It's been nearly a month since we've posted--life gets busy! This is a photo from earlier in October: "Teacher Day." I'm still not clear on whether they actually ordered these flowers for me or whether they were extras the Dean received and passed on to me, but in any case I was presented with these flowers as a token of appreciation for being a teacher. This is a hold-over from Soviet period--as is "Women's Day" in March.It is now over a month since I received these flowers and I am finally starting to learn the University system here. This is a highly verbal culture and little exists on paper--at least not easily accessibly. So, I've had to learn everything about the system as it happens (yes, you must assign 50% of grade to the final exam, oh, by the bye, your students will not come for the next month--they are having their practicum--and did you hear about the opening ceremony for the new regional studies center? You should come. It is tomorrow.) This system of communication works pretty well for the well-connected--which I am not yet, but hope to soon be. Email is a little spotty--cell phone text messages are good for contacting the younger set--and home phone numbers are fair game until at least 11:30 at night for anyone.
I am set to teach a graduate class on American Ethnography (Multi-cultural Studies basically) next semester as well as continuing the Modern American Lit class (on one month break for practicum as of this week!) through June. The private Univ Classes are a bit more predictable--that U was funded and set up by Turkish interests and they are more organized. The students at both schools have been wonderful. They don't all want to be in school, but as it's about the only game in town, most of them are quite respectful of my strange teaching methods--and much more open to the critical thinking work I am asking of them than I might have expected. Essays? Well... that's another challenge. But if you want to eavesdrop on my class google group discussions (mostly just answering my questions about reading so far--but 90% have written something online!):
http://groups.google.az/group/women-and-literature
On to more posts soon...
2 comments:
Alison, wow, you have your work cut out for you in so many ways! But it must also be exciting to see how these texts that you are so familiar with are received by students who's points of reference are so different than your average US college student. Thanks for sharing your class's online discussion group--that was enlightening.
I do believe the material around the flowers could easily make a party dress for Marlys!!
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