Teacher Representative Corner

Mick Calvett

Australia

Reminiscences from an "Old Hand"

In 1997, after 27 years of teaching high school, 26 in Oz and 1 in Colorado, helping to bring up a number of foster kids, watching my house mortgage rates go up and house value go down and turning 50 - I decided it was time for a change. A year as a history researcher in our state library was not the answer so I looked further afield. I answered an advert for a teaching position in ‘Eastern Europe’ and imagined that it was Romania, Bulgaria or Yugoslavia. On hearing the words Moscow and $500 I took two steps back, then thought, "Why not?" Sometimes since I have thought, "Why?" I sold the house, paid off my debts, farewelled the kids, family and friends, listened to everyone tell me how brave (read ‘stupid’) I was and headed off.

I’d been to Russia before as a Trans Siberian tourist in 1982. Moscow was quite different in September 1997. The buildings were more colourful, the lines outside the bread, milk and shoe shops were gone and there were 6 000 roubles to the dollar, not 2 dollars to the rouble. I was driven to a flat and delivered inside - nobody else was there but I was told Daniel would get there soon. The flat was pretty basic in a quaint Soviet way I thought, and when I went out to look for the shops, they looked really intimidating. But I survived.

On Monday someone came to take me in to Biblioteka School. My Cyrillic wasn’t too good, so I carefully remembered the way to Rechnoy Vokzal station, without realising that we were going to Vodny Stadion. My induction at school consisted of watching 2 placement tests and finding out my teaching assignment. Then I got thoroughly lost trying to get home. I started on the wrong line, couldn’t find the right perekhod (underpass), got off at Rechnoy and didn’t recognise anything, found Leningradsky Shosse but walked the wrong way, finally reversed direction and found my flat block but couldn’t remember which entry door, found the right etage (floor) but tried to open the wrong flat, got yelled at and finally got in.

I discovered that Russia is often like that, a real challenge! So what are the positives?

It’s been a good refuge from the dishwater drama of life in Oz. My friends here, both English speaking and Russian offer friendship without any strings attached. Life is usually fun and planning far ahead seldom intrudes on my daily life. ‘Carpe Diem’ is the rule of life. I’ve become a vodka drinker, socially of course, after swearing off spirits as a result of a three-day whisky induced illness as a teenager, and Oz chilled beer no longer tastes so good. Please don’t tell the Oz Embassy or they’ll revoke my citizenship. And last, but certainly not least, the teaching is fun, teaching little horrors, I mean teenagers, who want to learn - and adults who sometimes puzzle me with ‘stupid’, I mean interesting, questions about grammar. The other real positive in teaching is the enthusiasm of the mainly young staff. And in Russian class I now know how my English students feel as I listen to a torrent of highly inflected words and frantically try to make sense of the few words I understand - then panic when I realise that I have to say something relevant in Russian.

Then there’s the scenery. Young Russian women in their fur coats are the best argument I can think of against animal liberationists. I suppose I need to say also that there are some pretty nice buildings and cities around.

The above was written in 1999.

It’s now 2005 and I’m still here and still in the same flat. I still enjoy teaching my classes, still find the Russian language a nightmare of endings to wade through and am still generally enjoying the experience now that the novelty has worn off. For me, the highlight is spending free time with my Russian friends and travelling both in and outside Russia. I’ve been around the architecturally spectacular Golden Ring, to Pskov and Novgorad, as well as St Pete a number of times and one of the highlights was a trip to Karelia up by Finland, all with English speaking Russian friends.

What has changed? Moscow looks more and more attractive every year, the result of massive renovation, and shopping has become much easier, with less of the stores where you have to ask for everything and more supermarkets where you can serve yourself from a wider variety of goods. The rouble seems to have stabilised at around 30 to the American dollar, but this has been accompanied by substantial price rises, supposedly geared to the euro, but also due to rising property costs and profit taking, putting some pressure on teachers’ salaries, partly helped by a recent pay rise for those on 2nd and 3rd contracts.

BKC has also diversified its offerings and now there are more business and children’s classes as well as exam geared courses, so once you have found your feet, you could be asked to teach and gain experience in areas well beyond CELTA training. A good support system of people and resources exists in the school to help. There are also summer, winter and spring camps where, for 10 days or 2 weeks at a time, a teacher can get to spend time in the middle of a pine forest in a health sanatorium teaching groups of kids – often a rewarding experience and a way to get to better understand the Russian way of doing things.

There’s less of the "It’s Russia" nowadays, or maybe I’ve finally begun to come to terms with this interesting, different and challenging culture. Certainly my Russian friends and the younger teachers at the school and its staff have taught me much about life and priorities and also provided many happy moments.

So, if you are keen and adaptable, Moscow can offer you a really interesting and often rewarding experience. It won’t always be smooth sailing – visa rules and Russian bureaucracy can be frustrating and you will sometimes have classes which are difficult to teach or a tiring class schedule – something which is common to most EFL locations. However, on balance, I don’t regret coming here – it has given me a new outlook on life and a teaching experience far different to the one in Oz. And through it all I haven’t lost my basic sense of humour, something which counteracts my cynicism when something goes wrong.

March 2005