Випуск

Sunday evening my school had its Випуск (graduation ceremony). The eleventh form has been preparing for this day for at least the past three months by practicing their waltzes, picking out songs, and preparing the program.

My counterpart mentioned that graduation traditions vary greatly between villages and cities. In villages, it's perceived with almost the same pomp as a wedding. In my village, the students parade through the streets, stopping at memorials before going to a church service. Then, there is a two plus hour ceremony at the House of Culture where teachers, families, and friends are invited much like a graduation in the US. I was happy to see that the House of Culture was ready in time for this celebration. Since I arrived, it's been a remodeling mess but they installed new windows and cleaned up the place.

How to describe the ceremony? It had the standard elements of a typical school assembly; singing, dancing, speeches, thank you speeches. I'm starting to think that assemblies here use that formula in math with the ! symbol. For example: There are x number of people on the stage and y number of people in the audience. Each person on the stage must give a congratulation speech to each other and two people in the audience. How many speeches in total will be performed? Repeat with song performances. I'd say that the graduation was the combination of a prom promenade, a graduation where diplomas are dispersed, and an old-fashioned Debutante.

The students were dressed to the nines. Current Krasni Okny fashion trends include shiny suits in metallic colors for boys and hoop skirts for girls. Beauty for a girl is measured by her ability to look like a wedding cake (just kidding... though kind of true). It was fun to see the students' personalities represented in their dress choices, especially since on a typical school day they stick to the realm of a "school uniform."

In the one picture I'm standing with Iryna, the girl in the white dress with the black corset. Iryna is one of those reasons why teachers come to school. She's shown me nothing but interest and kindness. This past week she's gifted me with bouquets of flowers and books in appreciation and invited me to a dinner after the Last Bell. To be honest, I thought we were just going to meet for coffee, not a full on gorgeous meal in a restaurant (a true treat!). She is planning on becoming an interpreter, so I hope to hear from her often during her studies.

Missing the Midwest

The Cleveland Songbird and Tiny Ohio




I love how there's been a wealth of articles about Detroit over the past few months.

• Detroit arcadia
• Detroit
• Shrinking Detroit
• somewhat related: Gentrification and its Discontents
  

Lastly, I hope to see the documentary, The Whites, someday.

Interwebs

I've never seen this series of photographs before by Jason Eskenazi taken in 1991. Worth a look.





Dogs in space, love the Soviets for that one: USSR's Dog Astronauts

• Urban Planning and the Reconstruction of Moscow
• How did I not find this website when I was writing my undergraduate thesis in 2008? Looking through this is like going through keywords of Google searches of my past.
• The publication of this book would have made finding primary sources so much easier too.
  

Final Bell

No, these aren't French maids but rather the 11th form, the graduating class.

6th Form Boys

I don't know how she does it, I like to secretly think that she's super pumped about Sex and the City II being released the next day.

8th Form

My gorgeous counterpart, Alla, who makes everything happen for me.

The women who break their backs for the school keeping it clean.

Champagne and legit cake in the teachers' room.

My family, this photo session is a tradition of theirs.

Thursday was my school's "Final Bell", where in the morning all students gather outside of the school, the students with the highest marks are rewarded, the 11th form is honored, teachers receive flowers from their students, and a symbolic bell is rung.

When I told people that we don't have this tradition, I got several looks of pity. I guess my comment that "we don't have this type of tradition" with the last dozen or so holidays this month makes my country seem soulless. Soon I'll request some yearbooks so that I can show that Americans do celebrate leaving school and when we do it's actually a celebration and not some sort of dexterity test of mandatory traditions. And, I like how when in America we leave school on the last day, we actually leave the school. Sure, teachers come back and finish up paperwork, but in Ukraine there's a whole month of exams and elective classes that make any sense of closure superficial. It was still a great day that once again caught me off guard because of all the generosity shown towards me by the students.

I've finished my first "year" of teaching, if you can call it that. I arrived at site at the end of December and the months have quickly gone by as seas of holidays and other events deter the rhythm of a semester. The past week of school was a series of tests that I had little responsibility for. In my time pretending to look busy, I wrote down some of my goals for next school year. I figure I'll add them here for two reasons. One, I recently pasted a guideline for effective project managers on my wall and one of the rules is to make it a transparent process. Two, I figure if I have a witness I'll be less likely to both forget and choose to pretend that there wasn't an opportunity to do so.

2010-2011

In the classroom:

• be the primary English teacher for 6 home rooms ages 10-15 (about 16 lessons a week)
  
• implement a fair grading rubric
• be a goddess of classroom management
• integrate writing components (journals) and spelling quizes weekly

Other school priorities:

• have a weekly English Songs & Games for 2-4th forms
• English Clubs for 5-7th forms
• Learning English through Music for 8th and 9th forms
• Business English and Entrepreneurial Skills class open to 9th form and up
• American Studies for the 11th form
• individual tutoring for most outgoing and advanced students as well as family members
• create audio supplements for all student books
  
• create an archive of visual material
  
• broaden students understanding of the importance of English for their futures
• Halloween Party
• Earth Day Scavenger Hunt
• English Week
• write grants and fundraise for an English Resource Center that will host a library, interactive classroom, and be a space for the following: English Club, Film Club, Young Leaders/Junior Young Leaders (creating a service-oriented group that would remind many people of Pioneers)
• HIV/AIDS training
  
• an end of the year roast/incorporating some parts of an American yearbook into the Ukrainian graduation experience
• strengthen student government by giving them more responsibility and teaching them how to fundraise

Other projects:

• summer day camp
• theater performance by students
• local history/oral history project
• partnership with the libraries and funding through the EU and IREX
• visit regional schools
• investigate playground renovation options
• investigate waste management (actually confront the mayor)
• expanding fitness options and having a wellness campaign
  
• creating support groups for young mothers and the elderly
  
• creating awareness for agrotourism in Ukraine
• spreading my American-ness through games and baked goods
  

ABCamp is fully funded!!

Thank you so much for your support!

First Form's Alphabet

During school this morning one of the first form classes (typically 6 years of age) had their alphabet ceremony . The ceremony celebrates finishing the first year of school and learning the alphabet. The students give examples of how the alphabet is used, perform skits, sing songs, dance, and in the end receive an alphabet book.

One of the things that I find revolutionizing school performances is that my school acquired a projector at the end of April. I can't explain how happy this makes me feel. Its existence was one of the first questions I asked once I felt comfortable at site and wanted to look into technological resources I should start fundraising for at site. I was told there was one, but no one could tell me where it was. So just like spring came out of no where, so too did our projector. I'm hoping to start writing a grant later this summer to create a language resource center for my school that would include another one and other devices in order to allow students to have more exposure to English and have a space for interactive learning, a film club, and leadership club.

Training Wheels

My landlady's grandson had a big day today. Besides graduating from preschool, he got some training wheels attached to his new bike.

(Partially) Sneaking Around

My Goal: Get a date with this man once during my service, or at least find out when he regularly plays outside of preschool functions.

V. gets a slingshot as part of a demonstration on what not to do once you're at the big kids' school.

I wish this was my daily schedule; a lot of playtime and 2 hours for napping.

Today my landlady's grandson graduated from preschool. Unfortunately, I had responsibilities at school so I could only stay for a half hour towards the middle of the program. There was limited, poorly arranged seating, so I shoved myself into the crowd to get a few pictures of the performance and spent the rest of the time walking around the preschool. I'd been there before, but hadn't checked out the classrooms where I can briefly pretend I'm a giant Hobbit.

One Embroidery Project Down

Miss you guys!!!

A friend back home is expecting a smaller version of herself this month. I know I can post this because I'm 95% sure she doesn't check this. Anyways, it took about a month of listening to podcasts for an hour or two every day, but I finished a onesie. Try explaining why you're carrying a onesie around Ukraine, let alone embroidering it with something not gender specific or cross-stitched isn't easy. Sublime Stitching just sucked me in and I think this accurately represents the upcoming relationship.