A Vindictive Post
or
Seth: 1 Russian University System: 100
In my last act as a teacher at Ryazan State University, I gave a credit test on US History. I wrote the test, and it's a pretty good one, in my opinion. The only problem is that I gave it to another class of students earlier in the year. Having spent a year in the Russian academic system, I know that more than half Russian students cheat in ways that would be unacceptable in US institutions. Therefore, I should have changed the test slightly to counter the possibility that students from the previous class would leak the test. As the saying goes in Russia--they have it in Iowa, so they must have it here in Russia--"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, can't get fooled again." But I did get fooled!
At the test my foolishness was not quite great enough to miss two students in the back who I had never seen before. They explained that they should be allowed in because they had been sick. They spoke with such assurance that I thought it was a normal situation and let them take the test. About an hour into the test, I realized that most of the students had not learned the information on the test but had memorized answers they knew would be on the short answer section and the letters in the multiple choice section; the biggest clue was when I saw a student mouthing a mnemonic, "Brad And Angelina Can Do..." Well, something like that.
After a couple days of fury, I calmed down and decided to pass the students who had attended class. In my defense: 1. This was only a pass/fail class and they had done other coursework; 2. They gave some thought to their short answers and essay; 3. It's not my job to reform Russian undergraduate education.
Having come to this decision, I came to work with my zachet (pass/fail test) pen, ready to write "pass" for everyone. Almost everyone. I had done a little homework and learned that students have to show a special document to be admitted to a test if they missed an egregious number of classes. Neither of the two had the document. In addition, they didn't bother to learn the mnemonic (Jennifer Aniston fans?) or memorize the short answer answers. I think my favorite was the last multiple choice in which both chose the option "Taliban" to answer the question "Who assassinated Abraham Lincoln?" In any case, neither had come close to passing, no signing was done and they went away without a fight.
You may be asking, "Hey, but weren't these girls sick? Isn't it unfair to take your frustration with Russian education out on two sick girls?" Believe me, these girls were never sick. I mean they carried their own IVs up the stairs. Next question. "Didn't the Taliban try to assassinate Lincoln in the Jean Claude van Damme hit Timecop?" No, it didn't. As you can find in the grossly long summary of Timecop on Wikipedia, the villain of the film was a '96 presidential hopeful trying to contribute to his campaign fund by purchasing stock on the cheap during the Great Depression. I think the Taliban-Lincoln(-Booth?-Oswald?) idea has a lot of potential, though.
Saturday, June 30, 2007
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
A Belated Post on Kalmykia
As the title says, I'm about a week and a half late and much of my memory has been wiped clean after a visit to Kazan to see a buddy, Kyle. Anyway, I'll try to hit the high notes.
1. On a 40-hour train ride, bring an excuse: I took the train from Ryazan to Moscow to Elista. Elista is at the very end of the line leading to the Caucasus and I assumed that I would check out the landscape and get some reading done. The landscape from Moscow to Rostov (the first 25 hours) was roughly the same as everywhere else in European Russia and the steppe, upon which Kalmykia is situated (see the brown patch of land leading up to the Caspian Sea) is very telling but also not much to look at.
The main problem, though, was the entertainment factor. I rode in the platskart which, for the uninitiated, consists of 6 cells with 3 pairs of bunk-beds in close proximity. My two-day roommates ended up being two very nice women, a housewife and a lab doctor, a quiet married couple on the side bunk and Evgenii, a soldier. The former brought a series of crossword puzzles to amuse themselves; Evgenii brought only the standard kielbasa and a gigantic knife. As the train ride progressed, it became more and more clear that I was to be Evgenii's entertainment. After he wore out his curiousity about American life, our lady companions' travel plans and his own arsenal of jokes (two, as it was), he turned to desperate measures, including asking for a page by page summary of a novel I was reading and, after commandeering my iPod, the meaning of each song. Worst of all is that he wouldn't elaborate on his mission "to get some guys" in Elista.
2. Fulbright English and Physical Education Teaching Assistantship: The camp was designed to be a two week intensive English learning experience, which is great on one hand but a waste of summer on the other. My role at camp was teaching "American Sports Culture." After a day of a really ill-fated attempt to teach the history of baseball, I decided to take the kids (ages 11-16) outside to play sports. With only two gloves and a bat, our baseball was limited to me lobbing pitches to them. The academic ease of my class, along with my devilish good looks and rapier wit, scored me popularity points with the kids. I like to think that this led to the Kalmyk media frenzy around me, although it was more likely that my nationality and Michelle Kwan guaranteed my new found celebrity.
3. Kalmykia is an enormous fire hazard: Elista is situated on an extremely dry piece of land with sickly green grass. While I was there, the temperature topped out at about 40 Celsius (about 100 Fahrenheit) and the water service is notoriously inconsistent; water is turned off weekly in some homes and dormitories. Also, almost all men smoke and largely use wooden matches rather than lighters. All in all, this seems like a dangerous situation. This is probably why, in a rural town of 100k where roosters crow at 4am in the dead center of town, the fire department has four shining new trucks. I saw them in action, too, when a grass fire started near the school.
4. Michelle Kwan "Win One"[pronounced, "Wan"]: This was the chant that the US State Department English Language Office came up with for the kids to shout at her as she approached. My crowning achievement was vetoing it along the prospect of reading the poem of the previous post. In short, the Kwan thing was a little disappointing. Her speech sounded like a bad college admissions essay. She was also shorter than I thought she would be and, therefore, I dashed my plans to make a move on her. My favorite moment was when she was placed in the same realm as Lincoln, MLK and Putin, among others. (I think Lenin may have been thrown in.)
5. The elusive Iliumzhinov: The main disappointment, though, was not meeting Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the head of the republic. Kalmykia is growing a really solid cult of personality around Kirsan; almost all the people I talked to said the exact same thing: "Kirsan is as corrupt as any politician, but he's been good for Elista." I have my doubts about the latter, although Elista gets a ton of media recognition and, for its size and location, a robust tourist industry, all of which is based on Iliumzhinov's crazy proclamations and chess fanaticism. Even though I didn't get to shake the man's hand, I did see his famous white Lincoln Towncar at the Akvarium concert on Independence Day.
All in all, Elista was a lot of fun and a lot like the rest of Russia, if you replace Orthodox cathedrals with Buddhist temples. Here are a few pictures for good measure:
The Charm of Kalmykia: Buddhism and chess in the main square
The Main Temple
Inside the Main Temple: Big Buddha
The Magnificent "City-Chess": A condo complex oasis in the middle of a barren steppe
As the title says, I'm about a week and a half late and much of my memory has been wiped clean after a visit to Kazan to see a buddy, Kyle. Anyway, I'll try to hit the high notes.
1. On a 40-hour train ride, bring an excuse: I took the train from Ryazan to Moscow to Elista. Elista is at the very end of the line leading to the Caucasus and I assumed that I would check out the landscape and get some reading done. The landscape from Moscow to Rostov (the first 25 hours) was roughly the same as everywhere else in European Russia and the steppe, upon which Kalmykia is situated (see the brown patch of land leading up to the Caspian Sea) is very telling but also not much to look at.
The main problem, though, was the entertainment factor. I rode in the platskart which, for the uninitiated, consists of 6 cells with 3 pairs of bunk-beds in close proximity. My two-day roommates ended up being two very nice women, a housewife and a lab doctor, a quiet married couple on the side bunk and Evgenii, a soldier. The former brought a series of crossword puzzles to amuse themselves; Evgenii brought only the standard kielbasa and a gigantic knife. As the train ride progressed, it became more and more clear that I was to be Evgenii's entertainment. After he wore out his curiousity about American life, our lady companions' travel plans and his own arsenal of jokes (two, as it was), he turned to desperate measures, including asking for a page by page summary of a novel I was reading and, after commandeering my iPod, the meaning of each song. Worst of all is that he wouldn't elaborate on his mission "to get some guys" in Elista.
2. Fulbright English and Physical Education Teaching Assistantship: The camp was designed to be a two week intensive English learning experience, which is great on one hand but a waste of summer on the other. My role at camp was teaching "American Sports Culture." After a day of a really ill-fated attempt to teach the history of baseball, I decided to take the kids (ages 11-16) outside to play sports. With only two gloves and a bat, our baseball was limited to me lobbing pitches to them. The academic ease of my class, along with my devilish good looks and rapier wit, scored me popularity points with the kids. I like to think that this led to the Kalmyk media frenzy around me, although it was more likely that my nationality and Michelle Kwan guaranteed my new found celebrity.
3. Kalmykia is an enormous fire hazard: Elista is situated on an extremely dry piece of land with sickly green grass. While I was there, the temperature topped out at about 40 Celsius (about 100 Fahrenheit) and the water service is notoriously inconsistent; water is turned off weekly in some homes and dormitories. Also, almost all men smoke and largely use wooden matches rather than lighters. All in all, this seems like a dangerous situation. This is probably why, in a rural town of 100k where roosters crow at 4am in the dead center of town, the fire department has four shining new trucks. I saw them in action, too, when a grass fire started near the school.
4. Michelle Kwan "Win One"[pronounced, "Wan"]: This was the chant that the US State Department English Language Office came up with for the kids to shout at her as she approached. My crowning achievement was vetoing it along the prospect of reading the poem of the previous post. In short, the Kwan thing was a little disappointing. Her speech sounded like a bad college admissions essay. She was also shorter than I thought she would be and, therefore, I dashed my plans to make a move on her. My favorite moment was when she was placed in the same realm as Lincoln, MLK and Putin, among others. (I think Lenin may have been thrown in.)
5. The elusive Iliumzhinov: The main disappointment, though, was not meeting Kirsan Ilyumzhinov, the head of the republic. Kalmykia is growing a really solid cult of personality around Kirsan; almost all the people I talked to said the exact same thing: "Kirsan is as corrupt as any politician, but he's been good for Elista." I have my doubts about the latter, although Elista gets a ton of media recognition and, for its size and location, a robust tourist industry, all of which is based on Iliumzhinov's crazy proclamations and chess fanaticism. Even though I didn't get to shake the man's hand, I did see his famous white Lincoln Towncar at the Akvarium concert on Independence Day.
All in all, Elista was a lot of fun and a lot like the rest of Russia, if you replace Orthodox cathedrals with Buddhist temples. Here are a few pictures for good measure:
The Charm of Kalmykia: Buddhism and chess in the main square
The Main Temple
Inside the Main Temple: Big Buddha
The Magnificent "City-Chess": A condo complex oasis in the middle of a barren steppe
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
