Moscow Mania

To my students: I want to preface this blog with saying how horrifying it is for me to write to you from an Ipad in a hotel room somewhere in Moscow; I know my words will be imperfect.

I have taught you to workshop, to revise, and to interrogate your writing.  In this type of quick blogging, there simply isn't the time.  I want to let you know that I wish that I had the kind of time to polish my writing in the way that your research papers demanded of you.

OK.  Enough disclosure.

Today was our first full day in Moscow and we blew into the American Embassy where we sat for mini lectures  in economics, education,  intellectual, cultural and social values.  We were able to ask all kinds of questions about the recent changes in the political landscape in  how has that resulted in regional tensions.  

Of course we had many questions about Mr. Putin and were not surprised that he has 80 percent approval rating here in Russia. There was much upon reflection about which we should not blog from this country. 

Do look for Russia followups when I'm comfy cozy in Los Angeles and need not fear insulting my generous hosts.

Two important periods about which the embassy officers spoke having influenced modern Russia more than anything else were WWII and the 1990s.  We all know about the incredible loss of life for Russians during the war but when you hear people here talk about this chasm of death, it's a different story. Everyone lost a husband, a son, a brother or a father.  All families  were touched. 

The other impactful time was the 1990's when Russia swam in chaos, crime and corruption. It was as if Russia had been cut out of history for 60 years and didn't know what to do with all her pent up ambition.  All of the beautiful, historic seeming buildings have been more recently built.  The cinderblock apartment buildings of my imagination are somewhere in this city, but I haven't seen even one.  

To my students: when I travel like this, I'm reminded of how much I wish that I had done more right out of college.  I can't tell you what being in a country that is so different from the US does to your senses.  It's a good kind of assault.  See the video of the crazy subway crush of rush hour on your FB group page.  Practice yoga in India.  Wear warm boots Russia.  Polish your Spanish in Peru.

The Kremlin tour was boring beyond belief.  I mention this to my teacher friends because it reminds me of what we need to do in our teaching.  Our state guide went over nearly every object in the armory with facts and figures but no heft.  (Common Core? Less width, more depth?) She was completely unaware that she had lost her audience.  She delivered  straight lecture--no discussion. Shoot me if I ever do this to my students.  This experience reminded me to try to read the crowd of my classroom.  If it's not working, it's up to me as a teacher to change and to be flexible. The guide had a lesson plan and she was going to stick to it no matter what.  This doesn't work for me as a student and it shouldn't work for us as teachers.

Travel suggestion in Moscow? Find the Turkish restaurant.

Outstanding Turkish meal. 

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Mom: you were right again. It snowed today in Moscow and I was happy to have a hood. I am always reminded of what a Californoa girl I am when it's cold. And I haven't even gotten to Siberia yet. 

Russians love their Krispy Kremes. 

Old Arbat Street in Moscow or as I like to think of it just another modern Callebotte. 

Good Morning Moscow

Things that I notice about Moscow on a day when I'm almost too flight weary to notice things about Moscow:

The city is surprisingly beautiful-- at least it is near Red Square where I am staying.  I had expected Soviet Era cinderblock buildings.  Parts of Moscow look positively Parisian: especially GUM Department Store.

On that note, the Russians like everything French including pastries, perfumeries and boulangeries.  I remember Anna Karenina slicing though her French novel and speaking in front of the servants in French.  It all makes sense now.  

Milk in coffee costs extra.  I know because after arriving at 10 AM this morning with no sleep for 24 hours, I  bought my first cup of java in years.  

ATMs dispense dollars and rubles.  In my post travel haze, I made a mistake and took out dollars.    Note to self: look for the correct button in Cyrillic next time.

To that end: Cyrillic just doesn't look like English letters.  There's almost no way to figure out what something says just because it looks vaguely familiar.

Walking man on pedestrian lights flash both green and red.  Street crossers get count downs either for waiting or walking.  I like it.

Suitcases for Siberia

I've always struggled with packing before a big trip.  For me, the experience is a little like writing a paper for a history class in college.  I'd stare at the screen on my 40 pound Mac computer (remember these?) as  the cursor mocked me and blinked: a pulse light in a loud disco.

This trip has me completely stymied.  I am preparing for nearly three weeks in Eastern Europe. This is the longest that I've been away from home since Junior year abroad.  Italy was easy by comparison. I could wear sandals for most of my time and bought cute leather or silk fill ins as I needed.  I mean, it was Italy, right?  

Most of this trip I will be in Southern Central Siberia near the Altai mountain range. I am expecting wicked cold and am preparing as best an Angeleno can with scavenged wools and borrowed thermals. Truth be told, I'm relying more on perception more than reality. Barnaul, Siberia's forecast indicates between 30 and the 50 degrees--practically balmy in comparison to my mythic anxiety.

Additionally,  I am traveling with at least 20 pounds of Beverly Hills High School SWAG including t-shirts, hats, lanyards and pins. Delta cruelly limits me to 50 pounds and between the SWAG and the rubber boots that I am convinced that I'll need for the muddy Siberian village part of my trip, I don't know how to pull this together.  And so I stare at the blinking cursor of my suitcase and procrastinate by reading about Putin, scouring Facebook and writing this blog. 

The Essential Question or another kind of cupcake.

One of the ways that my program, Teachers for Global Classrooms, a program of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the US State Department, attempts to guide our Russian experience is to require that we draft an "essential question".  I like to think of it as a "goal" for travel.   I've done this before but my goals have always been dictated by food.
I am not proud of this.
For example: I traveled to New York many years ago and was guided by cupcakes.  This was in the thick of the cupcake craze and my travel partner and I journeyed all over Manhattan in pursuit of the best little iced tower of perfection.  In case you're wondering, nothing compared with Sprinkles in Beverly Hills. Last summer, in New Orleans the girls from Duke and I were guided by our treasure hunt for the quintessential beignet or donut.  The winner was, hands down, a run down looking hole in the wall called the Buttermilk Bakery.  The Buttermilk Drop Donut was so freakishly good that even a year later I can still recall the sense memory of the perfect scoop of fried dough.
Alas, Teachers for Global Classrooms will not have our stomachs lead us on this trip.  They expect us to be a bit more thoughtful about our travel than I have been in the past. After a workshop at the Washington Symposium on drafting the Essential Question, I came up with the following: What are the factors that determine the education of the Russian student? As I travel through schools, I will examine my assumptions and  ask the following questions including:
How are families supportive of the students' education?
How much of the education is dictated by the state?
How much freedom do teachers have to determine their own instruction?
What is the relationship of teachers and students?
What is the relationship of teachers and administration?  
Is there a  Board of Education and do they set policy or is the policy set locally, at the school?
What is teacher training like?
My tool for research will not be Google searches or data bases.  Rather, they will come from observation: conversations with host teachers; home visits (I hope to have some of these); faculty meetings; conversations with students and participation in school activities.
I hope to be able to at least partially answer my essential question by the end of my stay in Russia.

Is there anything more delicious than a Sprinkles cupcake?

Siberia. Gulp.

I have to admit when I first read that I was going to Siberia I felt dismay.  I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me that I'd be anywhere in Russia other than Moscow or St. Petersburg.  I felt like the missionary from Book of Mormon who upon finding out that he was being sent to Uganda, can barely contain his fear and discontent.  "Uganda? Cool" he croaks.

This was how I felt six weeks ago when I first found out that I'd be traveling to Bernaul, Sibera.  I pictured the Gulags and the Endless Steppes about which I'd read as a teenager.  I held back my tears.  I hearkened back to my freshman year at Duke in North Carolina when he weather turned frigid, I didn't know what to do with myself.  I am a California girl to the tips of my sandaled toes and don't know what to make of a destination so cold, so faraway and so frankly unknown.  I wallowed in pity for a few days and then something clicked.

This is an adventure.  I don't know of one other person who I know who has ventured to Siberia.  I will be it.  True, I was the girl who went to India by myself because I  couldn't imagine waiting just one more year for the stars to align.  But everyone in Los Angeles eventually makes it to India.  No one makes it to Sibera.  How cool is this?  How exciting?  What adventures awaits 14 time zones away?

As the Ukrainian conflict has heated up, I've become positively protective of my Siberia, or at least the concept of it.  I desperately want to be there in discovery.  When we first started hearing of American travel warnings, I prayed that my trip would not be jeopardized.  Gentle reader: it appears  a go.  My Russian domestic flight itinerary arrived on Friday.  Next week I will be in Moscow.  The following in Barnaul, Siberia.  And I can't wait to see it all.  

A street corner somewhere in Barnaul, Siberia.

Pre Siberia thoughts or why Globalize?

I leave for Siberia in less than a month.
It's hard to believe.
Over a year ago, I began my application for the Teachers for Global Classrooms, a program for teachers as part of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the US Department of State.  I almost didn't get through the application; it seemed like a hundred essays and I struggled to find time between teaching, running book groups and tending to my vegetable garden just to complete the application.
I did get into the program and then the hard work really began.  The rigorous online course reminded me of what it was to be a student again.  I muddled my through a rigorous eight week online course which introduced theory and rationale around globalizing learning and provided specific, skill based professional development in the areas of lesson planning, international project collaboration and community engagement.
And I raved to anyone whom would listen about what I was learning.
I've been interested in expanding the world of my students since I first began teaching in early 1990s at Stuyvesant High School in New York City; I wanted my students to engage with the world and I tried my best to model this behavior by taking them to the theater, museums and poetry slams.  I felt and feel that a cultured student becomes a curious adult and that this curiosity makes life worth living.
I brought in speakers for my students--from Holocaust survivors to former Japanese World War II internees to aging 1960's Civil Rights activists--and believed that because my students were hearing from history that they were engaged the the world at large.  But they were engaged in history; not in the present.
Here's what I now now for sure: globalization has changed education for good.  We must make global perspectives and competencies a requirement.  As teachers, we must prepare our students for a global future.  We must not look at the task of broadening content by embracing global competencies as secondary; these competencies need to be married to our subject matter.  I believe in expanding my students' world view, literacies and identity beyond the the border of our city, our state and our country.  I want them to understand how all of us are connected so that we can achieve in a globalized world.

On another adventure at another time: India 2012.  I can certainly handle Siberia, right?