Thursday 23rd February 2012
So I was sitting on the marshutka on my way to Tblisi admiring the beauty of the landscape and letting thoughts drift in and out of my head when a very old episode of MASH came to mind. It must be about 20 years ago that I saw this but I remembered an episode where Hawkeye Pierce (Alan Alda) was discussing the merits of the breakfast that was offered with his fellow doctors and getting quite heated about it and finally decided to speak to the chef to discuss how he could improve the quality of the French Toast they were producing. “You see you have to put this ingredient in and just a little bit of this – not too much and of course you just do this” He was giving instructions to the stressed out chef. “Well you come and supervise breakfast then!” says the chef. Hawkeye Pierce takes up the challenge and starts off well but only to find that the demands of the hoard who want breakfast and want it now means that speed is the issue and even though he knows how to make the perfect French toast, breakfast in the army hospital in a war zone was not the place to demonstrate his art. How clever the brain it! I thought it kind of summed up my experience of the education system in Georgia nicely.
As a volunteer teacher in Georgia it takes a little while to get an understanding of the Georgian education system. The inherent problems are mentioned briefly in orientation but are discussed in an historical context recognising that it is flawed and outdated but that it is moving on and changing at all levels; a process that we are part of. However I did not really grasp the enormous, fundamental differences between the systems. I believed that education is education is education all over the world and the difference were more a matter of quality and depth than the principle itself. It is this failure of comprehension that causes confusion and distress among volunteers regardless of their level of teaching experience in their home country. Maybe for EFL teachers who have taught around the world this is not such a problem but I can only speak from personal observation.
Initially, the differences in the classroom experience in Georgia and home are amusing, for example the constant calling out “Mas, Mas” (Teacher, teacher) from students of all ages to indicate that they know the answers. The lack of resources and poor conditions the students work under may elicit compassion and the desire to improve the look of the classroom to make it more cheerful. There is frustration when for example the students all cheat and copy each other’s answers without even trying to work it out for themselves and you make a mental note to do something about that in the future. Many of the children do not have the pupil’s book and workbook to work in and it is confusing when the teacher doesn’t even think it’s an issue and so you go round the class making sure that students without a book are sitting next to someone who does have a book so they can at least follow what’s happening. The absence of electricity in the classroom, the bits of wooden flooring that jump up at you with the wrong turn of a foot, the peeling paint and missing plaster and the wooden stove burners with the ill-fitting chimneys that send forth a smoky haze into the atmosphere command a kind of respect towards them for endurance. To sit there with their hats and coats on all day and to still be cold is a lot to ask I reasoned.
Many TLGers I knew began to express their concerns about their role and that their expertise was not being taken advantage of. Experienced teachers were not being listened to and inexperienced teachers were not being encouraged to take part in the lesson. Many TLGers found that they were not being particularly active in the classroom. The local English teacher did not involve them automatically or give enthusiastic encouragement when they did attempt to do something such as sing a song or play a game tending to see this as an interruption to the real business of the lesson. My view was that perhaps those with little experience other than their own recent education to draw upon did not have the confidence or expertise to suggest ideas and put themselves forward. It seemed to me at the time that maybe those with experience in the classroom were perhaps not being sympathetic to the environment they were in and were possibly being too pushy with their ideas and it was their unrealistic expectations of what they could achieve that was making them miserable. Maybe their own desire to make an impact in a short time was actually impeding their progress?
The problems in the classroom became evident. Maybe the problem did not lie with the attitude or limitations of the volunteer but with the English teachers themselves? Despite the new text books for the younger students the mind-set of the teachers has not changed and they do not adhere to the lesson plans as set out in the teacher’s book but instead continue to work systematically through the text book, exercise by exercise, regardless of whether the students have understood the work or not. Exercises are set as homework before the topic has been properly covered in the lesson thus missing the whole point of the homework as reinforcement. The lesson focusses on the 4 or 5 of the students who can keep up with the pace of the teaching (who decided on what the pace should be? No-one knows) and left the remaining 20 students to continue to fall behind. Tests and homework are frequent but do not test ability or understanding as the teacher helps the students and allows them to copy from each other. What is actually important is that students pass the exam not that they have learnt anything. Teachers’ and their director’s jobs depend on this. How can we volunteers compete with this deeply entrenched system? What is the point of us being here if we cannot penetrate this way of thinking? It is simply not enough to sing songs, draw pictures, make jokes, encourage all students to take part in the lesson, look after the ones who do not even know the alphabet but are expected to stand up and be humiliated when they try to read. It is too much to fight against.
However, moving into my second semester in Georgia and with both Martin and I at new schools, I now see things a little differently as I have gained a deeper appreciation of the education system. If there is any questioning of the situation, for example “Why are we teaching year 6 from the Green Book (book 4) when their level of English is more at the level of the Blue Book (book 2) the answer is along the lines of “The Ministry of Education has forbidden it.” I say “Well I was at the TLG meeting with the Minister of Education and he said that students should work according to their level and not the number of years they have been studying English.” “Oh OK” In fact, it is more the issue that parents have already purchased a green book for their children and cannot be asked to now buy another one. Any attempts to deviate from what are the perceived rules are met with this response. At this same Ministerial meeting the question was asked: “Why are we waiting until 15th November before heating is turned on in the schools when this is the coldest winter for 40 years in Georgia and has been minus and counting for the last month?” Because, sometime, somewhere by someone unknown, an announcement was made to this effect. Despite the Ministry telling schools to turn their heating on, school directors continued to wait until November 15th. A rule is a rule is a rule. It is the Soviet mind-set. This is really hard to stomach coming from a society where the question “Why?” is allowed to be asked and is even something to be encouraged on occasion.
How clever the brain is when we allow it to work things out! While maybe not the perfect analogy, Hawkeye Pierce and his vision of French Toast does kind of work. Like Hawkeye Pierce, TLGers have a vision of what the classroom should be like and like Hawkeye Pierce we discuss in detail this vision with our colleagues and maybe have unspoken misgivings about their opinions. Like him we become full of purpose and take on the challenge with a gung-ho attitude. But then suddenly the full implications of the situation hit us and it is then that we have to carefully rethink our position. As I recall, Hawkeye Pierce threw down his ladle in defeat or maybe realisation of the absurdity of obsessing about a French toast recipe in the middle of a war zone in Korea. But what is my stance to be? There is a big part of me that wants to stand there with my ladle until the chef calls for end of service but know that I simply don’t have the energy levels. While not exactly a war zone, none-the-less the system is chaotic and disordered even among the “Rules” which no longer, if they ever did, make sense. I can only do what I can do and I can only bring what I can bring and if in any way I make a difference to a teacher or a child then that has to be enough. There is a beautiful quote that I have stolen from somewhere but is perfect for this time. “We plant trees that we will never sit under.” I think that says it all.
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