American Corner, Cultural Sensitivity, & Puking Abroad

Early in the week, I gave a lecture at Rijeka’s American Corner.  American Corners, in partnership with U.S. embassies, are all over the world (there are approximately 800 of them), and at least in Croatia, as the U.S. Embassy website explains, they "are small American-style libraries created to help increase mutual understanding between Croatia and the United States by making information about America available in a variety of formats."  The Embassy asked me to give a lecture for women’s history month, and I greatly enjoyed the experience.  There were about 60-70 people in the room—mostly high school and university students, along with several of my colleagues and a few people from the State Department, and the lecture was also broadcast to the other three American Corners in Croatia.  I got some good questions—including one from an especially articulate Croatian high school student who asked with dismay: "why is it that I’ve been taught almost nothing about women’s history in my education so far?"

In my graduate class this week, some of my students expressed frustration that I'm requiring them to use topic sentences (a topic sentence explains the main point of a paragraph) in their argumentative essays.  As I learned last week, the phrase, "topic sentence," was new to them, so I discussed it in some detail.  I left class wondering if I was being culturally insensitive and unnecessarily trying to impose an American way of doing things on the students.  In a conversation after class, several colleagues suggested that no, I wasn't and that the students' lack of experience with writing was causing their reaction.  My sense is that my Croatian students know a lot more and have read a lot more than my students back in the States, but as they admit, they have very little experience writing, and they have been taught to memorize and regurgitate, not to think critically (though they’re very critical of this approach to their education).  I wonder how many other things--in addition to topic sentences and approaches to writing--I'll think about in new ways as a result of teaching here.  Probably too many to count.

As for the last part of this post's title...this week we've had some challenging moments.  Both girls had the stomach flu, and we've come to appreciate even more than we did before several items that we have back at our home in the States, such as a clothes dryer and extra sets of bed sheets.  Everything is back to normal (though perhaps I'm jinxing this....).  My mother-in-law has been very patient with all of our craziness.

Laura

Gelato for Dinner...Our Trip to Venice

Here's another post from Alison and Laura.  We went to Venice last weekend.  Venice is about 2 1/2 hours from where we live in Rijeka.

Laura: This was our first European trip with Judy and our first trip as a family to Italy.

Alison, what did you think of Venice?

Alison: It was a nice place.  A little too busy for my liking, but who doesn't like having gelato every day?

Dinner in Venice

Laura: I did make a rule that when in Venice, we must have gelato on a daily basis.  On our first night there, gelato was our dinner.

Alison: Bad parenting, Mom.

Laura: Anyway, I should note that Caroline's gelato was called iPuffi, which was light blue and has something to do with smurfs in Italian.

Alison: I took a lot of pictures when we were on a taxi type of boat, so here are a few of them:

Laura: Alison, you mentioned that you thought that Venice was a nice place.  What was nice about it?

Alison: I don't know.  Maybe it's the breeze when you're on the boat.  Or maybe it's the beautiful architecture.  Whatever it is, I haven't quite figured it out.

Caroline and I had a lot of fun in the Piazza San Marco.  Here's a picture of her on my sore back:

Laura: Here's a sampling of some architecture and views of the canals throughout Venice.  Amazing.  The three adults in the family were continuously blown away by what we saw.

Piazza San Marco

At the Piazza San Marco

And here's a goofy tourist shot.

Beautiful masks can be found all over Venice--and as you can see, a few masked people can be found as well.  The masks are connected to (Mardi Gras) carnival; Venice has one of the biggest carnivals in the world.

I noticed that J.D., Alison, Caroline, and I sometimes used Croatian--unconsciously--while in Venice.  For example, we occasionally said "hvala" rather than "grazie" (thank you).  Croatian is seeping into our brains....

Alison: Thanks for looking at our post of

Our First Visitor!

A few days ago J.D.'s mother, Judy came down to Rijeka for two weeks! She is ready for adventures! Here she is:

Electronics In Croatia

Hey! Today I'm going to tell you about electronics here.I have a few sources-my guitar teacher, Nikola, and my tutor, Greta. I have noticed that people don't use Apple that much. Nikola has a MAC BOOK AIR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, I really want one. But observing TRY Theatre students, who are between 13-16, it seems that none of them have an iPhone. Or iPod. I just find that sort of weird, knowing that a number of my age 10-11 friends have them.



Alison's quote of the week:


"Get iOS5! (if you have an iPod, iPhone, etc.)"

Our first trip outside of Croatia...to Slovenia

Alison and Laura are reporting a bit about our trip yesterday and today to Bled, a small town in Slovenia.  (Slovenia borders Croatia, and Bled is about 2 hours from Rijeka.)  We both wanted to give our opinions of the trip.

Laura:  At the risk of sounding trite, J.D. and I thought that Bled may be the prettiest place, or certainly one of the prettiest places, we've ever been to.

Alison: You guys are absolutely wrong.  Our hometown and my dream house are the best places in the world!

Laura: What did you think of Bled?

Alison: It's nice, but I actually was a bit happy to see the city (and working WiFi) again. What did you like about Bled?

Bled Castle

Laura: The stunning location--in mountains called the Julian Alps.  The lake with a beautiful island in the middle.  The medieval castle.  The Victorian houses in the town.

Bled Castle in the background

A view from the castle

Inside the castle

Looking out from the castle

Alison: Definitely, you're right.  I've got to say that I'm not as big a fan of the mountains, but everything else was just fascinating.  Plus the turrets....By the way, here's a photo of one of the Victorian houses that I loved, along with a turret.

Alison: Hey Mom, did you like our boat ride today?

Laura: That was one of my favorite parts of the weekend.  With so few people on the lake and the island, I kind of felt like the place was ours to explore.  What did you think of the boat ride?

Alison: It was a lot of fun, and it also took a lot of energy for the person who was rowing.

On the way to Bled island, with the Church of the Assumption (current church was built in the 1600s; the first church on the island was built in the 1100s but was destroyed by several earthquakes)

Docked at Bled island

Alison: I'm glad we didn't go on the water yesterday.  Here's why:

Caroline's report on the weekend:
We walked up to get to the Bled Castle.  It was so nice.  When you get to the top and look out from the castle, it's very pretty.

On the way to the castle (with J.D. wearing a crown given to Caroline)

In the place we stayed in Bled, they served a really good breakfast with bacon and other types of meat and things for vegetarians too.  [From Laura--Caroline said this because we have a mix of vegetarians and meat-eaters in the family.  Two smiling carnivores are pictured above.]

The haircut-and-language-lesson package deal

Today I got my second haircut from Barbara, a stylist who owns a salon several blocks from our apartment.  I found her through Greta, our girls' homeschooling tutor, who kindly accompanied me the first time I made an appointment with Barbara to make sure that nothing got lost in translation (and that I didn't end up with orange hair).  I greatly appreciate Barbara's hair styling skills, as well as her conversational skills.

Today she told me that she sees me as her English language teacher.  I had assumed that she had learned the language in school because her English is quite good, but I was wrong.  Barbara learned English by watching American movies.  And now when her nine-year-old son Lovro brings home his English-language books and worksheets (today Croatian children start learning English when they begin school), she goes over them for her own benefit.  Along with knowing Croatian and English, Barbara speaks German, which she took in school, and she understands Italian but doesn't speak it well.  Barbara's husband is fluent in Italian, a language he uses as part of his job.  He either does shipbuilding or ship repair (we needed a dictionary at that point in the conversation!), and he often goes to nearby Italy for work.  We've met a number of people connected to the shipping industry here in this port city.  Anyway, when Barbara said that she sees me as her language teacher, I asked her if she could be my language teacher.  An eager and patient instructor, she tried to teach me the difference between the Croatian č and ć (both have a "ch" sound; one "ch" is harder than the other)--something I've been trying to understand, but my American ears seem to have difficulty hearing the difference.

One thing that Barbara taught me was how to sing the "happy birthday" song in Croatian.  I used that on a phone call to the States not long after the haircut.  Sretan 70. rođendan, Tata!

Laura

New Section

I'm writing a new section on the Caroline & Alison page and want to know what you want us to talk about! Please comment below to give ideas!

ALISON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Students

I started teaching yesterday.  We purposely got to Croatia early to get settled in and travel, but we didn't think we'd be arriving quite this far in advance of my semester's beginning!  I was never sure exactly when it was really going to begin (and I sometimes got conflicting reports when I asked).  I learned a couple of weeks ago that what are called elective classes (including mine) start this week.

I am teaching two courses: Women and Gender in American History to 3rd year undergraduates (like seniors in American universities), and Academic Literacy II to master's students.  I found the beginnings to be a lot of fun; the classes had good first-day-of-class energy.  The students appeared interested in what we'll be doing this semester, and importantly to me, they laughed at my jokes!  Even if all of that is just brown-nosing, I'll take it.

Many of my colleagues, along with a number of other people I've met in Rijeka, have explained what they see as the differences between the Croatian and American educational systems, both on the secondary and university levels.  So far, here's what I've been told.  Croatian students:

• Are required to read a lot more great literature and history than their American counterparts, and they've been doing this since they were quite young.
• Cover many more subjects in secondary school than Americans do.
• Are taught to memorize material and spit it back to their teachers and professors.
• Are not encouraged to engage in critical thinking in the way that American students are.
• Are discouraged from giving their opinions, perhaps even based on a careful reading of source material, to their teachers or professors.
• Are not used to class discussions.
• Write very little in high school and college.

Students' comments in both my undergraduate and graduate classes confirmed a number of these things.

Many of my students seemed excited about the opportunity to make arguments in class discussion and in their writing.  I was surprised and pleased that in today's women's and gender history class, the students already engaged in a discussion and at a high level.

I've also been learning more about the university itself.  The university bureaucracy here is quite complicated.  Several students have wished me luck in figuring it out and explained that they still haven't done so!  

Yet, there's also a kind of flexibility here that doesn't exist at American universities.  For example, students here often have what they call "colliding courses," that is, courses that overlap with one another in time.  They sometimes negotiate with their professors to change the times that a course is taught.  Professors get to pick the date and time of their final exam (and they must offer the final at more than one time, in part so that if a student registers for the first exam time and fails, he or she can take it a second time).

Laura

A Date with My Spouse and Other People's Ancestors

I love old cemeteries.  I realize that some people find them to be creepy, but I think they're beautiful.  From my perspective, gravestones and cemetery monuments are works of art, and they offer a great window into the past.  Plus, cemetery landscapes are often lovely.  Knowing his spouse well, J.D. asked me on a date to a nearby cemetery that he had discovered a few weeks ago but didn't get the chance to explore.  It was a great date (for this history-geek)!

 

Remembering the Anti-Fascist Fighters
(in both Croatian and Italian)

Red stars commemorating the anti-fascist fighters

   

Holocaust memorial

Old Jewish section of the cemetery

The Kozala cemetery is a few blocks from our apartment.  After doing a bit of internet searching, I learned that this cemetery was founded in 1838 and includes the works of the famous sculptors and architects working in Rijeka at the turn of the twentieth century.  J.D. and I were struck by many things in this cemetery, including...the fact that the far majority of the grave sites were above ground, like they are in New Orleans...the interesting mix of names; often grave stones with Croatian names were right next to those with Italian names (Rijeka was part of Italy for much of the early twentieth century)...and the way the cemetery showed the turbulent history of this region.

Laura