English Lessons, Cont.

I just got back from my first class with a new group, one of the “work and travel” classes for college-aged kids who will be working in America this summer. Almost all of them will be working in Myrtle Beach, and three of those are working for Krispy Kreme. They didn’t really understand why I thought that was so exciting. Anyway, the idea of this class is, as much as language practice, to prepare the kids culturally for American life. Unfortunately, I know nothing about America. I’m sure that there are a thousand things that will blow their cabbage-fed minds as soon as they get off the plane, but I can’t pin down exactly what they are, or how to prepare them for those things. It doesn’t really help that they don’t believe that they don’t know everything they need to know about America from watching TV. But really, whenever people ask me questions about America here, I have no idea how to answer. For instance, I made a vague attempt today to discuss the issue of gender roles. But... I don’t really how to explain the fact that it’s considered ideal for men to try to help out around the house (one of the phrases we learned today, by the way), but they usually don’t much, or that we consider that women are just as smart and capable as men, but they are often not as well paid. While on the one hand America is becoming more and more a lost paradise the longer I am here, on the other hand, I continually have to face up to our pervasive self-denial. This always happened when I tried to teach classes about racism, too. I would start out with the attitude that I had to explain to these racist Russians how to behave in a civilized society, but then I would start talking, and the message would be that it is a very big deal to use derisive terms to describe racial and ethnic identity in America because... we have a long history of violent racial conflict. Sigh. But if any of you have ideas for lessons for this class, let me know. Especially ideas connected to concrete information of some kind—that’s generally what I lack. I currently hide my lack of direction under a distracting cloud of verbal phrases I make them learn: to hang out/ up/ ten; to work out/ around/ through/ on; to wash out/ away; etc. Keeps them from thinking too much.