Images From My Day Job

A girl from the first grade who danced in traditional Adjaran dress
at the March 1st International Woman's Day Celebration

Greetings from a suddenly warm Kobuleti in April! I'm working on a longer post right now – with music! – from my trip to the Mingrelian-speaking region of Georgia last weekend. In the meantime, though, I wanted to share some photos from my work teaching English at Public School No. 3. Now, if I had to rank my reasons for traveling to Georgia, the top two would be hearing/learning music and absorbing/involving myself in the culture. Teaching English is certainly encompassed in the latter, though it wasn't the prime mover in this whole adventure. All that said, the challenges and rewards of teaching have surprised me. The system here requires some adjustment for someone used to public schools in Newton, Massachusetts: particularly the emphasis on reading and rote memorization, to the detriment of speaking or functional vocabulary, as well as the precarious discipline, with students rarely waiting to be called on or staying quiet while other students speak or read, and prevalent copying and other, more subtle, forms of cheating. I do what I can to share my values, especially when it comes to listening when someone else is speaking, and generally having respect for one's peers, but whenever I feel myself getting too schoolmarm-ish, wearing out the Georgian words for "be quiet!" "sit down!" or "repeat after me!" I remember that the most important thing I can share with these children is my own wonder at the power of language, and the joy of discovery when some element of a foreign tongue clicks into place in your mind.

I'm the one in dark green.
Also my beard is much fuller than any 10th grader's.

I've also been able to be involved with the students a little bit outside of class. My classes with the tenth grade (the oldest students I work with in class) usually dissolve into discussions about things like sports, movies, travel, and books (which is really what I think is most useful anyway – casual conversation), and one day they asked if I liked to play basketball. Apart from soccer, my love for which I rediscovered at Double Edge Theatre, basketball is the game I have played the most in my life, and have had the most, if still moderate, success. I'll spare you my play-by-play account of my championship-winning basket at Boston College Basketball Camp in 1995. Anyway, I had been looking for some ways to get some exercise, and I happily took up the class's offer to play basketball with them after school. Since then I've played three three-on-three games with them, and it's been a lot of fun. I've lost whatever shooting touch I once had, but I still try to play lock-down defense of the old Bill Cowens-Celtics school. I am also unafraid to exploit my height advantage over the 15-year-olds.

My thanks to the student who took this great photo,
capturing a moment when I had no idea whom to pass to.

I've also started meeting with a group of students interested in more English conversation. This has been fun, though despite most of the students I talk to telling me they want to join this "club," every Monday it's usually just four girls and a boy from the seventh grade. But I think their English is definitely improving! I'm at the beginning of the extended Easter holiday now. No school today (Monday) and then no school from this Thursday through next Tuesday. My travels during this period should be fun – tomorrow I head to Guria, a region famed for its complex polyphony, to meet Tristan Sikharulidze, a revered song master and leader of the group Shalva Chemo, which I had the pleasure of hearing in concert in, of all places, Ashfield, Massachusetts last April. Here's a recording of the group, a traditional Gurian trio:

After that, I plan to go to Gelati Monastery, near the major city Kutaisi, to attend Orthodox Easter services (the feast day in the Julian calendar being a week offset this year from the Gregorian). The monastery is in a famously beautiful location, and its choir is known for maintaining a certain ideal of Georgian chant. I'm quite excited. I promise much musical material from these next trips!

On an after-school outing to a park in town,
with my co-teacher Sopi and one of the sixth-grade classes
(also the photographer's thumb)