Here are some snapshots from the past few weeks:

A Prized Possession

Cooking for some other volunteers.

From the Local Synagogue

Man from the Targu Mures Jewish Community – Survivor

Brightness Beyond the Clouds

This past weekend I went to Bucharest, the capital of Romania. It was a pretty cool trip, and I got to meet some new people and see some that I hadn’t for a while. Of all the exploits (and a bit of drama) that occured, the thing I’d like to share is how I got my dinner on Saturday night. Now, Bucharest, compared to the rest of the country, is expensive. Although there are lots of fast food type options, for a real sit down meal you should be prepared to shell out a good amount. Being Peace Corps volunteers, however, gets in the way of this. So on the advice of another volunteer, a groupmake of mine and I tried to get a good cheap meal. The plan was simple. A certain fancy hotel has a casino (casinos are everywhere here,) and this casino offers a free buffet to all gamblers. So my partner and I head in to the casino, proceed to bet about $10 at the tables, promptly lose it, and then head over to the buffet. The selection was great – I had fish and rice. For desert, there was cake and a lychee pudding. Considering that similar food would have cost twice as much at a regular restaurant, we got a 2 for 1 deal. Smart, eeh?

I had received an invitation to an event held today at the local synagogue to commemorate the Holocaust in Romania. I headed over with another teacher and a small group of students. When we arrived at the synagogue, almost all of the seats were full – a first. The program consisted of a few speakers. The most interesting were two eyewitness accounts and a summary of a report made in the past few years by the Wiesel commission. The report on the Holocaust in Romania is unique in that it is the first comprehensive and governmentally approved account of events in this country. Whereas most education on the subject tends to focus on other countries (thereby minimizing culpability,) this report will be the foundation for more authentic studies of the subject. I spoke to this man afterward and received his card – he mentioned that he had copies in English, so I will check it out myself soon.

The two survivor accounts were quite powerful (although I only picked up about 50% of what was being said – I got the idea.) One man had a power point slide show with photographs from the time showing people on/around the cattle trains. After the speeches, the old men of the congregation sang “Hava Nagelah,” and performed the mourner’s kaddish. Following the part in the temple, we visited the local monument to the Holocaust in a nearby square and symbolically places small stones on the base of the statue.

Interestingly enough, I met the chief Rabbi of Romania. He noticed my Romanian was not very good when I was trying to talk to another man so he addressed me in English. I found out that he is an Israeli; he was quite kind and interested in my work here. It was moving to see all the people, although, after today, many will be moving on to other cities throughout the country. I appreciate the effort to remember, and, importantly, set the record straight. Photographs will be forthcoming.

As I’ve mentioned before, my city here has a symphony orchestra (tickets about $1.75.) Tonight was one of the best performances I’ve seen here yet. The first half of the show featured a man who played a kind of archaic flute. This along with the rest of the symphony, which included a harpsichord tonight, conjured images of ancient times. For the second half of the show (and I’ve found that the best stuff always seems to come after intermission,) the orchestra performed a piece called The Titan by Gustav Mahler. Although the musicians, especially the horns, were superb, much credit belongs to the conductor, a Japanese man named Shinya Ozaki. Ozaki is the resident conductor, who is well known in Japan and the USA. Mahler’s symphony was quite long, but flowed superbly – it appeared to contain some folk Jewish inspiration, and the finale was mind blowing. That’s the conductor.

The boy. There is this boy in town who I keep bumping into. At first I just figured it was a coincidence that I kept seeing him, but now I’m starting to wonder. This kid is, I’m guessing, about 13 or 14. He is quite small and walks around with a strut as if he owned the entire town. I see him at odd hours – like tonight after the performance when I headed over to McDonalds to use the bathroom. Sometimes he is hanging out in front of a non-stop bar, and other times, just at a street corner. Tonight he was talking with some other boys who hang out in front of the McDonalds and beg for food and money. What throws me through a loop is that I’ve seen him a few times going into McDonalds and buying stuff. But, he seems to have some connection with the street kids and other assorted odd folks around town. Just the other day, he walked by the lady with the scale and she gave him a cup filled with, I’m guessing, money. Is he the kiddie mafia? I wonder if he himself is a street kid or what. What makes me think that he is not is the fact that he always has fairly nice clothing on, and he always seems to be going somewhere quickly. Odd.

So the conductor and the kid – as it is here,

A thought. Because the practice here is for teachers to circulate to rooms, I often enter a class to find the remnants of the previous lesson on the blackboard. A few times now that previous lesson has been history, and what I see on the board is a list of dates and terms. Now of course I have no idea what is being discussed, but based on the way my students react to what is written on the board, I can pretty well assume how that class went.

From the beginning I noticed that students were either writing down everything that I said, or copying what I put on the board word for word. Early in the year I decided to test this; I wrote a vocabulary word on the board, the first letter quite large, and each succeeding letter smaller. Later in the lesson, I casually circulated, eyeing students’ notebooks. Sure enough, many of them had written the word just as I had. I had neither given reason nor received question regarding my strange styling.

I’m trying to fit this small observation into a larger picture. Now, when countries are compared regarding certain educational competencies among the student population, the U.S. tends not to fare so well. Case in point is the fact that our math and science students tend to under perform their counterparts from abroad. Now, although this is oft bandied, the fact does remain that American students, by in large, tend to emerge from a decent education well suited in regards to creative, critical and independent thought. It is hard to deny our ability to foster the innovative spirit, thereby affording our students one of the greatest all around qualities they could possibly possess.

But again, there is that nagging reality that when it comes to fundamental building blocks, American students are somehow lacking. So I wonder if there aren’t two large and very different dynamics which we can ascribe to the educational process. If the American system is less concerned on fact/rote information and places a greater emphasis on personal exploration, then perhaps the result of this system will be to inspire individual creative thought to the detriment of a solid knowledge of relevant precedent. In other systems, more concerned with the learning of facts, there exists a uniform pressure among all students to get the material. Although admittedly such learning is not deep or meaningful, if facts can be appropriated for long enough, come exam time, this form of short term memorization will be rewarded.

As such, both systems have grave disadvantages. The former may not be firm enough regarding the learning of fundamentals – note this article – passing students who, while creative, lack a solid foundation for their creativity. The latter, although it stresses learning these “essentials,” does so in a way that ultimately short circuits meaningful learning, and thus does little to encourage students to move beyond the foundational stage. The first question is, which is worse, an elaborate structure lacking a solid foundation, or a solid foundation lacking anything built upon it? Of course these analogies and this entire line of thinking is simplistic, but since this is a rumination on methodology, things must be overly general. It seems that both systems sell students short in a way. But if I were to chose between the two, I’d certainly chose the former.

So how to reconcile the two? Even the most math/science/technology oriented minds need encouragement to dare and go beyond what is already known in order to truly excel. And yes, even the most artistically inclined must have a grasp of fundamental concepts and a working vocabulary relevant to any particular field of study.

This conundrum reminds me of two professors in college. On liked to ask, “what do you think?” quite often; in fact, so often, I felt that I would be perfectly content to tell myself what I thought without paying him to listen. He didn’t help lay a foundation that I felt was necessary in order to have a more meaningful discussion of what, indeed, I thought; therefore I remained hesitant in class. On the other hand, I had a professor who was so obsessed with getting out all the little factoids, that she missed many opportunities to venture into more philosophical discussions which the class so desperately wanted. In that case, one becomes resigned to passive absorption.

As a teacher myself, sometimes of American History, sometimes of “conversation,” I have to remember this often. My job as a teacher is primarily to convey information, but I want my students to 1) be able to really learn it, not just write it down exactly as I do and, 2) give them the space and incentive to build upon that which I convey. It hasn’t always worked, and I blame myself partly (this is after all my first year teaching,) but I also blame the system. Because of the unique situation I am in, my emphasis is on building creative-thinking and critical capacity. But, not receiving such impetus from their other teachers, I worry about coming across as the, “what do you think” professor.

I can’t give a pat answer to this one. Perhaps this is but a part of why teaching itself is such a challenging profession – teaching in the Peace Corps is maddening in fact. So I open this one up for comment, from teachers and lay people alike. How have you learned? What has left you excited and what has left you flat? How do you teach? What leaves your students bored and what gets them asking more after the final bell?

It’s 2:16 AM and I have class at 7:00… better go now.