Part 8: Edumacation September 15, 2011

So far my blog has focused on my travels because, frankly, that’s what most people are interested in.  However, being a teacher, I often contemplate institutions of learning and methods.  Some of you may know that Albert Einstein is one of my favorite people.  Part of this is probably a relic from my years as a physics teacher.  After all, he was THE physicist.  Relativity?  Brilliant.  Plus, he never did a single experiment outside of his head, yet experiments done by other scientists confirmed his theories.  Very cool and imaginative.  Not necessarily words most people associate with theoretical physics, but they are extremely accurate adjectives.  The other reason I like Einstein so much is for his philosophical quotes.  They range from the funny (“I have reached an age when, if someone tells me to wear socks, I don’t have to.”) to the profound (“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”)

Einstein was extremely critical of formal learning.  Contrary to popular belief, Einstein was not a poor student; however, he was not impressed with the methods used for educating people at the time.  Although he has many good quotes on education, I am going to focus on the following, “It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.”  

To satisfy our curiosity is the very reason education was invented.  Are we now killing curiosity with its supposed remedy?  These days it seems that the best schools have the “hardest” classes.  Newsweek’s “America’s Best High Schools” (I used to teach at a school on this list on that list, by the way) are chosen in large part based on how many students take AP tests, the scores on those tests, and how many AP courses are offered by the school (these 3 make up 40% of the criteria when schools are being ranked).  Are AP and similar “hard” classes really the be all end all of a good education?   Does it foster curiosity or a desire to memorize the answer?  Based on my experience, it is definitely the latter.  Kids want to do well and they take the challenge head on, but many are not in these classes to satisfy their curiosity, but so they can have “better opportunities” and a “good education” as defined above.  Or, they just want college credit. 

“The process of scientific discovery is, in effect, a continual flight from wonder.”  Oh, Al, how right you are.  I know the wonder of science.  But, I’m one of those super nerds that reads National Geographic and Einstein quotes in my free time.  I have to stop and wonder sometimes, am I taking my students on a “continual flight from wonder,” or am I making them memorize DNA base-pairing?  Granted, in science, there has to be some memorization of information in order to comprehend processes, but sometimes we become too focused on it.  Time is short.  Labs are messy.  Time is short.  I don’t have the materials.  Time is short.  I have to cover every single thing in the curriculum and….. Time is short. 

Time is short in every school, but the schedule I’ve been presented with in Bulgaria is so different!  I see my students once a week for a block.  That’s it.  Granted, they take biology for three years in this fashion, but still, one class a week?  I’m already feeling the time crunch.  And labs?  That could take up almost an entire block, which might put me behind on my syllabus.  I can feel myself strangling the curiosity already (or what’s left of a typical 11^th grader’s curiosity after 11 years of schooling). 

The classes these kids take are hard, and they take a lot of them.  But, are we really serving them as well as we could be?  What about creative thinking and lab design?  The freedom to explore a topic that interests you a little more without the fear of not making it through every single item on the syllabus? 

Steve Keil gave a lecture called A manifesto for play, for Bulgaria and beyond.  He talks about Bulgaria’s last place finishes in education, entrepreneurship, and healthcare and his hypothesis that the country devalues “play.”  More specifically, an education system that values “rote learning, memorization, and standardization” and devalues “self expression, self exploration, questioning creativity, and play.”  He blames it on a virus left by 45 years of communism.  However, is it really that different in the US?  Granted, in the US I never had to fill out what I teach each and every day in a huge ledger for the government, but standardization?  Memorization?  Hmm, I seem to remember taking some time each year to make sure my kids knew (i.e. memorized) what was on the state assessment for No Child Left Behind.  Granted, that was only a few hours out of the year.  The rest of the time I was free to teach as I pleased, but in some schools, especially lower performing schools, the tests can rule the curriculum. 

In the end, wouldn’t it be better to cover fewer topics in more detail, giving teachers and students alike more time to explore and satisfy curiosity?  Classes should certainly still be challenging and demanding, but according to WH Schmidt, “curriculum in America is “a mile wide and an inch deep.”  So we learn a little about a lot. It would be better to learn a lot about a little (or, you know, less).  Maybe then, kids would get a chance to think and imagine.  Maybe then, Einstein wouldn’t be such a singularity.    

“Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.” –Albert Einstein

Part 7: Sozopol September 3-6, 2011

Apparently, sudden holidays leading to four day weekends are a common occurrence in Bulgaria.  Well, at least more common than in the U.S. where they never happen.  So, for my first four day weekend, I decided to join the group going to Sozopol, a town on the Black Sea Coast.  Sozopol is another ancient town founded by Thracians 4,000 years ago.  The name was changed to Apollonia after the Greeks moved in 611 BC.  After some additional invasions, the name was changed to Sozopol in 330 AD.  Like all Bulgaria, the country in charge varied over the years but it is now a great town with several great examples of Turkish inspired Black Sea architecture.

Things started off with misfortune when one of my roommates, who was supposed to transport some of us in her car, Britney Spears, woke up with a fever.  Being adaptable as we are, we ended up taking a 6.5 hour bus ride through the lovely Bulgarian countryside, to Burgas, where we caught another bus to Sozopol. 

Upon arriving, our hotel, told us that due to some online booking malfunction, our rooms were double booked and we would be staying at the Relax Hotel (yes, that is actually the name.  I’ll give you a moment to sing the song to yourself…) just across the street.  Now, it is important to remember that we had booked two triple rooms at the original hotel and we were put into three double rooms at the new hotel.  More on that later.

We headed out in search of rations and ended up at this restaurant overlooking the beach.  Sea breezes, pleasant weather… how did you spend your weekend?  I managed to get some spaghetti sans cheese and then we went back to Relax to sleep. 

The next morning we ate the interesting continental breakfast where I ended up with warm milk on my cornflakes.  Lesson learned:  always test the milk.  My roommate and I then headed down to the beach to swim.  I have a weird complex about aquatic plants touching me, but it wasn’t too bad and the water was really clear (yet I still tripped on a rock and scraped up my shin).  Also, I learned the following about beachwear in Europe:  1.  It’s optional.  2.  If you choose to wear something, a thong, bikini, or Speedo is acceptable regardless of weight or age. 

After our swim, I headed into town with two other members of the group where we were shortly stopped by cheesecake and coffee (them) and ice cream (me).  It was delicious.  After finishing our sugar, we looked around several art galleries around the town and walked back to our hotel along the old fortress wall. 

At the hotel, I watched the Bulgarian folk channel, which only shows folk singing and dancing.  That night we went out and had pizza because we were getting a little tired of Bulgarian cheese food.  After dinner we checked out some artists’ stands and what was taking place at the Apollonia music festival.  We found a jazz piano/guitar duo that was playing and went to hear them play.  Although I can’t remember their names, the pianist is Bulgarian and quite famous (and really good). 

The next morning, after some bad Relax breakfast, my roommate and I went for a swim again, where I was stung by a jelly fish on my hip.  I had no idea jelly fish lived in the Black Sea. Checking its biology beforehand didn’t occur to me.  It was not as painful as my last jelly fish sting, but I’m starting to think I should swim exclusively in fresh water. 

After recovering, we headed back into town where I got ice cream (again) before we headed off to look at more art.  A couple of us were really interested in buying a painting while we were there.  I bought a really nice one in the impressionist style of a water scene in the ugliest frame I have ever seen.  I will be replacing it soon.  That afternoon I walked all around Sozopol’s old town and took a lot of pictures. 

For dinner, we ate Chinese food and followed it up with the Sentimental Swingers show at Apollonia.  It was fantastic.  Everyone in the audience was bobbing and swaying to the music and the band was great. 

When we got back, the Relax receptionist explained to us that we still needed to pay for one of our rooms, which was weird because supposedly the other hotel had taken care of us.  Apparently, we were not supposed to get three rooms.  How we were supposed to know is beyond me, seeing as how our original hotel took care of the arrangements.  According to the people in my group who managed to straighten it out, Relax was going to call the police on us the next morning.  Our original hotel paid for all but one night and so we thankfully stayed out of Bulgarian jail by paying an additional 10 leva. 

We left without breakfast the next morning.  I haven’t skipped breakfast, unless I was sick, once in the past 25 years.  I was not a happy camper.  Luckily, someone in my group had a granola bar.  I must have looked bad because he pretty much handed it to me without asking if I actually wanted it.  It was a good thing too, since I saw a toddler with a pretzel a minute later and I probably would have knocked him down and taken his bread.  We did stop for breakfast before getting on the 6.5 hour train back to Sofia.  I was very antisocial and glad to be home by the time it was over, but I also really enjoyed the weekend. 

Part 6: The Sit Down Shower and the Language Barrier

Two of the showers in my house are not actually showers, but are bathtubs under steeply sloped ceilings that prevent you from standing.  However, they do have shower heads.  Therefore, you sit while you shower.  Well, my first and possibly only sit down shower ended in excruciating pain. 

I mostly just wanted to quickly wash the dirt off my feet since I had been walking around outside barefoot, as usual.  I came in, sat in the shower and successfully washed off my feet and legs and then I went to stand up.  Now, anyone who knows me even marginally well knows I am extremely clumsy and I have the scars to prove it.  As I stood up I clipped my hip on the faucet so hard that I almost cried.  I had to lay down in the tub and recover for about a minute before carefully trying to stand again.  I now have a lovely bruise that sets right under any bag I try to carry over my shoulders. 

In that same bathroom is a toilet (shocking, I know) that was continuously running.  My roommate attempted to fix it with a rubber band, but it turns out that the inside of a Bulgarian toilet is not very similar to its American counterpart.  I looked inside and immediately asked about the whereabouts of the flapper.  So, with the leak stopped by good old fashioned American ingenuity and MacGyver like rubber band skills, I submitted a work order to have the toilet fixed.  It didn’t leak, but it also didn’t flush. 

A brief couple of hours later, the doorbell rang and the maintence men entered Pink house and headed up to assess the damage.  I reliably know about 5 words in Bulgarian, one of them being “Bulgarian,” and none of those words were used by those men.  From the downstairs I could hear them discussing the situation, and while I didn’t understand a single word that was said, I’m pretty sure at least one comment was made on the rubber band that either started or ended with “women.” 

Soon they were coming downstairs and apparently needed to communicate some information to me.  They came in and started speaking Bulgarian and when they were met with my puzzled expression, rolled their eyes and laughed a little and tried to go for one word:  Utro.  Also, not one of my five.  So, they laughed and turned to my roommate, added some hand jestures and again said, “utro.”  My roommate responded with, "Water?"  More laughing and they gave up and left.  We went upstairs and noticed the toilet was still not operational. 

We joked that utro was probably some sort of flirty pick-up line.  Maintainence guys:  Utro (roughly translated by us:  Hey baby, what are you doing later?).  Roommate response:  Water???? 

At the new teacher meeting the next day, I asked one of the new Bulgarian teachers what Utro meant.  Apparently it means morning, which makes sense, since they came back in the morning and finished our toilet.  And now, my word count has gone up to six.