Day 147 - Second Term

When the second term began at the university, one of my classes requested to continue with me as their teacher. I guess it was in part because of their choice to continue, I decided to give them some choice into how we would spend the second term. We had about 12 sessions during the term, so I asked them to list 12 topics they would like to discuss during the term. I told them I would decide how the topics would be incorporated into the session.

convoy image by Sangudo, via Flickr.com

One of the topics they chose was American music. Now I had been out of the United States for nearly three years at that point, which meant I wasn't in the best position to provide much information about what was most current on the American music scene. For the two previous years, I had been living in Iran where we had access to American Forces Radio and Television for the first year, but even when we could listen to American music, it didn't take long for it to become a mystery. For example, there was this craze in the mid 70's in the U.S. involving the use of Citizen Band radios. One of the songs to come out at this was C.W. McCall's Convoy. We heard it. We listened to the words. But we certainly did not understand it. The challenge of finding a way to discuss American music was bigger than my students understood.

Just before I left Iran, an American hit that was also a bit hit there was Hotel California by The Eagles. Since we had used the lyrics to that song with our classes in Tehran, I decided that would be how I would introduce American music into the conversation with my class. But after I played the song for them, provided copies of the lyrics, and we discussed just what in the world it meant, my students surprised me by wanting to do even more. Now it is important to remember that the year was 1978, long before MTV, but what my students suggested was that we do something very much like a music video. They suggested we take photos that could be synchronized with the song, a multi-media project. So we developed a story board of the scenes we needed to photograph to illustrate the song.

We took slides. I don't know if it was the title of the song that led my students to decide the perfect venue was a place on the edge of town they referred to as the Motel, but that was where we took most of the slides. And my students decided it was a perfect opportunity for them to take me, their teacher, out for lunch. They insisted, much to my dismay because I knew how much more easily I could have paid for all their lunches than any of them could come up with their fair share of my meal.

Hotel California image by Leo Uehara
via Flickr.com

Because there weren't that many of us, we brought extra jackets, coats, and hats so that we didn't end up with the same people in every slide. I had to send the film back to the U.S. for development and our hope was that we would be able to show the slides, synchronized with the music, at one of the English Language Social Club events.  I think we missed that deadline, but I know I turned the slides and the cassette tape over to my students, so I hope they were able to finish the project.

Another topic the class said they wanted to discuss was life of American university students. For this, I asked Mom to send me a course catalog from Moorhead State, NDSU, and Concordia. When they came, I broke the students into three groups and gave each group one of the catalogs with the instructions to come up with the courses a mythical English major would have to take during the usual four years of college.  I told them I would be available to answer their questions, but I wanted them to figure out the schedule as a group. It was an amazing experience to watch them read through the requirements and discover that American university students only had to take between 12 and 16 hours of classes in a week. They were in class between 32 and 36 hours per week. They also were surprised that they had to make so many decisions for themselves. In the Romanian system, once they were accepted into an academic discipline, they were assigned to a class which took all the same classes together for the following three years. All their classes were required.

None of the groups completed the task, but it was still a success. I learned more about each of those students in that one session than in the full first term.