZHIR camp knew that these women from all over the U.S.S.R. were innocent of any crimes or at least they knew they were not well fed and many were dying. In front of the guards, while the women were cutting reeds from the lake, there were Kazakh children holding bags of stones and throwing at the poor women. The guards laughed and taunted the women saying that even the young Kazakh children despised these prisoners. When one woman fell down she smelled the stone as if it were cheese. Yes, in fact, the neighboring Kazakh village had made balls of hardened, dried curd which was meant to feed the starving women. Many other acts of kindness were shown to these innocent women by the neighboring Kazakhs even at risk of being caught and killed.

Haunted by ALZHIR Stories of Brave USSR Women

February 23, 2011 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged ALZHIR, Astana, Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Soviet, USSR

The wind is howling wickedly outside today worse than it was yesterday. Yet with this fierce, cold weather we are enduring in Astana, Kazakhstan, we have so much to be thankful for compared to the Soviet women from all over the USSR who were cruelly deemed as cast offs, spurned to this desolate area of Central Asia. All 15 countries or former republics of the USSR were represented. Very few intelligensia were spared during the Stalin purges. My students marveled that so many of the creative, smart ones were destroyed in the past while our university is currently trying to create an intelligensia to move this country forward.

As a class field trip, we went out to see this ALZHIR museum that was built in 2007. We picked up taxis across from Mega Mall by the sauna and with four of us riding in each taxi, it cost 1,000 tenge one way. The road is narrow and sitting in the front, I had to trust the skill of our driver to get us to our destination in one piece. These drivers have no idea how unnerving it is to narrowly miss a hair’s breadth away from hitting the oncoming cars and trucks. The bumps, crevices and potholes gave an extra thrill for those three riding in the back seat. Fortunately, we were able to get taxis going back into Astana (25-30 kilometers away) after not too much standing in the wind and cold.

How sad to hear all these women’s stories from our Kazakh guide. The cost was 100 tenge for student rate and 150 for me as their teacher. It would probably take a week, 8 hours a day to really know and understand each sad saga that is represented behind the faces of these ladies whose pictures were on display. I am eager to find out what my PDP students’ reactions were to all this. One from the south of Kazakhstan didn’t even know this gulag existed so close to the capital city. Another student showed me the name on a list of his grand, grandfather who was considered an enemy of the people.

These 18,000 women were considered political prisoners and first they had their husbands taken from them and then they were yanked away from their children. Some women came pregnant and after their children were 3-4 years old, they were taken away to be put in an orphanage. Sometimes the women were lied to and tricked into being interrogated to their own demise. Initially they were told they were to meet up with their missing husbands again. In some cases, they would put on their finest clothes only to be placed on a train going south to Kazakhstan. Another instance I read in the English brochure produced by the British Council is that a husband and wife met in the hallway where they were being interrogated. They were in a mad embrace and would not let each other go until their arms were brutally hit with the butt ends of rifles. Oh…the sadness!

Today I’ll show the photos from inside the main lobby area but we could only take photos on the outside. Too cold to go to the back wall where ALL the women’s names were engraved into a stone slab similar to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C.

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American Guest Speaker who knows the Kazakh Language

February 16, 2011 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged Astana, Kazakh, Kazakhstan, Russian, Semipalatinsk, Soviet, Work and Travel, YouTube

The hour passed far too quickly with my ten teachers who are my students as they listened to our guest speaker who is an American teacher at our university in Astana. He knows how to speak in Kazakh and he used it to make strong points. How rare to our listening ears because most expats will choose to learn and speak Russian.

The first issue was raised about how to motivate those students who are not highly motivated to learn and thus have low test scores in English. Chad suggested that any good thing done by a younger student, the teacher can put a bean in a cup and by the end of the week, whoever has the most beans wins a prize. Something they can see, it is tangible and they are encouraged to do good work, a kind of competition. This works well for primary grades.

Chad also uses YouTube clips that show real conversation using the same questions over and over again from different people with different accents. Kind of like journalist (I thought of Jay Leno and “man on the street” journalism), catching people with questions, such as “how are you?” or “where are you from?” and then watch and listen to how each person responds to the same question. There may be 20 or 30 people who respond, but if students get the hang of easy questions and answers, they can move on to the next level. Chad told the teachers they can download these YouTube clips on to a flash drive and later use in the classroom if there is no Internet access.

We talked about how immersion is the best way to learn a language, especially with Study Abroad or Work and Travel programs. Chad and his wife when they first arrived to Kazakhstan in 1998, they lived with a host family in Semipalatinsk. They didn’t know any Kazakh and their Kazakh family didn’t know much English. In order to survive, they HAD to learn Kazakh.

Not much chance of immersion here in Kazakhstan where university students outside of the “English only” classroom usually speak Russian to each other. Chad said these students need to do pair work so they are forced to talk to each other in English, they are accountable to each other. Chad recommends to his own students to pick a night during the weekend or at lunchtime for an hour where his students find friends and all they do is talk in English, force themselves to only speak in English. He holds them to account for these activities.

One seasoned teacher for 10 years who hails from the south of Kazakhstan mentioned that she gets her students to be creative in their answers. She does not want the stock, textbook answers but something that is extraordinary and way off the page. She’ll tell her students, “Imagine you go to New York, what would you see and experience? Imagine going into a time machine.” This forces her students to expand their vocabulary and to express themselves in vivid terms.

Children are naturals at being imaginative. Chad’s son had to remind his dad that it was easy for kids to think creatively, somehow by adulthood we have that beaten out of us. As teachers, we need to capitalize on this strength with young people. This Kazakh teacher from the south has her students get out of their seats to do pair work. In fact, she then walks around the classroom to listen in on their conversations to make sure they are speaking in English. Chad uses another technique where the other person after doing pair work reports to the rest of the class what they heard their partner say in English.

One student admitted that she used to be afraid to talk to a foreigner in Kokshetau, even though she was a teacher of English. This is because she had memorized so much of the correct formulations of grammar but never had a chance to practically use it with a native speaker. She has no problem to talk to anyone, because she is confident now but before she knew all the rules, she had never put it into application. People need to practice, students need to apply what they learn in the grammar lessons by speaking to each other in English.

Chad advised, “Better to know a little and use a lot rather than know a lot and use little if you are going to communicate.” [Hey, I do that in spades with my taxi drivers and other people I encounter in Astana, communication is important and not knowing all the correct grammatical constructions. Somehow I get by, meanwhile, my husband just shakes his head in disbelief. Either because he despairs that I'm butchering the language or he knows how to say it correctly but marvels that I get my point across.]

Someone said that if you don’t know Kazakh very well, other Kazakhs are very critical of you as a Kazakh and put you down as a “Shala Kazakh,” meaning “ Kazakh in name only.” Chad said that Kazakhs should not shame other Kazakhs. As a foreigner, he got nothing but encouragement for learning Kazakh because it impresses them that Americans want to learn Kazakh.

It is not their fault if Kazakhs don’t know the Kazakh language because they were taught under the Soviet system that awarded those who learned Russian and NOT Kazakh. He noticed that people in Semipalatinsk, if they do know a little bit of Kazak, they will not use it. Whereas here in Astana, people feel more free to use what they know, even if they don’t know it very well.

(to be continued)

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Expats’ Impressions of Kazakhstan – the Good and the Bad

December 18, 2010 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged Astana, Kazakhstan, Soviet, Web Survey Master

Recently I did an online survey using Web Survey Master and 27 of my expat friends responded. I must have sent out to 50 people so I got over a 50% return rate. 12% have lived in KZ for less than half a year, 23% for one year, 23% for 2-3 years, 8% for 4-5 years, 12% for over 5 years and 8% over 10 years and another 14% had various answers. These were comments at the end of survey most of the 27 were American friends of mine but also some from Canada, U.K., Australia, Netherlands and other places. See what they wrote in answer to my asking for additional advice or feedback:

1) In general the Kazakh people are great. I really find it bothersome that some Kazakh ethnics and non-Kazakh ethnics do not always get along only because of their heritage. I believe much could be done to improve the relations between these two groups. I would also like to say that once a foreigner develops a friendship with someone from Kazakhstan, it is a great thing. Kazakhs can be very welcoming and hospitable, BUT I think the Soviet attitude of not trusting people and being too skeptical of someone’s motives gets in the way too often.

2) Kazakhstan has wonderful people and a great deal of potential. Still the process of establishing a nation is a great task. Most Kazakhstanis are unaware of all the challenges that the U.S. has overcome to be where it is today. It did not happen in fifty, one hundred, or even one hundred-fifty years.

3) The orientation of the questionnaire suggests a sensitivity or underlying inferiority complex regarding this country. But only in a small way.

4) A question such as the following would be good: How have you benefited from living in Kazakhstan?

5) I think Kazakh people are very resilient and will survive whatever life throws them. I don’t think they are easily offended, but they have been mistreated by others in their past.

Of the questions I asked my expat friends, this was Question #6. Kazakhstan can be a challenging place to live, even for the locals, what bothers you as a foreigner the most? Several expats commented on RUDENESS where we are used to “service with a smile” in the western world. I’m used to poor service in communist or former communist countries so my answer would instead be different but it still amounts to what I perceive as rudeness. If I had I taken my own survey my pet peeve would be Kazakh drivers using their cars to drive TOO close to pedestrians. We Americans like our personal space a bit bigger.

“Customer service could improve in some businesses, Rude salespeople, Poor service ethics and rudeness of shop assistants, the “rudeness” of the men…..spitting and general unattentiveness to “polite manners”

Some others wrote: “General difficulty of living conditions” “I actually worry more about the disparity of income within Astana itself. You see some very rich people here, but there are many more who are not so lucky.

Other comments: Nothing to do for English speakers (e.g. movies)

Litter

Corruption,

Nepotism,

unfulfilled promises and focus on presentation without substance to back it up

Lack of care for poor and homeless Justice/human rights/corruption: it is indeed very important to have ratified conventions and written laws, however, it takes much more time to implement them.

Lack of interest in offering excellent medical care

To be continued tomorrow with more answers to the questions posed to expats about living in Kazakhstan.

waiting in lines

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Too busy to write that I’m too busy

November 15, 2010 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged Almaty, Astana, Bolashak, Kazakhstan, Kyiv, Miras School, Soviet, Ukraine

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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“Great Followers Make the Best Leaders” – Yes, that’s right!

November 13, 2010 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged Astana, Hitler, John Cotton Dana, John F. Kennedy, Kazakhstan, Robert E. Lee, Soviet, Stalin

Today I’ll continue with some more education quotes in what I started in yesterday’s blog. I agree with “Great Followers Make the Best Leaders.” Why is that true, I may continue blogging tomorrow on that theme. For now, I keep grappling with the erroneous phrase that I read which smacks of Soviet mentality: “Great Leaders Create Great Followers.” I know this must be Soviet thinking because it was written by a 49 year old Kazakh female teacher from Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan who was trained in communist thinking. You may have a “great” leader who creates many followers but if they are blindly following him, as they did with Hitler and Stalin, the masses will eventually suffer.

However, a truly great leader effectively grooms the next leader to take his place. In some sense according to the following Kazakh saying, mothers are the great leaders of any nation: “The country is ruled by mothers sitting beside cradles.” Servant leadership in doing the menial tasks, the giving up of one self to help those who will come after you.

That’s what a great teacher does, like a self-sacrificing mother, according to this quote: “A good teacher is like a candle, it consumes itself to light the way for others.” However, what I found in one of the applications I read is more Soviet thinking in the teacher-centered approach with this quote: “The teacher who knows less, can’t give much.” A good spin on that last quote is a saying attributed to John Cotton Dana (1856-1929) “Who dares to teach must never cease to learn.”

I found several good quotes by John F. Kennedy who is known to have said: “Our progress as a nation can be no swifter than our progress in education. The human mind is our fundamental resource.” I think the president of this country of Kazakhstan said something similar with this quote I pulled out from an app: “Education is a crucial device to develop human capital. That is why our primary challenge is to put in place an efficient educational system able to meet the economic needs.”

Another quote by JFK was the following: “A child miseducated is a child lost.” Or in other words not as eloquent: “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.” Finally, Civil War General Robert E. Lee had this to say: “The education of a man is never completed until he dies.”

“Great Leaders Create Great Followers”…I don’t think so…

November 12, 2010 · Filed under Blogroll · Tagged Abay Qunanbayuli, Astana, B.F. Skinner, Christa McAuliffe, Dr. Martin Luther King, George Santayana, Kazakhstan, Laertius Diogenes, Seneca, Soviet, teacher-centered

To me, as a TEFL teacher in Astana, Kazakhstan, quotes about education are always inspiring. Especially when written by my own Kazakh students. I am privileged to have ten teachers in my class of Professional development students. They are mature, driven and dedicated to improving their craft of teaching. Here’s something I came across though that I thought was a real stumper. “Great leaders create great followers” ????

In the past I look up every quote that I come across to make sure it was written correctly. I found that this quote had actually been reversed. It should read “A great leader is a great follower.” Or “Great followers make the best leaders.” Wow, it tells you a little bit about the Kazakh mentality. I will look back to see what the person really meant, to look at the context of that quote. Did they mangle it badly or is it really what Kazakhs think? Follow the crowd, follow the leader. As an American, I come from a democracy, if we don’t like the leader in government, we throw the bum out at the next election.

Another quote was by an educator who took to the sky, a NASA astronaut who was really a teacher. Christa McAuliffe said, “I touch the future, I teach.” I often think that when I am in front of my eager, inquisitive students in Kazakhstan, they are Kazakhstan’s future hope. Another famous American whose life was stopped short but not quite like Christa’s was Martin Luther King, Jr. “Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.” With the new university in Astana, we have to take a LOT of things by faith that the upward climb will lead to the next level of achievement. These things take time.

The following are more quotes on education:

B.F. Skinner “Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.” (New Scientist, May 21, 1964)

Spanish born American philosopher George Santayana (1863-1952) wrote: “A man’s feet must be planted in his country, but his eyes should survey the world.”

The following quotes are very teacher-centered, which is the predominant method of teaching handed down from the Old Soviet era.

“The way the teacher is defines the way the students are.”

“To become a great teacher, you need to know two things: the subject you are going to teach and how to teach it.”

“A teacher takes your hand, opens your mind and touches your heart.”

Seneca: “If a man knows not what harbor he seeks, any wind is the right wind.” Apparently the Russian translation of Seneca’s quote yields the following or this is what the student wrote in his application: “When a man does not know what harbor he is making his way to, no wind is favorable for him.”

The following quotes are from the highly revered Kazakh poet and philosopher, Abay Qunanbayuli “Every person should find the right place in his life.”

Kazakh saying: “A person should learn other languages but he is to respect his own native language first of all.”

Abai Kunanbayev: “Can the man be considered as dead if he left behind immortal works?”

Aristotle: “The soul of a child is like a clean slate on which nothing is written.” The tabula rasa effect. But Aristotle also believed this: “The educated differ from the uneducated as much as the living from the dead.”

The Greek philosopher, Laertius Diogenes wrote the following: “The foundation of every state is the education of its youth.” This gets back to the first quote by Christa McAuliffe touching the future by teaching. I believe the president of this country of Kazakhstan would agree with Diogenes and McAuliffe. He is known to have said in a speech the following:

“The main objective of modernization of Kazakhstan’s education is to prepare competitive specialists. It means that the entire educational system of the country should move towards innovative education.”

The question remains for the Ministry of Education in Kazakhstan to be proactive about: Are great leaders being produced with innovative teaching methodologies and technology or just more great followers?

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