teaching

It’s Thursday afternoon in Berdyansk, Ukraine and the English club is discussing “Bread and Roses,” a poem honoring female strikers of the early 20th century. One young woman is reading aloud and her voice grows in intensity with each word. Upon reaching the final line, she declares proudly, “Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread but give us roses!” She smiles when I ask her about the meaning of the poem. “I think the author wants more than what is basic. To have not only food but also art and love.”

Some of the American, oil-company-based engineers with whom I play basketball in Atyrau, Kazakhstan understand what “Peace Corps” service means—thanks in part to its exceptional reputation and marketing—but have a tougher time understanding IREX’s international development work. “So do you get paid now?” is a question I’ve heard. But really, how much should Peace Corps service and international development differ in the perceptions of others or even me?

Working in the Field Operations department at the headquarters of an international development organization like IREX is always a great challenge. By the time I load my email in the morning, my day’s schedule is already half booked with the need to address dozens of emails from more twenty field offices overseas. There is always constant activity as we help manage all the financial, administrative, logistical, and legal aspects of operating development projects across multiple countries.

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 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.

There are 33.4 million people living with HIV/AIDS throughout the world. Today is World AIDS Day - a day of opportunity to raise awareness and educate about the disease which affects all nations at the most local level.

Sevcan is 23 years old. She grew up in Hatay, Turkey, a rare place in the Middle East where mosques, churches and synagogues coexist. Jamie is 25 years old and grew up in suburban Chicago. Sevcan and Jamie have never met, but they share a love of English literature and a desire to improve lives through education. Their divergent career paths point to differences in the way that Turkey and the United States prepare recent graduates for careers in the classroom.