Blog Post

Eli Feiman, a 2010-11 Individual Advanced Research Opportunities (IARO) fellow, writes about his experience researching in the Armenian archives. The following is part of a series of blog pieces from our US scholars, who are conducting research in the field.

Trends in education, or education fads, come and go with each school year: block schedules, the small schools movement, character education, et cetera. Some trends are hot for a few years and then fizzle; others become an authentic and essential component of everyday teaching and learning.

Another week, another news report detailing the achievements of Chinese students' remarkable exam-taking achievements. I opened up my inbox yesterday to a New York Times article reporting on how students from Shanghai have astonished the international education community with their top performance on the OECD-administered PISA test, which measures educational achievements in industrialized countries.

I recently participated in a roundtable, "Old and New Media in Russia Today," at the Annual Convention of the Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies (AAASS). The conference brings together political science, history, language, humanities, and other scholars and practitioners in the areas of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies from around the world.

While recently visiting sub-grantees of the BOTA Foundation in Almaty, Kazakhstan, I met a group of young adults who are developing their professional talents, despite never having had attended school and rarely having had the opportunities to leave their homes.  It is not that Almaty lacks schools; there are many schools of high quality that are developing a skilled workforce that is supporting their country’s economic growth.  Nor are they excluded from the education system based on their ethnic or linguistic aff

Growing up in the United States, it seemed like everyone was volunteering all of the time and the spirit of volunteerism was something I took for granted. I’ve now lived in Russia for a little over three years and realize that that spirit isn’t necessarily entirely universal. But that doesn’t mean that people aren’t volunteering in Russia, there just isn’t the same cultural acceptance of volunteering that there is in America.

Last week, I attended a discussion on sectoral approaches to encouraging civil society in countries that may not be amenable to civic participation or criticism. The idea was that civic participation could be encouraged by NGOs and CSOs that focus on the provision of services that governments cannot provide, rather than focus on advocacy or watchdog activities often associated with, but only part of, civil society.

I came outside my apartment to go for a run and found a little girl waiting for me. Her bike was rusty and small, but she steadfastly pedaled beside me on the the hot Malaysian road. This soon became routine. I spent a year teaching in Malaysia and each day Athirah biked behind me on my daily run. As she cycled, she quizzed me on random words like “goat” and “coconut tree," and my Bahasa skills slowly grew.

Youth development programs are probably not the first things that come to mind when thinking about World AIDS Day, but young people around the globe are doing their part to raise awareness. Their efforts are particularly important in Russia, where the HIV prevalence rate is the second highest in Eastern Europe and Eurasia. Students don’t learn about AIDS in school and in general it is an extremely taboo topic.

Maybe it was just luck that my bicycle tire blew out right in front of the bike repair stand in the Freedom Compound shanty town. I took that same road every time I travelled between my village and the town of Monze during my Peace Corps service in Zambia. I usually pedaled as quickly as I could through Freedom Compound in order to avoid all the beckoning calls of “Mzungu”, white person or foreigner. This time I had no choice but to stop. As soon as I slowed down I was rushed by people trying to help me. “No, no, it’s fine, I can manage myself” I told them.