Happy Teacher's Day!

With my first month living in Kazakhstan in the books I've identified one overwhelming theme emerging and that is that living in Kazakhstan is a carousel of alternating moments of overwhelming kindness, and moments of overwhelming confusion.

Kindness -> One of the biology teachers who has helped me immensely in my transition to living and working in Taraz celebrated her birthday this month. Previously I had offered to reciprocate her and her family's kindness in helping me by taking them out for lunch, but Ms. Inna was genuinely offended that I would think there was any need to pay back their kindness. But her birthday was my perfect opportunity to show her my appreciation without her having the option to refuse. After some detective work finding out what she would like as a gift I was able to buy her the exact perfume she wears. She immediately out-niced me by insisting I join her for the birthday lunch she had prepared for our entire department.

Ms. Inna (or my "young grandmother" as she has defined her role in my life) receiving her Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue perfume.

Happy Birthday lunch 

Confusion -> A yurt is a traditional portable tent that was very popular when many people in Kazakhstan lived a nomadic lifestyle.

No matter how many people I asked I couldn't figure out why one had been set up in our school yard. 

Kindness ->  It's starting to get a little chilly out but the restaurants are still keeping their outdoor seating open for now. Fortunately the servers will bring blankets for the guests!

I was told that I look like Matryoshka, which is a Russian nesting doll

Confusion -> I've developed a system for ordering food from the non-English school cafeteria. Basically I point to the plate of someone in front of me so the server knows I would like that. If one of the people in front of me have ordered something tasty then awesome! If no one in front of me has ordered anything that looks delicious, then I guess I won't be eating anything that looks delicious today.
I bought a water bottle at break time so the cashier punched in 130 Tenge. At lunch time I was still carrying that same water bottle so I waved my hand "no" near the water bottle. Her face lit up with "ah, I understand" and she punched in 130 Tenge. I smiled and paid for the same water a second time.


Kindness -> There is a cafe/restaurant I've been frequenting a couple times a week and the owners and staff have been really sweet. We have conversations entirely through Google translate, they've posted photos of me on their Instagram, they send me messages to invite me whenever they have a saxophone player that evening, sometimes they'll bring out sliced apples for me, and once they even brought me a free mojito!

Complete with pink coconut flakes!

Confusion -> A Russian/Kazakh friend took a few of us out to a restaurant for some drinks, snacks and lots of dancing with live music. The band was really good and it was a lot of fun but I couldn't understand why the stage background was decorated with framed jean shorts.

My favourite appetizer was the "chechil" which is basically a cheese string for adults. 

Kindness -> All the cell networks here send out text messages to warn you of any upcoming extreme weather conditions.

On Sept 27th wind speeds will reach 32 m/s. On Sept 30th the low will be -6. Thanks Tele2!

Confusion -> My Landlady is very nice, but all of our communication takes place through photos of Google translate. Sometimes the translations are suspect.

I have no idea what she's trying to tell me but if there is even the smallest chance I'll get to meet a Wizard I am obviously going to make sure I am at home for it. 

One important trend in teaching is the increasing recognition that each student is unique. By varying your instruction, varying the teaching and learning methods, and varying your assessment methods you'll be able to help more students learn. With this in mind I try to incorporate creativity and artistic ability into biology whenever possible. The students were asked to make a Comic to model the process of protein synthesis. Creativity was highly encouraged! But I could not have anticipated how enthusiastic one particular group would be about this assignment, and the quality of the product they would produce.

Building passion and confidence in students takes priority over any curriculum objective. Giving this student as much time as was needed to share her project to the class takes priority over whatever else I had scheduled that day. The other students loved the art work, laughed at all the funny analogies, took photos of the comic, and were really inspired by the creativity and effort put in to the assignment. After class I asked her how long it took her. She said she didn't sleep until 4:00am last night. Oh my goodness that's insane. She smiled and said but it was worth it.

In Kazakhstan October 1st is Teacher's Day and in Asia the societal perspective of a teacher is one of immense respect and appreciation, so Teacher's Day is kind of a big deal. The day began with showing up at school to a tunnel of students applauding all the teachers as they arrived.

It made arriving to school feel like running out of the tunnel before an American football game

The school had been decorated with balloons, signs, flowers and many other reminders that today is Teacher's Day! The day was filled with a chorus of "congratulations teacher" and "Happy Teacher's Day" wishes from every student you encountered. And of course some gifts in the form of chocolate!

A really cool tradition at my school is that on Teacher's Day the grade 12s will teach all of the lessons! So I spent most of the day wandering from class to class to observe some of my grade 12s in action. They all took their role very seriously and did a very good job. One pair understood that bringing a bag of candy will ensure participation from your students. Another group chose to make English class more exciting using articles about some extreme sports including sandboarding, extreme ironing, wife carrying, and chess boxing. I was very impressed overall but every time I asked a student if they would become a teacher they promptly replied "no!".

The main event of the day was a concert put on by the students including dance performances, singing, musical performances with both traditional and modern instruments, acting out skits for us to imagine what life as a student is like, and some games as well.

Another applause tunnel to welcome the teachers to the assembly hall

This national instrument is called the dombra and it only has two strings!

The dombra is played with very impressive speed

MCs

Guitar and singing

A traditional dance called the swan dance

The "if teachers were students" skit

They played a game where they'd show cropped photos and the audience would have to guess whose eyes, whose hair, whose car, etc.

Dance performances

Piano and violin

And a big thank you from all grade 12s

On Saturday the teachers drove two hours outside of Taraz to have a picnic in the mountains.

We arrived and almost immediately started dancing. Wow this culture loves dancing.

My friend Olzhas brought his puppy named Cooper

The biology table

At the start of lunch one teacher poured juice or water for everyone. So when the tea arrived I started pouring tea for everyone. Some of the teachers started laughing. It was explained to me that pouring the tea is traditionally the role of the youngest girl. Alright Taraz, just because your city is 2000 years old we don't have to behave like its 2000 years ago. 

Of course after lunch everyone was ready for more dancing. I'm a pretty bad dancer, but so is almost everyone in Kazakhstan so I've developed a strategy each time I hit the D-floor. I look around and find the worst dancer. And I look at them and think to myself, people are going to see me and think wow what a terrible dancer. But then people are going to see you. Alright I don't feel so bad any more.

Happy Teacher's Day to all my teacher friends!