Students Define Happiness and Education

Teaching teenagers, especially in a foreign setting where earning their respect means warring against their conception of you as a classroom pet or play-toy requires a very special, high-potency brand of patience that I can only sometimes barely muster up.

But then occasionally, like in the eye of a hurricane, you get to observe a provactive thought intoxicate their minds and change their hearts, if only for a grain-of-sand sized moment.  

The senior (high school) students, my Armenian counterpart and I converse about the meaning of happiness and education on a random Monday afternoon in our freezing cold classroom with its dilapitated walls and desks. Half of them are half-way present in the conversation, but truthfully (despite my smile and dramatic commitment to the topic), half are not.   

The girls in the class offer their definition, albeit reluctantly, of happiness: happiness means having family, friends, health, etc. (where the et cetera only includes circumstantially-based satisfaction).  We ask them if there is a way to be happy without any one of those things, and they say no.  

As the conversation then shifts to education, we find that the students mostly agree that education means learning to become better people.  But how? And why? 

Not a whole lot of input.  My counterpart then bravely posits her own feelings on education:  “Education is freedom,” she says, and elaborates.  Everybody’s listening now.    

It’s the perfect segue into discussing mental freedom, or the ability to think for yourself, so we bridge the discussion with our previous ideas about happiness.  “Isn’t it possible then,” we argue after a few students' comments, “through education, to gain the skills necessary to experience a kind of happiness that is entirely independent of circumstance?”

Mental wheels begin to move, engines begin to stir.  

We want them to understand that education doesn’t only mean “schooling.”  Education can mean developing an agile, resilient mind that enables us to imagine and create happiness that depends on nothing but our inner world or inner spirituality to bring forth peace.  Education teaches us to think.

I think maybe next time we’ll re-enact the “walk against conformity” scene from Dead Poets Society to get them observing where their ideological thoughts really come from.  This is just the begining of our discussion, but already they’ve proved the value of the topic being discussed.  After this discussion, for example, one of the students came up with the following definition for the concept of love:

"Love is the sense by which we either love or die." She then went on to explain how love can either figuratively kill us or bring us life.

Beautiful! They’re thinking, transcending, wondering and questioning, and it’s all just a pleasure to witness.

I’m going to try to get this link translated into Armenian because it is a wonderful depiction of how choice can determine our circumstance, instead of the other way around:  

 http://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/this_is_water/

Close-Knit Beauty

Sitting inside a live portrait of cross-cultural bliss beside my host mother, I contemplate just how “right” everything feels. 

I mean, look at this design!! 

Between teaching class and English conversation club, I sit wedged between a pleasantly warm wood stove to my right and my beautiful host mother, donning her everyday house dress, to my left.  In the wake of a delicious Armenian meal – a savory mixture of beans, canned tomato-juice,  potatoes, and rice  – Anush sips her tea and teaches me to knit a hat.  Meanwhile, an Armenian television drama fills the silence in the background.  Anush oscillates between patiently explaining the meaning of several words I can’t understand from the TV and tolerantly fixing my knitting errors whenever I clumsily drop a stitch.  

Anush has been knitting and crocheting since she was five.  She can now sit and thoughtlessly create a handmade skirt of consummate skill using only her thick, clearly-spends-a-lot-of-time-gardening fingers and a tiny crochet hook in just one evening.  

Incredible Pattern

Together we’re going to try to sell some of her best work, because it’s simply fantastic.  And, after she had taught me several new stitches and a really interesting new design (if you can teach me to knit you can teach anyone), I realized that she could be sharing these skills with other young villagers who would like to learn as well.  If fact, she could do some knitting lessons with other villagers to make extra money to buy more yarn for her own work, which she could then sell  in larger cities or towns.  Anush loves the idea. 

This moment captures the beauty of cross-cultural, or even just cross-person, relationships.  We've all got a set of skills just waiting to be shared with the world; sometimes, we just need some outside support to begin to recognize those gifts. Anush, for example, didn’t realize how special her talent was until she saw how painstakingly slowly I struggled to stitch two simple knots together.  

Now, she feels empowered by the idea that she has something extraordinary to share with others, and I’ve got a nice new winter hat.  

A Man and His Lemon Tree

Our Peace Corps Security Officer is a large, strapping, gentle Armenian man who simultaneously comforts and intimidates but whom everyone loves.  Vahagn is the volunteer “daddy” who we look to for guidance, protection, and stability.  

The man has won awards for his safety and security practices in Armenia because he not only fiercely defends his volunteers from harm but also shows genuine concern for the welfare of those whom he protects.   

You would not, however, want to be on this guy’s bad side.  He’s enormous, and I’m betting he could tactfully disarm a perpetrator without even trying.  

All that said, he does have one definite soft spot: his little lemmon tree.

One day I was sitting outside on the Peace Corps office patio, when Vahagn made his daily trip outside to monitor the growth of his tiny little tree.  He sauntered outside and we engaged in conversation as he sheapishly approached his  germinating friend.  

“What’s that, Vahagn?” I asked, wondering what could possibly evoke such admiration from a man of his stature and girth.  

“Dis ees my lemon,” he said, matter-of-factly.  “Eet ees finally getting big.”

And so we continued to discuss the growth of this single lemon, which apparently Vahagn had been checking on every day for a year.  He nurtures it and loves it with little regard for the fact that there is only one lemon on that silly little tree.  He delights in his citrus child, and it slowly but surely bares the fruit of his nurture and care.

Vahagn and the lemon reflect a shift in my focus as a result of this weekend's Peace Corps Conference. 

I love going to Peace Corps conferences because they often reinstill passion in and redirect the purpose purpose of a group of idealistic Americans who have come to this foreign place to better themselves and to better others but who have often stumbled over the lumps and bumps of the rough ground of reality in real-time Armenia.  

During our conference this weekend, I was reminded of the importance of relationships in our service.  

One memory in particular stands out.  Richard Byess, a USAID employee in Armenia whom I deeply respect and admire, dazzled the volunteers with words he barely had to think about but which moved me to my core:

“The only real struggle you’ll endure throughout Peace Corps is the internal struggle to stay commited to what you love no matter what happens.”

Amen.  

I had often allowed obstacles to distract me from my dedication to create meaningful cross-cultural relationships throughout my first year of service.  I wanted my tree to sprout thousands of little lemons and look really impressive but failed to nurture the single seed that mattered the most.  This year has already been so much more enriching for me because my service goals have become, once again, entirely relational.  

Lemon trees require an ample amount of light, warmth, and affection in order to thrive.  They also require plenty of time to grow properly.  In fact, a lemon tree can take up to several years to grow its fruit under certain conditions.  

This is what a relationship needs, and this is what volunteers are here to do.  

Pride and Joy

It’s kinda rare, but when you feel it you want to bottle it and save it for a rainy, grumpy day. 

As I watch my students during English club, I feel overwhelmed with maternal pride, warmth, and affection for these kids who have made such an impact on my life.  

Several Armenian teenagers sit happily clicking away on their new Rosetta Stone programs that were generously donated by a friend of mine and finally installed after much hard work.  They are so focused on the task at hand that they barely notice that I’m in the room.  

“The woman,” one of them says to the computer. 

“The WOOH-man,” The girl ardently repeats, hoping her voice will register this time.

“THE WOOOOOH-MAN!” She cries, and the soul-affirming Rosetta “woosh” sounds its beautiful tone as the screen lights up green.  The girl beams with self-satisfaction and proceeds to the next activity. 

It’s so simple, but Rosetta Stone excites these kids and significantly alters the way they learn languages.  They engage with the material, track their progress, and satiate their natural curiosity while gaining technological skills as well.   I watch them become responsible for their own learning and see them laugh while doing it.  

On days like this, the burden of teaching is light and the yoke so very easy. 

Carpe Diem in the 12th Grade

One day in my twelfth grade English class I decided to try something completely different.

The twelfth graders in our school have absolutely no interest in learning anything at all.  They concern themselves with typical teenage drama, and that’s about it.  Up until a few years ago, twelfth grade didn’t even exist – the school only went to tenth.  So basically, they try to fight the system by rejecting the twetfth grade altogether.

Needlesless to say, these students are particularly hard to reach.  But one day, instead of trying to teach them English (which many of them feel no need to learn because they will never use it), I decided to talk with them about fear.  

“Do you fear what other people think of you?” I asked them in Armenian, thinking they would probably just ignore the question and secretly text on their phones. 

Instead, I was answered by a chorus of “no’s,” followed by some passionate assertions like “I used to, but I don’t anymore,” etc, etc. 

At that point it became clear to me that the most important thing in the world to them was also the thing that they fought most to pretend that they didn’t care about: They would go to any length to prove that they didn’t care what other people think of them because they care so deeply about what other people think of them.

So I invited them, one by one, to come to the front of the class and do something absurd in front of everyone to prove that they didn’t care what others thought of them.

One kid had to close one eye and shout the word “tree” (in English – there had to be some English component), close one eye, and spin in a circle hopping on one leg.  Another had to tell us his deepest secret. Another had to close his eyes and tell us, without thinking, what he wanted most in the world.  And finally, someone just had to dance.  They all did it.

Then it was my turn (I couldn’t get out of doing something if I was about to preach about fearlessness), so I told them they could command me to do anything they’d like and I’d do it.

The class asked me to do an Armenian dance for them, so I did it.  They loved it – they laughed, clapped along with the moves, and one of the boys came up and started dancing with me. 

After that we had a real conversation about where fear comes from and why it is such a big part of our lives.

Their homework was to think of something that they had always been afraid of doing, and then do it.  They could write about it and tell no one, or they could tell the class when they come back. 

Some of them conquered their fears, and some did not.  But all of us learned something that day.  And for the first time, I felt a real connection with these students who put up all sorts of walls when it comes to learning and authority figures.  

Now, when we see each other in the halls, we say “Carpe Diem,” because I told them it means “Seize the day” and that every day we should remind each other to live without fear. 

 They liked that, and so do I. 

Wine Moment: Fully Seen

I can go anywhere and be stared at without feeling irritated.

Being stared at all the time comes in handy when
teaching, however, because you never have to worry
about the kids not paying attention. Except that one kid.

While that may not seem like much of a success, it is.  Up until recently I was always, on some level, bothered by the way that people shamelessly watch me as if my pants are on fire while I walk down the street.  Armenians in this community rarely see foreigners, so when they do, they feast their eyes upon a glorious new treat.  People actually stop their cars and open their doors to steal a better glance at me.

But the discomfort I had to press through to get to this feeling of acceptance had nothing to do with their stares.  It had everything to do with exploring the reason it made me uncomfortable in the first place. 

Why would I ever feel physical tension build and want to run and hide when someone just looks at me, however intensely, for several minutes?

The innocuous spectators are not the problem –  I am.  My discomfort arose from a fear of being truly seen, or feeling truly known.  And unwanted attention, because it falls outside our control, causes us to scramble for some feeble attempt to regain control by physically or emotionally guarding ourselves from the perpetrator.  

But never more.  Ever since the moment I realized the true source of my tension, I’ve been able to work on surrendering it and dwelling in the acceptance of who I am.  What do I care if a person sees who I really am (often gross, sloppy, covered in dog hair)? God sees who I really am, and he tells me there’s no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. 

That’s good enough for me.

Wine Moment: Integrated.

I'm walking down the streets of Sisian, Armenia, admiring the beautiful fall foliage, with my dog's leash in one hand and four grocery bags in the other.  

A man suddenly looks at me and asks, in Armenian, "Do you know where the nearest bank is?"

A bit startled, I tell him that it's right around the corner in hurried, colloquial Armenian.  

In this simple moment of grocery bags, dog-walking, and giving directions to a total stranger, this place seems more like home than ever.

Wine Moment: It Takes 4 Languages to Buy Some Eggs

Anyone who has been fluent in one language and then tried to learn a third will understand my dismay:  One of the results of learning Armenian to function well in my new community was a gradual deterioration of my Spanish. But this year, I've decided to re-dedicate myself to Spanish and use it as much as possible.  I live in a predominantly Armenian-speaking community, but all the Armenians in my community are also fluent in Russian.  So I figure I may as well immerse in the Russian language community as well.  Cue the online Russian lessons. 

So the wine of pressing through the challenge of learning three languages reveals itself when I go to buy eggs from the store that is 100 yds away from my house.  There are three women in the store including my usual storelady.  I greet them in Armenian, but they ask me if it would be alright if I speak English so that they could learn a few words. 

“Ok, very good,” I say, searching their expressions for comprehension.  When understanding had been ascertained, I proceeded to ask for “bread, butter, and eggs,” in English, much to their delight.  

I then hear the storekeep translate the words into Russian, which I can actually understand! I say yes, those words were correctly translated.  Observing that I had begun to learn Russian, my storelady tosses a few phrases my way.  She then asks what other languages I know, to which I happily reply, "español."  She happens to want to learn Spanish, so I tell her I'll trade her some Spanish words for some Russian ones every time I come to the store.

As I'm leaving, she asks me what languages my dog speaks.  Smiling, I tell her that Mia is bilingual and understands commands both in English and Armenian.

The storelady, smiling back, says, “Molodetz.” (Good for you, in Russian).

Love and Peace Սեր, խաղաղությունAmor y paz Любовь и мир

Shifting the Purpose of This Blog

One of the greatest things about pressing through discomfort is the fruit that it yields.   The journey iteslf, enduring adversity, is one which cultivates great strength, growth, and maturity.  But besides all of that, we also get to experience moments of sheer delight as a result of working hard and pressing through the discomfort of daily life.  From now on, until the end of my service, I'd like to focus on those moments here on this page.

If I spent much of the first year in Peace Corps Armenia pressing through various challenges like adjustment, isolation, and being part of a minority here, I’d like to spend much of my second year enjoying the wine of these grapes, or the results of this hard work.  Sure, the work continues, and sure, most of the time it still isn’t easy, but I’d like to highlight the "wine" moments for awhile because I think great encouragement and hope can be drawn from them and so they might be worth sharing.  

The Barney Song Changes Things

Yesterday my fourth grade class gave me such a headache that even two hours of mind-numbing TV couldn't fix.

I wanted so badly to teach them the difference between the “Long A” sound and the “Short A.”  We're teaching Phonics this year, which overwhelms me as a teacher because I both love it and fear it.  

– MISS MEG! SHOULD I SAY (the answer)??? 

– Wait, please wait your turn.  I’m asking Sveta how to pronounce the word “apple,” not you.

– MISS MEG! MAY I .... Kareli durse gnal?

– Only if you say it in English, Grigor.  

– MAY I .... GOWAT?  (may I go out – as in, go to the bathroom)

– Yes okay.  Be quick.

– Now, sound out the word “apple,” Sveta.  GOHAR (my counterpart)! 

– MISS MEG!

– GRIGOR!

– SVETA! APPLE!

– GOHAR!

Headache.  We didn’t even get to vowel number two: The dreaded “E.”

Gohar and I used a Phonics method that really only works on older kids anyway, or kids who have a longer attention span than these little squirts had.  But the lesson plan wasn’t even the problem.   It was my allegiance to that lesson plan that was the issue.  

I was so hung up on accomplishing my mission with this class that I rapidly began to lose my patience and get very stern anytime they distracted me or made too much noise.  I was overly focused on my agenda. By the end of the lesson, I marched out of the room feeling irritated with all of them, exhausted, and guilty for not helping them distinguish between two seemingly simple sounds.  

Today, after class with the same group of kids, I feel energized and confident.  Why?

Peace Corps has jostled, shattered, and reformed all my priorities this year.  Whenever I get irritated or feel inadequate here, I remember that my first priority is to build relationships, and another is to live in total acceptance. By giving priority to these two values I acknowledge their supreme importance and snap them back into focus whenever I begin to drift.

So my attitude change toward today’s lesson was simple.  I planned to value my relationship to my students and to my counterpart more than I value discipline, total silence, or the structure of my lesson plan. 

I planned to accept not only the undesirable incidents that might occur throughout the class, but also to accept my own imperfection as well.  

There will be mistakes in each lesson.  There will be some students who don’t get things.  I have a whole year to work with these kids, and I need to be cherishing the small victories.  I planned to sing a song with them, and have some fun.  Kids need to move and sing and laugh and play.

Smiles were ubiquitous as we sang the “Barney Song,” and our fast-paced, fun-packed Phonics lesson left the kids wanting to learn more, to read more.  

Also, I talked out an issue with my main trouble-maker dude, and  told him that I loved him.  I took him out of the class and said, among other things “I love you but I need you to stop giving me headaches.  I know that you want to be good, so tell me how I can better meet your needs.”  We shook hands afterwards and pursuant to this he behaved angelically.

Sometimes we just have to accept our inability to be superheroes, abandon rigidity,  show a little love, and sing a little Barney.  Maybe it’s something about the lyrics that we sing, but the Barney song can really change things.

Weekly Grape:  Can I shift my focus to turn failure into fun?

Balcony Moments

What I have thus far failed to be brave enough to notice is that my concrete, crapped-out, gorgeous-in-all-its-patheticness balcony represents the space I often inhabit here in Armenia between cultures.  

So I sit here on my balcony, courageously enduring the stares, pondering this space that I’ve grown so fond of dwelling in this past year in Peace Corps Armenia.

On the outdoors side of the balcony, Armenians spit sunflower seeds, work on their cars, play in the street, shout to each other from their balconies, and release a cathartic “HELLO!” whenever they happen to see me.  

On the other side, a private American sanctuary sits, removed from it all:  a little slice of home decorated with pictures of my family and memories of what I’ve left behind.  Secluded, but free.  My own, but in someone else’s country. 

Reflection and a sudden fondness for this balcony-moment I’m having in the middle of this new world I’ve found myself in encourages me to press endlessly deeper into the in-between,  to really get to know the language, the idiocyncracies, the heart-issues, and the needs of the people surrounding me.  

Because what can happen in these unfamiliar, slightly awkward in-between spaces, or “balcony moments,” are interactions like the one I just recently had with two of my neighbors, who I’ll call Loud Kid #1 and Loud Kid #2:

Loud kid 1:  Hey! How long would it take to bike to... where is it  
again you are from? Russia?

Me: America.

LK 1: Yes. So how long would it take?

Me: Well, there’s an ocean you’d have to cross so maybe a plane 
might be better.

LK2: Yea, yea, but if we WERE to bike, how long would it take?

Me: Maybe a year... I dunno.

LK1:  Vshhh, that’s far.

Me: Yup.

And it’s moments like this that make turning “grapes into wine” and embracing the “balcony-moments” all worthwhile.

Weekly Grape:  Have I passed up a balcony moment recently?

Lost on a Horse in Armenia

When my sister Casey’s horse took off full-speed through a river, up a narrow road, and then completely out of view (leaving her phoneless, helmet-less, and blasting through a foreign Armenian village unable to speak the local language), I had only one thought:  If she dies, my parents will kill me.  

Do you know what the English halt command “Woahhhh” signifies to an Armenian horse?

Speed up.

And you can probably guess what my sister, an experienced equestrian in the States, shouted at the horse as it bolted through the village toward the mountains. 

Linguistic barriers can be really entertaining until your life is on the line. 

After sprinting a lap around the entire village in search of Casey, asking anyone along the way if they had seen an American on a horse and if they could please – gasp, heavy pant – help me find her, I climbed to the top of a mountain to search for her from a bird’s eye view.

Right when I got to the top, I finally got a phonecall from my host sister telling me to come home because they had found Casey casually walking the horse down the street saying it was the best ride of her life.  

If my sister is going to come visit me in Peace Corps Armenia, I guess the least we can do is provide the villagers with stories to tell their friends over “surch” (coffee).  

“Grapes into wine” is about pressing through fear and discomfort to experience the freedom that exists within that.  When Casey took off on that horse, she literally went into “fight or flight” mode for a while, deciding whether or not to jump off the horse.  Her decision to stay on the horse required a great amount of trust – trust that the horse wouldn’t buck her off, that she had enough skill to ride at a gallop, etc.  It also required courage.  

Casey later explained that after sprinting past all the village homes, the horse slowed down when they reached miles of wheat fields, apple orchards, and wildflowers in a gorgeous valley outside the village.  She said she had never felt more free on a horse in her life.  To Casey’s enormous relief, the horse then stopped and allowed her to dismount in the middle of this landscape.

“It was the best ride of my life,” she told me for the second time.

“Yeah yeah alright but you almost died.  And I almost did too. What was so great      

I know you can't see this because the picture quality is
terrible, but this is the only photo we managed to get
from the experience after it was all over. I look wraught with
concerned (right), and Casey is full of joy (left).

   about it?”

“It was just sooooo liberating.” 

I think that’s what happens when we press through discomfort.  It requires a great deal of courage and trust to do it, but then we are set free.  

Weekly Grape:  Do I fight or flee when things become really uncomfortable?

Buggin' Out

Today I wake up, start my routine, stare at my to-do list, get side-tracked, and re-dedicate myself to my list of tasks.

I get out my huge soup pot, because busy schedules mean bulk meals that I’ll eat for every meal of every day for a week straight.  Like soup.  

As I’m about to strip all the vegetables of their nutrients by boiling them into soup,  I look into the pot and see that it’s been stormed by an army of tiny, silver bugs.  

Silverfish.  

These bugs prefer dark, damp areas in the home and are especially attracted to old water in dingy places.  Like me, silverfish feed mostly on carbohydrates.  Unlike me, they can survive for several months without food! They are nocturnal and they wriggle like tiny, disgusting fish through my kitchen cabinet. 

So my first thought is to toss the pot immediately, but my second thought prevails because I remember that I’m too broke to buy another soup pot.  So I clean it out and spend the next hour cleaning out half my kitchen, where the rest of the silverfish have apparently infiltrated.  

Crisis averted.  Ready and soup-fueled to plow through my to-do list, I sit down to play with my puppy (because it’s not procrastination if it delights a puppy).  I pull out her favorite old sock and tantalize her by smothering her face with it.  Then I spot a tiny little black critter maneuvering its way blissfully through the fur of her hindleg.  To my horror, I find another one closeby.

Fleas. 

Raising pets involves many challenges, but flea investations may be one of the worst.  Once these peevish little A-holes invade your home, you’re doomed with them for up to two years.  Normally I can find consolation on the internet by googling remedies for these kinds of problems, but even cyber-space offers no words of encouragement when it comes to fleas.  

So as for THIS grape, I struggle to turn it into some sort of “sweet” wine, considering that I’ll be cleaning my entire apartment inside and out every day for the next few months.  But I think I can draw several parallels between this situation and some of the lessons that God has taught me though Peace Corps so far: 

1. Like many experiences in Peace Corps, fleas test my ability to practice long-term problem solving rather than relying on quick-fix solutions.
2. Fleas snap us into the present moment and make us focus ferociously on the task at hand (I have become utterly consumed by the flea mission).
3. Fleas require me to do all that I can do reduce the problem, but to accept the fact that many parts of the issue lie outside my immediate control.
4. A flea-invested home in Armenia means getting really creative while working with limited resources (can’t afford a vaccuum, have to use natural flea remedies, etc).
5. Fleas encourage me to be extra attentive to my animal, my home, and myself, and look closely into everything.

Suffice it to say, I was considerably “bugged” today by everything that happened.  But I’m going to make “flea hour” fun each day by creating a special flea playlist and singing obnoxiously while I attack my home with cleaning products.  

These bugs will not suck my blood, and they most certainly will not suck my joy.

Weekly Grape:  How the heck do I turn a flea problem into something good?