SOME OF THE THINGS I MOST LIKED ABOUT ROMANIA

During the last few weeks I spent in Romania, I began talking about some of the things I most liked about the country and its people, thinking I would make it one of my closing blogs. The idea for the list came on a lovely June day when I was invited to attend a picnic along with a group of 10th graders -- and that delightful outing became the first one of the things I most liked about Romania.
When Romanians go on a picnic, I'd learned, they don't take hampers full of prepared food. Instead, they take packages of meats (usually chicken breasts and seasoned ground pork called mici), the ingredients for a vegetable salad, a bag of potatoes, and whatever else is on the menu. They also bring bowls, knives, cutting boards, etc., and head out to the picnic site. Some make the fire, first hauling twigs and logs from surrounding woods; others prepare the food, which can take all afternoon, but no matter. The point is to share a meal together out of doors, not to spend time in the kitchen, preparing dishes to eat in the woods.
• So, the next thing I really like about Romania is that almost any event is an excuse for a party -- the first and last weeks of school, the first day of spring, the opening of a new library, the unexpected arrival of an old friend, time to roast eggplants in the fall, the close of a successful civic project. Whatever it is, Romanians will spontaneously turn it into a party.
• The next thing is that there are fewer regulations -- students organized our June picnic and recruited parents to drive them; a few teachers went along, but there was limited supervision. Students needed no permission slips, nor did teachers need certification for fire safety, supervising outdoor cooking, or driving students to a school event.
• People take responsibility for themselves -- the sidewalks may be slippery in winter, but if you fall in front of a store or your apartment, it's your fault, not that of the building owner. Similarly, there were no lifeguards at the local pool, children got themselves safely home from school, and we assumed at our own risk when attending an exercise class,
• People have a close connection to the soil -- almost everyone has a garden, either behind their house or bloc or at a grandparent's home in a neighboring village. They grow a lot of their own food, preserve it as jams or pickles or zacusca (a sublime vegetable compote, cooked over an open fire), make wine or palinka, and store the rest in root cellars.
• There are flowers everywhere -- people grow them in their gardens, hang them from their balconies, sit under them at restaurants, thank teachers with bouquets of them, walk under an arch of them at commencement. Further, profusions of plants adorn most every school I entered.
• Romanians have a great sense of style -- traditional homes complement the landscape, modern ones sport highly geometric glass and wooden doors, windows, and porches. Contemporary furnishings are equally adventuresome. Plus, people know how to put themselves together; by the time they are teenagers, girls have figured out their personal sense of style -- how to wear their hair and dress to the greatest possible advantage. Cooks know how to arrange food to entice the eye before the tongue; napkins grace tables, folded so they stand on end.
• They are tolerant and nonjudgmental -- seldom did I hear one person disparage another, either individually or collectively. Some families have money and others don't, but I was never aware of a social-sorting system. Though Romania is fairly homogeneous, the are Turks in the south, Serbs and Slovak in the west, Hungarians and others in Transylvania; though ethnic communities may maintain their identity, individuals work and attend school together, and they often intermarry. (An exception to this, alas, are the Rroma, or gypsies, who live in separate neighborhoods, provide essential but low-skilled services, and get blamed for all manner of modestly anti-social acts – petty thievery and the like. I tended to be suspicious of such accusations.)
• Romanians are generous, almost to a fault -- I recall reading a story by the noted Romanian-American writer Andre Codrescu, who told of a typical visit to a Romanian family; after hours of eating the host's food and drinking their homemade wine and palinka, the guest leaves burdened by the clothing and cakes his host, now sans coat and victuals, has insisted he carry off. I had this experience so often -- or modest versions thereof -- that I often refrained from giving house gifts for fear of being given too much in return.

Reasons abound to love Romania, but the last one to be mentioned here is the great variety and general loveliness of the landscape. Romania has it all -- a seacoast and great sandy beaches, ancient hills covered with vineyards, a delta and wetlands, the Carpathian Mountains that circle across the country's midsection, numerous rivers flowing in all directions, and -- my favorite-- the bare yet powerful hills of western Transylvania. Spending two years there -- relishing the food, the vistas, the culture, and the people -- was not only a joy but a privilege. Thanks to all the many Romanians who made my stay there so pleasant; and for the rest of you, go visit yourselves!

THE PEACE CORPS AT 50 -- Advocating for the Future

Nearly three months have passed since I left lovely Romania and the town of which I had grown so fond during two years as a teacher and Peace Corps volunteer there. My travels since then have taken me from one side of the United States to the other, seeing friends and family; glorious ventures, but I did feel a tinge of nostalgia on school opening day.
Fortunately, my travels soon took me to Washington, DC, during several days of events organized to mark 50 years since President Kennedy signed the legislation that officially brought the Peace Corps into being. And even more fortunately, the daughter I was staying with, also a returned volunteer, had received a schedule from the National Peace Corps Association. Attending several events reinvigorated my belief in the continuing value of what the Peace Corps does.
Thus, long before the sun arose on Thursday, September 22, I was on a bus from suburban Virginia into Washington to participate in Advocacy Day. Along with several hundred other returned volunteers -- most from the PC's early years -- I had been assigned to a team calling on members of Congress from my home state of Illinois. We were led by a veteran of such events, a man who had been in Colombia five decades earlier. Others included a university librarian who'd been in Ghana, a banker who'd been to Niger, a dancer turned social worker who'd been in Peru. Another on our team was a retired teacher who had also served recently, but in Armenia.
With badges swinging from our necks and ready to be screened at the door of various congressional office buildings, we began our round of appointments, which included the offices of seven members of the House of Representatives and our two Senators. Usually, we met with a staff member, and after a few visits, we had our pitch in good shape.
We'd been asked to make three main requests: please support the upcoming PC budget for 2012, agree to authorize the building of a (privately funded) commemorative work, and support a Volunteer Protection Act named in honor of a young volunteer who had been murdered while serving.
The fact sheets given to us explained the funding issue -- an inescapable impression, the Peace Corps is a good deal, even in a time of austerity. One factoid -- I only heard this, never read it -- is that it takes $250,000 to keep one U.S. foreign service officer in the field for a year, but only $25,000 to keep Peace Corps volunteer in country. And volunteers are all in the field, not working in offices.
Other, printed and thus possibly more reliable, information -- the House has passed a bill funding the PC at $374 million for 2012; the Senate has yet to do so. That's less than the White House had asked for initially, but it represents a 6.5% decrease from the year before - and that's with a lot more volunteers in the field. (On my last year in Romania, I was aware of the many ways in which our PC office was learning to get by on less -- and the Romania program will be closing down in two years.)
Two other compelling pieces of budget information -- at its current level of funding, the entire Peace Corps costs each U.S. taxpayer $1 per year. Even more striking -- the Peace Corps has cost, for the entire 50 years of its existence, ONE DAY of spending for FY 2010. Real facts: one day of spending: ca. $9.86 BILLION; 50 years of the Peace Corps: $8.7 billion.
It's a great bang for the buck -- and more about that in a blog to follow.
Among things we learned: one, congressional offices are neither spacious nor luxurious (one exception to be mentioned below). Next, they are often crowded with staff people, all of whom are political appointees; the legislative assistants we spoke with were well aware of the issues and tend to support the Peace Corps. One noted that the Peace Corps is less vulnerable to further cuts; it's regarded as cost effective and largely noncontroversial. An exception to the latter is the widely publicized hearings held last spring about volunteers' safety in some countries -- the Volunteer Protection Act currently before Congress addresses that.
Arguments our team made based on our own experience -- volunteers frequently make a long-term commitment to the communities in which they have served. Several I spoke with are continuing to support projects they started, some bring local young people to study in the United States, or work with host-country organizations here. Most of us come from a background dedicated to volunteer service -- and few break the habit after returning.
Illinois, I learned, has produced far more than its share of volunteers -- something like 8,600 over the past 50 years. Also, Northwestern University in my home town of Evanston is among the top 20 in the number of graduates it has sent into the Peace Corps.
Highlights of our visits, for me, were my "own" congress people. We visited the office of Republican Senator Mark Kirk; his major interest is foreign affairs, and his staff assistant -- he was out of town -- assured us of his support, while noting that all federal programs have to take some cuts.
Shortly thereafter, we called on Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a good liberal Democrat from Evanston. A member of her staff assured us of her continuing support, and then, to our delight, we were ushered into Rep. Schakowsky’s private office. Of course, she joined us for a picture – most of us were constituents.
Our last visit was also the most awesome -- Illinois Senator Richard Durbin is majority whip of the Senate, which means second in charge of the party that still holds the most seats. As such, he has an office in the U.S. Capitol itself -- but getting in there required several extra doses of security (I had to discard a nail file I've carried with me for 20 years).
The building itself is a glory; the Senate side was built in the 1850s; I was so impressed by the stately but colorful floor tiles, I missed some of the ceiling mosaics. In the senator's office itself, a portrait of Abraham Lincoln hangs behind the desk; its view of the mall goes all the way to the Washington Monument. A copy of the recent biography of the Peace Corps's first director Sargent Shriver was sitting on the low table we gathered around, while enjoying an informal conversation with a leading member of the Senate. Among his comments -- stay connected through all the high-tech communications devices we can avail ourselves of.
Not bad advice from someone who shares my birthday -- a fact I've noted on previous encounters with Senator Durbin. He commented that I look better; I replied that he has a nicer office. And I surely hope he gets to stay there, i.e., that the Democrats maintain control of the Senate in next year's election.
Another educational aspect of the day was noting all the other advocates (those of us who volunteer to support a specific cause) and the lobbyists (they get paid -- and wear suits). The halls of Congress are loaded with both. Friday's events would include a baseball game; on Saturday, a fascinating discussion led by Bill Moyers -- more on that in another blog.

SCHOOLS FOR LEARNING CITIZENSHIP -- Can All Charter Schools Support the Foundation of American Democracy?

How can the school fuse all these diverse elements so as to produce the unity essential to a democracy? . . That end can only be attained by spreading intelligence and a sense of responsibility for the social whole.
Ella Flagg Young, 1916

“Charter” schools were established in the US a decade or two ago to try out an idea – could schools free of the regulations imposed on public schools by states and localities and teachers’ associations develop better ways to use tax dollars? The idea was that parents, teachers, and other educators could be free to innovate and experiment, and perhaps discover some novel, successful approaches, unhampered by restrictions traditional public schools must deal with. Some, such as the nationwide KIPP (for Knowledge Is Power) schools started by Teach for America veterans, appear to be doing what they were intended to do. But whether they, or other charter schools, are any more successful academically than public schools appears to depend upon who is sponsoring the study. Whether all charter schools are more successful educating citizens we probably will not know for some time, but that’s my chief concern here.
A few years ago, before coming to Romania to teach, I attended a charter school fair in Chicago and met representatives of several organizations – mainly arts and ethnic culture groups – who had started charter schools. I even visited a few, including one that was highly regarded. Though I was not impressed by what I saw – unruly students, lackadaisical organization -- I tended to give them credit for taking on a challenging task, and trying to do something new.
While at the fair, I also spoke with a representative of a chain of charter schools operating in several Midwestern cities. A brief conversation with him revealed that his organization was founded and largely staffed by a group of Russian immigrants. Okay, I thought, or maybe not so okay. Here’s why.
After two years of teaching in a Romanian high school, I’ve developed a renewed sense of respect for the lessons, both academic and civic, inculcated in us by the American public school system. As the renowned Chicago educator Ella Flagg Young (1845-1918) noted, reflecting on 50 years of leading schools to accommodate themselves to the rush of immigrants, one of the school’s functions is to create unity from this diversity. And to do it not only by stressing academic performance, but by spreading “a sense of responsibility for the social whole.”
The school I teach in has competent teachers and talented students; many are dedicated to academic accomplishment and are delightful to work with. But the students’ sense of civic responsibility is negligible – they engage in few community service projects, copy each others’ work with impunity, destroy school property, and have little faith in the future of their country. They lack what Young regarded as essential – a sense of responsibility toward the society that has made their education possible.
Recently, I came upon a comment by Alexis de Tocqueville, the young French aristocrat who visited the United States in the 1830s, seeking to understand what enabled our young republic to maintain a democratic form of government. One of the essentials, he claimed, was our investment in public education. Further, it was a sort of education that aimed at a different purpose than the schools of Europe – in the U.S., schools rear the “political” man; in Europe, the “private” man.
In Romania, as I have argued in a previous blog, the schools do a good job preparing dedicated students for higher education, but they do not necessarily prepare them for their lives as responsible citizens in a democracy. In Tocqueville’s terms, they are educated for their private lives, not their political lives. Test scores are stressed – and subject to manipulation -- not extracurricular activities or service projects. Learning is theoretical, not practical; students think about the jobs they can get, not the companies they might establish or the new products or inventions they might develop.
Hence, when I read the headline of a recent article in The New York Times -- “Charter Schools Tied to Turkey Grow in Texas” -- it caught my attention. I found this disquieting, and not only for the concerns detailed in the article – school construction and school lunch contracts tend to go to firms owned by Turkish immigrants. Further, the leadership in this charter school organization – funded by U.S. tax dollars – has distressingly close ties to a religious movement in Turkey. Their students’ math and science scores may be admirable, they appear to import teachers from Turkey, claiming that they cannot find competent ones among U.S.-trained teachers.
All these concerns, well-documented in the Times’ article, are worrisome enough. But what distresses me more is whether organizations owned by Turkish (or Russian, etc.) immigrants have sufficient respect for, or understanding of, the essential function schools serve in inculcating a democratic mindset. Their countries of origin are still struggling to establish the democratic institutions that Americans have developed over the past 250 years.
American public schools are, to borrow from a well-known history of their early development, “pillars of our republic.” Might inadequate oversight of charter schools – which even their proponents admit to being a problem – be knocking some of those pillars from their foundation? Charter schools run by local parents wanting to do something different are one thing; those run by large, foreign-affiliated organizations -- whatever their intentions -- are something else. I worry that by overheated concern over test scores, and ignoring the public schools’ many other functions, we are threatening the very foundation, not only of American democracy, but of our multicultural society and its extraordinary productivity.

BEGININGS AND RELEASES -- Comparing graduation traditions in Romania and in the United States

One of the more delightful things about living in Romania is that any occasion can be turned into a festive and flower-filled event. And graduation day is no exception. Forget robes and mortar boards, an inspiring address from a local luminary, or the celebratory distribution of diplomas. There’s none of that here, and solemnity is not on the order of business. Instead, graduates pass under an arch of flowers and perform something they have written for the occasion.
There’s no printed program either, listing the order of events and the names of all the graduates. Though Romanians are fond of distributing certificates of participation for all sorts of events, they don’t print programs (perhaps because it is seldom set until the last minute). However, as tradition governs this event, and all participants know pretty much what will happen, why waste expensive paper? (Teachers have to supply their own for making copies.)
The different words we use for graduation offer a clue to other differences. In the U.S., we often call it commencement, for the beginning of something new. In Romanian, the word for graduation is “absolvare,” which is related the English absolve and means release or exoneration – as in, you are no longer required to attend school. Today, that’s hardly the case here; most students in my high school are headed to university in the fall, even if they are not yet sure which one.
Another difference is who attends – no grandparents flown in from across the country. In fact, there were few parents in attendance, though there was an awning erected for them on the concrete soccer field, as a shield from the sun. Some younger students came to observe, or not; plus some students and teachers from the neighboring grade school watched from the other side of the fence – though their school was not dismissed until noon and graduation was at 10, Romanians are not necessarily bound by school hours if there is something more interesting to do.
The actual ceremony itself began with a delightful tradition. Each profile – roughly the equivalent of a homeroom – walks onto the soccer field under a column of long-stemmed flowers held aloft by 11th graders. Each diriginte heads his or her class accompanied by two students of the opposite sex. All are dressed somewhat alike; the diriginte for the green class wore a sea-green suit, for example. (For more information on profiles, dirigintes, and color-coding, see previous blog.) The profiles proceed, one by one, through the floral portal to their place in a large semicircle surrounding a speakers’ table, amplification equipment, and rows of chairs, formally covered in white with bright red sashes. The mayor is there, a representative parent, and the school’s director and assistant. (For the school opening ceremony in the fall, a priest from the town’s Orthodox biserica attended to offer a prayer, but he was not here for graduation.)
After brief remarks from the school director – alas, my Romanian is not up to understanding much of what was said – the dirigintes come, one by one, to introduce their groups of students and distribute awards to those with the highest total averages. On a 10-point scale, all the winners were in the mid-to high 9s; no surprise, equivalent to strong As. These were accompanied by a Romanian tradition I am not impressed by – as students come forward, they present their diriginte, and sometimes the school director, with a florist-shop produced bouquet. No simple arrangements, these, but a bunch of blooms wrapped with elaborate ribbons. My guess is they cost 20 to 30 lei apiece. So with roughly five-dozen bouquets presented, the total expenditure amounts to considerably more than the teachers’ salaries of roughly 800 lei per month. For my money, the home-grown blooms local gardens abound with would be a far-wiser substitute. (And the investment would be far better used to purchase trees and plantings for the rather barren school yard.)
A tradition I was far more impressed with is that each group of graduates performs something, usually a song they have written lyrics for. Whatever the performance, gaiety was the result, as indicated by lots of applause. Near the ceremony’s end, a representative of the graduates came forward to present next year’s 12th graders with a symbol of the school – a vastly oversized brass key sitting on a bright red pillow. It was accepted by the elected head of the student council – a young man whose fluent contributions to our classes together have amused and occasionally challenged me for two years. He was dressed for the occasion in a bright red-plaid shirt, jeans, and red high tops. He intends to be a lawyer, and I’d bet he’ll be successful at whatever he does.
The last part of the ceremony I took a personal interest in. A few months ago, I’d been inspired by discovering that a few other English-speaking countries had their own set of lyrics to Woody Guthrie’s classic “This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land.” Why not do one about Romania, I thought? So with help from groups of students, we chose several beautiful Romanian places and composed our own set of lyrics. On graduation day, it was ready for performance, accompanied by one of the school’s talented guitarists. Even those in attendance who knew no English could recognize the famous places we sang about – and enjoy Guthrie’s infectious melody.
By noon, the ceremony was over. As we all moved off the field, someone released bags of brightly colored confetti – an appropriate ending. But the day was not over – the graduates had a party to attend that evening. And getting ready for it would take some of the girls much of the afternoon; the party is a local equivalent of prom – but no one needs a date to attend. Interestingly, though the girls dressed up for the event, some of the boys dressed down, arriving (late) in black shirts and jeans.
As with similar events I’ve attended here, the four-course meal, held in a banquet hall usually reserved for weddings, took several hours to serve. The dancing began slowly, to mainly American imports – but soon the music became traditional Romanian, and the pace of the dancing more than I could keep up with. At 11:30, with the main course not yet served, I decided to head home, absolved of further responsibility for partying. Weddings here can last until dawn; this party probably did, too. Congratulations to all!
Facebook friends can view an album of photographs on my FB page.

Graduation Week Fever

“C’est la vie,” one of my students commented when I admitted to the impossibility of an instructive class session on the day before graduation in my Romanian high school. I, in fact, was the recipient of most of the instruction that was to take place that day. As with most events in Romania, there was no graduation week program that had been decided upon by a committee and distributed to all involved. Instead, tradition governed the week’s program, and I was likely the only person who did not have a pretty good idea of what would take place and when. (Last year, cold and rainy days moved most of the festivities indoors, so far-fewer traditions were observed.)
Graduation was Friday, but even a casual observer could note something special was about to happen from Tuesday forward. Some of the 12th grade boys had come to school in a suit, as had one of the male teachers. He was dressed to administer a final oral exam to students in the “informatics” (computer technology) “profile,” and they all had to dress for the event.
These profiles need some explanation. In a U.S. high school, students have a “homeroom” and an advisor that remains the same all four years; Romanian students have an analgous “diriginte,” but beyond that, there are many differences. As ninth graders, Romanian students pick a “profile” depending on their interests and abilities: language, natural science, automotive technology, business, etc. – in my school, there are nine. Once they choose this, they remain with the same group of students in all their classes all four years (some movement from one to another takes place, but it is the exception not the rule).
When it is time for graduation, each profile picks a color, and that determines the shades of the boys’ ties and shirts; the girls’ shoes and sashes, or dresses and blouses. On Wednesday, students in several of the profiles arrived at school in their color-coded outfits, and had their own schedules while the rest of the students went about its normal business. Sort of.
On Thursday, the real festivities began. None of the 11th graders scheduled to come to my classroom at 9:00 am showed up. So I went downstairs to their classroom (each profile has its own classroom, to which the teachers come, rather than vice versa, as in a US school). I found most of the students there, but hardly in a mood for the dictation test I had planned to give. As the teacher with whom I share responsibility for this group’s English instruction had warned me that she might be spending the morning with the 12th graders for whom she is diriginte, I quickly determined that this was the case.
So I told the students to stay in their room, and that I would be right back with something different to do. (Unlike the U.S., where a classroom must always be staffed with a fully certified teacher whenever students are present, students here are often left to their own devices when a teacher is tardy or unexpectedly absent, or whatever.)
When I returned with more appropriate materials a few minutes later, half the class had disappeared. When I asked, in English and Romanian, where they had gone, I was told “suc.” They had gone to the nearby magazine – Romanian for convenience store – to buy juice and other supplements to breakfast. So I started the class with those who were present; we practiced a song we’d been working on, and then we got into a circle for a collective reading of The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. I’d long before typed up and made copies of the text, so each pair of students could read what they could not understand orally. It was a success – its 220 vocabulary words about what most of the students could read and process the meaning of at the same time. Halfway through, most of the rest of the students returned, so we expanded the circle and they joined in.
It was at my 10:00 am class that a student had greeted me with “c’est la vie.” Strains of “Gaudeamus Igitor” could be heard throughout the school’s main building, as color-coded groups of students walked from classroom to classroom, distributing flowers and cheek kisses as they went. After the gray, green, and red profiles had serenaded us, I adopted a Romanian attitude and decided the final quiz I had intended to give would wait, or not take place at all. Then, flowers in hand, I returned to my classroom for the remaining 10 minutes of the period. (As a supplemental American teacher, I’m lucky and have my own classroom; the other teachers have to keep all their instructional materials in the small drawers of crowded-together desks in the Sala Profesorala.)
Along with two other teachers, I had a special event planned for the 11:00 am hour – for a month or more, I had been working with some of my classes on writing lyrics, in English, about Romania to the tune of Woody Guthrie’s classic folk anthem “This Land Is Your Land.” For the previous week, we’d been talking about whether we could get a group of singers and guitarists together to do a credible job of performing the song at graduation. So, when I got back to my classroom, I was delighted to see two of the school’s most accomplished guitarists there, complete with amplifying equipment, for a formal practice. (Musically minded students here – and there are many – tend to do guitar or brass or piano.)
A few minutes later, the other teachers arrived along with a dozen or more students. Under the direction of our part-time music teacher, we went through the song several times – and voila, we were ready for “From Maramureş to the Black Sea beaches . . . ” (see accompanying video for more).
At noon, another special event was taking place in my classroom – some of the 10th graders in the language profile had written a short play (in English) for a competition the following week, and they had arrived to practice. I was there as the nominal English-language advisor. But these talented kids didn’t need much help. Next up, another articulate young woman wanted to interview me for this year’s issue of the school newspaper. Now that I’d been here for two years, she wanted to know, what did I think of Romania? Ah, how to answer that question in five sentences? In brief – it will be hard to return to the U.S. where I am just another American, rather than The American in a delightfully generous town.
That done, I settled down to begin the time-consuming job of awarding a mark for the past the six weeks’work to 220 students; though the 12th graders will be gone, other students still have three (or more) weeks of classes. Not quite sure how we will all settle down for real school again, but that’s next week’s challenge. Tomorrow would be consumed by graduation. And for news of that, see the next blog.

Reading Cremin, and Tocqueville, in Romania

In the United States, Tocqueville concluded, the aim of education was politics; in Europe, its principal object was to fit men for private life.

Lawrence A. Cremin
American Education, 1980

Among the things I have with me in Romania are the three volumes of Lawrence Cremin’s American Education, a magisterial and prize-winning study of the ideas and individuals that drove the development of schooling, broadly conceived, in the United States. Though I’d read the first, The Colonial Experience 1607-1783 (1970), quite carefully, the two others, I’d only sampled. My intention was to absorb them in anticipation of a post-Peace Corps project.
Given various other demands on my time, I didn’t get to Cremin until I’d been here for 18 months or so. By then, I’d observed enough of Romanian education to begin thinking about differences not just between the two systems, but between the purposes they are intended to serve. A long spring vacation train ride provided a chance to begin the second volume, The National Experience 1783-1876 (1980), and I completed it upon my return. While the first volume considers the intellectual roots of the American paideia – Cremin’s word – the second considers how, in the first century of our existence, a whole panoply of educational organizations solidified a national identity, despite the regional variations that led to the Civil War.
While reading his concluding chapter, “Characteristics,” I found myself making marginal notes about which aspects of Cremin’s panoply of educators are prevalent in Romania and which are not. The notes became less a way of analyzing educational institutions here than an engagement with the extraordinary strength of these institutions in the U.S. and how essential they have been to developing and maintaining our democracy. By Cremin’s definition, it’s not only schools that educate but churches and newspapers and museums and county agricultural societies and professional associations – the vast array of organizations and institutions we Americans have established in order to improve ourselves and our communities.
While here, I have had some opportunities to give talks about education in the two countries and had arrived at a dichotomy to differentiate between the two systems: Romanian schools aim at social stability and American schools at productivity. Cremin’s discussion enabled me to expand on that idea, and it did so by beginning the chapter on characteristics with what a young European – Alexis de Tocqueville – had observed in the early years of our republic. The United States had geographic isolation and reliance on the rule of law inherited from Great Britain, but most importantly it had customs and habits of mind that supported the maintenance of democracy.
What were these customs, Cremin asked? Again relying on Tocquville’s observations, he cited the combination of formal instruction, informal nurture, and individual self-reflection. While all exist in Romania, variations in how they are expressed, and their prevalence, most differentiate our traditions from theirs.
My first talk comparing schools here and at home began with a description of 10 ideas that have influenced the development of American education. Afterwards, a Romanian friend in the audience commented that to her knowledge there is no similar analysis of the ideas that have governed the development of education here. I’d noted that as well (there may be such a thing, but it’s not widely available in English). Though the history of education plays a small role in U.S. teacher preparation, most well-schooled Americans have heard of Thomas Jefferson’s insistence that a nation cannot be both ignorant and free, of Noah Webster’s effort to establish an American language, and of Horace Mann’s campaign for the common school – all American children would learn together in one school, based on locality not on family social position.
While Romanian teachers are well educated in their subject matter – perhaps more so than many U.S. teachers – none that I know have thought much about the ideas that governed the development of the schools they teach in. Thus, my proposition that American schools aim at a different goal than do Romanian ones – the dichotomy between stability and productivity noted above – offered a response to a question they have not posed.
Though Romanian schools do quite well with limited resources, Cremin’s gloss on Tocqueville’s observations has helped me understand the outstanding strengths of our system. And I have found a gratifying similarity between the dichotomy that Cremin attributed to Tocqueville – what I term productivity is a variation on the latter’s “political” life; and stability a variation on schools fitting students for “private life.”
In my experience, schools here do a good job preparing bright and dedicated students for higher education, but they don’t instill in them a sense of responsibility for society at large. Student government is negligible, community service is limited, and there’s a dismaying sense of negativity toward government. Students feel a strong commitment to their families and to their fellows, but they have little or no investment in the future of their country. Their chief concern is about their well-being as individuals, about their private lives.
American students, by contrast, learn to be productive citizens by engaging in political life, broadly conceived. Tocqueville noted this, and Cremin reiterated it. Our wide range of schools emphasize practical rather than theoretical knowledge, something students here wish they had more of. U.S. students learn the value of civic participation by participating in the betterment of their communities through programs sponsored by schools and other educational organizations. Their parents set an example through similar participation.
Several organizations in Romania are encouraging more civic participation – complementing formal instruction with less-formal kinds of educational nurture. Kiwanis, Rotary, and Lions clubs, for example, are active in my part of Romania, and a scouting movement is underway. Many of my Romanian colleagues are questioning why their resource-rich country is unable to provide enough jobs to support its population; the growth of American-founded business and service organizations suggest that many see them as an answer. They may not have heard of Tocqueville, but they see the value of civic, if not necessarily political, participation.
One of my Romanian friends, when I suggested she apply for a fellowship trip to the U.S., noted that she wants to visit “if only to see the sort of country that nurtured you.” Reading Cremin, and Tocqueville, 4,000 miles from home, have helped me understand what constituted that nurture. And I intend to continue considering aspects of that nurturing in subsequent blogs.

Sărbători Fericite – Or the Christmas Holidays Come to Bihor

Romania is said to be a poor country, at least in financial terms, and Romanians are, by their own admission, somewhat disorganized.  But neither trait was much in evidence during December as my fellow Bihorians got ready for Craiciun, the Romanian word for Christmas. This American visitor in their midst is delighted to observe variations on familiar customs – and the generosity of friends and neighbors here. As with Halloween, it is particularly intriguing to see how songs and symbols from “home” are given a Romanian accent. 

            At the end of November, Christmas decorations, cakes, and candies were abundant in the local stores – not much different than we would see in Target. In early December, lights began to adorn homes and town centers; the newer of the two Orthodox biserica in town held a colinda – the singing of Romanian carols. Groups of children and adults from neighboring villages performed, all dressed in traditional costumes -- women and young girls wear glorious black velvet vests and aprons over white eyelet skirts and blouses, all embroidered with flowers and sequins – a visual delight. The men wear white shirts and pants with decorative belts and sashes, black boots and black lambskin hats.

The next weekend, we had our first snow – only a few inches, but enough to suggest the season.  At school, one of my classes was reading a selection from Charles Dickens, which inspired me rather spontaneously to decide that my 10^th and 11^th graders should know something about “A Christmas Carol.” Vocabulary lessons for them; other sorts of instruction for me. No “Bah, Humbug!” here.

A group of high school girls were interested in teaching carols in English to younger children, as the start of a possible volunteer program. This, too, became a learning experience as much as whatever else it might turn into. The older girls were eager to do the tutoring, but by the time our lesson was to occur, the 7^th and 8^th graders had organized their own Christmas production, with some guidance from their truly gifted English teacher. One boy had written his own Christmas song, another delivered “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” with the innocent charm of an adolescent chess player, and two girls did “Twelve Days of Christmas” without missing one lord a’leeping.

A chorus dressed in Santa hats sang Romanian and American songs. Most popular are “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town,” “We Wish You a Merry Christmas,” “Feliz Navidad” – they prefer the Celine Dion version to that of Jose Feliciano – and of course “Jingle Bells.” As for our contributions, “Go Tell It on the Mountain” worked well because it is easy to learn; not so for “Away in a Manger.” Most of the younger children were able to follow along on “T’was the Night before Christmas” even if a lot of the vocabulary was over their rooftops.

After this celebration, I went to another at the middle school where a fellow volunteer teaches. Though the show got underway a half-hour late, the production was a delight – and at my friend’s suggestion, it even included a printed program. Though Romanians are fond of certificates for all sorts of things, programs are not part of the culture. The mix of songs – and students in Santa caps singing them – was similar to those at my school. But this one included a college-age dance group and a display of homemade baskets brimming with holiday foods.

When I listen to Romanian carols, I’m intrigued that so few tunes are familiar, but later that evening I had an opportunity to hear several hundred people join Romanian singing sensation Fuego in a few of their favorites. “Colindim, colindim iarna” – we sing, we sing, of winter -- has become one of mine, too. Before the concert – the first I’ve attended in Romania – some women were selling holiday items made by participants in program for disabled adults; this attractive and inexpensive collection was something else I’ve seldom seen in Romania.

On the actual first day of winter, the lovely snow we’d enjoyed all weekend was rained away –- but a Christmas celebration at my school kept holiday spirits high. One of our really well-organized colleagues had guided her 10^th graders to present a Power Point show of Christmas traditions from various European countries, complimented by actual performances from the cultures represented by our students: Hungarian, Slovak, and Romanian. Among the joys -- seeing many of my students dressed in sheepskin hats and jackets, or the sparkling embroidered vests and aprons, looking more like Romanians than, well, Americans, as they do at school.

That evening, the mayor’s office put on another celebration that included 20-odd eight-year olds learning to master traditional dances, all dressed in embroidery and lambskin. Their big brothers and sisters offered a highly-gymnastic (and slightly risqué) dance to “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.” As usual, I was impressed by the talents displayed – without all the expensive facilities and instruction of American suburbanites, students here can perform on par with them. And, it’s usually American music they choose to sing, play, or dance to.   

Social customs and holiday entertaining, however, are strictly Romanian. In the week before Christmas, when I asked my students to say – English sentence, please! – what is special about Christmas, they all mentioned being at home with family. Whereas in the U.S., the holiday season involves various parties at work and among friends, the custom here is to observe the holiday with close family only. Though my school did have a Christmas meal (snitel and potato salad with hot mulled wine) for faculty on the last day of school, inviting friends to one’s home to share the holiday is not a Romanian custom. Part of this might be that homes are small and there are few “living rooms” as we know them – most of the living goes on in the kitchen – but the reasons are more rooted in the culture than in the architecture.

Many of my fellow volunteers attribute differences in such practices to communism --one needs to be careful what one says after too much polinka – but I’d argue that it goes back much further. Or, perhaps, that Americans are the exception here. We value interaction and cross-fertilization, the stimulation of new ideas and new people – one of the reasons we are fond of cocktail parties. While I have enjoyed many Romanian meals – some for 20 or 30 people – none have involved much milling about; instead, one sits at a table and talks with those one knows. Romanians value the familiar more than the novel, the comfort of family rather than the distraction of something new. It’s both a virtue and a liability.

My Christmas involved both American and Romanian practices. First, an invitation to a friend’s home to make sarmale – stuffed cabbage, labor intensive and de riguer for a holiday meal -- plus salata de boeuf (no beef, but peas and carrots and homemade mayonnaise), and one of the layer cakes Romanians are masters of (thin layers of cake, filled with cheese, cream, and jam). Then a Christmas Eve with my Romanian friends who lived in the U.S. for several years – and they were delighted to include in the invitation my fellow volunteer, along with her visiting husband and son. We ate, we talked, we walked – the polinka and a tour of a neighborhood biserica that’s being decorated by its talented priest were the chief elements that differentiated it from a holiday we might observe at home.

On Christmas Day itself, sans children to tend to, I slept late, until joining my Romanian friends for more talking and eating and walking. On the way home, we stopped at a relative’s home, where we were of course offered more polinka and wine, but then found ourselves involved in yet another bit of Americana. “Monopoly” has come to Romania (Piata Unirii, Boulevardul Regele Carol, etc.) and 10-year-old Mihai persuaded my friend and me to join him and his six-year-old cousin in a game.

Given the snail’s pace at which I can read Romanian and my friend’s reading glasses left at home, it was obvious the two boys would best us – a delight to watch them play. Though our adult conversations had involved whether Romanians could become competitive and organized enough to haul the nation out of its economic problems, the talent with which these boys went at acquiring property, collecting rents, and calculating how much they could afford gave me hope for Romania’s future prosperity.

Sărbători fericite şi la mulţi ani to all!