Friday, February 8, 2002

This morning I was determined to get my "moment in the sun" and pass out the slavery lesson and the evaluation of teachers hand-out that Anatoly had so kindly translated for me yesterday. I managed to present both in less than five minutes and was feeling pretty good, but when I raised my hand in the last discussion before lunch, I was accused by one of the American facilitators of having "Russian blood," -- surely an insult both to me and the Russians! When I asked her later to explain what she meant, she said, "they can't summarize," but then she apologized saying that in fact I did not speak too long, she was just afraid about getting the group out to lunch on time. I don't think the Russians picked up on the issue because Anatoly had sense enough not to translate it... This is a reminder about how careful one has to be about ethnic issues of all sorts. And to be fair, I should add that not long before, a member of the Ukrainian delegation had come to speak to me saying, "many people here are smart, but you are wise." Well, there is some truth in both sides, so taken as a whole, it is another good day.

Before I left New York I had been asked to bring some "prizes." I was not sure just what that meant, but I went to a dollar store where I found some cute red canvas tote bags with white printing that said "Solutions for the Learning Environment" and had a stencil of an old fashioned one-room schoolhouse. I bought the lot (13) and also brought a couple of little yellow New York taxis and two dozen post cards. Half the postcards were of the Statue of Liberty and the other half were of Manhattan, including the World Trade Center. I was particularly proud of these cards, because even though they only cost seven for a dollar, they will only increase in value over time. The administrators decided to hand out the bags, the taxis, and the statues of liberty, but wouldn't hand out the World Trade Center postcards so I asked to have them back, and after my short presentation of the lesson, I explained why I had brought them and gave two to each national group. Many people asked me to sign them with a message for their students, so I wrote on the back I wrote "please remember the buildings, not just the burning."

Last night I went for a drink with Irina, one of the interpreters who is from St. Petersburg. We had a great time talking about her life (she started out as a dancer even dancing with Barishnikov) and how St. Petersburg has changed. I told her some of my stories, including the one of the Russian Piano that found its way to China and then Japan and then California. For those of you who have been reading my journal since their inception. perhaps you will remember it. Irina says she is inspired to write a novel about it. We'll see.

Today the groups had more time to work on their proposals and then each group shared their plans briefly. I was interested to see that three of the groups include developing student government as part of their plans. That had not been part of the presentations, but of course that is just what Poly's upcoming exchange with the Ukraine is all about. I invited the groups to contact us (or the Ukrainians) after their visit to see what kinds of ideas they came up with for their school. Each group here now knows whether they are going to Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, or remaining in Washington. I sense the groups staying in Washington are disappointed, and I can't blame them given the choices, but who's to complain when so much is being given?

One very useful part of the day was a half an hour when each country was asked to list issues in their country which they wanted American students to know about. That will be critical for the work Nikki and I will be doing. I sat first with the group from Azerbaijan who began with the issue of their conflict with Armenia that is still unsettled. They have a million refugees who fled when the Armenians took over 20 percent of their land. On the other hand, when I dropped by the Armenian group at the end I was surprised that this issue wasn't even on their list. One woman said she didn't want to discuss it. Another explained the basic Armenian position (it was ours before the Soviets took it away and gave it to Azerbaijan as a means of divide-and-conquer). I asked whether they identified with either side in any of the similar conflicts, Israel-Palestine, India-Pakistan or China-Tibet. They said, "no, not really," well possibly Palestine. I would have liked them to have had another half hour for all the groups to discuss possible ways of teaching those lessons, so that they might feel some sense of ownership if Nikki and I adapted their ideas into real lesson plans for the web, but that was not to be. If I get to see them again in Washington (still not sure about that) we can perhaps do it then. One problem is that the teams are coming in three groups of four, and I don't think it warrants for me to go to Washington three times! Well perhaps Nikki can go once and I can go a different time. We'll just have to see.

For this afternoon, the group got to pick the topics it wanted to discuss. There were two sets of simultaneous sessions. In the first hour there was "lobbying and fundraising "or "how to write national standards." I spent about 45 minutes in the fundraising section where I learned some useful things for myself, and then, since Nikki was also there, headed over to standards just to get a sense of what they are doing. One advantage of being in an independent school is that I dont' have to tie everything I do to some national standard.

In the second hour the choice was "how to budget the $15,000 grants" and "authentic assessment." I went to the latter, but I gather those in the budget session were really happy to get details since this may be a new area for them. The assessment session felt a bit rushed, but I think everyone took at least one good idea from it. Besides, it was the last session of the last day. -- well not quite. We had an evaluation session after that, but it was very short, mostly thank-yous, more of which continued over our final banquet dinner in Budapest. In truth, the food was disappointing and the restaurant schmaltzy, but the ambiance of all these educators from all these different countries, who had only met six days before, was very sweet. Each group sang a song, there were more presents along with certificates of attendance.

And finally, it was a beautiful starry night, seeming that much more clear after a week of fog. The bus driver agreed to take us back up Gellert Hill where this time we had a glorious view of the castle, the chain bridge and all of Buda and Pest. It was indeed a grand finale.

All good wishes, Neale