Busy Times in October

The last several weeks have been filled with friends, exams, and issuing the first sets of grades.  Our friends Barbara and Doug Faires had been visiting in Central Europe since late September, using Bratislava as headquarters.  In addition to traveling to Budapest with them, we saw them several times here and travelled to Vienna Monday of last week to meet them for dinner.  It was very good to have friends here and to enjoy a little of home with their company.

We had been giving regular quizzes and homework in our classes, but two weeks ago, we gave the first round of tests to all our students, so we did lots of test-writing and grading.  The students did pretty well, but we were disappointed by the attitudes of a few students who don’t seem to take school seriously.  I guess this isn’t too surprising with teen agers, but somehow we hoped they’d be better here.

After grading tests, we still needed to accumulate scores and enter “marks” for each student into the “Classification Book.”  The marks are numeric scores from 1 – 5, with 1 being high and 5 indicating failure.  This is really equivalent to our usual grades of A – F without pluses or minuses.  The difference is that each student gets a number of marks in each course over the semester and these are averaged by the “Class Teacher” and then discussed by all the teachers at a “Classification meeting” at the end of the semester before a final mark for the course is assigned.  That’s not a meeting that we are looking forward to.

We continue to be somewhat mystified by the Slovak system, but we’re learning to go with the flow.  We occasionally receive official papers for our signatures, all with the assurance that these are either mere formalities or “something that is new this year.”  Since they are in Slovak, we can only understand about 15% of what is written, so we may have agreed to some form of involuntary servitude for the rest of our lives.  We recently received our Slovak medical cards for treatment in state-approved clinics and hospitals.  In addition, we were given European medical cards, that will supposedly pave the way from medical treatment should we be traveling within the European Union.  We hope we don’t need to use any of this, but it would be interesting to find out how it works. 

We received our visas and work permits on Wednesday, so we’ll now be official (and able to re-enter Europe legally after returning home for Christmas).  This was a long and drawn out process involving visits to the magistrate for criminal background checks, to the doctors for physicals and x-rays, and to the foreign police for checking that all the data is OK.  But now we have the visas good for two years pasted into our passports, so we’re able to come and go in the European Union for the next couple of years without limitation.  It’s somewhat amazing that we have been able to work and receive pay from the state as well as medical benefits without any official documentation.

The American system also baffles our Slovak colleagues.  We’ve tried to explain the idea of “local control” of schools and especially the relation of this to housing patterns and the quality of education received in some neighborhoods in the US.  Our colleagues cannot understand why the state or federal governments put up with the apparent inequalities of educational performance, and why don’t they just fire the “Director” (i.e. school principal) who allows such things to happen.  They are used to a much more centrally controlled system.  The Slovak Department of Education directly monitors the performance of the schools and, even in the case of a church-related school like the Lyceum, exerts influence over the “Founders,” the governing board of the school, as well as on the Director who administers the school.  Ah, the joys of central control, but they do pay our salaries!

We don’t know how many of these ideas come from the time of the communist government or even from the current social democrat government system, but we have noticed a decidedly different attitude among our students regarding ideas of cooperation and collaboration.  We were warned about student cheating and copying, but it occurs on a very large scale here and students seem to see nothing wrong with this type of collaboration.  Phil did a small experiment with his first year social studies students when they were studying the characteristics of cooperation, competition, interdependency and independence.  He gave his students an index card and asked them to write the word that best described their attitude - on one side either the word cooperative or competitive and on the other side, either interdependent or independent.  Almost all the students in both classes said they preferred cooperation and interdependence.  This is quite a different attitude from most Americans who seem to prefer competition and independence.  The students were also appalled at the idea that in some American classrooms the professor who “graded on a curve” might only give a limited number of “top marks” and that the students would then be in a situation where they might be competing against each other for those marks.  They definitely have different attitudes toward issues of competition.

The fifth year students have a very nice tradition somewhat like our proms.  In November before they begin preparing for their very rigorous end-of-year tests, the classes put on parties for their families and teachers.  They arrange for a nice dinner, put on a program and recognize their family members as well as the teachers who have impacted their studies.  Then they have a dance that lasts until the early morning.  It is certainly a nice way of thanking the people who have been important in their lives. 

The students have very limited school-related activities.  There are a few clubs and some intramural sports, but no organized sports, school newspaper, or other opportunities for students to learn leadership skills.  Some of the students are involved in sports, music or folk dancing outside of school, but most of them just go back to their dorm rooms or to their homes if they are commuting students.  Interestingly, each time we’ve left Bratislava on Friday afternoon, we’ve run into some of our students on the train – whether we’re heading for the Tatras or to Budapest.  Similarly, we see many of them returning to school with their suitcases from the train station early on Monday morning when we take the bus to work. 

We continue to be involved in the Bratislava International Church.  The church is still without a full-time pastor, but we are fortunate to have Rev. Arden Haug, The ELCA Director of Missions for Europe and the Middle East, located in Bratislava.  He serves as Interim Pastor and leads the service when he is in town.  Fortunately, Intern Pastor Taryn Montgomery arrived two weeks ago and will be able to pick up some of the work of serving the community.  She will also be teaching a couple of religion classes at the Lyceum so her life will be very full.  Taryn is a student at the Philadelphia PA Seminary of the ELCA  who will be preparing for ordination after she returns from this internship.  Taryn’s husband, Christoph Schmidt is also a seminarian who completed an internship last year and who was scheduled to come to Bratislava with her to teach at the Lyceum.  Unfortunately he had a recurrence of cancer for which he has been undergoing treatment and is expected to rejoin Taryn in late November.  We’re all looking forward to greeting Christoph.

The Bratislava International Church is provided pastoral support by the ELCA, but is a truly international congregation.  There are fellow members from South Africa, Korea, Iran, England, and many other countries and it is a wonderful and culturally rich community.  We worship in the Malý Kostal (Small Church) that is adjacent to the Velký Kostal (Big Church) where services in Slovak are held.  These churches were built in the late 18th Century and reflect the multi-national German-Hungarian-Slovak culture from the time.  Bratislava was the capital of Hungary between 1536 and 1784 and, during this period, Evangelical (Lutheran) churches were not allowed to be built to look like churches nor were they allowed to have doors onto the streets.  For this reason, both churches look very simple from the outside and both open onto an alley that connects two streets.  I’ve included some pictures of the exteriors as well as the interior of the Malý Kostal.

  

We think the modern picture that illustrates the development of the Evangelical Church in Slovakia is interesting.  You can trace the baptism and crucifixion of Christ through the arrival of Bishops Cyril and Methodius in Slovakia; the Reformation led by Martin Luther; the building of the church on the main square in Bratislava; the Counter-Reformation and resulting difficulty in building and keeping Evangelical churches in Slovakia resulting in laws outlawing building of any except wooden churches without using nails; the declaration of freedom of religion by Emperor Franz I; the building of the Big and Small Churches along with the development of the Lyceum; the string of church leaders as well as those national leaders who were related to the Lyceum.  This picture sure tells a story.

We’ve also begun to enjoy and appreciate the arts in Bratislava and Vienna.  Two weeks ago, we spent a rainy Saturday visiting the Cathedral of St. Martin and the National Art Gallery.  The gothic cathedral dates back to the 14th century and was the site of Hungarian coronations from 1563 through 1830.  It’s a beautiful representation of this style of architecture and contains many interesting treasures.  The Art Gallery had some interesting modern exhibits including one on the Czechoslovak exhibit at the Brussel’s Worlds Fair in 1956.  Also that Saturday we enjoyed a modern ballet by a company from Brno, Czech Republic.  This was held at the new and very modern Slovak National Theater near the Comenius University.  Last week we went to the first in our series of concerts by the Slovak Philharmonic.  They performed Dvorák’s Stabat Mater in the historical National Theater Building on the Hviezdoslavlvo Square.  This is a beautiful baroque hall that is not designed for symphonic concerts, but the orchestra’s hall is being renovated over the next two years, so we’ll see our concerts in this smaller venue. 

Last Saturday we spent the day in Vienna, visiting the Museum of Applied Arts, shopping, and having dinner in a wine heuriger on the outskirts of the Vienna Woods.  The museum contains household goods and furniture from Roman times through the present and gave us further insight in comparing the arts and crafts style furnishings we saw in Budapest with those in Vienna.  The wine heuriger  is a cafe-restaurant for presenting the new wine of the season in a rustic, informal atmosphere.  We sat at a large table with a Viennese  couple – he originally from Bratislava and she from Portugal.  You buy your food by weight from a counter, much like a cafeteria, but the food was excellent and unusual – cooked pumpkin and kraut; spinach soufflé, excellent beef and ham, and great cheeses and desserts to start and finish the meal – and of course a liter of the local white wine.  When I asked the vintage, our table mate said that “it didn’t know its name yet”, but nevertheless it was very fresh and good.

Yesterday, while perusing the local “Things to do in Bratislava” on the web, Sue found that we had a choice of the Festival of Gregorian Music and a local Jazz Festival, both taking place over the weekend.  So last night we attended a concert by five Scholas, i.e. cathedral schools for teaching and singing Gregorian music, and held in the Jesuit Church of the Savior (the former Lutheran church near the main square that was converted to a Catholic church during the Counter-Reformation).  The singing was excellent and the venue was spectacular, both visually and aurally, for this concert.  Next week we have a fall break, beginning on Thursday October 29, so we decided to go to the Amalfi coast in Italy.  We’ll report on that trip in the next installment of our blog.

Wine Festival, Parent’s Meeting and Visitors

Our last two weeks have been filled with growing school responsibilities as well as by visits with old friends. The weekend before last found us at a wine festival in Pežinok, a town about 35 minutes north of Bratislava and one of the several towns on the local “Wine Tour.” The “Small Carpathian Mountains” just to the north of Bratislava are the sites of several small wine villages that produce quite good vintages. The whites are light and dry while the reds tend to be smooth and fruity. While in one of the small towns, we saw wagon after wagon being pulled up to people’s homes and grapes being unloaded. Some were small trailers attached to a car and containing only a few bushels of grapes, probably for individual family use. Others were large farm wagons pulled by tractors and destined for a vintner who would offer the product for sale.

The wine festival was an event that took up most of several streets in the small town of Pežinok. We understand that the festival moves from town to town throughout the region during the harvest season. This event contained hundreds of booths, carnival rides, and entertainment of various sorts. The entertainers varied from costumed dancers and musicians to American Indians playing flutes and hawking CDs (click here for a video.) The booths sold local crafts (some very nicely made), junky toys, local food (sausages, kraut, slabs of pork, and general carnival fare), and Burčiak. The latter is very young wine containing a good bit of yeast. The local American teacher folklore is that it ferments in your stomach, but we only had a small glass so we can’t verify that tale.

The rest of that weekend was spent in trying to get ahead in our preparation for school by a couple of weeks since we were expecting our friends Doug and Barbara Faires during the next week. We were successful to the extent that we were able to spend time with them on both Wednesday and Thursday evenings and then travel together with them on Friday for a couple of days in Budapest. Another distraction was a meeting with the school parents on Monday of that week. This was somewhat stressful in that we could understand nothing of what was happening until after the meeting when one of our Slovak colleagues gave us a short version of the heated discussion. It turns out that the parents of a small group of nineteen students who had been moved into the school from another school that was closed were not happy with some of the arrangements and were raising questions. We were happy to be there to lend support to our Slovak colleagues and leaders, but we wish we could have understood the proceedings. In any event, it was good to be able to spend time with Doug and Barb as they began their three week tour of Central Europe. They are using Bratislava as their headquarters and will be here again in a week and then again several days later.

The trip to Budapest was very interesting and relaxing. It’s only a two and a half hour train trip and we were able to leave after our classes on Friday and arrive at our hotel in time for dinner. We stayed in a hotel adjacent to the Opera and it was a very fortunate place to be since the Opera was celebrating its 125th anniversary that weekend with Gala concerts on both Saturday and Sunday evening. We had left our fancy duds at home, but we didn’t have to miss much because they broadcast the concert on a giant screen with an excellent sound system on the street in front of the Opera. This is one of the main streets in the city, but they closed it off for several blocks, set up chairs, and arranged for the broadcast by what appeared to be the Hungarian version of PBS. The whole thing was free; what a great idea! There were people of all ages there, including young guys who went for beer at the intermission but who also applauded vigorously along with everyone else for the performances. It’s interesting to see such a different attitude toward music and art. We should talk to folks in Cincinnati about doing this.

We spent the morning on Saturday taking a boat trip to Szentendre, about two hours up the Danube from Budapest. It’s a charming arts community with a beautiful setting on the river. After a 45 minute train trip back to town, we walked around Buda, the old part of the city and enjoyed the beautiful views of the Parliament and city of Pest across the river. After walking across the Chain Bridge, we visited St. Stephen’s Basilica and then returned to the hotel for dinner and the evening of music in the street. On Sunday we spent the morning in the Museum of Applied Arts where we saw a very interesting display of Hungarian Art Nouveau furniture. While it had many of the features of other furniture from this era, there were rustic touches that were very interesting. After lunch, we caught the train back to Bratislava and finished the evening by preparing for the next day’s classes.

Into the routine – then vacation again!

We experienced our first full week of classes during the week of 7 – 12 September. All went well and we felt that we may be able to cope with all the classes and uncertain schedules. The students continue to be pleasant, although we’ve begun to run into excuses – “Professor, please accept this work tomorrow because … (fill in the blanks with your favorite reason.)” Phil had to substitute for Sue in her third year English class one day because she was “assigned” to go to one of the apartment buildings housing American staff to supervise the cleaning of the heating system. This supervision didn’t call on her knowledge of higher thermodynamics, rather it was a matter of keeping an eye on the workers doing the cleaning. There still seems to be a level of mistrust in the society that we find interesting.




We were anticipating a day off on Tuesday 15 September for the Slovak National Holiday in honor of “Our Lady of Sorrows,” Mary, the patron saint of Slovakia. On Wednesday of the previous week we found out that the Director of the School had decided to cancel classes on Monday as well since most of the dorm students would probably miss class anyway. Not being ones to waste a four-day weekend, we busily got to work and planned a trip to visit Phil’s family near Dolny Kubin and perhaps extend this into a trip into the High Tatras if the weather permitted.




We left by train at around 8:00 on Saturday morning and traveled for a little more than three hours to Kral’ovany where we caught another rain for the short (17 km) trip up to Veličná, the birthplace of Phil’s grandmother and near the home of Phil’s cousin Iveta. The trip began in the broad plain of the Danube, then travelled north in the valley of the Vah river with the low hills of the Malé Karpaty (Small Carpathian) mountains to the west. We passed though land that was primarily agricultural (corn and sunflowers) except near some of the larger cities where we encountered auto plants and other heavy manufacturing – Peugot/Citroen near Trenčín and KIA near Zilina. The train from Kral’ovany ran alongside the Orava River and was a beautiful trip into the Malá Fatra mountains just to the west of the Tatras.

Iveta and her children, Ninká (12) and Maťko (8) met us at the Veličná stop and took us to their home for lunch. After partaking in the usual toast of slivovits, we sat down to a delicious meal of mushroom soup (with mushrooms from the nearby mountains and vegetables from Iveta‘s garden), fish and potatoes. Iveta’s husband had driven on his 4X4 ATV up into the mountains to pick blueberries, so we had a delicious cobbler for desert. Iveta’s parents have several large gardens where they grow vegetables, potatoes, and fruit, and where they keep a goat that they milk to make a wonderful, low-fat goat cheese – we could easily market this in the US. One of Phil’s cousin’s wife was celebrating her 62nd birthday so, in the usual Slovak tradition, she prepared delicious cakes and treats for a party. We spent much of the weekend eating the delicious food and drink prepared by various family members. It was special that so much of this was grown, gathered, distilled, etc. by the members of the family. It’s a much different lifestyle than we are accustomed to either in Bratislava or at home in Kentucky.

We’d like to give you some insight into family relations and local customs. Iveta and Phil are second cousins whose maternal grandmothers were sisters. Iveta’s mom’s brother Pavlo also represents another line of the family with Phil and Pavlo’s children similarly related. One of the reasons that we have corresponded extensively with Iveta is that she is a teacher of English in elementary school and so serves as an interpreter on our visits. We discovered that we understand a few more Slovak words and phrases than we did on our previous visit, but generally we are only able to give “stupid smiles of misunderstanding” during much of the conversation. One of our goals this year is to be able to have a meaningful conversation with all family members before the year is out. One of the things we learned about Pavlo was that he served in the Czechoslovak Air Force in some kind of navigation role during the Cuban Missile Crisis. We’d love to be able to talk with him about his and our experiences at that time.

In addition to the wonderful meals, Slovaks pride themselves on other forms of hospitality. On entering the home and frequently thereafter, a guest is offered a small glass of dangerously clear liquid. This could be slivovitz, a distillate of plums, hruškavitz, a condensate of pears, or some other fruit liquor. The custom is to look each other person in the eye and offer a toast of “na zdravie” (to health) to which the formal reply is “nech slúži” (let it serve us), followed by tossing the drink down is one swig. So far, we’ve mastered only “na zdravie” and peering into the eyes. The custom of fruit liquors has an interesting history. While Slovakia now enjoys excellent locally produced wines, the past Austro-Hungarian monarchs laid claim to all wine production and the local peasants were only able to drink beer or whatever else they could produce. This led the local folk to develop distillates of the juices of the several fruits that grow bountifully in the country – plums, pears, apples, etc. thereby leading to today’s libations. In addition to drinks, Slovaks also lay out plates of locally-made or home-made cheese, vegetables, and delicious small treats called koláče. These are thin cakes with fillings made of fruit, nuts, or poppy seeds. Sue promises to work on developing her skills a kolač-making.

After enjoying the family’s hospitality along with trips to an old village in the mountains as well as to church and a walk about town in Dolny Kubin, we returned back to Bratislava on Monday morning. We had previously planned to travel into the High Tartras, about ninty minutes by bus to the East, for some hiking on Monday, but the mountains were socked in by clouds and threats of rain. We are postponing that trip for a couple of weeks until a time when we can meet Iveta and the family for a day of mountain hiking.

We spent the Tuesday holiday preparing some clases for the coming week and then went to Devin castle just outside of Bratislava. This Slovak castle is located at the confluence of the Morava River with the Danube and overlooks Slovakia, Austria and the Czech Republic. It dates back to the ninth century as a castle fortification but contains ruins of a Roman settlement as well as archeological evidenc of habitation back into the Bronze Age. Unfortunately the castle is in ruins since it was destroyed by Napolean in the early nineteenth century.

Today, Wednesday 16 September, we returned to school to find slightly new schedules. Hopefully these are final (at least until some event requires changing them again). We only had a few changes to ours, the worst of which requires Phil to stay slightly later on Wednesday and Thursday than previously and requires Sue to have a relatively late class on Friday afternoon. We also have our scheduled “Substitute“ times, so we need to be aware of thee opportunities to replace absent teachers. Life goes on, thank God!

A Short Week of Teaching

Since last Tuesday, September 1, was a national Holiday (Constitution Day – honoring the establishment of the Slovak Republic in 1993), school did not commence until Wednesday. We took advantage of the holiday to take a trip to Vienna with Janna and Arden Haug. Arden is the Director of European Missions for the ELCA and is headquartered in Bratislava. Arden and Janna showed us the ropes of getting to Vienna by train and then getting into the city by tram along a scenic and convenient route. The train trip took only an hour and cost 14.30 Euros, including a 24 hour transportation pass for Vienna.

After arriving in Vienna, we walked along many shopping streets and especially enjoyed a visit to the Julius Meinl store where, among other things, we were able to find decaffeinated coffee. You’d think that this would be a simple feat in a part of the world that prides itself on its coffee shops and cafes, but other than freeze-dried Nescafe, this is all we’ve been able to find. After lunch at the Nachmarkt, we met Gail and Randy Mundt who will be teaching religion at the Lyceum until two other teachers arrives later in the year. Randy, a Lutheran pastor, is currently serving the Vienna International Church and Gail is in the process of seeking ordination in the church. They will commute several days a week to help cover the courses of the absent colleagues. Arden and Janna had to return early to Bratislava, so we were on our own to find our way around town and then home. We went into the center of the city, to St. Stephen’s Cathedral and the surrounding shopping area. The cathedral is built on the site of an earlier church from 1147 and is a magnificent gothic structure with beautiful stonework and woodcarving.

The time from catching the tram to the Vienna railroad station to stepping off the bus near our apartment in Bratislava was little more than an hour and a half, but the journey was different from other travel experiences. We had visited Vienna as tourists in the past and were fascinated by the city, but this time was different. We were traveling to the “big city” for a day and returning home to the friendly, quiet confines of Bratislava; it’s beginning to feel like home.

School opened on Wednesday with a church service in Velký Kostol (Big Church), which is adjacent to Malé Kostol (Small Church) where we worship as members of the Bratislava International Church; more on that in a later blog. The service was attended by students and faculty from the Palisady school (elementary and middle grades) as well as the Lyceum, so the church was filled. Everything was in Slovak and the entire liturgy was chanted, even the Bible readings. This reminded Phil of attending Slovak services at his grandparents‘ church in Whiting IN. Since Slovak is a completely phonetic language, we were able to sing along with the hymns. We didn’t understand much other than the Apostol’s Creed, but this was an interesting experience.

Wednesday and Thursday went by without us meeting any classes. The students met with their class teachers during the entire day on Wednesday and on Thursday, the advanced students met with a few classes. All first year students were tested in English and German and we got to grade the German exams – all multiple choice, but extremely tedious and boring. We were introduced to school lunch on Thursday and this looks like a pretty good deal. It turns out that we buy a month’s worth of lunch tickets for less that 14 Euros; this is probably government subsidized. Each lunch consists of soup, a main dish, and some salad or fruit and they have been generally quite good. Colleagues have warned us of two hazardous meals – “liver” and “sweet lunch.” The former is self-explanatory, but the latter requires some elucidation. This may take the form of spaghetti-like noodles with powdered sugar and poppy seed or, as we had yesterday, a form of sweet pound-cake-like material swimming in runny vanilla flavored sauce. Luckily, the soup was hearty and very good.

Finally on Friday, we met with two classes each (out of a total of Phil’s six classes and Sue’s seven classes). In both cases, the meetings went well or at least as well as could be expected. We each met with a class of first year students and there were a lot of “deer in the headlights” looks as students encountered classes entirely in English for the first time. Sue also met with her third year American Literature students and they were very responsive and conversed well in English. We also have several first period classes each week, so we’ll open with devotions. We can share devotions just as we share preparation for our common American Lit classes, so there are some efficiencies to be gained.

Friday evening we enjoyed a cookout with the other American teachers and Arden and Janna. It was good to kick back with this group; we’re definitely the “oldsters” but they are very good at involving us in the full life of the community. Saturday found us travelling to Hornbach’s, the Central European version of Lowes for various pieces of hardware and tools. We came away with a hammer drill for only 25 E (it actually worked fairly well) and an assortment of screws, wall anchors, picture, frames, seat cushions, and several plants. Of course all this had to be schlepped home on the bus, but we are now crafty veterans of the transportation system and returned home without difficulty.

Saturday and Sunday were also highlighted by the annual Coronation Festival. Bratislava became the coronation city of Austria-Hungary following the occupation of parts of Hungary by the Ottoman Empire. Each year, one of the 11 kings and eight queens who were crowned in Bratislava between 1563 and 1830 is honored with a mock coronation, food, drink, entertainment, and fireworks. This year’s honoree was Maria Anna of Spain who was crowned in 1638. The festivities were centered on Hviezdoslavovo Square (next week’s assignment is to pronounce “Hviezdoslavovo” like a native) and included crafts, a group of medieval Coney Island rides, food, and Sunday’s coronation. Click on this link, Bratislava Coronation Festival 2009, for a movie of parts of the festivities, including the parade from the castle to the Old Town.

It’s Tuesday of the second week and we’re well into our tentative schedule now, having met at least once with all our classes. The students are all respectful and seem genuinely interested in learning English – we’ll see if this impression lasts into the coming year. We had mentioned in an earlier blog how all the students in a class move through the same sets of classes in lock step. It is true that they take all the same classes together as a group, but the term “lock-step” gives the wrong impression – it’s much more like the drunkard’s random walk that we studied in Probability class. For example, Phil is teaching one class that meets at 10:10 on Monday, 12:05 on Tuesday, and 7:20 on Friday (yes, that’s a.m.) Now build a schedule of six such classes, five of which meet three days per week (at two or three different times of day) and the other that meets every day (in four different periods). Phil uses an Excel spreadsheet to find his way through the week. We used the word “tentative” above since we are not assured that this is actually a final schedule. More on this as certainty prevails.

The Evangelical Lyceum in Bratislava

Before we update you on our activities, we invite you to read the printed version of the report “A Decade of Miracles and the Role of Education in Renewing a Post-Communist Society” (click on the title in the left sidebar to be taken to the website) delivered by Dr. Michal Valcho at our orientation training. It is a quick survey of the history and role of the church, especially in its Lutheran form, in Slovakia and includes a call to mission that many of us in the orientation program found helpful as we began our work.

The purpose of our year in Bratislava is to teach English to the students at the Evangelical Lyceum. We’ve spent the last week preparing for our classes, attending school and department meetings, and generally dealing with the bureaucracy of the school and the state. We will begin a full schedule of teaching next week (7 September), so we still have some time to get ready and to build strong working relationships with our colleagues. Now is a good time to tell you what we know (or think we know) about the history of the school, its organization, and our responsibilities as teachers.

The school was instituted in 1606 shortly after the establishment of the first Lutheran congregation in Bratislava. The school was modeled on the German secondary school (Gymnasium) and flourished until 1672, when Hapsburg Emperor Leopold authorized the takeover of the school by the Jesuits as part of the Counter-Reformation. The school reopened again in 1681 and grew in prominence as well as enrollment into the early 20th century. In 1923 the school was taken over by the new national government of Czechoslovakia and transformed into the State German Secondary School. In 1944, even this form of the school was abolished and the school remained closed until September 1991, when it was re-established by the Slovak Lutheran Church in cooperation with the national Office of Education. Speakers at the opening service on 2 September, 1991 included General Bishop Uhorskai of the Slovak Lutheran Church as well as Alexander Dubchek, President of the Czechoslovak National Assembly. The presence of these individuals and others shows the deep respect that the Evangelical Lyceum attracts within Slovakia.

This respect is due to the excellent education that has been offered to many students from around the country as is evidenced by the many leaders who have taught and/or studied at the school. One such teacher was Ludovit Stur (1815-1856) who was a poet, teacher, and national leader best known for organizing the form of the Slovak language that is currently in use. A Lyceum student of note is M. R. Stefanic (1880-1919), an astronomer, aviator, and diplomat who was one of the group of three leaders who developed the plan for the nation of Czechoslovakia after the end of WW I. One of the early school buildings contains a plaque listing the names of many national leaders who have been affiliated with the school.

Today’s Evangelical Lyceum consists of two units with a total enrollment of around 840 students. One of these units, the eight year gymnasium, is split between two campuses with students in the first four years (what we would call grades 5-8) attending classes in a building near the Bratislava castle and the students in the final four years (comparable to our traditional high school) attending classes in a building in the neighborhood called Petryshalka, a sprawling complex of 13 story Communist-era apartment blocks. The five-year bilingual English program in which we are teaching is also housed in this building and we believe that, while a few of the classes are taken by both bi-lingual and gymnasium students, the programs are for the most part independent.

The reason for the extra year in the bilingual English program is that, in addition to the regular high school courses that the students all take, the students are exposed to essentially a full extra year of English-intensive coursework. In addition, many of the students spend a year studying abroad in either the US or Great Britain, so their secondary education is much extended. First year students take half their schedule of classes in English and, in the remaining years, nearly a quarter of the coursework is in English, generally in courses taught by American teachers like us. These classes have very low class-size – only 10-13 students to allow for close interaction with native English-speakers.

The English Department at the Lyceum consists of nine American teachers and four Slovak teachers. All first year English grammar classes are taught by the Slovak colleagues, some of whom join the Americans in teaching the rest of the course offerings. These include Literature and Language courses in each of the remaining four years; courses that include a component of conversation. Other courses taught by the department are American Social Studies to first year students and British Social Studies to second year students. Some of the American colleagues also teach other subjects in their areas of expertise, so Sue is teaching Informatics to first year students while others are teaching religion and mathematics. We have enjoyed getting to know our English Department colleagues during the last week and are looking forward to working closely with them over the coming year.

The bilingual English program is highly selective, accepting only about 72 students per year into the first year of the five-year program. These students are divided into two “classes” (A and B) of size 36 each who remain together for all five years in the school. Each class has a Class Teacher (much like our home-room teacher) who stays with the class for its entire time at the school and, in addition, each class has all of its classes together. That means there are no electives and the students get to know their classmates (at least from their class) extremely well! So we have 10 “classes” – 1A, 1B, 2A, …, 5A, 5B each going through the curriculum in lock step. As we noted earlier, our English classes are small (10-13) and this is accomplished by further subdividing each class, more or less according to their English language abilities; e.g. in the first year, classes 1A1 and 1B1 would have the best English language abilities while 1A3 and 1B3 would be the weakest (of a group of very strong students). So Phil is teaching American Literature and Language to class 3A1 and Sue is teaching American Lit and Lang to 3B1 – this means they are both teaching the top group and can plan their lessons together. This is important, because the 3A2’s and 3B2’s are studying the same topics as our classes but in a different order, as are the 3A3’s, etc. so that we can all have access to the limited teaching resources. I hope you’re all still with us!

The teaching day is divided into 10 periods of (almost) 45 minutes each, beginning with 0 (zero) hour at 7:20 and ending with 9th hour from 3-3:45. We will have a different schedule each day, since Sue is teaching one class (Lit and Lang) that meets every day as well as six Informatics classes that each meet one hour per week. She will spend her copious free time working as the English Librarian (more on that below). Phil has the Lit and Lang class that meets daily, but also five other social studies classes that meet three days per week each for a total of 20 hours in the classroom. We still don’t know when the classes will meet, but hope to find out soon.

The class meetings have some similarities to US classes but also contain interesting differences. At the beginning and ending of each class, the teacher rises and greets (or dismisses) the students and the students similarly rise and formally greet the teacher. The actual lectures, discussions, and student recitations follow the American model but some of the administrative issues are different. For each class period, the teacher is expected to enter data into the “class book” – students who were absent or tardy, and the topic taught. This book is carried into the classroom by a student called the “weeker”, a student who has this and other responsibilities for the current week. In addition to delivering the class book, the weeker also cleans the board and does whatever other small tasks the teacher needs to have done ( a great idea that we should adopt in the States.) Grading is on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being high and 5 indicating abject failure! The traditional Slovak grading scale converts percentage scores on tests and other activities as follows: 60% = 1, 50% = 2, 40% = 3, etc. Several years ago the Americans rebelled at this system and argued for much stiffer standards – 90% = 1, 80%= = 2, etc. , somewhat corresponding to our letter grade system. They prevailed with the argument that, if the successful students were to attend college in Great Britain or the US, they needed to be used to such a grading scale. The actual grades at the end of the semester are assigned in a “classification meeting” where all the teachers discuss the grades to be given to each student and where the class teacher may have some influence in the determination of the final grade. We’ll see how this all works out later in the semester.

Substitute teaching is also handled in an interesting way – there aren’t any substitute teachers! Actually, we will each be assigned four hours per week outside of our normal teaching responsibilities when we might be called on to sub for an absent teacher. If the class is an English class, we should be able to teach it. If it is in our area of expertise, we will be able to teach it; otherwise, we give the students a study hall. The good news is that four of these substitute sessions earns one day of dovilenka (holiday); the bad news is that we don’t yet know how we can use that.

Sue has had a couple of interesting experience regarding her duties. She got a shock when, on checking in the computer labs, she discovered that all the programs she was expected to teach were in Slovak! Imagine Microsoft Office with accents, diacritical marks, and un-understandable commands. Fortunately she contacted the IT guru and he was able to convert everything in the lab where she will be teaching to English, so she will have a reasonable time even if the Slovak students struggle with language. After all, this is a bilingual school!

Sue’s other responsibilities include serving as the English language librarian. The library contains all English language texts, references, supplements, teacher resources, and general reading material. She has had to learn the circulation system, print library cards for all new faculty and students, and add new books to the collection. In addition, she is working with the faculty to determine ways to track materials so they are available when needed. This is a job that calls on all her organizational skills but she is up to the task.

Since it is the beginning of the year, there are initial faculty and department meetings to attend. Imagine a faculty meeting where the student “Code of Conduct” is being word-smithed, in Slovak! Fortunately, the Lyceum Director has shown mercy on us, so the American teachers meet separately to discuss issues which are then communicated to the rest of the faculty for their consideration. We are impressed with the quality of our American colleagues, especially those with several years of experience in the school. They show a genuine concern for the students and have good ideas for ways that we can better serve the students as we teach them English. Other aspects of school procedure include the necessity to obtain all school supplies from the Director’s secretary, even including the occasional roll of toilet paper. Also, Phil can only imagine how his colleagues at Akron would have enjoyed the day when the Associate Director went to some mysterious office in the Ministry of Education to acquire old furniture for the use of the school. We Americans all stepped up to help move these treasured pieces into the offices. It reminds him of the ways we used to scrounge equipment and cooperate to make the working environment better for everyone.

Finally, we have begun to deal with the Slovak bureaucracy as we go through the steps to get residence permits, work permits, and visas. Before leaving home, we had submitted certified copies of our birth certificates, marriage licenses, notarized copies of diplomas, and had undergone FBI criminal background checks. On arrival, we first took a trip to the Magistrates office for Slovak criminal records check – Sue’s middle name was written in by folks in the magistrate’s office in a different color ink, so the Police thought it was a fraudulent document. Peter cleared this up. Next, Peter took us the office of the “Foreign Police” to apply for residency permits. Another day he took us to the Office of Foreign Infections Disease for blood tests, urine tests, medical interviews, and chest x-rays. Our first encounters with Socialized Medicine proved to be uneventful and quick. We also need to open a bank account to prove that we have income. We hope that, with Peter’s help, we have visas well before Christmas. Who is this Peter? He’s a fellow teacher (of German) at the Lyceum who knows how to negotiate the bureaucracy and who helps foreign teachers get through the morass of governmental paperwork and folderal. We don’t know what we would do without him and have much greater appreciation for the difficulties that foreign workers in our own country must encounter in the immigration maze.

There will be more news in a week or so after we encounter our students.

Settling into Bratislava and Orientation

After landing in Vienna in the afternoon of Sunday, August 16, we were taken by van to Bratislava, about an hour away, and brought to our apartment on Svardova Ulica. This is a 70 or 80 year old apartment building that has served several purposes in the past, including as housing for the faculty and students of the Lutheran Seminary. We are housed in the “Penthouse” located on the fourth floor – that’s four fights up in the European system – so we get lots of aerobic exercise every day since there is no elevator. The apartment consists of two large rooms that we use as a bedroom and a living room/study, a small kitchen with all the usual appliances, and a bathroom with tub and washing machine. The toilet is situated separately off the kitchen, of all places! The apartment had been thoroughly cleaned thanks to the efforts of Claudia and David Nelson, and was easily ready for move-in. We’re still shopping for gadgets, plants, and artwork to make it our own, but we’re confident that it will be a wonderful place to live during the coming year.

It is very easy to get to the most interesting parts of the city since we live only two blocks from the old town (Stare Mesto), and a similar distance from the edge of the shopping district. We have spent almost every evening walking in this very charming district. It is full of twisting stone streets with several beautiful, large squares, all surrounded by buildings from the 17th and 18th centuries. This part of town contains restaurants, shops, and hotels as well as buildings that reflect the fascinating history of Slovakia. These include the cathedral where the Austrian and Hungarian monarchs were crowned including Maria Theresa who built the castle that overlooks and dominates the city. On a walk through Stare Mesto a couple of nights ago, we encountered many musical events including Roma street musicians, a violin duo playing in front of a restaurant , a Christian rock group at one square, and Brazilian music at another. The hall where the Slovak Philharmonic performs as well as the Opera House and National Theater are also included in this part of town. These all reflect the variety of people and experiences that we hope to encounter in the coming year.

We began our stay by shopping for some of the staples that we didn’t find in the apartment. There are good size grocery stores within easy walking distance, including a TESCO that was apparently purchased from its previous owner, K-Mart. Shopping is only a little bit of a mystery, since we can rely on the pictures on the packages and can generally tell the cuts of meat from past experience. We’ve not had any real surprises so far, except that decaffeinated coffee is unavailable – I guess we’ll go through our days with a “buzz”. TESCO is somewhat like a super WALMART, so we have also found some of the items we needed to settle into our apartment there. Today (Saturday, August 21) we went to the AU Park Shopping Center and found it to be very similar to large malls in the US. There were many shoe stores, teen clothing stores, etc. but a feature that we liked when Phil shopped for a pair of hiking boots was that all the sporting goods stores were located in the same area and this seemed to be true for other types of stores. For larger pieces of equipment like lamps and pictures we’ll be taking a trip to IKEA in the near future.

Our travel has been primarily on foot, supplemented by trips via bus to the places more than a half mile away. The buses are very convenient and of three types – regular buses (autobus), electrical buses (electriky), and trams (electrical buses that run along tracks). Both of the latter two are powered by overhead electrical lines are quick and quiet. We purchased three month passes (~50 euros) that allow travel on all three types of vehicle and find this an incredibly reasonable way to get about. We’ve never had to wait more than about 5 minutes for a bus and generally don’t have to walk more than a couple of blocks to catch one or to reach our destination after getting off.

Restaurants and cafes are also very convenient to our home. We’ve found places where you can get a good dinner and pivo (beer) for about 5 or 6 euros and some charming restaurants in the Stare Mesto where a very nice dinner can be had for about 15 euros. The food is heavily oriented toward meat and potatoes, but vegetables and salads can be had without too much difficulty. We ate many lunches (obed) and dinners (vecera) at the Evangelical Theological College (Faculty) facility of Comenius University during our week of orientation at this school. The lunches were served as the main meal of the day and consisted of soup, main dish and side dish, and fruit or salad. Dinners were slightly lighter but still very filling. Were it not for the four flights of stairs and mile or two of walking each day, we’d probably have gained several pounds by now, but we’re actually feeling very well and getting into fighting trim.

The weather is similar to that at home in the Cincinnati area although perhaps a bit more windy. The temperature was in the mid-80s most of last week with clear blue skies and moderate humidity. Our apartment isn’t air-conditioned, but two fans help to keep it comfortable. The weather changed dramatically yesterday (Saturday) as a cool front moved in resulting in drizzly conditions all day with dropping temperature. This morning, we awoke to clear blue skies and temperatures in the high 60s; very pleasant. Since Bratislava is located in the Danube valley, up against the small Carpathian Mountains, there always seem to be cool breezes that moderate the temperature. We’ll see what effect they have during winter.

Most of our time during the first week has been spent at the facilities of the Evangelical Theological Faculty concentrating on orientation to teaching in Slovakia (and Poland). We were joined by six other new teachers as well as several returning teachers in a program that introduced us to teaching English and other subjects to students with other first languages. We are the only two new teachers assigned to the Evangelical Lyceum in Bratislava this year, three of our fellow students will be teaching in Ticovits in the foothills south of the Tatra mountains, one will be teaching in Kocice, and the other two will be teaching in Cecien Poland (a first-time site for ELCA teachers, previously staffed by Missouri Synod personnel). We were all engaged in hard work and developed strong friendships during our time together.

The training for teaching was led by Claudia Nelson, an experienced ESL teacher who had been one of the first American teachers to teach at the Lyceum in Bratislava in 1991. She gave us a deep understanding of the issues of sounds of words, grammar, and vocabulary that challenge English language learners. She also modeled many effective methods for working with these students as she taught us. We were given techniques for classroom management as well as for grading and assessment that are appropriate for the students who we will teach. While our heads were spinning after the three to four hours a day of intensive engagement with Claudia, we all left with much more confidence in our ability to face the tasks ahead in the coming year. Sue especially came away with an understanding of how differently high school students are taught today compared to how she was taught in high school. Phil thinks of the difference as between the “guide on the side” and the “sage on the stage” and, since mathematics is still taught primarily by the latter method, he also appreciates the challenge ahead.

Other aspects of the orientation involved language training, an orientation to post-communist Europe, some hints on living in Central Europe, regular devotions, and social times. Jana Hoschekova, a local language teacher introduced us to Slovak through simple conversations and a brief introduction to its grammar. We appreciated her enthusiastic approach but came away realizing how much work we’ll need to do in the near future to understand and be understood. Dr. Andrej Postrednik, Dean of the Evangelical Theological Faculty gave us a presentation on post-communism that highlighted the advances and difficulties that have followed both the conversion of Czechoslovakia from a communist form of government to a democracy in 1989 as well as the “Velvet Divorce” that generated the separate Slovak and Czech Republics. Among the positive features he cited are the emergence of an active civil society, the use by churches of their facilities in more creative ways than was allowed under communism, the rapid growth of the economy, an open cultural space to exchange ideas, and especially the freedom of travel and exchange. He stated that “Had someone told him thirty years ago that today he could travel anywhere in Europe without border checks and use the same currency throughout; he would have thought that person to be crazy!” We also heard a presentation from Dr. Michal Valcho, Director of the Martin Bible School, who spoke on the role of religious education both historically and specifically in post-communist Slovakia. He reminded us that, before the Counter-Reformation in the 17th century, nearly 90% of the people in Slovakia were Lutheran, whereas that number is only 7% today. He took us through the struggles of Lutherans from that time, through the domination by Hungary in the early 20th century, the Nazification following 1938 when Slovakia was a puppet regime of Hitler’s Germany, and into the time of Communism. Especially in this latter time, the churches were used only for Sunday worship and for funerals; all other services were taken over by the state, making religion irrelevant. Out of this heritage comes a variety of attitudes – one is reflected in the quotation from communist times, “If you don’t steal from the state, you are robbing your family.” This helps explain the attitudes that our students may have toward cheating and plagiarism. He also noted the weakened sense of responsibility of citizens for their and other’s well-being due to the earlier government control. He sees the role of the church in the future as expanding into the areas of social service so the churches members are providing Christian love in showing care for others. We also experienced daily devotions and insights into adapting to Slovak life from Rev. Arden Haug and Rev. David Nelson. Arden is currently the Resident representative of the ELCA in Europe (as well as our link to the ELCA) and David previously had held a version of this position. Both shared valuable thoughts on our spiritual growth and impact here as well as on customs and practices in the region.

We finished our time of orientation with a commissioning on Saturday led by Rev. Haug and Bishop Klatik, the General Bishop of the Slovak Lutheran Church (Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession). After a group photo and a final lunch together, we bid our fellow students safe travels as they headed out for their assignments. We were fortunate that one of our colleagues from the Lyceum took us by bus to school where we will begin our preparation for teaching next week.

The Evangelisky Lyceum is located on the opposite side of the Danube from the old town area of Bratislava in an area called Petryzalka; the site of many huge Soviet-style apartment blocks, but now a prime residential district of the region. It’s only a short bus ride from our apartment and we’ll begin making that trip regularly beginning with this coming Monday. We have received our teaching assignments. We will both be teaching an English class that meets five days per week and that focuses on American Literature, but also contains components of grammar and conversation. Sue is also teaching six sections of an informatics (computer science) class for first year students, but each section only meets for an hour each week and consists of just 12 students. She will fill in her twenty hours of teaching responsibility by serving as the English language librarian, with primary responsibility for keeping track of the English language textbooks and other resources like novels, magazines, and newspapers. Phil will also teach two sections of American Social Studies to first year students and three sections of British Social Studies to second year students. We knew of these teaching assignments earlier in the summer, so we had begun collecting materials and doing some preliminary reading. For now, there are only ten days left until we meet our students for the first time, so we are busily preparing for our classes.

Preparing to leave for Slovakia

We were comissioned for our work in Slovakia during the church service on August 2 led by Pastor Vicki Garber at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church. We were blessed by the presence of so many family members and friends at this service.

We're leaving on Saturday, August 15, for Bratislava, flying from Detroit to Chicago, then to Zurich, then to Vienna where we'll meet some folks from the school who will take us to Bratislava. We'll spend the first two weeks with an orientation to the country and then in working with the other teachers at the school.

We are very excited about the opportunity to serve and know that, while we miss our family very much, their thoughts and prayers along with those of our friends will be with us.