So the question may be raised, "What are you doing in Russia?". Excellent question...
I have the opportunity to participate in a pretty cool program here in Moscow. Several universities are involved in the program but the big players are Clemson and Penn State. Faculty from Clemson reached out to UGA in an effort to get more students interested in going to Russia and thought that a good way to do this would be to send over a faculty member from UGA. Well I'm not quite at the level of faculty at UGA, but I am a grad student there and the UGA faculty recommended that I go. I came over last year and taught a course in Agricultural Leadership. Apparently, I did a decent job and was asked to come back.
So here I am, back in Russia in 2013. I'll be here for a month. There are 22 students in my class this year, which is larger than last year's. There are 7 Americans, 4 French, and 11 Russian students that are taking my class. Their majors are very diverse, ranging from Agribuisness to Pedagogy (Education) to Computer Science.
Ok... so what is Agricultural Leadership? Well, I really dive in to the leadership aspect of it in the beginning of the course. The students take questionnaires that break down their personal beliefs on leadership theory and practice. We learn about the theories in an effort to better understand how we lead, how we should lead, when to lead, when to follow, and how our followers perceive our leadership styles. There are not a lot of right or wrong answers in the class, because everything is coming from an individual's own perspective. It's all about coming to a better understanding of yourself and leadership.
I have the students participate in a lot of discussion, which is very different than typical Russian and French classes. One of my main goals is to have a very high level of engagement from all of the students in the class. This allows for a lot of personal breakthroughs and understanding because of the incredible diversity this class has to offer.
They have three main assignments. I have them interview someone they believe to be a leader. It can be a politician, an athlete, a teacher, brother, mother, etc... The only criteria is that they have to view them personally as a leader. All of the students ask 10 questions in their interview but the class agrees on four identical questions that they will all ask, so that we can compare our findings among all of the people that were interviewed. We determine those questions by students breaking up into groups and coming up with five questions per group. They write their questions on the board and then all of the students get to give two votes for their favorite questions. We picked the four that had the most, and everyone agrees to ask those questions. We did this activity today and the questions are:
I have the opportunity to participate in a pretty cool program here in Moscow. Several universities are involved in the program but the big players are Clemson and Penn State. Faculty from Clemson reached out to UGA in an effort to get more students interested in going to Russia and thought that a good way to do this would be to send over a faculty member from UGA. Well I'm not quite at the level of faculty at UGA, but I am a grad student there and the UGA faculty recommended that I go. I came over last year and taught a course in Agricultural Leadership. Apparently, I did a decent job and was asked to come back.
So here I am, back in Russia in 2013. I'll be here for a month. There are 22 students in my class this year, which is larger than last year's. There are 7 Americans, 4 French, and 11 Russian students that are taking my class. Their majors are very diverse, ranging from Agribuisness to Pedagogy (Education) to Computer Science.
Ok... so what is Agricultural Leadership? Well, I really dive in to the leadership aspect of it in the beginning of the course. The students take questionnaires that break down their personal beliefs on leadership theory and practice. We learn about the theories in an effort to better understand how we lead, how we should lead, when to lead, when to follow, and how our followers perceive our leadership styles. There are not a lot of right or wrong answers in the class, because everything is coming from an individual's own perspective. It's all about coming to a better understanding of yourself and leadership.
I have the students participate in a lot of discussion, which is very different than typical Russian and French classes. One of my main goals is to have a very high level of engagement from all of the students in the class. This allows for a lot of personal breakthroughs and understanding because of the incredible diversity this class has to offer.
They have three main assignments. I have them interview someone they believe to be a leader. It can be a politician, an athlete, a teacher, brother, mother, etc... The only criteria is that they have to view them personally as a leader. All of the students ask 10 questions in their interview but the class agrees on four identical questions that they will all ask, so that we can compare our findings among all of the people that were interviewed. We determine those questions by students breaking up into groups and coming up with five questions per group. They write their questions on the board and then all of the students get to give two votes for their favorite questions. We picked the four that had the most, and everyone agrees to ask those questions. We did this activity today and the questions are:
- What is your definition of leadership?
- Are leaders born or made?
- Do you prefer to be a leader or a follower, and why?
- Do you think it is easy or difficult to become a leader in today's society, and why?
Feel free to leave your responses in the comments section and I'll share them with the class. I'll post a picture of the board and all of their questions that they suggested. The next two assignments are a classroom activity that they design in an effort to learn more about leadership. This allows them to work in teams and considering the different culture backgrounds, they come up with some pretty good stuff that a lot of the students have never seen before. Then the last assignment is a final paper analyzing a leader's leadership style from history and comparing it to their own, while making a plan for how they intend to grow as a leader. Outside of assignments, we speak a lot about agriculture in our home countries, the current trends, and problems that we are facing. We discuss the local and global approaches to these problems.
And the gym...
One of the American students discovered a gym here on campus. I had no idea it was here last year and probably didn't have working out high on my priority list at the time. I've been working out back home with my brother and was dreading having to take a month off and come back home trying to catch up. So Chris, or as I like to call him in class, Cliff, and I have started working out together. He warned me of a Russian custom that caught him off guard. Whenever you enter or leave the gym, you shake everyone's hand. Now granted, if a guy is in the middle of a bench press, he gets a pass, but you shake everyone's hand that is available. As new students came in, they would shake our hands. It was neat. A new part of the culture that I hadn't experienced. The gym wasn't the greatest. The equipment was pretty old. I have to get used to doing math with kilograms, as opposed to pounds. There's no such thing as a 25, 35, or 45 pound weight over here. With all that aside, it was a great atmosphere. The students were nice. They each took their turns hooking their phones up to the computer speakers and playing music. There was a lot of American music and I wonder if there was more of it because we were in the room. We worked out shoulders tonight so I got to use kettlebells for shoulder shrugs. I would love to have a gym full of kettlebells. I want to say they originated here in Russia, but I can't say for certain. It's certainly something they are known for. And I leave you now with the image of this beauty that I saw sitting on the edge of one of the gym rooms. Anyone remember the movie "Over the Top"? Now that's a macho movie...
Haha macho movie!
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