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The Big Blue Marble Newsletter: Sample Article
Not I --Not anyone else, can travel that road for you. You must travel it for yourself. My Crazy Russian Teacher In the first month of my stay at Saint Petersburg State University as a Russian for Foreigners students, I had a truly old fashioned Communist era babushka (grandmother) as an instructor. She taught me Russian in individual classes four days a week, three hours a day. At first she attempted to teach me Russian the old fashioned way. She started by making me read and translate complex Russian poetry by Lermontov. I immediately rebelled because I thought that learning phrases like ?the pea soup thick fog rolled over the valleys? seemed superfluous when no matter what I ordered in the student cafeteria they kept thinking I was trying to order (the only food I truly despise) liver. After a couple of days of listening to my vociferous complaining, she changed tack. She tried to teach me grammar and again, I rebelled. I wanted conversation. She said ?anyone can teach you words, but you have no structure? and I responded ?I just want to be able to eat something other than liver? (NOTE: in retrospect, I wish I had learned more grammar. My Russian grammar is really poor!) Gradually she capitulated. She put together some basic lessons on ordering and buying goods (particularly food) and using public transit. While I appreciated her efforts, these lessons became dull after awhile and we just started to talk. The conversations fascinated me because she had such a different perspective on life. She felt that Russia (this is a refrain I?d hear over and over again afterwards, though not as vociferously) was duped into capitalism and democracy and that the former Soviet Union was better because its citizens cared for each other more than during the "dog eat dog? life that characterized post perestroika Russia. One day she started our conversation with the strangest question: ?What would you ask for if someone said they?d give you anything, if you?d agree to give your neighbor twice as much?. I replied something like: I?d want peace in the world; it wouldn?t matter if my neighbor had twice as much peace. She scratched her head and said, ?We Russians would ask to have our eye scratched out; that way our neighbor would not be able to see.? As I spent time the next year in Russia teaching English, I often thought about her reply. While Russians can be hard on each other, I never felt that the type of cruelty her response implied seemed that characteristically Russian. Most Russians were quite compassionate under their gruff exteriors. So as my language proficiency improved, I began to ask my students and friends my former teacher?s question. Almost universally their response was something like: ?I want a million dollars; I don?t really care what my neighbor has.? While this response was not altruistic as mine, it did not seem cruel. As I got to know some of them better, I asked them what they thought of my teacher?s response. They all shrugged and said, ?I don?t know what Russia that old lady lived in, but she sounds crazy to me.? NOTES:
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