Volunteers

Dr. Ryan James and Mr. Ron Schmitz attempted to create a non-profit organization "Educators Across Borders", a educational concept that resulted from Dr. James's presentation at a conference in Macedonia.  The purpose of this organization was to provide professional training in the area of education, language teaching, second language acquisition, academic writing, and qualitative research to underserved educators in the former Soviet states and any other country where there is an expressed need. Unfortunately, the laws for an educational non-profit to be set up in the U.S. turned out to be unmanageable from abroad and after four years of trying, the idea was put to rest.

"The benefits of education and of useful knowledge, generally diffused through a community, are essential to the preservation of a free government." -- Edward Everett

Below is a piece of a reflection after leaving Tetavo, Macedonia.  Dr. James was honored to be asked to be a presenter at the first conference designed and planned by the English teachers of South Eastern European University.

Most of these teachers have never taught on a university level before and most did not even have a Masters degree, not for lack of desire, but for lack of accessibility.  They were capable instructors, but many were trained in the old and traditional schools under the Communist regime and were not privy to more contemporary techniques and pedagogy.  The university opened late in November, behind schedule due to conflict in the region.  For many of them, this was the first conference they had ever attended and it was definitely their first time to be presenters.  They were all overwhelmed with fear and Andy asked that we be generous in our understanding of the situation.  If nothing else, this was going to be an Experience with a capital E.

"Education is that which discloses to the wise and disguises from the foolish their lack of understanding."--Ambrose Bierce

The university is located in the town of Tetovo, about 40 meters from Skopje.  Due to the continual unrest between the Albanians and the Macedonians, none of the foreign university staff is allowed to live in Tetovo.  Local staff is also encouraged to be off of the campus by 5:00 pm.  Each morning they are bussed to the university and each evening they are bussed back to Skopje.  The same was to hold true for the presenters.  Breakfast was served in the hotel breakfast room at 7:00 am.  It was a wonderful buffet of assorted cereals, juices, coffee, but most interestingly, an assortment of cheeses that we had never tasted before.  At 8:00 am, the bus was ready to transport us to the university.  The other international speakers that arrived to present were professors from Albania, Kosovo, Bulgaria, and the British Council sent one speaker.

The university is an eclectic mix of buildings that are modern in design.  They were pre-fabricated buildings that were assembled in Austria and trucked to the site where they are now.  Most of the buildings are painted in shocking blue, but others like the dormitories are a more subdued deep gold.  The multi-purpose room where the cafeteria is is a pale gray color.  Although all of the buildings stand out due to their unusual colors, one in particular is painted blue, sea foam green, and gold each color in a broad vertical band down the front.  One person suggested it was used as a color sample for the rest of the campus.  We all made jokes about the color scheme of the buildings, but it did provide for an eye-catching and exciting atmosphere that demanded attention on the landscape.  Even in the dreariness of winter, these colors held the power to raise one's spirits. 

"Why not go out on a limb, that's where all the fruit is!" -- Mark Twain

The land surrounding the buildings is just now producing grass, which has the faculty very excited.  On two sides of the perimeter are apple orchards, which were in bloom, giving the entire campus a country feeling.  Surrounding the area are mountains, which make the backdrop look like someone has plastered a huge mural on a humongous wall to decorate the area. 

There was a reception opening the conference in the multi-purpose room.  Since Friday was a school day, there were many students on campus as well.  As we met the teachers, they proudly pointed out some of their students.  The ease of interaction between the students and teachers was apparent.  Unfortunately, we did not have time in the full schedule to meet and speak with students.  The reception was followed by an opening meeting that was attended by the British Ambassador to Macedonia, an Ambassador's representative from the U.S. Embassy, the Secretary General of the university, and one of the teachers.

 

Each of the two days was ambitiously filled with workshops and presentations.  They had two concurrent sessions for each time slot with a total of twenty-six sessions planned.  Half of the workshops were the university teachers presenting and the others were the guest lecturers.  The teachers overwhelmed us in a positive way with comments like "We never thought we would be important enough to have guests such as you come here" or "We were told you were coming, but we did not believe that it would really happen.  After all, why would you come here for us?  Who are we to have such important people have an interest in us?"  It was apparent that these comments and other of a similar vein were not being parroted to elicit sympathy or an aggrandized response.  They were sincere responses to years of subjugation and repression that has caused a lack of confidence in their worthiness as human beings not even considering themselves as professionals.  It was heartbreaking as well as heartwarming at the same time. 

 

"Tomorrow's life is too late, live today." -- Unknown

I have never felt such as sense of being appreciated in my life. Even though Ron did not present, he had as much attention to the point of adoration as I was receiving.  Every word that we uttered was attended with great interest and the teachers surrounded us continually during each break vying for our attentions.  Interestingly, this was not much different from the other visiting professionals who also demanded our time and attention.

 

At the beginning, they had set out sign up sheets for each of the day's workshops, limiting each to 20 participants.  My presentation was scheduled for the first thing on Saturday morning.  I secretly feared that no one would want to listen to a workshop on research first thing in the morning and that I would be speaking to the ghosts inhabiting the mountains.  Each workshop given on Friday was obviously prepared with gusto.  The teachers did their best to make their presentations engaging and they succeeded nicely.  Interestingly, it was a few, but not all of the visiting professors from other Balkan countries who did not take to heart the contemporary piece of this conference and preached outdated methodology.  It was the woman from the British Council who called them to task.

 

"He who opens a school door, closes a prison." -- Victor Hugo

Although by the end of the conference, one of the U.S. educators suggested that I may be subject to bleeding heart syndrome (his sentiment, my words), I shared with him that as well as being a trained and seasoned educator, my secondary vocation was as a professional Social Worker.  I have encountered adversity thousands of times both professionally and personally, but I never give up.  As I told one of the teachers, "We don't always get what we want when we want it, but if we want it enough, we will get it one day."  My goal is to make tomorrow THE day for some of these teachers.

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