I’m in Kazakhstan. How many people legitimately can say that? So it’s interesting that this fact does not phase me any more. It’s always amazing when the shine of a new place makes way for the tedium of everyday life. I mean, the first few classes that I had here were exciting and felt amazing that I was actually doing something in a foreign country. Now it’s just the Monday through Saturday grind. But it’s the little things and everyday miracles that you need to remember, so here’s generally how my days in Kazakhstan go.
I usually get up at 7:30 everyday. Well, the actual routine is groan, look at my alarm clock with a venomous glare and hit snooze a couple times before I actually get up. My host mom makes Kasha every morning, which is basically cream of wheat or porridge, sometimes with cheese and fruit, although fruit in winter consists of really bad apples from China that are probably slowly giving me cancer. After that, I do the normal morning things, like brush my teeth, get dressed and the like. Then I tear apart my room for all the odds and ends I need for class because I have absolutely no foresight, and bolt out of the door yelling at Baba Vera that I’m leaving. Baba Vera is the grandma that lives with the family.
So I get to school and start doing lessons or lesson plans. The hope is that the lessons go well but it’s highly unlikely because the textbooks here are horrible. So, I usually just look at what we want to teach them grammatically or with vocabulary, and then I try to use the book as little as possible. Besides, my personal priority is to teach them speaking, not reading. Reading is easy but speaking takes much more time and energy. In there, I usually have one break where I go to the cafeteria and have a cup of tea and some kind of pastry.
There are only 6 classes, but my workday doesn’t end when the kids’ does, so I have office hours and English club in the afternoon. I keep office hours mainly because teachers here don’t. I’m the crazy American, so I’m basically a novelty act, but it allows me to be more involved with the students, so it’s probably a good thing. Anyway, I answer grammar questions and then for English club we play different games to help them practice. Always keep in mind, Mr. Scott, as I’m known here, is a funny, awesome guy. I was working on adjectives with one class and I only got compliments, but I believe it’s only because of the red pen. Power is awesome though.
Afterwards, I go home and change out of the monkey suit into something a little more comfortable. It’s still frigging cold out, so I tend to stay indoors. My array of activities include practicing the guitar, practicing Russian, reading, watching movies and TV shows, or just sitting around and talking with my host mom. Usually my brother is killing brain cells in front of the computer, much like my brother at home in America. It’s amazing how many things stay the same even though the scenery changes. I fit a meal in there somewhere and then go to bed. It’s actually not too bad. Every once in a while I do a small art project for classes, but my penmanship and artistry skills are lower than a 6 year old who just started finger painting. All in all, not too stressful. So that is a typical day in the grind here. Next week is Nauryz, the main Kazakh holiday. I’m looking forward to some headless goat polo. More on that when I see it.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Women’s Day
Holidays are a fun time. Number one, there’s no school, or at least shortened school. This is good and bad. Good because I get a break, but bad for the fact that my kids have had way too many days off because of cold weather. But outside of that, it’s fun to celebrate holidays that don’t exist in the U.S. This was the case with July 14th and the Student’s Carnival in France. This was the case with Women’s Day in Kazakhstan.
Women’s Day has the feel of the old Soviet Union. I didn’t ask anybody, but I can probably say with certainty that it’s a holdover for the good old USSR. There’s also a Men’s Day, but as with Father’s Day and Mother’s Day it’s the women that matter and the men don’t. So, you dare not forget March 8th because anything other than adulation upon the womenfolk is akin to social suicide. It definitely was interesting.
First of all, the teachers make all the boy students give the girl students cards or chocolate, which the girls absolutely adore. Then after that it’s the teachers’ turn to kick back vodka and sing and dance with the women teachers. All the male teachers waited on all the female teachers, which was like 5 guys. So we brought the food and the drinks. As per normal, there was wine and vodka. The food wasn’t as good this time as the last few parties, unfortunately. Fat is a way of life here, and they love to add it. I swear to god the number one condiment in Kazakhstan is oil. I’m still scratching my head as to how I lost weight. Anyway, so we celebrated for about 3-4 hours and then eventually stumbled home and drunk dialed a few people.
Finally, we had guests over, women guests obviously. We had a massive feast with bread and cabbage rolls and cake. It was mostly older women, so they were all chattering between themselves about lovely life and wishing good health upon each other. Then it got a little awkward because they started crying about dead sons and husbands. Kazakhstan is a country with a lot of tragedy. These people have been shit on and continue to be, and practically everybody has a sob story about a family member. I know my host mom, Tatyana, has a son and a daughter from two different fathers, and I still haven’t had the courage to ask about it. Most likely at least one of them is dead, possibly both. So, crying babushkas plus me being sick meant I asked to go lay down in my room.
So, in conclusion, Women’s Day is Mother’s Day on steroids. Be nice to all the ladies in your life on this day and treat them like princesses. Every girl deserves a ball I guess. So celebrate away. Next holiday is Nauryz, so there should be plenty for stories coming.
Women’s Day has the feel of the old Soviet Union. I didn’t ask anybody, but I can probably say with certainty that it’s a holdover for the good old USSR. There’s also a Men’s Day, but as with Father’s Day and Mother’s Day it’s the women that matter and the men don’t. So, you dare not forget March 8th because anything other than adulation upon the womenfolk is akin to social suicide. It definitely was interesting.
First of all, the teachers make all the boy students give the girl students cards or chocolate, which the girls absolutely adore. Then after that it’s the teachers’ turn to kick back vodka and sing and dance with the women teachers. All the male teachers waited on all the female teachers, which was like 5 guys. So we brought the food and the drinks. As per normal, there was wine and vodka. The food wasn’t as good this time as the last few parties, unfortunately. Fat is a way of life here, and they love to add it. I swear to god the number one condiment in Kazakhstan is oil. I’m still scratching my head as to how I lost weight. Anyway, so we celebrated for about 3-4 hours and then eventually stumbled home and drunk dialed a few people.
Finally, we had guests over, women guests obviously. We had a massive feast with bread and cabbage rolls and cake. It was mostly older women, so they were all chattering between themselves about lovely life and wishing good health upon each other. Then it got a little awkward because they started crying about dead sons and husbands. Kazakhstan is a country with a lot of tragedy. These people have been shit on and continue to be, and practically everybody has a sob story about a family member. I know my host mom, Tatyana, has a son and a daughter from two different fathers, and I still haven’t had the courage to ask about it. Most likely at least one of them is dead, possibly both. So, crying babushkas plus me being sick meant I asked to go lay down in my room.
So, in conclusion, Women’s Day is Mother’s Day on steroids. Be nice to all the ladies in your life on this day and treat them like princesses. Every girl deserves a ball I guess. So celebrate away. Next holiday is Nauryz, so there should be plenty for stories coming.
Frustration at School
I officially have a much larger respect for teachers. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some bad teachers, but I’m starting to see how hard it is to be a good teacher. The preparation, the discipline, the getting to know your students, it’s all a pain and takes far more time than you would think. Add into that being in a new country and a whole new level of frustration has just been making my life a minor hell. Maybe hell isn’t the right word, but some days you just want to scream.
Part of it is the system here. In America they say that the system fails some kids. In Kazakhstan, I believe this is more apt. This is not to say that I don’t have talented kids. Some of my students are very motivated and being in close proximity to the capital, Astana, I hope they will be able to use there smarts by getting into the government or some business. However, the system over here sometimes tends to rubber stamp kids through. Grades here are done on a five-point scale with 5 being the top and 1 being “you fail at life” and 3 being a passing grade. The problem is you cannot give a kid a 1 or a 2, so there is no fire under the kids rear-end to succeed. You really have to be creative sometimes to actually get kids to come to class. Especially some of the older kids have realized that grades don’t matter, and when that happens the sand castle tumbles all around you.
Now I don’t want to make this seem like a Kazakhstan only problem. This is also a problem in the States too. We are not perfect. This all boils down to the way we keep teachers accountable. It’s a very dicey proposition to tie pay and compensation to student performance because this just breeds a culture of cheating; by the students and by the teachers. If you want to read something interesting about this, read Freakonomics and in the first chapter the authors talk about this concept. The large majority of the people are apathetic.
I chalk all this up to a post-Soviet hangover. During Soviet times, steel and factory workers made more money than doctors. Education was not as important as it is in other countries, even though it is given lip service here. It’s still the case that teachers and doctors are not paid well, still lower than factory workers. Still, I feel it has to be changing a little bit
The general strategy I go with is to key in on the students who want the help. The motivated students will work on their own and the ones who aren’t won’t. Hopefully you can use a little peer pressure through those students and slowly build up confidence.
Don’t get the impression that I want to go home. I’m still interested in staying here, and I have a few things on the docket to do here. I’m going to be doing presentations on how to study foreign languages on your own, and if that gets only a couple students, they’ll be better speakers for it. I also want to start creating a digital English library so that students can do more than just play video games on their computers. That and summer’s just around the corner. This is a long-term project so road bumps are inevitable. In the end, I think it will all go well.
Part of it is the system here. In America they say that the system fails some kids. In Kazakhstan, I believe this is more apt. This is not to say that I don’t have talented kids. Some of my students are very motivated and being in close proximity to the capital, Astana, I hope they will be able to use there smarts by getting into the government or some business. However, the system over here sometimes tends to rubber stamp kids through. Grades here are done on a five-point scale with 5 being the top and 1 being “you fail at life” and 3 being a passing grade. The problem is you cannot give a kid a 1 or a 2, so there is no fire under the kids rear-end to succeed. You really have to be creative sometimes to actually get kids to come to class. Especially some of the older kids have realized that grades don’t matter, and when that happens the sand castle tumbles all around you.
Now I don’t want to make this seem like a Kazakhstan only problem. This is also a problem in the States too. We are not perfect. This all boils down to the way we keep teachers accountable. It’s a very dicey proposition to tie pay and compensation to student performance because this just breeds a culture of cheating; by the students and by the teachers. If you want to read something interesting about this, read Freakonomics and in the first chapter the authors talk about this concept. The large majority of the people are apathetic.
I chalk all this up to a post-Soviet hangover. During Soviet times, steel and factory workers made more money than doctors. Education was not as important as it is in other countries, even though it is given lip service here. It’s still the case that teachers and doctors are not paid well, still lower than factory workers. Still, I feel it has to be changing a little bit
The general strategy I go with is to key in on the students who want the help. The motivated students will work on their own and the ones who aren’t won’t. Hopefully you can use a little peer pressure through those students and slowly build up confidence.
Don’t get the impression that I want to go home. I’m still interested in staying here, and I have a few things on the docket to do here. I’m going to be doing presentations on how to study foreign languages on your own, and if that gets only a couple students, they’ll be better speakers for it. I also want to start creating a digital English library so that students can do more than just play video games on their computers. That and summer’s just around the corner. This is a long-term project so road bumps are inevitable. In the end, I think it will all go well.
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