In this series , Lindsay shares her adventures teaching health to 5th-11th graders and, more importantly, the lessons she learns from them.
Dec. 14-6: End of Semester Test
Yeesh, I feel wrong wrong dirty and wrong. I just helped a student cheat.
“Cheating” has a whole different connotation for students here, and it stems from the community-centric culture that is Moldova. In a rural Moldovan village, you can’t do anything on your own — survive the winter, manage your crops, teach your children. You need your neighbors and your family to help you harvest, plow, pickle, cut, organize, wash or fix. In the last six months, I’ve watched my host families call friends over to harvest apples, make juice, kill farm animals for food and shell beans. If you want to eat, you need friends.
I see this mentality creep into my classroom. When you need help, you lean on those around you – even when that means asking others to do your homework. In October, we taught our lesson on time management, and Dorina, my partner teacher, told this story to illustrate: Once there was a boy named Ion. He had many friends. One day, one friend said, “Hey, Ion! You are so good at math. Would you do my homework for me?” Ion said, “Sure!” Then, another friend said, “Hey, I have an art project due tomorrow. Would you draw something for me?” Ion said, “Sure!” Then, another friend said, “Hey, my teacher wants me to read this book. Can you do it and tell me what it is about?” Ion said, “Sure!” Only later did Ion realize, by taking on all this work, he had made it impossible to get anything done! And that is why it is important to learn to say no to better manage your time.
I just shook my head in disbelief every time Dorina told this story. If I was teaching a lesson to American kids, I’d have used examples like volunteering at a home for the elderly, making cookies for the holiday party, and auditioning for the school play to explain the consequences of taking on too much – not doing someone’s homework.
This week, I’m giving the end-of-semester test, and my biggest struggle is to keep kids from giving each other the answers. They don’t try to hide it, and they don’t seem to understand why I get upset when they lean over and whisper the answer to their neighbor. Older students just laugh in my face when I ask them to keep their eyes on their own paper.
In the middle of the 5th grade’s test, an older student asked me to step outside. I of course couldn’t; the kids would give up whispering and just start shouting the answers. I went to the door and asked what she wanted. She said she had to write an English essay and needed help. Knowing she was really asking me to write it for her, I told her I would be happy to read what she wrote and help where I could. She stared at me angrily, turned abruptly and left.
I’d hoped word would spread: Ms. Lindsay is not going to do our work for us. But then, Dorina called. “Please, Lindsay,” she said, “would you please write an essay tonight for my son and email it before tomorrow morning? In English?”
I just couldn’t say no. Dorina has led me by the hand through the Moldovan education system and explained in depth when I ask about politics, culture and language. She buys me cookies and croissants so I don’t get hungry at school. She invited me to her father’s funeral to expose me to a new Moldovan ritual.
I thought I was exempt from the “If you want to eat, you need friends” rule. Apparently, I’m not. I wrote the essay – half a page on conflicts between older and younger generations. I feel sick about it, like Mrs. Gillum from my 6th grade class is going to tell me she is disappointed in me. But I keep reminding myself: This is why I am here. I wanted to become part of a new community. I wanted to have to rely on others and be relied upon.
I wanted to be part of something. And now, I am.
So tomorrow, I’ll probably tone down the No Cheating routine. My job is to teach lessons, and tomorrow’s lesson will be: If your neighbor can help, let them. It’s the only way we’ll all make it.
Nov. 30-Dec. 2: Gender Roles
The Romanian language is split into genders, just like French or Spanish. For example, masă, or table, is feminine while scaun, or chair, is masculine. I introduce myself as a profesoară, not a profesor, because I am a woman. This makes teaching gender roles to my 5th-7th grades this week difficult, as the very words I speak have an assigned gender.
Usually, the masculine and feminine versions of a word have the same meaning. I may be an americancă and you may be an american, but we are both Americans and the ă doesn’t change that. However, one major exception is one of the most all-encompasing gender roles we have here: gospodar v. gospodină.
Both mean, “one who takes care of the house,” but the jobs that come along with one exclude those of the other. A gospodar chops firewood, makes wine, fixes windows and feeds the animals. A gospodină cooks, cleans, washes clothes and takes care of the kids. (An American friend of mine tells Moldovans who ask why she isn’t married, “Well, I need a man to be a gospodar AND a gospodină, and I haven’t found one yet!”)
So as I began the class, asking kids to write either “masculine” or “feminine” under a series of words — president, crying, making wine, baking bread, taxi, patience, children, director, alcoholic, going to church, car — I was amazed at how many assigned gender roles came from the gospodar/dină split. According to my students, the word “sports” is masculine because men have to be strong to be gospodars, but “crying” is feminine because taking care of children makes you emotional. “Making a fire” is the duty of the gospodar, my students said, despite the fact that everyone in my home, including me, is responsible for keeping up the fires that heat our rooms and bathwater in the winter.
Here are three scenes from this week’s classes on gender roles:
Teacher: Who determines gender roles?
Student 1: The man. He is he head of the family.
Teacher: No. Try again.
Student 2: God.
–
Teacher: Now, you all said “making wine” is masculine. Why?
Student 1: Because they like to drink it.
Teacher. But you said “baking bread” was feminine. Do only women eat bread?
Student 2: No, men eat and drink it all!
–
Teacher: Why is the word “president” masculine?
Student 1: Because men are stronger.
Student 2: Because men take care of their country.
Student 3: Because it is writen that only men can be president.
Teacher: Where is it written? That is not a law here.
Student 3: Oh. Well, men are stronger.
Teacher: Then why is “alcoholic” also masculine?
Student 4: Because they drink more.
Teacher: And why is “crying” feminine?
Student 5: Because they cry more. All of the problems are on their head – taking care of children, keeping up the home.
Teacher: And we still believe that men are stronger?
Silence.
(UPDATE: This story was chosen as ThirdGoal.org’s Story of the Week! Click here to find out more.)
Nov. 16-18: Stress and Depression
First, I take the kids outside and we get in a circle. I tell them stress is a word from the English language that means “pressure.” Then, I pull out a soda. This 1 liter bottle is your body, I say. Inside, there is pressure, or stress. Then, every student takes the bottle, says something causing stress in his/her life and gives the bottle a vigorous shake. After the bottle has made its way around the circle, I give it to the boy with the most trouble concentrating in a typical classroom environment and let him open it, exploding cheap orange soda all over. What happens if you let all that pressure build up inside of you? The bottle explodes, or your body reacts in an unhealthy way, I conclude.
From here, the class changes depending on age level. 5th graders are infatuated with their young, blonde teacher from far, far away, but they can’t sit still for longer than three minutes. So after we come back inside, I teach them a series of hand gestures and silly noises to help them remember the systems affected by stress: For the circulatory system, put your right hand over your heart, your left hand over your right, and bang them together. For the nervous system, put your fingers on your temples and make noises like a laser beam.
Little ones loved it; older kids were annoyed. Afraid of being treated like children, they were more interested in showing me that they could understand the nervous system’s components without making laser noises.
So when my 9th grade class was moving through the material faster than I expected, I rounded the desks up in a circle, scribbled some study questions about teen depression and suicide, and held a discussion. When asked what they’d do to prevent teen suicide with all the money and power in the world, my students said they’d start after school clubs – music classes, a sports complex, a drama club. Then they’d have more fun after school, instead of working at home or standing outside the local 7-11-style store with their friends.
But straying from the plan was a big risk. Even when they speak slowly enough for me to understand them (which they never do), I don’t know enough about their culture to guide the conversation. For example, I asked, “Who would you ask for help if you felt you were depressed?” The answer is: There is no one to ask. The psychologist at school teaches classes on Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The social workers exclusively look after the elderly and vulnerable families. The closest counselors are three hours away in the capital. Besides, counseling costs money.
There were three teen suicides in our county of Florești recently. When I think about that, I think about the stresses the kids said as they shook the soda bottle. The top three were tests/bad grades, sick family members and family members working abroad. Worrying over failing a class or an upcoming exam sounds pretty typical. But almost every student in my 5th, 6th and 9th grades — and, statistically, almost every kid in Moldova —had a family member either with a major illness (tuberculosis, hepatitis and diabetes are especially prevalent here) or who is in Italy, Turkey, Russia or another country sending home the remittances that make up one-third of Moldova’s GDP. Or both. (In fact, illness in the family often drives the need for someone to work abroad.)
Tomorrow, I’ll teach the same lessons to my 7th, 10th and 11th grades. I’m curious to see if my 7th graders are already “too cool” for my silly hand gestures game, and I’m excited to hear how my older students would change their community to help end teen suicide. But I’m sure I’ll hear the same stresses: My parents live in Italy. My grandmother is dying of hypertension. My brother only comes home once a year.
If I can teach my 5th grade to reach for vegetables instead of sweets, if I can explain to my juniors how tuberculosis is completely curable if you stay on you stay on the meds, if I can keep just one student from spending his/her adulthood drinking 10 liters of alcohol per year like an average Moldovan — maybe the health teacher 50 years from now will hear something different.
I pray that their biggest stress will be acne.
