Tungjatjeta. Si Jeni? - "Hello. How are you?"
I first want to mention that the title for this post comes from a design and slogan that the teachers and I have been designing to perhaps use for the school. This slogan is particularly fitting for the four of us who are all first year teachers. We are in our first year of teaching in a new culture, a new school, and very separated from what we have grown accustomed to over the years. In a way, I think each of us feels like an explorer. The girls are teaching subjects that they were not specifically trained in to students who are much bigger than those from their student teaching experience. We are learning how to manage our time and relate to the students while traversing the struggles of teaching ESL students in a foreign country. The seas have been rough, but we have continued on in search of what God has for us.
We have navigated the first four weeks of school at LAC and are beginning to feel more stable. Classes have been going well and we have not lost any students since after the first week of school. We have established a good rapport with the students, parents, and in the community. We gained a student this past week and it seems that we will get another this week giving us a total of 32. Most of the students appear to feel valued and at home in the school. I feel good about the relationships I am developing with the students. There is a variety of personalities, learning styles, and backgrounds that must be accounted for if I want to teach and reach these kids. I am learning how to have fun with them in and outside the classroom while keeping a professional relationship that cannot be taken advantage of in school. I am hoping to develop more opportunities to interact with the students outside of the classroom to make it easier to for more meaningful exchanges to occur.
Teaching has been interesting. The first few weeks have been a process of teaching not only new content, but also ways of behavior. Many of the students come from schools where class size was over 30 students and there was little attention given to their needs. They were allowed to talk, shout out answers, cheat, use their cell phones, mess around, not pay attention to the lesson, and - only naturally - speak Albanian. Our rules and expectations at LAC are different than they are used to. While this process of changing behavior is far from complete I have seen encouraging changes. During the first couple weeks I was more understanding of their conduct, but over the last two weeks I have tightened the reins. I now have little tolerance for Albanian and other comments while I am teaching. The method that a couple of us have adopted has been to give 10 participation points each week, if they behave appropriately they will keep these points, if not they will begin to lose them. Hopefully, the students begin to respond and we do not have to spend as much effort in classroom management.
The students are very motivated, but their learning has been very different than in the US. In general, they posses less of the crucial skills necessary for deeper leaning that we value so highly in the US including: synthesizing information, critical thinking, and writing. One of the experiences that has helped me to understand the depth of this inadequacy was the first project that I assigned in World History. I knew going in that the students would be unfamiliar with the task I was assigning them, so I spent over half an hour describing in depth my expectations for writing a 2 page research paper on one of five ancient civilizations of the Middle East. I gave a description of the typical essay format and a thorough explanation of plagiarism including several remarks about how it was not appropriate to copy words a source. Needless to say, the work they handed in at the end of the week did not approach my expectations. I only got one paper out of a class of 13 that did not copy directly from a source. Most of them simply copy and pasted a few paragraphs from the internet into their paper and many did not even bother to change the words that were bolded, underlined, or in different font. They were embarrassed and amused when I told them that the paragraphs that I circled on their papers represented a paragraph which I encountered on the web and oddly found to be the exact same thing. Their paper organization looked nothing like what I was used to seeing as most of them hand-wrote corrections, hade large amounts of space not covered by words, and showed no natural flow of information. Because the difference was so overwhelming I realized that I expected too much too soon. They are not used to writing papers or coming up with their own words and ideas, much less doing it in English in an organized format. Since then I have been much more cautious with what I expect them to do and we have worked at taking steps toward improvement. The two papers I have assigned since then have been shorter, simpler, and did not involve use of sources outside of their own notes leading to much better results.
The gap in the style of education has led to other adventures. Tests have been an exhausting process of hawking over the students to prevent them from cheating. We have been told that everyone here cheats. If you pay for a private education you are typically handed a good grade without the work. It is normal for students to tell each other answers and teachers will even encourage them to cheat or give students answers so that they do well on the test. There is no concept of doing independent work and little understanding of grades being given solely based on performance of a given task. Students often assume that since they are smart they will automatically get a good grade and do not need to listen to directions. There has been some frustration among students who usually get perfect grades wondering how we wronged them by taking their points and giving them a lower grade than they are used to. We have had to constantly assert that grades are not based on intelligence or relationship with a teacher, but on participation and performance. This school is working at creating an atmosphere of integrity and higher expectations that is slowly catching on. Going back to the tests, it has been hard work to prevent students from blatantly cheating resulting in confiscation of test and a mark of 0. I have to repeat countless times that there can be no talking during the test before it begins to sink in. I can tell that students have wanted to cheat and are looking for ways to do it, but I believe I have kept them from following through proximity, reminders, or simply prolonged glares. Despite this, they have a lot of experience, creativity, and drive to come up with ways to cheat and I am sure it will be a constant battle to keep them honest.
Switching to something not school related, we have finally began to experience changes in the weather. The second week of school we got a few days of rain which conveniently coincided with us planting grass seed in the back courtyard. The last couple of weeks it was back to being warm with cooler mornings and evenings. It has been nice because I am able to spend time in my apartment without sweating and no longer need to fully depend on my fan to be able to fall asleep. Last night the rains came again along with some lightning (enjoyed from the roof during a power outage) so the weather may begin to turn. I am mostly looking forward to this because the air conditioner in Miss Bontrager's room (where I teach one class) no longer works and it can be very hot with the sun shining in. I am hoping that it does not get too cold during the winter as I have only packed two sweat shirts and a rain jacket to battle the elements, but it should be fine because I can always resort to excessive use of available blankets.
There have been a few developments in the area of food. The pizza place I mentioned has been a regular stop as its convenient location allows me to pass by and grab a couple slices on my way along a discovered short cut to the center of town. The fast food place where I get my sufflaqe is also convenient because it lies near my major food shopping joints. I have also discovered a small grocery store with some good American-style yogurt. I can buy a large tub for $2.50 and use it for over a week to make delicious bowls of fruit and yogurt parfaits (nuts are soon to be added) which I have been eating for a quick lunch. Also, last weekend we were invited by the parents of one of our students to eat at their restaurant. It was awesome because they gave us so much seafood: calamari, jumbo shrimp, and different kinds of fish along with salad, soup, rice, and pasta which all also included seafood. This was probably my second favorite meal after the dinner that was eaten across the river in Shkodra. However, my favorite every day food taken advantage of in the last couple weeks has been sausage sandwiches made on the street by men in mobile motorcycle carts. Now the location can be tricky because they are always moving, but at night if I make a lap around the block I am usually rewarded with one of these sandwiches purchased for 50 cents.
This brings me to a story from this past week...During activity period in school I saw one of the guys I know driving by in his sausage cart and I waved as a greeting. However, he took this to mean I wanted to buy another sandwich so he turned around and parked at the school gate. Not wanting to disappoint him and unable to explain the miscommunication since I don't speak Albanian, I quick asked a student for money. After receiving money I greeted the man and ordered a sandwich. Since this was the first time something different was available for lunch some of the students began to come out. With my mind working quickly with how to address this unexpected situation I received my sandwich and said it was fine if the students wanted to buy their own. Later in my classroom I remembered that I should pay the student back, so I reached into my pocket and pulled out 200 lek...and paused to think. I slowly gave the same bill that the student had given to me back to him and he gave me a confused look. I nodded and said, "Yea, pretty sure I did not pay for that sandwich." The students had a good laugh at it. That night I decided to seek out this guy to pay him back. Unusually, I saw no sausage carts on my loop around the block, but before heading back I saw the top of an umbrella just visible over a car in the distance. I decided to check it out and it turned out to be the same guy. I used broken Albanian to reference earlier at the school that I gave him no money and apologized. I gave him the owed amount and noticed his wife looking strangely at me...she whispered something to her husband and, after receiving a response, she said in English, "Oh, so your not from Albania." Smiling because it was yet another example of how my darker features always allow me to blend in until I try to speak Albanian, I told her that I was an American teacher from LAC. The three of us then had a nice conversation and the guy said he would like to come to school during activity period to sell sandwiches. So after all of that, something good was accomplished. While blending in has its advantages, it can also lead to some awkward situations where people try to talk to me expecting a response - perhaps even repeating themselves after I say I don't speak Albanian - or they stare at me like I am an idiot when I try to speak. If there is someone around to translate, the people are usually surprised to learn that I am not Albanian.
We have continued to experience roadblocks over the past few weeks. We have continued to move forward without many of the needed pieces of equipment, but the bigger issues has been frustratingly voiced as "bureaucracy." (bet most of you did not know how to spell that word...at least I was not close) There have been some major issues with registering the Shahini's two cars in the Albanian system. They have been told different things, but two weeks ago Dini was stopped by police and told that they were going to confiscate his car. He spent days trying to get the paperwork taken care of, but none of the officials would accept anything and they kept sending him from one place to another. The reason all this was happening was because the different levels of Albanian bureaucracy each wanted money under the table. Since, he refused they continued to make life difficult until finally Dini called a higher-up that he knew who yelled at some people and told him to pick up his car. He was able to get the car back and get "officially" entered into the registry with Albanian plates. At the end of that week, we were informed that our first shipment of four computers had arrived in Tirana. When Dini and Klementina went to pick these up, the same cycle was started again. All sorts questions were thrown at them about the "real reason" these computers were shipped to Albania. Eventually, after a few days and more frustration, this situation was worked out too. This means we finally have some of the promised computers and we were able to set up the wireless internet (using it right now). The rest of the computers should be arriving at the end of the coming week and the projector cords any day now. We are slowly getting the things that we need and the process of getting a copy machine in the US seems to be underway. It feels good to get some of the equipment we need and has encouraged my perspective that the light at the end of the tunnel is approaching.
This past week at school we have continued to adapt to what is needed and to improve. We have formed a weekly schedule that will likely have a degree of permanence, which is a welcome change. Monday through Thursday after school until 4pm we have study hall and during this time the students who need tutoring will receive one on one attention to work on English and homework. Each of us teachers is responsible for being present and working through the homework with a targeted group of students for two days. I will likely be further helping once we set up the computer lab in the coming weeks to facilitate student work in the lab while working on building and updating the school website. On Mondays we will begin taking Albanian language classes again in an attempt to make some progress on that forsaken frontier. Tuesdays and Thursdays we will have staff meetings, which are usually very long (2 hours) because we have to discuss changes and best ways to approach the issues that arise every day. Evening English classes will also finally start on Monday at 5-6pm with 5 sections, two taught taught by each Milt and Ann and the other taught by Miss Bontrager. On Wednesdays after evening classes, the American staff of LAC will meet for our weekly fellowship and worship session at the school. Then finally on Fridays, we will usually have an after-school activity with the students. Two weeks ago, we took the students to the local stadium to play capture the flag and soccer. Last week, we used a half-day schedule and then used the second half of the day for an Albanian food and American game exposition. Each of the students cooked a traditional Albanian food, presented it to the school, and gave a sample to a panel of judges to pick a winner for best main dish, best dessert, and most authentic dish. Miss Hedrick, Miss Bontrager, and I had the pleasure of shoving 30 different Albanian foods down our mouths in 30 minutes and acting like we had enough time to actually keep track of everything to effectively pick a winner. The students then tried all the dishes and picked a "Student Choice" winner. Then I taught the kids four square, Miss Hedrick played spoons with them, and Miss Bontrager showed them "cup cup". This Friday nothing was planned, so I took the kids to a field to teach them American football. It was a disaster at first but they slowly began to catch on, however they soon got bored of learning. They then taught me Albanian dodgeball which was not nearly as fun as normal dodgeball.
In World History, the first week and couple days was spent teaching the ancient civilizations of the Near East discussing the Epic of Gilgamesh, Creation myths, the development of technology and religion, and the major differences between Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations. The next week was the beginning of Chinese civilization focusing on the development of the early dynasties and the 3 major Chinese Philosophies of Confucianism, Daoism, and Legalism. The end of this past week was spent introducing ancient India including the first video using Miss Reinhardt's computer and later discussing the religions of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Jainism. In English Foundations we have been journaling, working on essay writing, doing interviews, and building vocabulary.
The last three weeks have been a voyage into the unknown. It has been trying and stressful in different ways, but we have also experienced God's faithfulness and I believe that land is not far off. There has been a lot of trials that I feel have been aimed to discourage and frustrate us, but with the support of our brothers and sisters we will accomplish our mission. Please continue to pray for the staff that we will be encouraged and find the role we have to play. A specific prayer request that I have is for the discernment to see how God wants us to reach the students and the community more than just being a quality American school. I apologize for another long delay before another lengthy post, but if you wanna know whats going on over here there is no more exhaustive account available.
Thank you and enjoy the end of Yom Kippur.
