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Teaching in Poland, by Rui Wang
I teach at Stalowa Wola, a city about half way between Warsaw and Krakow. I chose WorldTeach because I want to travel as much as I can; but I didn’t want to be merely a tourist. I wanted to actually live in a different culture for the summer and contribute to the community that I live in.
Thus I plunged into my first teaching experience and my life as a foreigner immersed in the Polish culture. Our first class was the best class we had that entire week. They were excited and enthusiastic; and more importantly, they couldn’t wait to talk in English. Let me be clear. Our Polish students all wanted to learn English, or else they wouldn’t have voluntarily come to the classrooms during the summer when they could be on vacation. But as we had been warned beforehand, most students were unwilling to speak because they were afraid of making mistakes. For the rest of the week, we had to find ways to coax students to talk to us in English, and teaching turned out to be more energy consuming than I had expected. But on that first day, our class was perfect! In fact, five students from our first class decided that they enjoyed our class so much that they would come to class everyday even though they were only scheduled for twice a week! We had made it through the first day of teaching, in a foreign country neither of us had ever been to, and with students whose native language we knew very little about.
I learned that teaching can be great fun and certainly worth every bit of effort I’ve put in. And having sat as a student for thirteen years in the classroom, I was amazed to experience what it’s like on the other side of the classroom. The feeling that, through your words and actions, you are sharing knowledge with so many talented and enthusiastic students is something only a teacher will have the privilege to experience.
My daily schedule involves my host family a lot. My first host family lived in a small town outside of Stalowa Wola. They had a house and a yard full of flowers and fruit trees. Usually, I wake up around 7:20 am. I eat breakfast around 8, which consists of bread roll, cheese, smoked ham/chicken, and tea. At 9am, I walk into one of the classrooms and greet my students. They are all high school students ranging from 16 to 18 years old. My main task in the classroom is to get them to talk in English and talk to them as a native speaker. Another WorldTeach volunteer also teaches at my school, and at the beginning, we decided to combine our classes and split as necessary to teach different parts of the lessons. When the group is bigger or heterogeneous in terms of English language levels, we split up into two groups and two classrooms and conduct our own lessons while varying the difficulty of our prepared lessons to suit the groups’ needs. We have students who have only taken a year of English to those who are fluent. I take the bus back home and by the time I get back, I have time to rest a little and check my emails and then it’s time for our lunch (Polish’s biggest meal of the day) around 3 or 4pm. This is the third meal of the day, after first and second breakfasts. Meals last for much longer than I’m used to, as does almost everything else. I’ve adjusted to a much slower and more relaxed lifestyle here, where everyone is not constantly on their laptops and running to places. I usually get a bit more time to relax after this meal. And then the family always has plans for the rest of my day. We have gone shopping, walking, biking, movies, bowling, and visiting several other cities during the afternoon hours and on the weekends. This means I’m almost never alone during the entire day, but I guess that’s part of the culture here too. We have our “supper” around 10pm, which consists of bread, meat, or desserts.
Polish food usually consists of some form of cabbage and potatoes and meat/sausage. I really enjoy the bigos dish here, which is a kind of thick stew made from (surprise!) cabbage, sausage slices, and meat. I’ve also noticed that ice cream is extremely popular here, and not just with the kids. When I lived with my first host family, I had at least one ice cream cone a day. Several times, the family would sit around eating ice cream freshly bought from the shops in the afternoon. I have to admit, the ice cream here is absolutely delicious. The cream is lighter and tastes less sweet but more natural.
This penchant for ice cream is healthily balanced by the preference for walking and biking. I experienced this especially with my second host family, who lived in the city very close to my school. If we’re going somewhere within the city limit, we almost always walked. And if it’s a bit farther, we biked there. Even though we’re in the middle of the city, I feel extremely safe and comfortable taking walks around, even in the evening. This type of exercise is taken for granted here, and I don’t think people even think of walking or biking as “exercise.”
In fact, my first weekend with my second host family, my host sister, her friend, and I went on a two day bike trip. We biked 50 km total and camped in the middle of a forest during the night. This was the longest I have ever been on a bike, and one of the most exhausting experiences in my life; but it was also one of the most exciting and memorable trips. We made a bonfire near our tent and cooked our dinner there, biked through forest and fields, and even unexpectedly met one of my students and sat down in his home for tea. In the end, nothing compares to the sense of accomplishment when we finally made it home, tired, dirty, but still in high spirits.
I think I’ve accomplished or am in the process of accomplishing what I’ve set out to do this summer. I chose WorldTeach Poland because I wanted to immerse myself in a totally foreign culture, because I’d never been to Europe, because I’d never taught a class, and because I wanted to enjoy a meaningful summer. I knew teaching would put me slightly out of my comfort zone for my usually reserved character, but I also found out that as much as teaching is a sometimes exhausting process, it is also an immensely rewarding experience. I know that I have made a difference in my students’ lives, and all of my students have certainly changed me in this process. I have felt like part of a family here and cannot thank my host families enough for making my stay in Poland so much more memorable. I have been privileged enough to be able to truly become part of another culture for a summer and enjoy the unbelievable hospitality of the Polish people. I have met many amazing people on this journey, and I will miss them very much when I leave. I believe that everyone should step out of their own small sphere and see the vast world; this is by far the best way to gain a better perspective on our own lives.
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Host Family Experience, by Dhruv Taneja
Living with a host family was simultaneously one of the most difficult yet rewarding aspects of my WorldTeach experience. Language and cultural differences made even communication difficult at first and all conversation were channeled through my host sister (one of my students). I remember feeling nervous as I tried to guess what they thought of me, tried hard to be the model house guest and maintain some privacy. I can only begin to imagine what it was like for them.
They had welcomed a total stranger, the first Hindu and Indian they had ever met or seen, into their home purely because they believed in WorldTeach's mission. However, this nervousness, distance and formality was short-lived, and by the end of the summer I felt (and still do) just like another member of the family. This transition was accelerated by my fast-improving Polish skills, but more importantly, by a change in mid-set on both the part of my family and me: I was NOT a guest, but a family member.
As soon as I began to help with simple household chores, play soccer with my host brother's friends, go shopping with my host-father etc. I was really able to bond with them as a family member/friend and not only as a "volunteer guest from Harvard." I felt most comfortable, loved and at-home when my host mom used to tell me to get some sleep or not to drink too much, and my host brother would steal candy from the top cupboard in the kitchen as a "bribe" so that I'd play games with him after his bed-time! The key to a successful and rewarding host family experience is just that, act like a family member and encourage them to treat you as one, not as a guest.
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On Poland, by Dahm Choi
Friends often ask: What is it like, in Poland? (The answer, I now know, is far more than "tam strasznie zimno" -- "it's very cold there".) There is a wealth of political and economic observation that I can offer them: the strength of the new consumer culture; the unbounded love for America, American opportunity, and American products; the zeal with which the country has recommitted itself to the democratic process; the residue of the Communist era in the Polish national conscience; the obvious progress that has been made since 1989; the humorous irreverence of Poles toward their leaders.
In living with Poles, however, what I truly learned about and brought back to the States were the cultural notions that embody Poland and its rich heritage. Over the course of the summer, I lived with four different families, and experienced the polska gościnność (Polish hospitality) and polska kuchnia (Polish cuisine) of many more. "Gość w dom, Bóg w dom" (Guest in the house, God in the house) they told me, and everyone was more than generous in proving it.
My daily routine was simple, and invigorating. I would arise, enjoy a filling breakfast, and walk to work carrying a bag with more food than I could possibly eat. My host families always made sure of it. Every weekday morning, I taught two English classes at the local school in either Maków Mazowiecki or Różan, dependent on the day. After school, I would head over to see my friend and host Marek at his shop, where he was selling windows to help his brother-in-law. I came to treasure the time I spent standing outside his shop, eating ice cream and chatting with the neighborhood shopkeepers, or whoever else happened to stop by.
At first, Marek spoke no English and I, no Polish, but we managed much in those afternoon sessions, using index cards, pocket dictionaries and rudimentary expressions. Marek's girlfriend Ania would frequently help with translation, and mutual learning came quickly. It proved to be of substantial benefit to me that Marek happened to be a trained instructor (as was Adam, a paternal, boisterous high school history teacher with whom I would stay later in the summer).
On weekends, I often sat for hours with Marek and Ania on their back porch, talking about the habits of Polish politicians, and prospects for the Polish economy, and when best to pick the wild mushrooms from the forest just beyond their fence. We always mused about the weather, and one day, hail fell. We laughed - tylko w Polsce (only in Poland)! One of my favorite memories is of a trip to Marek's parents' vegetable farm. The weather permitted, so we loaded ourselves into an army-issued inflatable raft that Marek happened to have, and drifted several kilometers downstream to see his parents, past grazing cows and unsuspecting Sunday picnickers.
After a time, I added feeding cows and shoveling grain to my afternoon routine, as I began living with a family of farmers in the nearby village of Obiecanowo. I moved in with them during the late summer harvest, and learned about the seasonal cycles of an agricultural livelihood. The weathered Rysiek and his adult son Grzesiek taught me how to handle a pitchfork, stack hay, clean a cow pen, and bag potatoes for market. The fields swelled in fullness, then disappeared beneath the turning blades of their combine, a massive red Bizon of Polish manufacture.
Urszula, the matriarch of the gospodarstwo (farm), attended to my diet with great zeal, even slaughtering a pig at one point to prepare fresh kotlety schabowe (pork cutlets). She introduced me to a Poland different from, but still intimately linked to, that in which Marek and Ania lived. While the young couple held standards of amenity and worldviews not far removed from American paradigms for their generation, Urszula stood for an older way of life - one centered on the family, the field and the Church.
One of the highest privileges I had extended to me while volunteering was an invitation to a traditional wesele (wedding reception) in Urszula's village, to bear witness to Polish customs and take part in the community. It was quite an event. The next marriage in Obiecanowo is to be that of Urszula's son Grzesiek, and I hope to be there in person.
I traveled vigorously while in Poland, visiting Warsaw, Gdańsk, Sopot, Malbork, Treblinka, Częstochowa and Mazury with either the WorldTeach program or my hosts. Of all my trips in various Eastern European countries this summer, the one to Częstochowa stands out as truly unique. It was not made by train or bus, like the others, but on foot - as one of the tens of thousands of young people in the annual pilgrimage procession which sings and chants its way to Jasna Góra, to become a part of the Polish cultural experience.
After completing my duties as a teacher, I said goodbye to my students and host families and backpacked solo through the South of Poland (crossing the border to visit Poland's regional neighbors for a time). Along the way, I practiced my conversational skills and heard some remarkable stories from friendly Poles, young and old. Before eventually returning to Warsaw, I had visited Zakopane, Tatrzański Park Narodowy, Karpacz, Karkonoski Park Narodowy, Oswięcim, Wieliczka, and of course, Kraków.
Toward the end of my stay, I thought often of the future, and whether the taste I had in my mouth - polski chleb (Polish bread), bigos (Polish stew), a new and melodious language - was one I wished to acquire, and preserve. Wandering along the broad banks of the Wisła (Vistula River) as just another aimless student, a young person among many, I wondered: Can I return to this? It was an admirable view - Wawel's old walls above me, the enormous Żywiec sign across the river, birds racing, summer lovers gliding by.
I carried the thought with me through the lush silence of the beautiful back trails of the Tatra Mountains. Occasionally, another hiker would appear coming the other way, and after customary acknowledgments, I would inquire, "Jak daleko do schroniska (How far to the hostel)?" Another conversation would begin.
By the time I was flying home, I had made my decision - to study a part of the world, and a people, that had inspired a genuine delight in my life.
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