Bittersweet Day in the Classroom

Well today was the last day in class.  I'm sure I'll have more stuff to write about on the blog concerning my trip but today has to be about the classroom.  The sights and activities that Moscow has had to offer so far have been great, but the classroom experiences I've had have been just as valuable.  I gained a perspective on international agriculture and international students/education that wouldn't have been obtained without this trip.

My teaching philosophy is quite different from the traditional teaching philosophy.  I'm all about building a sense of community within the class.  I believe that to feel as if you belong in the class, are free to lay yourself out on the line with regards to questioning the curriculum and self reflection is equally as important, if not more important than the curriculum itself.  This class focused on gathering 15 international students from three different countries, each coming from vast backgrounds in agriculture and teaching them about teamwork and leadership within agriculture.  Their backgrounds range from economics, pedagogy (education), political science, farm machinery, mechanical engineering, and electrical engineering.  After I leave they will have a course on agricultural management systems and then another that's escaping me at the moment.

The fact is that there are some serious issues with agriculture on the horizon.  Issues range from local to global and there is a need for leaders in the field of agriculture to rise up to the challenge.  The video I'm attaching gives a brief overview of several of the issues.  The main one is the need for food to supply the world's growing population.  Do you realize that between now and 2050 (the next 40 years), the world needs to produce more food than it has in the past 10,000 years just to keep up with its rising population?  That's within my lifetime, probably within yours and certainly within the lifetime of a close family member of yours.

It gives me some comfort to think that relationships are being established on a global level with students currently in college and that those students are aware of the issues that the world faces.  Everyone has their soapbox but this is an issue that affects everyone.

The students have decided to make sure that I get all of my Moscow experiences in over this next weekend.  I'm going to a market to hopefully bring back a few souvenirs and eat some local food.  I'm going to a castle that Catherine the Great was building as a place she could call her own here in Moscow (she lived in St. Petersburg) but that was never finished.  And I'm also going to a cemetery where many famous Russians have been laid to rest (Cosmonauts, artists, Stalin's wife, etc...).

My time here is coming to an end but there will be a lot from this trip that will weigh on my mind for a while.  My goal was for the students to understand a little more about leadership and a lot more about themselves and other people.  I'm pretty sure that occurred.  The students got along so well and were so accommodating that we often went to eat together, continuing our discussions about leadership and the different cultural norms among our countries.  One of the best comments/compliments from one of the American students today as we were leaving was "I don't think I've ever gotten to know the students in my classes as well as I have in this one."  I love teaching!

The Kremlin

Being able to go inside the Kremlin was an amazing experience.  It's the one thing I've wanted to do more than any others since I've been here.  It didn't disappoint.  It's funny how I've come to learn about the Kremlin.  I've learned little through books in the classroom or lectures from a teacher.  The knowledge that stuck and I found interesting was picked up from computer games .  As a boy playing games that allowed you to build buildings known around the world to benefit your chosen country, I was able to learn about the Kremlin.  Who said video games aren't educational?

As always over here there was a big language barrier while inside the buildings.  Most of the displays were only in Russian and out of respect we had to keep our voices down.  Sometimes I understood, and I'm sure sometimes I got my facts crossed up.  This blog is my best attempt to convey what I think I learned during my experience.

What little I knew or believed to know was certainly challenged once I found myself within the confines of the giant walls of brick.  The grandest thing were the cathedrals within the Kremlin.  The Archangel Cathedral was the most interesting to me.  It housed the Tsars of Russian history.  One of which was Ivan the Terrible (or Grozny as I should probably refer to him on this blog).  While inside the cathedral, you were able to view all of the former Tsars of Russia and their tombs.  However you were not able to see Ivan the Terrible.  From what I understood he was behind the wall near the altar of the cathedral.  There are walls within the cathedrals that separate the main rooms from the altar.  I also understood that only priests were allowed past the altar with one exception.  As children are christened, priests are able to take baby boys behind the wall to the altar.  However, baby girls can only approach the wall with the priest and are not allowed past it.  I don't know if that is a lost tradition or if it is a rare occurrence, as we did not see this custom occur while we were there.  One of the other cathedrals housed the altar/pew where Ivan the Terrible spent time repenting for his deeds as he neared death through old age.  We weren't allowed to take pictures while inside any of the buildings.  You'll just have to visit for yourself.  The painted images alone are breathtaking.  To give you an idea, Archangel Cathedral was built in 1505, the Assumption Cathedral was built in 1475, and the Church of the Deposition was built in 1485.  These are the three cathedrals we entered.

Prior to going in I knew of the Armory (big yellow building in the pictures) and the Bell Tower and thought that was what I was most excited about, other than just being inside the Kremlin.  I failed to realize just how important religion was during war in past centuries.  I probably need to brush up on my history before I try to convey the info I was told during my visit, but here goes.  From what I understood at one time Russia was in conflict between the cities of Moscow and Kiev.  Both cities wanted to be the capital, while the rest of the country was in chaos for lack of a centralized government.  The head priest resided in Kiev, which gave them the power because the people followed religious power.  This is when one of the cathedrals was built within the walls of the Kremlin in an effort to bring the head priest to Moscow from Kiev.  That's what happened and that's why Moscow is the current capital of Russia (from my understanding).

Other notable sites were the Tsar Cannon and the Tsar Bell.  I had never heard of this cannon until one of the American students mentioned it.  It's a cannon that is 5.34 meters long and weighs 40 tons.  It's as big as Russia is cold.  From what I understood it was made to guard the entrance to the Kremlin and has never been shot.  The Tsar Bell is 6.14 meters high, 6.6 meters in diameter and weighs 200 tons.  Yes, 200 tons.  It used to hang up in a tower but there was a fire, it fell and it became damaged.  The piece that fell off of the tower only weighs 11 tons.  Only.

I can't describe the experience.  It was definitely one that will define my trip here.  Next time I'm playing one of those games, I'll probably build the Kremlin the first chance I get.

International Freedom!

Ok so this post title is slightly misleading.  Today's class was awesome and it was because of the freedom that the students had in class.  We've been talking about leadership concepts, philosophy, etc... and today I wanted them to conduct a team activity using some of the concepts we've discussed in class along with whatever else they wanted to add.  They had complete freedom.

I'm also in a class back home that discusses teaching methods and assessments.  The class is online and predominantly discussion based.  After sharing my plans with the class about giving the students so much freedom, I got the sense that some were apprehensive of the plan.  Some, not all.  That planted a little seed in my mind that questioned whether or not I should have been clearer and guided the students with more direct instruction.

The students have had about a week and a half to prepare for the activity.  I teach on Tuesdays and Fridays so in the past three classes I've given them anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes to discuss and plan out what they wanted to do each day.

The groups are formed from the results of a personality test.  There is green, gold, orange and blue.  Green are analytical, gold like rules, orange are spontaneous and competitive, and blue are in tune with their feelings and like close relationships with people.  It worked out where the teams each had students from the different countries in it with minor adjustments.  There are only two students from America and both were gold so we had to move one to another color.  These colors have dictated teams for everything we've done this month.  It's been great because they all value different things and often have different perspectives and methods.

The activities were supposed to take about 30 minutes each, but I expected a lot longer.  I was right.  The activities took up our entire morning with about 10 minutes to spare.  Our morning class is from 9AM-12:20PM.

The gold group played the traditional "Never have I ever" to discuss ethical issues and how people change over time by learning from their mistakes.  Some mistakes we made in our youth we would never choose to make again and it is because we have learned from them (hopefully).  However, they are still part of what makes us who we are.

The orange team went next with an incredibly elaborate game that resembled the board game "Risk".  They had rules, action points, and a map that they drew on the board for the rest of the teams to conquer.  They asked if I would like to play and obviously I couldn't help but partake.  The rules were a bit flawed because if you took over a country all of their men and territories became your own, so the first team to take over a country had a tremendous advantage versus the one remaining country.  In spite of that, the game forced each team to strategize, make decisions and react to other players (external factors), which may mean altering their initial strategy.  The teams really got into it and it was a huge success.

The blue team thought they had a simple and easy idea that required people to hold each others hands with their eyes closed.  After they closed their eyes they had to form a shape that the blue team called out.  Shapes consisted of squares, triangles, pentagons, etc...  This was a lot more difficult than what the team originally thought and teams became perfectionists, wanting to make sure their feet and hands were appropriately placed.  This worked on verbal communication and trusting the information that is given to you by your teammates.  They altered the activity by allowing the team to identify a leader who could give verbal commands while keeping their eyes open, but wouldn't be part of the shape with their team.  This made them even more of perfectionists, measuring out distances with their feet, etc... to make sure everything was equal.

The last team, the green team, had a great activity where they made a game utilizing PowerPoint.  I'm not sure if they are aware of the game Taboo or Pyramid but that's pretty much what the game was modeled after.  They had leaders of history and would give clues every 15 seconds or so, allowing the teams to guess.  They used clues that were based off the content in class, such as "Referent Leader" or "Theory X".  It was a big hit and they did it right.

It was funny because the teams played out their personalities perfectly in the activities.  The gold team really wanted to understand the rules and were offended when they didn't understand them clearly or if they deemed them flawed.  The orange team was very competitive and always wanted to win.  The green team was very strategic (they won risk!).  The blue team had a good time and thoroughly enjoyed the class.

Freedom was definitely a good thing today.  Enjoy a few pictures of the day's activities.

It's a Small World

While in Nashville I taught at a couple of high schools.  I taught at Pearl Cohn High School as well as Maplewood High School.  While at Maplewood I had a foreign exchange student in my physical science class from Russia.  His name was Mikhail.  Because of the perceived language barrier, Mikhail was placed in my remedial physical science class that was for students who had previously failed physical science.  There were definitely words that Mikhail needed me to explain that typically pertained to science such as acceleration, velocity, force, etc...  however, Mikhail picked up rather quickly.  I forget the number of classes or subjects that Russian students have in grade school each day (I want to say around 15), but it was/is many more than the typical American student.  Because of Mikhail's accustomed schedule, he was able to complete his work much faster than the other students in the class.

One thing I did with Mikhail was that I set up a chess board in my classroom after learning that he liked to play.  Once he was done with his work he would move over to the chess board.  I would go around the room and help students that needed assistance with their work, but when I passed Mikhail, I would make my move.  Mikhail is a much better chess player than I am.  I believe I beat him twice out of 40-50 times.  This did a couple of things for our classroom.  For one, the other students loved the fact that I would get pummeled by Mikhail.  They would stay on task and finish their work as early as possible to see me get waxed.  Secondly, it gave Mikhail a little bit of a status.  The other kids liked him for his power over me in the realm of chess.  In other classes, Mikhail was often picked on, but not in Pollard's 4th period physical science.  Those were his buddies, which was ironic because these were remedial students who were more involved with gangs than they were with school.  And finally, Mikhail even taught a couple of the kids how to play chess.  I'm not sure if they stuck with the game or not but it wasn't uncommon to see him teaching another student how certain chess pieces moved.

Today Mikhail came and met me and the other American students as we rode the metro a couple of exits up to a small mall.  He sat and ate KFC with us and carried on conversations with the other students in our program.  They were impressed by his english.  We later went to the grocery store to pick up some stuff for our dinner tomorrow night (the Americans are cooking dinner for the French!).  He was a huge help with reading the labels of different items.  He's coming back over tomorrow to enjoy a dinner with the students of the program.  He'll be here through the weekend and I'm sure we'll get to hang out more.  It's great to catch up with him, remember old stories from the past, and joke around about how I need to come teach in Russia or he needs to come to America.  Over 5,200 miles away from home (as the crow flies) and I still manage to see students that I have taught in the past.  It's truly a small world.

Russian People

I could probably go on and on about my experiences with the Russian people here in Moscow.  For one, I'd hate to think that anyone would judge the people of my home state of Georgia by spending a few weeks in Atlanta, whatever their opinion of them may be.  I also understand my experience with the people of Moscow has been limited with regards to language barriers and time.  That's my disclaimer to this post.

With regards to the students in my class, including the 5 French students I have, they're amazing.  Daniel, one of the American students from Clemson University, said on Tuesday at the beginning of class "Each time I come to class it's like I'm going to church.  We all ask each other how you're doing and shake everyone's hands".  It's true.  Any student that passes me on the way to their seat always shakes my hand and they typically all ask how I've been, what I did the night before (if they weren't with us when we did it) and if I slept well.  Throw in a question about if us Americans are staying warm too.  The students really admire their professors over here.  I've been told that it's common among all of their classes by other professors.  I'm reluctant to think that it's mostly because I'm an American visiting professor.  I can't say enough about the quality of students in my class.  They're great.  There's a picture of the group from our trip to John Deere attached to the blog.

The people of Moscow that we've encountered on the metro and in the stores can be wrapped up in a couple of characteristics.  For one, they're very quiet.  When we went to the big grocery store, the equivalent to Walmart, we Americans could just listen to figure out where each of us were.  We would get separated and within a couple of seconds could find the group if we listened to the surrounding aisles.  I'm not sure if that means that as Americans we are very loud, or that the Russian people are very quiet.  However, it's the same way on the metro train ride.  The metro is pretty loud and if we want to have a conversation we have to speak up a little.  The Russians don't speak on the train.  The second thing that I've noticed is that they are very determined and focused.  They walk very quickly wherever they are going (possibly to get out of the weather).  It's a sense of determination that isn't as universally obvious in America.  In the stores, they're on a mission.  There isn't a lot of lolly-gagging (that's a technical term).  Their determination/focus seems to spill over into their work and study as well.  They're mainly concerned with their own actions, and really don't acknowledge others.  One of the students in class mentioned how you could go to the mall or downtown dressed crazy or different than everyone else and no one would even notice.  From my brief experience over here, I'm inclined to agree.

On Wednesdays we take trips to various agricultural industry locations.  We've been to John Deere and today we went to a 2,000 hectare farm that focuses on milk and potato production.  I want to say that it belongs to the government, I'm not very sure.  It produces the milk and potatoes for schools and universities, without selling them to the public.  At both locations the people have been incredibly hospitable.  They're genuinely proud of their professions and want to share their knowledge with others. It has little to do with the fact that we're foreign.  At John Deere I asked about internships for our students and they stayed with our Russian students for a good 30 minutes after the presentation to get contact information and discuss opportunities with the Russian students within John Deere.  At the dairy today each student walked away with a liter of milk and kefir (I'm not a fan of kefir, as I mistakenly grabbed some at the store across the street when I thought it was milk.  I found out it wasn't after turning it up for a nice big gulp from the bottle).  They're happy to answer questions and show us around.

The surroundings here when you look at buildings, the streets, and the metro (what I've mostly experienced) seems lacking in infrastructure.  Being exposed to the Russian people's work ethic, I can't imagine how this country would prosper if the infrastructure was equal to that of America (and I consider ours lacking in many areas).

Regardless of the political situation brewing because of Syria, I know the people here are good people.  One may question their leadership and politics, but I can't question the merit of the people I have come to know.  Ivan Drago, you had me fooled.

The weather

I don't know how else to say it other than it's cold.  Colder than anything I have ever experienced, including UGA's meat locker during Career Development Events with FFA or standing in water up to my waist at 5AM waiting for ducks to fly in on a January morning.  However, it's not cold like I would describe cold back home.  I have a new definition for the word.  Maybe a new appreciation would be more appropriate.

The lowest temperature that I've experienced here was somewhere around -30 degrees Fahrenheit.  I don't think I've experienced below zero before, let alone 30 past it.  We're talking instant ice.  When you breathe in and exhale, the water vapor from your breath freezes somewhere along your face as it rises.  I can't walk outside without getting ice in my mustache, instantly.  Instantly is probably the key word here.  It's not as if I have to go on a long walk to feel the effects, it's instant.  One of the other students had his eyelashes freeze together the other day.  That's cold.

We've run into the problem with the soles of your shoes.  Depending on the type of sole you have, the rubber freezes and therefore doesn't give you any traction when you're walking on the snow/ice.  Luckily my boots have held up to the temperatures but one of the American student's army issued boots have caused a couple of adventurous walks outside.

Today it got up to 9 degrees and I went out in the lightest clothing I have worn since I have been here.  I had on an undershirt, a 3/4 length t-shirt and my UGA zip-up fleece.  I wouldn't wear that at home if it were 40 degrees outside but I've somehow built up a tolerance (understandably temporary) and it actually felt nice outside today.  It's crazy.

Tomorrow it's supposed to get up around 30 for the high.  We'll probably be sunbathing over here in Moscow.  We're actually going on a field trip to an agricultural manufacturing facility.  From what I understand it has a little of everything.  There's a dairy, a plant nursery, etc...  I expect we'll be outside a lot so the warmer weather is welcomed.

By no means am I complaining about the weather here.  It has caused us to stay inside a few days when we would obviously prefer to get out and experience Russia but the weather in a sense is Russia.  It's an experience, and as awkward as it is to say, a welcomed one (to some extent).  I'm not complaining about the weather yet, but one thing is for certain, I will never, ever complain about the weather back home being "cold".  Stay warm!

The Rigorous Swan

It's an interesting name I know.  I've been reluctant to sitting down and writing a blog.  I've got one that I used for a class assignment, and I liked it.  I just didn't like the fact that I needed to take time to sit down and write out my opinion about stuff on a routine basis.  However, in my travels, there's plenty to write home about.

The name...  Well the students that are participating in this program have all gone through some sort of Russian language training.  Even if it was very little before they came, they're enrolled in Russian language classes here and now.  The Russian students speak very good English and I've been playing that game of "How do you say this?" my entire time I've been here, only to forget the word 10 minutes later because I've tried to say a couple of other things along the way.  However, there was a phrase that didn't escape me.  Groznee leibet.  I have no idea if that's the correct way to translate it in English, but that's how I pronounce it and that's been acceptable thus far.  We went to the Tretyakov Art Gallery that's famous for housing all of the famous Russian paintings.  It was an experience.  I'm not one for portraits of royalty, which there was a lot of that, but I do like paintings that capture a scene or moment.  I wouldn't call myself an admirer of historical art, but I felt that while in Russia, experience Russia.  I wasn't familiar with any of the paintings by name but occasionally I would encounter one that was familiar as if I had seen it in a book sometime.  There were several that weren't familiar that I really liked though.  Luckily a lot of the paintings had descriptions in both Russian and English writing.  I found one of a Swan and played the "How do you say that in Russian" game.  The swan is "Leibet".  Then I later came across a statue of Ivan the Terrible but it called him "Rigorous" on the description.  Seeing that this was different than Terrible, I asked how to say rigorous and it's "Groznee".  And for the rest of the night I went around saying Groznee Leibet.  I think it's a decent name for the blog, or a restaurant.  Probably not a farm though.