Teaching Social Work in Latvia
Last Thursday was a difficult day for me in the classroom and it’s my hunch most who teach can relate. It was the first day of a new course, albeit one I have taught regularly at UNH for more than 25 years. I was working with a new/different translator, a young business student from Riga, who was also translating for the first time in any subject. The content included a fair amount of theory and technical use of a number of words everyone already knows in English—the word “empathy”, for example that turns out to be the same in Latvian as the word for “sympathy”. The Eskimos have 3 words for snow; the Nepalese have 3 for rice. In English we use “empathy” and “sympathy” to describe variations of commiseration. The Latvians have one word for the concept. In retrospect it’s no wonder there were blank and bemused looks as I tried to describe the importance of the difference in social work practice. The theory was also tough to present and the harder I tried the less successful I felt. Stories and illustrations fell flat or became so convoluted in the telling that I stopped myself and the translator midway through several to start again or in some instances just move on. The power point slides and outline made good sense to me when I put them together, but not to this group of students, or me, in the after-lunch 4th, 5th, 6th hours of the class. On Thursday evening I was quite discouraged.
Friday and Saturday were better—actually much better, but the Thursday experience has me thinking, a lot. I’ve thought about foreign teaching, teaching through translation, the critical necessity to connect with the value/knowledge/skill needs of the students in their context. The bottom line? Some power point slides will be revised, others removed. I will re-think the presentation of the content and re-structure the mid-term exam—“reasonable” wrong answers on multiple choice questions are sometimes difficult in English. This is a class taught in Latvian but with many native Russian speakers, several of whom bring Latvian/Russian dictionaries to class for exam days. Overall, I believe most of the students are learning some things; I’m the one learning a lot!
Nov 19, 2007
Last Thursday was a difficult day for me in the classroom and it’s my hunch most who teach can relate. It was the first day of a new course, albeit one I have taught regularly at UNH for more than 25 years. I was working with a new/different translator, a young business student from Riga, who was also translating for the first time in any subject. The content included a fair amount of theory and technical use of a number of words everyone already knows in English—the word “empathy”, for example that turns out to be the same in Latvian as the word for “sympathy”. The Eskimos have 3 words for snow; the Nepalese have 3 for rice. In English we use “empathy” and “sympathy” to describe variations of commiseration. The Latvians have one word for the concept. In retrospect it’s no wonder there were blank and bemused looks as I tried to describe the importance of the difference in social work practice. The theory was also tough to present and the harder I tried the less successful I felt. Stories and illustrations fell flat or became so convoluted in the telling that I stopped myself and the translator midway through several to start again or in some instances just move on. The power point slides and outline made good sense to me when I put them together, but not to this group of students, or me, in the after-lunch 4th, 5th, 6th hours of the class. On Thursday evening I was quite discouraged.
Friday and Saturday were better—actually much better, but the Thursday experience has me thinking, a lot. I’ve thought about foreign teaching, teaching through translation, the critical necessity to connect with the value/knowledge/skill needs of the students in their context. The bottom line? Some power point slides will be revised, others removed. I will re-think the presentation of the content and re-structure the mid-term exam—“reasonable” wrong answers on multiple choice questions are sometimes difficult in English. This is a class taught in Latvian but with many native Russian speakers, several of whom bring Latvian/Russian dictionaries to class for exam days. Overall, I believe most of the students are learning some things; I’m the one learning a lot!
Nov 19, 2007
In the photo above Bob is with other American social workers, Latvian translators and the International Programs coordinator of Attistiba. It was taken when Bob presented a paper on International Adoption at the Riga Stradins University early in November. The other images come from our trip to Rezekne, a city in the Latgale region of Latvia east of Riga toward the Russian border. We stayed here at the Hotel Latgale while Bob did the 3 day intensive seminar course in Social Work Practice which he reflected on in the posting above. I was able to explore Rezekne. Rezekne is on the main road from Riga to Moscow and Warsaw to St. Petersburg. It was bombed heavily in WWII because of its center as a transportation hub. I was able to visit the Latgale Culture and History Museum which had an excellent display of pottery beginning in Neolithic times. The statue of Mara was erected in 1939 with the inscription United Latvia. It was removed and returned twice during Soviet times and finally destroyed. However it was recast by the son of the original sculptor and erected once again in the square in 1992. It's original message to celebrate the liberation of Latgale from foreign rule still resonates today.
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