Back at it in Vlora

Greetings:

So, I’m at my office a couple of weeks ago grading and working on lesson preps and I hear this gathering noise – a roadside seat to see this mile-long line of kids coming down the boulevard. All the middle school and high school students of Vlora and the surrounding areas were marching into the stadium for the Youth Sports Olympiad. What a parade! What a country!

It’s been about a month since Mitesh and I got back from Amsterdam and I finally got around to posting the event. I want to bring you up to speed on my university experience.

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Of course teaching something like Psycholinguistics to graduate students has been a real task. I think I mentioned the last linguistics course I had was about forty-five years ago. So, when I first got the assignment back in March – with only two weeks preparation before my first lecture – I had to Google the damn thing to see what in the hell it was all about. Yeah, about ten to twelve hours a day reading up on the basics and then wading through a couple of on-line books and about three dozen articles.

I can’t fault the faculty director for the assignment – the university rector handed her an American PhD at the last minute with the instructions to find me a course. The sense, I think, is that an American university educated doc (even one in history) can do just about anything. Fortunately I’ve been able to stay a couple of weeks ahead of the kids. And the fact is I’ve found the material quite fascinating; I hope I get the chance to teach the course again next spring. Certainly out of my area of study, but I doubt it would serve any purpose in Albania to teach a week on the 1876 US presidential election debacle. So, I adjust to the needs of the university and faculty. And happier than hell I’ve found a place.

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The students are wonderful to be with – a sense of innocence and wonder that makes each session brand new – a whole new discovery moment for me and them. I’ve mentioned their shock with the whole thing: first an American and second, my expectations. As I’ve done in most of my courses, we have a self-graded quiz every class; a weekly reading assignment (BF Skinner and Noam Chomsky!!); an on-line course journal; and a term paper assignment. Over two months into the semester some of the students are still a bit overwhelmed getting used me; most have finally sorted out the mechanics of Google Drive – and with my learning curve on revisiting it, I completely feel their pain. But for the most part they’re coming along and I’ve got a number of students who could walk right into an American university and do great. I wish more had the chance.

"Yeah! And we're going to have fun at the same time!" At this moment not too many of them looked convinced!

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I’ve met a few of my fellow teachers, but generally they don’t approach me – of course I always hit them with a friendly “mire dita,” we exchange smiles but that’s about it. I subbed for a professor couple of weeks ago when she was in Vienna at a conference, so I got to visit with a few of her undergrads.

Filling in with the undergrads

Plus I’ve been invited to give presentations to the Economics School on critical thinking (!) and my take on – really Wallentein’s – world economic systems theory. Oh yeah, I’m tutoring the university rector (president) and his wife three afternoons a week – and the three of us have a pretty good time with that – their English light years beyond my Albanian!

With some of the Economics School students - and a session with Flora and Berti and Bill

***

The classroom accommodations are brutal, long narrow classrooms, and half the time I couldn’t get the PowerPoint projector to work, which when I did, it didn’t show up on the wall very well.

"What is this American doing?!"

But I found a solution: I searched the building I was in and I connected with the director of the Nursing School. She offered one of her classrooms! And (wait for it!) it had a built in PowerPoint projector. BAM!

And then…,,,,two weeks later the projector was stolen!! Holy hell. But the room is great and so I just regrouped.

***

My relations with the secretarial staff here were a bit rocky at first – ahh, bureaucracy. It took me forever to get a class roll or negotiate solid commitments with the one and only PPT projector. And one of the secretaries was quite upset with the room change – switching from a language faculty classroom to a nursing faculty classroom. “But that’s not how we do it; it’s different.” “Yeah, and different can be scary, huh?” “Yes.” “But just because it’s different doesn’t mean it can’t work, right?” “No...I guess.” “I know, I get it, but it’s not a revolution, it’s only a classroom change, it will be OK.”

With Gerti before class - check out the poser on the far right! Kids, funnier than hell!

The new classroom is situated right across from the secretary office and a couple of them asked if they could attend my class (probably heard all the noise). So a couple of them visited my class last week and I’m happy to say my relations with the secretaries are improving!

With the short-lived state-of-the-art projector - but my new friends in the secretary office always make sure I've got one on hand. Yay!! 

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Conference with Albion and Edi

But the accommodation problems are really no big deal. The great joy in living and teaching in Albania is connecting with these students. As you’ve read a few times in these pages, the hope for this country is solely with the young – as it is in any society or country.

Let me finish up with an excerpt from a student journal; the class was on Skinner’s definition of the role of the listener. This is a sample of the student’s entry: 

 "It is easier to understand the lecture when you are shown different examples. I love how the professor gives the examples, with all the funny faces and stuff. It makes me think of other possible examples, and thinking is great, right?"

Hmm, “…funny faces…” – have no clue what’s she’s talking about there, but note the last bit. As you’ve probably noticed, most of the writing on this blog is conversational, pretty much how I talk. And the kids have evidently picked up on certain nuances. I responded to her comment: “You crack me up, ‘right?’” She gets back: “I looked up ‘you crack me up’ and it means that I made you laugh, right?” “Yes, it made me laugh. And you looked it up – I am still laughing. Inter-cultural communication is fun, right? See you in class.”

***

So, pretty happy how I landed; not in the Peace Corps anymore but I’ve got some idea about a secondary project – it’s pretty big, but with maybe another ten years of sucking air there might be enough time. I’ll keep you posted on that and all the other sub-plots in my Albania experience as things move along.

Speaking of sub-plots, no “Addendum” posts in the works – I’m still waiting on the FOIA appeal and the slow moving legal processes (the same everywhere I guess).

On the way back from Amsterdam Mitesh and I started planning another road trip and Nelson (see the Egypt post) connected to say he wanted in. So, in a couple of months the three of us are headed down to Corfu for a few days and then over to Athens (first visit for me so I need to bone-up on my ancient Greek). Mitesh is limited on his time away from his PC work so he’s going to head back to Albania and then Nelson and I are going to do some island hopping. 

But before I go - let's close with another parade!

These kids, and a hundred more, are headed to the Vlora Folk Festival - Vlora's a happening town!

Later. My best to all of you.

XOXO