First, I would like to thank everyone who made donations towards my Push to the Finish program. Together, we raised $1860 for Push America and people with disabilities throughout America! Tomorrow, I leave for Athens, and on Sunday, November 4th, 9am, the marathon begins! If you want to see my results Sunday, you may logon to the Athens Classic website - my bib number is 3325. Wish me luck!
Instead of taking it easy and resting the week before the big race, life has been quite the opposite! Starting Sunday, my site mates and I began a program called Our City, which we put on with the generous financial support of the Mid-Missouri RPCV group. Thanks again! The program is all in English, and teaches high-school level students what makes a city. Together, throughout the week, we have led 34 14-16 year students through interactive excercised about everything from laws to customer service to business plans and taxes.
Since hearing us lecture isn’t that exciting, the whole point of the program is that it’s interactive. So, during the program, we created a city. We decided what businesses we would have, elected the mayor, and each student applied for a job in a business they created. The city we created is called, “Dream City.” Tomorrow is the big capstone of the program: City Day!
Businesses open at 11am tomorrow, and City Day will last until 2pm. Students must follow their work schedule, but on their break time, they receive their salary from the bank and are free to spend in the city. What can they buy, you ask? We have 9 businesses in Dream City, including:
- Sunny Radio Station
- Star Supermarket
- Armenian Kitchen (restaurant)
- News of Dream City (newspaper)
- Be Sweet (candy shop)
- The Health Center (hospital)
- Animal World (zoo)
Thus far the program has been a great success, and the students have been incredibly inspired and creative during the whole experience (including the boys!). Most time in an Armenian classroom is spent listening to lecture, so partcipation and interaction are a rare but incredibly valuable experience for them. It shows, as the students have continued to surprise me as they’ve built their city. The bank built a safe and a laptop computer, the restaurant sells full meals made out of paper, the hospital made medicine, and the city came together to construct a monument in the town square. Amazing!!
The students have published a newspaper, which you may read here. I have also posted new pictures, and will post those from our City Day when I return from Greece on the 10th. So far, this has been an incredibly successful project for all involved, and I hope we can continue it again next year. We also had a Halloween Party tonight with our friends at the Koghb Art School, which was interesting on a whole different level 😉 While not usually celebrated, their perception of Halloween from TV is it’s a super scary holiday, where everyone must wear masks and dark clothes. You can imagine their surprise when Americans arrived as rock stars and SpiderMan! Once we got over that cultural barrier, things went well, and we enjoyed the mummy-wrapping-with-toilet-paper game, and bobbing for apples. It was a nice, wholesome, good time.
Once again, thank you all for your support, whether for Push America, my projects, or just your kind words1. “Khairete!” (goodbye in Greek, according to Google) – although I prefer the Armenian “hadgohutcyun” 😉
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2 Responses:
November 1st, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Kyle,
What an ambitious endeavor. I enjoyed the newspaper…in particular the jokes and ads. The candy store sounds like my kind of place and who could resist a grocery that gives away free bouquets with purchases?? The students did a great job with this and I’m sure the ability to interact was an enjoyable experience for them. Look forward to pictures from Greece.
Mrs. Z
November 6th, 2007 at 9:11 pm
That newsletter is one of the cutest things… ever. I love the interview with Nareh and how seriously she seems to be taking the job. Dream City is a great idea and the kind of creative engagement that is most likely absent throughout the rest of Armenia’s Soviet-style education system. Give Mayor Nareh congratulations from America!