3-1-01

Chestita Baba Marta! Yes it’s that time of year in Bulgaria to celebrate Baba Marta day and to wish each other health and luck, and also hope that Spring is coming soon. I received five “martinitsas” (small red and white tassels that you’re supposed to wear until you see the first stork) from students and other teachers. And I only taught two classes today! Some of my students wear a lot of them and others wear none at all. One of my eighth grade boys told me he was too old for the holiday. “It’s for young children”, he said. Oh.

We’ve been discussing advice this week in my eighth classes. How do we ask for advice? What do we say when we offer advice? Ever heard of Dear Abby? What are some English phrases that talk about advice? And so on . . . I have to pull lessons out of thin air every week for my eighth graders and I try to keep every week to a theme. I don’t have a book that I teach out of – I teach the “B lessons” and I can actually do anything that I want. The grammar and boring stuff is left to the Bulgarian teachers. It’s actually a freedom that becomes a little overwhelming when one begins to run out of ideas. Yesterday, I had them survey each other, asking questions like “From whom do you usually ask advice?”, “Is there ever a time you would rather ask your friends for advice than your parents?”, and “Are you the kind of person who asks for advice often or rarely?” We soon realized that most of the boys rarely asked for advice and the girls ask for advice more often. So I pushed them into a discussion, which was much more successful with the eighth class that meets at 12pm rather than the other that I see at 7:30am – go figure! The earlier 8^th class simply couldn’t get their mouths to follow what they wanted to say at that early in the morning and after torturing them with relentless “Why’s?” to every statement they said, I ended class early by about ten minutes. I kept thinking of someone asking me unrelentingly “Why” in Bulgarian at 7:30am and I had compassion on their little souls. But at the afternoon class we had a lively discussion that turned into a boy vs. girl debate. Who is smarter – boys or girls? The boy asks for advice less often, so he must be able to solve his own problems. Or is he not very smart at all because he rarely asks for advice and only trusts himself? Is the girl smarter because she explores all the possibilities by talking with her parents and friends before she tries to solve her problems? Or does she just have more problems and she’s unable to solve her problems on her own? They surprised me with some of their answers and their ability to take some pretty deep digs on each other without getting personal. Some of the answers were pretty shallow like, “Girls are just smarter than boys, that’s why.” And the whole class would erupt into simultaneous laughter and disgust. Then a boy would say something like “Girls just don’t know how to handle their own problems and they have to talk all the time.” And the class would erupt again with about three or four students’ hands shooting up into the air, wanting to speak their opinion. One girl just spouted off like I never heard her speak before, and then took an impromptu bow to her fellow females after she thought she had buried the boys in their own stupidity. The boys shot back right away with their own comments and through it all I amazingly had control over this class. I have lots of discussions with my classes – that’s mainly what I’m here to teach, conversational English, but today’s was especially fun.

From eighth class all the way through twelfth class they learn together. All their required classes they take together. So they learn English for five years is with the same kids. The teachers may come and go (which they do a lot of here), but the students know each other. Today, in the same class, two students came in late and they had to tell why they were late before they could sit down (it’s a rule in my class). And they went ahead and told me that they were at the Director’s office being disciplined for misbehaving in some other class without any fear or embarrassment of saying this in front of the other students. Not only did the director discipline them, but also the parents will be called to have a conference with the director next week – which is big potatoes here. Things like this always take me by surprise because they know that there is no use in trying to be personal (as Americans know it) because everyone will know about it anyways. Students don’t try to hide their grades from the other students and many times they shout their grades across the room to someone who is asking what they got. I would never have done that when I was in school, even if I would have aced the test. I’m not saying I like the privacy of America any better than the less private Bulgaria, or vice versa, because I’m not really sure yet. It’s true that Americans are incredibly private people with layers and layers of insulation to shelter them from peering eyes. And it’s also true that Bulgarians somehow just “know” things about you that you thought only a few people knew.

-Josh