Teachers' Day at Gymnasium #9

Morning after the first snow on a trail in the woods in Akademgorodok.



The woods after yesterday’s first snow are just beautiful. These can’t capture the beauty of a new snow in the woods.








This morning I went to Novosibirsk to visit Olga’s 11th grade English class. Bob's class is later today and so he couldn't come along. This was our first separation of over two hours since we left Minneapolis at the beginning of September!


Today was “self-control” day at Gymnasium #9. The students were in charge and many of them taught subjects to the younger grades. It was also International Teachers’ Day so teachers were being honored with flowers, gifts.


Olga’s students were in an “optional” class of English at the end of the school day. I told them about Minnesota and showed my small collection of postcards to illustrate my talk. They told me where they were born and told me places where they’d like to visit: Australia, Stone Henge, Germany, Africa, Spain, Antarctica, and another planet.

I asked them to tell me about the things and places we should see in Novosibirsk before we leave. They were reticent at first and then they plunged right in. We used the Novosibirsk map and they marked up the sites that we should visit, creating quite a “to do” list: the Opera and Ballet Theatre, the Circus, the Zoo, St. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, the Chapel of St. Nicolas near Ploshad Lenina, several museums. They presented me with a collection of postcards depicting significant institutions in Novosibirsk. They were well prepared!


The conversation moved to pets. They were astounded at Boots’ age. They named and described their own cats and dogs. The pets’ names evolved into a Russian lesson for me. They had some great fun when they heard my attempts at pronouncing Russian. Michael suggested that perhaps I could laugh just as hard at their English pronunciation. In fact, that is not the case. They express themselves well and clearly in English. There was some discussion among themselves in search of English words to describe one thing or another but they always came up with what they needed to explain something to me. Oh! That I could only recite the Russian alphabet correctly!

One of the postcards depicted a weeklong pancake holiday that occurs in January. The description of these days evoked an image for me of a combination of holidays: Thanksgiving for being grateful for family and friends; Yom Kippur for forgiving each other for misbehavior during the past year; Mardi Gras for the feasting and celebrating that occurs. The students drilled me on my pronunciation of bliny—accent on the second syllable!

At the end of class they presented me with chocolates to honor me on International Teachers’ Day. An honor I hardly deserve but we all dove into the candy box. We each had to say the name of the candy in our foreign language before we could eat one! You should hear me say pistachio in Russian.

For our next time together, we are going to the zoo! Well, weather-permitting, of course.