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Published: October 8th 2010
Vsetin
The main square on Friday night when Calan and I were walking to dinner.Happy Friday! I currently don’t have internet in my apartment for some reason, so while I wait for the guy to come check it out, I decided I’d write you all a little about this past week and some of the other things going on here that I haven’t included in my other blogs, and then will post it once my internet’s up and running again.
Yesterday ended my first full week of teaching, which is kind of wild to think about, given that I’ve been here now more than a month. Anyways, I thought I’d just tell you about some of the things that my students and I do, and tell you a little about the Czech system as well. If I write things I’ve already written in previous entries, I apologize, but bear with me.
Czech schools are very different from American ones in that they first of all decide at the age of 14/15 what type of school they’d like to study at. There is a typical high school (“Gymnázium”), such as the one I teach at, but there are also many different specialized (almost vocational, but without the stigma) schools, such as the medical school
Vsetin
More of the main square. I teach at. There are engineering, teaching, language, etc. etc., schools, which all aim to introduce the student to the subject they plan to continue on with, while simultaneously teaching the other subjects, though not in as much detail. Since there are so many different schools, class size is much smaller. The junior class at the Gymnázium here has 33 kids, which is considered almost big. These 33 kids take all their classes together, and there are no different levels like we have (AP, regular, college prep, etc.). Thus, if a kid is really good in history but horrible in math, they still have to keep up with the other kids in their class who might be better at math but worse at history.
These small classes spend at least their four years of high school together, if not eight years for a second type of track available at the Gymnázium which I still don’t understand, so won’t attempt to describe. They are together all day every day, which creates a group mentality, a reflection of the communist past, in a sense. This all leads to the greatest problem in Czech schools, cheating. Cheating here is understood as helping,
Vsetin
Strolling with Calan and Emily. not as doing something wrong, and if you do not let somebody copy your work, you’re seen as a bad friend since you’re letting your friend suffer. It basically goes back to their long history of foreign rulers (Austrian, Soviet, etc.), and the fact that in order to survive, the Black Market arose and the world became an “I’ll help you if you do this for me” type set-up. It’s actually quite amazing to think about. Anyways, something they told us in Prague (and my students got a big kick out of it when I told them) is that Czechs can read microscopic handwriting if necessary. They warned us about all the ways that Czechs try and cheat (and some of my friends even told me some incredible ones), and let me tell you, these people are some of the most clever I’ve ever met. My favorite is that students will bring a bottle of water to class with them, which is normal, yes? Inside the label, they put a small print-out of notes for themselves for a test or what have you, and the water in the bottle actually magnifies the print, allowing them to have all the answers
right in front of them. Several of my friends (and even a few students) have confessed to using this method in the past, and I can’t believe it, that’s absolutely brilliant! This week in one of my classes, I taught about the American school system and taught them the phrase, “every man for himself,” which they laughed at, and I acted out how Americans are taught to hook their arm around their paper when taking a test so nobody else can see, and how we’re split up and placed all around the room so we’re far from everybody else. Needless to say, they were amazed.
Thus, entering a Czech classroom is a scary thing the first go-around. You’re walking into a room of maybe 15 kids (since language classes are divided in half) who know each other inside and out, have been sitting in these same seats for years, and are professionals at getting out of doing what they’re supposed to. However, I think I scared the living daylights out of them when I first got here. For some of my classes, I came into class and spoke as fast as I possibly could (and people-native speakers-have already told
me I speak quickly as is), just to see their reactions, and they panicked a bit. The first few lessons, nobody wanted to talk to me, everybody was very shy and afraid, but now it’s a lot more fun because they’ve gotten used to me, and they see that I’m, well, nuts.
Here’s a good story. Yesterday, I wrote the word “accommodation” on the board in one of my classes, but spelt it “accommIdation.” One of the students raised his hand and said, “I thought there was an O in the middle?” I said, “Is there? I have no idea.” He pointed it out to me in his book, and I laughed and said, “Stupid American doesn’t even know English!” They were all shocked at first, and then started to laugh, that not only was I happy the student corrected me, but that I was laughing and making fun of myself.
In some of my classes, I’ve told them I speak some Czech and am learning, but in others I didn’t. When I give them activities to do in pairs, I tell them they have to speak in English to each other or there’s no point. Walking around
the classroom, they of course switch into English as soon as I’m by them (much like we always did with Spanish in high school), and then right back into Czech the second they think I’m out of earshot. A few times, in a few different classes, I’ve turned around and said, “Mluvte anglicky, prosím! Nerozumím česky!" (“Speak English, please! I don’t understand Czech!”) This has been met with surprise, fear, and actually laughter. They’re first surprised that I even know how to say that, then realize that there’s the chance I’ve understood everything they’ve said about me to each other, and then laugh because they can’t believe a foreigner actually wants to and can speak Czech. There’s also the problem of students not listening to the teacher, and most Czech teachers I’ve noticed don’t care about that, so the students sit in the back and will whisper to each other. When they do that, I’ll stop talking and start whispering, “If it’s that important, at least say it in English!,” which freaks them out since they’re being called out on it. Now, though, that they know that I’m in the same boat as them, what with trying to learn Czech,
they’re a lot more comfortable and chat with me all the time. So many want to be my friend on Facebook, too, which is good in the sense that I’m starting to learn their names from it, but am not sure how crazy I am about them seeing all my stuff.
I think I’ve mentioned it before, but I’ll say it again. In Czech schools (like Czech homes), it’s pretty taboo to walk around with your “outdoor shoes” on. Everyone also has a pair of papučky, indoor shoes, which are like slippers, and they all change into them as soon as they enter into school. The floor is a sacred thing here in the Czech Republic, and they take that to the extreme. On Wednesday night, I went to a spinning class with two of the teachers from the medical school, which was an absolute blast and is now going to be our weekly routine. We went out for dinner afterwards and everything, which was a lot of fun. However, when you enter the gym, you also must leave your shoes at one of the doors, and then enter the inner part of the gym in your socks to
Vsetinska Becva
The river running through Vsetin. Calan said it was actually "high." go to the locker rooms, etc. It was very strange to walk in and just see a room with shoes everywhere, and it’s fine, you just leave your shoes there, nobody’ll take ‘em!
This reminds me of my next point for some reason, that not only do the students and teachers all wear their papučky, but the students also stand up whenever the teacher enters the classroom and remain standing until the teacher tells them to sit down. It’s also the students’ responsibility to erase the chalkboard, as well as deliver the class-book (třida). The class-book is a horrible thing, and luckily I don’t really have to deal with it. Since the class stays in the same room all day and the teacher comes to them (and the teachers all have their offices that they share, called a kabinet), there is a class-book in the room that each teacher fills out listing the topics covered that day. It’s very strange, and is also the only source of a class roster, if you can believe it, but somehow, it works for them. The students all stand up when I walk in, though, and they always crack up when I say,
“Čau!" or “Ahoj!”
Well, I guess I’ve covered more or less the major points of school so far, what it’s like, etc. It’s a lot more fun now that the kids are willing to talk to me, and they’re all really funny. They love that I make fun of myself all the time, and it’s great ‘cause they’ll make their own jokes (not about me, they wouldn’t go that far…yet), so there’s finally some personalities in my classes. I also showed them a $10 bill this week, and told them that I knew they were Czechs and keeping an eye on them ‘cause I wanted my $10 back, which they thought was funny and that the money was so cool. My co-teachers all say, too, that they’re impressed with how good I am at teaching and talking to the kids (“for having no formal training”), and I’m apparently the hit of the Gymnázium and Zdravotka (medical school), since every step I make travels like wild-fire among the students and teachers.
The teachers here are having a lot of fun with me, too. The German teachers love the fact that I speak German (and Austrian German at that, since
most of them speak German German), and I even went to a German class one day with the teacher I was with in Italy. They’re all fascinated that I can speak English, German and Italian, and that I can get by in Czech. In the teachers’ room at the Gymnázium, as well, where I spend my free periods, there’re still many bookshelves full of books in Russian, all bearing fantastic titles about the glories of the Soviet Union, the most literary of Soviet literatures, and all that good ol’ hyperbole. I was looking at them one day and figuring out what they meant, and so the teachers discovered I can read the Cyrillic alphabet (the alphabet Russian, Bulgarian, etc., use), and since just about every adult here can speak Russian as well as Czech, many have decided to speak with me exclusively in Russian. I once made the mistake of saying ya nye panimayu, ya gavaryu pa-russij ploha (I don’t understand, I speak Russian poorly), and so that’s intensified their desire to want to teach me. There’s also a French teacher who was complaining in French to another teacher about another teacher, and I understood and chuckled to myself. She
Masarykovo Gymnazium
The school Calan teaches at. heard and has since decided to speak with me in French. The principal of one of my schools can speak Norwegian, as well, and when he and I talk normally, he speaks in English and I speak in Czech, and we use German as our mutual language if the other doesn’t understand. Well, he said something in Norwegian once by accident, and started to explain in German, and I said in Swedish that it wasn’t a problem, I can speak some Swedish, so now we rotate between English-German-Czech-Swedish-Norwegian. There’s a man who lives in a village outside of Havlíčkův Brod from the Netherlands, and he wants to meet me and speak Dutch to me, so basically, by the end of this year, my head’s going to explode!
The last culture aspect I’ll tell you about is one of the strangest (but also nicest, in my opinion) events that happens here. When you meet somebody new, you address them only as “vy,” which is the polite way of saying “you,” as well as is the plural form of “you.” However, at some point in the relationship, you can tell them or they can tell you that they can address you
Architecture
Lovely communist era architecture. as “ty,” which is the informal way of saying “you.” It’s surprisingly a big deal. There are lots of people here that call me “vy,” even if I see them every day, and to many of them I’ve said, “Why do you keep calling me ‘vy,’ you can call me ‘ty,’ it’s no problem.” They get SO excited if you tell them this, and they stand up (so you have to, too), and you shake hands. You end up holding hands for a few seconds and they say, “Já jsem ______, ahoj!” I am _____, hi! “Ahoj” is also their informal way of saying hi and bye, as well as čau, so it’s a big deal that they can say that to you. It was a little strange at first, but now I actually kind of like it, it’s a fun little cultural note.
Alright, well, that’s about it for me. I’ve rambled about several different aspects of Czech culture and life here in Česká republika. I hope you’ve found it interesting, if you’re still paying attention at this point. I’ll add here some pictures from my weekend in Vsetín with Calan and Emily so you can get a
War Memorial
A memorial in the middle of Vsetin for soldiers killed in WWII. feel for what it looks like over there on the Czech/Slovak (but not Czechoslovak) border. As for now, I just threw in my first load of laundry in my apartment ever (yippee!), and am waiting for the guy to come and take a look at my internet, so if this blog is online, that means I have internet again, so you can celebrate with me!
Ahoj!
One last thing which will hopefully help you with Czech names:
a = ah
á = aah
e = ay
é = aay
ě = yay
i = ee
í = eee
o = oh
ó = ooh
u = uu
ú = uu
ů = uuu
š = sh
č = ch
ch = h
ř = only exists in Czech, like rolling your r with your teeth closed
z with a little v on top (it won't let me write it here) = zh (like s in measure)
ý = ee
ď = dyuh
ť = tyuh
ň = nyuh
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