Last Thursday I ventured to the Culture Palace to see a performance by the local philharmonic. Although I was not expecting much, based on some lackluster reviews I’d heard, I was blown away. For just around $1.50, I was able to enjoy a night at the orchestra. The evening’s guest conductor was an American, and at one point in the program he addressed the audience, stating how much things had changed since his last visit in 1991. Another treat in the program was a piano solo by a Romanian from Germany. It was absolutely captivating, and he needed to come back onto the stage three times for his ovation. I was a bit shocked at the quality of the performance, and that it is right here in my little city. So perhaps now I’ll add a little classical music education to my weekly schedule!
It’s funny, life here. There are two big box stores (Costco like) throughout the country, Metro and Selgros. I prefer Selgros and have been making a few trips there to get things for my apartment. Well, since these places are usually on the outskirts of cities, I am forced to take the bus to get there. So as I’m waiting for the bus back home, with a few bags in my hands, I see a sight that is quite Romanian. By the bus stop a bunch of cars are coming and going, carrying people, goods and whatnot. Then, from a field next to the store, emerges a horse drawn wooden cart. It trots up to the bus stop, and a family, also waiting with bags in hand, puts everything in the back of the cart. The old man gives the horse a little whack with the whip and away they go. Imagine two horses pulling a cart up to Sam’s Club or Target. Anyway, it made me chuckle.
Yesterday I went to a bull show. I guy who I’ve gotten to know works at this company that, don’t laugh, sells semen. Specifically, they breed big healthy bulls and sell their semen to farmers in other countries who want to improve the genetic stock of their herds. So, once a year, all the Germans come and the company parades around its prize bulls. Now, I’ve seen cows before, but these bad boys were huge! See the picture below:
So yeah, that’s what I do with myself here. On the school front, things are trudging along. School here is messed up and seems designed for failure. For instance, let’s look at the schedule. Students must go to school from either 7 or 8 in the morning until 3. Classes are 50 minutes and there are 10 minute breaks between them. The students stay in the same classroom working with the same people for the entire day. Teachers rotate from classroom to classroom. There is no lunch break. There are no electives. There are no free periods. Students study all subjects – that is, instead of studying Bio freshman year and Chemistry sophomore year, they study both the same year. The end result, as I see it, is that students gain a superficial knowledge of most subjects, and simply don’t have the time to go any deeper because they are so busy juggling the requirements of so many different classes. After school, most students just go home and do whatever (play computer, watch TV, study for national exams.) The teachers here have one goal, and that is teaching for the national exams. There is very little learning in these halls, and there is nothing of extracurriculars. All in all, it is overly regimented, dull, and outdated. Although there are shiny new businesses and restaurants all over town, the schools are in dire need of help.
So I think I’m going to revise my expectations (lower them,) and begin looking into secondary projects. I try hard to make lessons interesting, and though I think that I succeed with most of my classes, I don’t think there is a bigger picture in it for most of the students. I mean, I am teaching in segregated schools – so how to discuss diversity (as I see it) when the Romanians and the Hungarians won’t even deign to sit in the same classroom! The challenges here are more nuanced than in Uzbekistan, and I do think it will be good for me in the long run. But sometimes I get quite disappointed when I meet somebody promising, only to hear the same old tired negatives from his/her mouth not long thereafter. I’m still not sure how much of this is attributable to the Communists and how much is just part of the picture here.
On a happier note, let me leave you with some traditional Romanian folk music:
I’m impressed that you can get classical concert tickets for a dollar fifty – I doubt one would find prices like that here. I’ll avoid off-color jokes about the bull company, although I wonder what I’d say if I worked at a company like that and someone asked me what I do for a living: “I, uh, I’m a gene pool attendant.”
That’s a pretty grim picture of the schools there, and oddly, I remember reading a similar condemnation of American high schools. This one columnist was saying that the kids get in too early and are having too much thrown at them at once, forcing them to either rush through classes and not learn very much, or fall behind.
As a consequence, they get through their tests and SATs and it’s out the window after that. My dad has said that the algebra and calc skills of his students are usually poor enough that he has to review basic high school math with them, and he’s blaming the high schools for this, not the students. The Romanian system does sound worse than the American one, but I think they share a few problems.
Thanks for the music. It sounded distinctly Irish, although maybe that was more the violin than anything else.
What did you decide to ask for from the guy who wanted you to tutor him, by the way?
Well, he just so happens to have every episode of the Simpsons downloaded from the internet. So, in a few weeks I’ll be getting a multiple DVD set. Perhaps more as well…
English subtitles?
Will this be mindless entertainment, or a cultural exercise?
Hey Matt, I understand you on the useless educator feeling very well. It was the same thing for me in Japan with the exception that I wasn’t even “teaching for the test” as it were, because my kids were in a technical school and would enter the workforce upon graduating. Those that did go on to higher education went to specialist training schools. I found that making the lessons as fun for both the teacher(s) and students as possible was the best way to get students to learn. I don’t know how your kids are, but mine were severly undisciplined (and this is the famous Japanese education system we’re talking about) and I basically had to trick them into learning anything. Plus it was the only thing that kept me sane in the boredom of the job. Secondary projects are definitely a must. Maybe you could start a club or afterschool activity. Anyway, I’m living in Budapest now, so anytime you need a vacation feel free to swing by. We’re still thinking of going to Romania sometime as well. Peace buddy.
Hi Matt:
DVD set. That’s a great outcome…And there is nothing mindless about the Simpsons…There are so many layers, it’s like a Dostoevsky novel or a Wordsworth poem. The Simpsons are a quality television show…why else would they be on Fox for so many years…
BTW, when I studied abroad, I asked my father to record all the 90210 & ER episodes I would miss…Now there is mindless entertainment…hmmm, Brenda and Dylan broke up man. It was an important detail, and an excellent cap to my study of the painters at the Louvre and the English & German Romantic poets. Ah, yes…indeed…Goethe foretold the days of 90210… 😉
As for H.S. in America, dear Matt, the high schools in America are highly structured and surprisely complex. Yes, there are the schools and systems that teach toward the test. This seems to be a worldwide pandemic. Not surprising since we focus so heavily on numbers and outcomes, but might I suggest that oftentimes professors have to re-teach students materials so that they may read the text of life the way it is structured. To explain, in high school, I studied (cringe) Elliot’s The Lovesong of J. Alfred Proofrock. My English teacher taught us to read it from one particular perspective…for its homoeroticism. Then…when I entered my World Literature class in college, we read it from multiple perspectives. Yet, my professor informed me that my reading was outright wrong…in hindsight, perhaps I paraphrased incorrectly, but I am certain now–after taking Contexts and Methods–that Proofrock can be read in as a homoerotic text. It really all depends on how you frame things…I think that my former professor was a hardlined Structuralist and my teacher a product of the 1990s multiculturalism/diversity phase where a snake was always a reference to the human counterpart to the substance collected by “gene pool attendants.”
Thank you for the multimedia blog entry.
From the silence of the woods, where poetry sings more flawlessly than proofrock…
M@K
dahlinka,
I don’t have too much to say, but I liked this entry. I like hearing about all the neat things you do. Wow, I sounds super intellectual when I first get up, don’t I?
Love,
kate
Sounds like school here. I have to teach to the national exams as well, though I have no idea what is on them or how they are graded. I’ve asked, but no one really knows. It’s always a challenge in the Peace Corps, no matter what you do, I suppose. Secondary projects are looking really good right now, although it’s getting quite cold, and that means that the best secondary project I can think of is staying warm in the house and drinking hot tea, coffee, and chocolate–at different times of course.
Funny about the Costco-donkey cart experience. The other day, I was walking to school, and I see this guy riding a donkey cart with a bunch of corn, more corn than I’ve ever seen, and he’s bouncing up and down. I thought he was having a fit or something, so I walked over to him. I saw the earbuds and traced down with my eyes and saw a nice, little mp3 player dangling from his neck. I remember you saying that people in Uzbekistan wanted to be donkey-cart workers with cell phones. Here it seems to be donkey-cart riders with iPods. Bono should be pleased.
Take care,
Josh
Oy, music for th’proletariat, y’know…bloody marvelous! Warms me ‘eartstrings.
Hi,
How are things. There are so many jokes to be said about the bull guy. Like Chris said, how does one describe ones job there. ” I work on enhancing the quality of bovine speciments”.That is one huge bull, wonder how it would react to cow tipping.
The music was a nice break. You should consider doing podcasts. Might me a interesting addition to your blog. Its pritty impressive getting tickets for a 1.50. What type of seating does it buy if you don’t mind me asking. I like your recollection of the horse drawn cart coming upto the the chain store.
Be safe. Bye
I listened to the music today. What really made me smile was thinking of you dancinc to it 🙂
dancinc american hungarian for dancing