December
24, 2008
The Kyrgyz Education System and Me
This
could be a long one, ladies and gentlemen, so go to the bathroom, grab the
beverage of your choice and a snack and enjoy.
I've
been wanting to write about this for quite some time, but thought better of
posting it to my blog because I was trying to be sensitive to the citizenry of
Kyrgyzstan. We know what good that did
me.
The
other day I signed an agreement to teach at a new school, beginning January
5th. The reasons for my move are both
personal and professional. Obviously,
one of the reasons was the blog issue. I
didn't like having to censor myself, nor did I appreciate being told I was the
individual who had to change, with no effort put forth by my young Kyrgyz
co-workers to try and understand my point of view or offer any compromise
regarding the blog. Still, I was willing
to take one for the team and stay because I really like my students. But, when a teammate invades my privacy, the
entire ball club can kiss my behind. On
two occasions I gave my flash drive to my counterpart, the one person I felt I
could trust, to copy our class syllabi.
Weeks later, upon seeing the desktop of her laptop, I discovered she had
helped herself to all the files on it.
These included some of my plays and personal documents. What shocked me more than seeing them was the
fact that she didn't even hide them in a folder. I didn't even take the issue to my department
head. I immediately called my PC Program
Manager and told her to please find me a new school. Initially, she wanted to transfer me to a new
site, but I like Talas, have made some good friends and didn't want to
leave. She also explained to me that
privacy is not taken as seriously here as back in the US of A. Okay, so those are the personal reasons.
Professionally,
I wasn't being challenged enough at the U.
I felt this way even before the reasons stated above. If you're going to teach in the PC, the
university is the ivory tower. You live
in a city which means amenities like a decent bazaar, Internet connections, and
cafes and stores that carry a wider variety of foods than if you lived in a
village. You're surrounded by people who
speak English and people who want to learn it.
The levels of competency run the scale, but I speak English about 99% of
the time. If I lived in a village, I'd
be forced to learn a language I'm not too keen on and won't do me any good once
I leave here, simply because they don't have very many English speakers. (Beginning in January I'm taking Russian
classes. Finally, I'll be able to read
the menus in the cafes. And if I ever
get down to Brighton Beach...) I teach Conversational English, if you can call
sitting around chatting teaching. It's
like having my own talk show, albeit with the same guests every day. Yeah, it's the good life, relatively
speaking, but it's not enough. I was
asking the universe if it thought I would be more effective in a different
environment and voila!
My
new school is called a college. In the
States it would be most like a community college. Maybe this would be a good place to describe
the educational system in Kyrgland. Much
of it has been held over from Soviet times.
The first section of a student's career is a combination of primary and
secondary school, from Forms 1-11, equivalent to the same grades in
America. All 11 years are spent in the
same building. After 11th Form, students
can move on to a university, which is 5 years (years 12- 16 in our system) so
they graduate at 22. Or, they can leave
secondary school after the 9th Form and attend a college for 3 years. My college offers agriculture, bookkeeping,
veterinary medicine and a couple other disciplines, but I forget what they
are. After this, students usually move
on to university for their final four years.
There are also stand-alone technical and medical colleges. The young
woman who lives with us attends the medical college and is studying to be a
pharmacist.
Why
will my new job be more challenging?
Simple. At the university, most
(no, not all) of the students in the English department spoke it at some level
of being able to communicate. At the
college, the reverse is true. There is
no English Department at my new school.
And the students only take it their first two years. The third year is spent on their
specialization. Three teachers make up
the department. They each possess one
copy of a 20 year old text book from the Soviet days from which to teach. There are 3 computers in the entire school
and no Internet. My desire to teach
younger students with fewer English skills was granted. And I can't wait to begin. At the U, maybe two or four students came to
my extra classes. At the college, 40
have signed up. They are hungry for some
English. At the university, although I
love my students, they think they're God's gift to English speakers simply
because they're in the English Dept.
I
mentioned that all 11 grades are taught in the same building. Well, the students also take all their
classes all 11 years with the same classmates.
It's the Group mate system (another Soviet holdover). It stems from the collectivist culture of
Kyrgyzstan; one for all and all for one.
The problem is it doesn't foster individual thinking. The same system holds at the university. For example, my 5th course students are
divided into two sections of about 12 students each. These 12 students all take the same classes
all five years. When I asked a student a
question and they either didn't understand or couldn't think of the words to
respond in English, 8 group mates are whispering the word or response in Kyrgyz
so the student isn't embarrassed. Sounds
good, but how is that student going to learn if their group mates are always
feeding them the answers. And this is
why some students reach 5th course and can't answer “What is your favorite
food?” Their listening skills are
non-existent because they've never had to listen. Their group mates listen for them. I hope I can have a positive impact with the
younger students so that when they get to 5th course they can hold a
conversation with someone in English.
Alone.
Two
more things and I'll wrap this up. One,
there is no such thing as an elective.
If you decide to enter the English Department, you will study English, a
second foreign language (most take Russian or German) and how to become a
teacher. That's it. The students have no other options. The curriculum is set for their entire 5 years. I understand this is going to change in the
near future, but “near” in Kyrgyzstan could mean years. Two, grades don't mean
squat in this country for several reasons.
Living
in New York I learned that everything is available for a price and if you're
willing to pay it, it's yours. (I had a
boss who wanted to see The Lion King so badly—back when the performances were
sold out months in advance—paying $500 a ticket to see it within two weeks was
worth it to him.) Same thing takes place
here, but on a smaller scale. I've heard
of students who never attended a SINGLE CLASS for five years, but were standing
on the stage on graduation day after their fathers visited the school. If the teachers were paid a decent salary,
they wouldn't have to supplement their income, if you know what I mean.
The
grades here run from 1-5, with 5 being an A.
Get a 3 or above and you pass.
Translated into numbers, the bottom of the 3 range (a C in the States) is
56 (78 in the States back when I was in school). So, you only need to know half of the
material to pass. I had students that
didn't reach that level so I gave them a 2.
By the time that grade reaches the official grade book, that 2 will take
on a new shape: 3. Like it even matters. One student's appearance at the final—a 5
minute oral exam—was her first since the first class of the semester. I had no idea what grade to give her, zero
was out of the question, so I asked her.
She said, with a straight face, “A three.” Okay.
Many
female students get married while they attend university, some as young as 18.
They usually have a child fairly quickly.
When they do, they quit coming to school. Example. I had a student who dropped out two
years ago because she got married and gave birth. Then she had another child. This semester she decided to return to
school. Did she pick up where she left
off? Nope. She left in 2nd course, her group mates are now in 4th course, and
so is she. She lost 3 semesters of
schooling and will never recover those lost classes. That's because of the group mate system. I must ask someone what logic is behind this
practice.
So,
between group mates feeding answers, not having to make up for courses missed
and (allegedly) paying for grades, you can understand how someone in the English
Department can get to graduation day without being able to hold a simple
conversation in English. On the other
hand, the system works well for the motivated students, just like anywhere. I have met several legitimate highly
educated, multi-lingual graduates in my short time here.
What
I've tried to do is describe the Kyrgyz system so you can compare. Nothing I have written has been fabricated or
exaggerated. And lest you think I'm
letting the United States off the hook, we all know there are schools in
America that are grade factories and teachers will give students grades they
don't deserve for various reasons (you know what I'm talkin' about), and we
have plenty of unmotivated students, etc.
No system is perfect, but some are better than others.
The move to the new school definitely improved my
teaching skills. I learned to be more patient and realized the students almost
always knew less than I thought they would; even the simplest words and phrases
confounded them. ‘What is your favorite (color, food)?’; ‘How old are you?’; ‘Where
do you live?’ are just a few. By the time I began teaching in China I was
well-prepared to start with basics, as in a few classes I felt the room was
full of primary school students instead of English majors. That said, their
English was miles ahead of my Chinese.
