TEFL Adventures: Hiking through the wilderness of Russia

My last blog post talked about how the school year was all but over. The only thing that kept the year from ending was a final camping trip for sixth grade and an international camp + camping trip for ninth grade. I didn’t participate in the international camp, which included students from Israel, Estonia and Georgia, as I was on the sixth grade camping trip that took place at the same time.

The trip itself wasn’t that bad. It last from roughly 10:30 am Monday to 3:00 pm Friday, including travel time to-and-from the general hiking locations. In order to participate in the trip, I needed a couple essential items, namely a tent, sleeping bag and sleeping pad. I succeeded in acquiring these few crucial necessities, mainly through Paulina having a friend who owned all three items which I was allowed to borrow in exchange for two pomegranates.

Since my family had gone camping before, I was relatively experienced enough to limit myself to packing only what I needed, which included: one set of extra clothes, a pair of socks for every day of camping, toothbrush, toothpaste, notepad, pencil and first aid kit. Flashlights weren’t required because we are currently experiencing ‘white nights’ in St. Petersburg, which simply means the sun doesn’t fully set and you can see fairly well at night.

I splurged a little by including a small jar of JIF Extra Crunchy Peanut Butter and a bag of marshmallows in the hopes that I could make a fluffernutter. I didn’t need to worry about packing food for the trip because my school provided it all (however, they didn’t mention the students would be cooking the food themselves… I barely survived this week-long experience).

But enough of the intro here. Here’s how my five days went:

Monday - Arrival

Woke up fairly late at 9:30. Got to the school with my packed backpack at 10:00 where I discovered I packed the smallest bag of everyone in the group. They had legitimate hiking backpacks which would do well on the Appalachian Trail whereas I had my simple but trusty Camelbak that my dad gave me as a christmas gift about seven years ago. The bus ride to the first campsite was easy enough but once we arrived, the students prepared the first meal. It was here that I learned I hadn’t packed three items that I needed… a spoon/fork, a cup and a bowl. I happened to get lucky though. I grabbed a very small plastic spoon for peanut butter at the very last moment when I was at school and some extra small plastic cups had been packed as well. I proceeded to use that spoon for the rest of the week whereas I would trade the plastic cup I had for a new one once every two days. It felt like the epitome of camping to me as I used that cup for salad, cereal, coffee, tea and more. It sounds easy but the cup was REALLY small. Still, other students got to work chopping wood, which included cutting down three dead trees to use for the cooking fire. Then when the teachers and students went on an excursion for three hours, I was left to watch the camp.

Tuesday - The Long Wait

I’ve titled this day ‘The Long Wait’ because I really did have a long wait. The students and teachers went on a ten-hour excursion and left me to watch the camp so that nothing could have been stolen. The problem with this plan was that since I was alone, if someone, or something, attacked, no one, and I mean no one, would have heard my screams. Moreover, as I’m strongly connected to my Chromebook and my phone, not having access to them for long periods can be slightly challenging if I don’t have something else engaging my mind (imagine the Doctor Who episode called ‘The Power of Three’ and how much the Doctor had a problem keeping himself from being bored too quickly. He couldn’t last 30 minutes. I had 10 hours…). I was slightly lucky though since I had a pencil and notepad. I spent most of my wait drinking through a large pail of hot/warm coffee and writing different notes and reflections and plans in this notepad. It was a pleasant way of putting thoughts to paper, but the one challenge to this was that strong winds were hitting me all day. And when I got tired of writing and drinking coffee, I would chop more wood. I chopped more wood that day than I have in my entire life. And when the students finally arrived, heavy rain arrived. Such is life…not to mention, my notepad and I still smell like wood smoke and it’s been almost a week since that day.

Wednesday - The First Hike

It came time to pack up camp on Wednesday and make our first relocation. I thought the walk was generally good but many of the students found it very difficult, in part because their bags were very heavy (one student had two or three extra pairs of shoes packed). I’m not sure if it was the choice of the students in terms of what they packed, or the choice of very concerned parents. It’s probably more likely the latter but the former is also funny. We hiked about nine kilometers in the end, but the hardest part was probably the fact it rained half the time, which made it harder to climb up and down hills that then had soft ground.

At one point, we walked through a highway construction area that didn’t have any construction workers, which really made me think this would have been an excellent setting for a scene from a zombie apocalypse movie.

Once we arrived at our new camp, we got set up and split off into separate directions. Some students went on either an excursion to a beach with red sand or they went fishing. Once again though, I found myself watching camp again, chopping some more wood and drinking tea or coffee. And when the kids returned, I played a short round of volleyball with them. I say short because it wasn’t really volleyball (they have no skills in volleyball).

Thursday - On the Road Again

It was time to wake up and pack up. We hiked another nine kilometers, but it was easier due to the lack of large hills. There was still more rain but it was much less. The only major highlight here was the need for me to hide the snickers and sugar cubes because the students kept eating them. One student ate about 25 sugar cubes in an hour (and when he grabbed one when he thought I wasn’t looking, he yelled, ‘Ah-ha! I am God!”). The children probably tried to eat so many sugar cubes because they were inactive at camp. They had three hours of free time but they just played ‘mafia’ the entire time (for the record, I really hate that game).

Friday - Going Home

It was a fairly short day. All that stood between us and the bus home were three kilometers and the need to pack up camp. This was harder than it seems because instead of packing up, the students just played more mafia… боже мой.

Now I’ve got about two weeks left before I go back to America for a 2.5 week vacation. I’m mostly looking forward to it. The only painful part will be the incredibly long flights there and back again.

As a final note, this camping trip reminded me of a short story about my science teacher from junior high school. When he was young, he was a boy scout and during one summer camping trip, he decided to cook eggs using a brand-new metal pan that his mother had bought him prior to the trip. One day, while the other scouts were waiting for the scout leader to finish making the eggs for everyone, he felt really cool as he was cooking his own eggs. However, it was this very morning that he learned about how well metal conducts heat, for his new metal frying pan also had a metal handle and he wasn’t wearing an oven mitt or glove. So just as his eggs finished, the handle suddenly got too hot for his hand and he dropped the pan, with his eggs, into the fire.

TEFL Adventures: My Reflections on my first year in Russia

Riiiiiiiiiiiing!!! Summer! School's out!

Well, I can at least say that summer is here and school is out. However, I can only imagine the sound of a ringing bell signaling the end of the school year as, unfortunately, our school doesn't have one. Still, a guy can dream, can't he?

Now that the academic year has come to a close, it's time for some reflection time regarding the past 10 months. I've still got another two weeks left on the job for this month as both sixth grade and ninth grade have camping trips, but, for all intents and purposes, my job for the year is finished and summer vacation starts.

In many ways, it's crazy that I'm having my first true period of summer vacation since high school. Every summer at Dartmouth, I was either working or taking classes. As for last summer, I essentially worked a month house-sitting and pet-sitting for my parents before spending the rest of the time prepping for my move to Russia. But now, two months of relaxing *I hope* summer vacation, with 16 days in America.

As for the past year, a lot has happened for better or worse:

• GOOD - I no longer need glasses or contacts as I had LASIK surgery in December. It feels great to not have to worry too much about vision problems. 
• BAD - But I will need reading glasses when I reach my mid-40s. I just hope they make me look smarter than I am.
• GOOD - I've become much healthier the past year with plenty of football matches, basketball games and morning exercise. I'm slowly returning to the physical fitness I had in high school.
• BAD - The injuries I've occurred during said physical fitness training. This includes one set of bruised ribs, a couple of bruised knees, some gashes and twisted ankles.
• GOOD - I've almost completely overcome my addictions to Diet Coke and Kraft macaroni & cheese.
• BAD - I've substituted my Diet Coke addiction for a coffee addiction (about 5 cups a day). Also, I miss certain commonly found American items such as mozzarella cheese that is either extremely expensive or hard to find here due to sanctions.
• GOOD - Forming either friendships with work colleagues or at least becoming cordial with each other. We can hold conversations but they're limited by my ability to communicate in Russian.
• BAD - Work drama... but thankfully the three main people that caused said work drama are all gone.
• GOOD - Acquiring a lot of experience planning and teaching full 45-minute lessons. It's taught me over time how important attention to detail is. (I had a lot of it in high school but this attention decreased in university.)
• BAD - Sometimes wondering if my students ever actually retain the knowledge. The stronger ones do but the weaker ones seemingly don't. Still, it's a challenge to try and overcome.

I should probably end this list at five good things and five bad things. I could go on for a few more bullets but I imagine you'll get bored over time. As an aside, I am thinking of buying an oven in order to prepare some of the oven-using recipes I learn about and watch via Gordon Ramsay's and Jamie Oliver's YouTube channels.

I am looking forward to next year though. I'm supposed to be going on a study trip with our new students to the Crimea in late August to early September. While there, I'll be teaching my own small English lesson program (about six classes for 30 minutes each). When we return from the Crimea, we'll resume classes as normal.

Regarding English clubs for the different grades, 10th grade will focus on preparation for international exams like PET (Preliminary English Test), IELTS/TOEFL (International tests for universities) and so on. 7th grade will prepare for their education trip to England in April, so they'll be learning about English culture, cuisine, history and so on. As for 5th grade, that has yet to be determined. But considering their elementary level of English, it will probably be something on the funner and easier side.

As always, if you have individual questions for me, go ahead and write me as my summer will be on the slower and more relaxing side once I return from America. I'm not planning on traveling very much between late July to when I leave for Crimea. Consequently, I'll be living in cafes (*cough-cough* Starbucks *cough-cough*) and trying to finish one of my many novel projects. Since I haven't contacted any publishers with any of my storyline ideas, I'll probably just self-publish through Amazon's self-publishing Kindle service. Wish me luck! I hope I have one, maybe two, full novels finished by the time my summer vacation is over.

TEFL: The Final Performance - Flag Day

If you've read some of the more recent postings on this blog, you'll see I talked about writing a short theater script about Flag Day - or to be more correct, the history of the flags of different countries, namely America, Canada, the United Kingdom and Russia.

We finally performed the play last Thursday and from what I was able to gather, it was pretty well received. We added one additional scene to the actually play and that was a short scene of Betsy Ross sewing the American flag according to the request of George Washington. Since we had a student who was willing to play a female for the play, we figured, "why not?" It turned out to be the best decision we made this term in theater as this scene was probably the best, and funniest, scene. Watching my student shout "Husband! Help!" after having sung "Red stripe. White stripe. Red Stripe. White Stripe." almost made me die from laughter like the rest in the audience.

This picture is from our brief reenactment of Francis Scott Key writing his famous poem "The Defense of Fort McHenry," which would become the lyrics of America's national anthem. It went well acting wise and I think the audience understood what was happening as we wrote a short slide explaining the action in Russian. The part that had me most worried was when I had the student playing Key start reading his poem and fade out as I gradually introduced the anthem being sung (I used a version performed by the US Military Academy choirs). I really hoped that playing the whole anthem wouldn't make the scene drag and in the end, I don't think it did.

You may not be able to tell but this is the Canadian scene. Since Canada's "Great Flag Debate" occurred in the 1960s, it was hard to find appropriate costumes. I actually did pick out some vests from our small costume room that they could wear (the kind of vests you can wear with a suit jacket), but the students essentially wore the closest thing on hand. This scene had a small hiccup as the students shouted "aye" and approved the wrong flag... 

And here's our very brief presentation about England. To represent how King James of Scotland accepted the English crown, united Scotland with England and became King James of Great Britain, we had a bishop crown the 'King' while I read the section that explained how the UK flag is a combination of the flags of Ireland, England and Scotland.

Our King did look as if he was mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth I. His surprising somber yet semi-royal look surprised some audience members into chuckling.

After the play was probably more chaotic than the play itself or even the final last-second preparations before the play. This was mainly due to me having organized a small barbecue of sausages, juice, kvass and cookies. I purchased 56 sausages for people, expecting about each could have at least 2 sausages. However, my students devoured them within minutes (not joking, I would put the sausages on my little grill and have just enough time to sear them before the students themselves pulled the sausages off to eat them).

Next year, we won't be doing English theater, but since the soon-to-be 7th class will be going to England for its study trip, we'll spend most of the year preparing for England and learning about English culture. I've already started researching the topic and I'm devising a lesson plan which I hope will either be fun or interesting enough that the students won't have a problem focusing.