Visit to Chita Summer 2018, No. 3 Gorod Detstva
On Tuesday, July 31, I met the children and staff of the English Explorers language learners program of Gorod Detstva (City of Childhood Child Development Center). Originally, I was to teach at their summer program as I did last year, but due to visa issues, had to miss it. (We aimed at the “Humanitarian” visa type required for any activity beyond tourism in Russia and got caught in how long each step took. I’ll come back next year, having worked on the visa earlier this time!)
It was a wonderful reunion with Julia Ustyushenko, head English teacher, the director, Elena Prusakova, and many of the children. This was an ad hoc get-together based when I would arrive in Chita, so about 1/2 the children in the June summer program weren’t present due to summer travels and activities, but the ones who could come were cherce!
Back row: Elena Prusakova, Valentina, me, Julia
Standing, next row (starting to Valentina’s left): Nikita, Maxim (200 words), Maxim, Yegor, Olya
Standing, next row: Matvey, Seriozha, Kostya, Leonya, Denis, Liza
Crouching: Misha, Rostislav
It was both a reunion and an English class—their pedagogy impressing me as it did last year. First they went around the room introducing themselves—after waiting to see how many I could remember! And then, using pictures they’d drawn and a list of past tense verbs on the smartboard, talked about summer camp or about a favorite activity of the summer so far. Many mentioned making pizza at the Mama Roma restaurant like they did last year (“Caesar” this time, last year’s was pepperoni). A few mentioned visits to their grandparents’ village in remote parts of the region.
Elena Prusakova then charged them with coming up with two things after a short break. First would be a question for “Mister Tom”. The second would be a wish for me. The questions ranged from which team I liked in the World Cup, to whether I was married, to how big my family was, to did I have any animals at home. The last gave me an opportunity to talk about Homa and Grace, my two “new” cats (last Sept) back home, being cared for by several sets of neighbors, but mainly my piano student, 8 yr old Ahnika who lives next door. (The cats are fine, by the way. Just learned that this morning. And Homa hasn’t peed on the floor for weeks now.) The wishes were for happiness, being rich, for patience, for love, for strength (we all recalled, they with a laugh, me with a shudder, last summer when I strained something in my leg on my very first day when playing Red Rover while deeply, deeply out of shape…)
Elena went around the room remarking on most of the kids’progress and was asked if I noticed any changes. I did notice that Rostislav, in particular, was much more engaged and mature, which he acknowledged himself. She pointed out that Maxim learned 200 new vocabulary words just during summer school! I noticed that Misha was still very shy, but when he spoke, his English was clear and strong and with a good accent.
I learned that Elena Prusakova would graduate with a Master’s in Psychology on August 16th. She was a career elementary school teacher who quit after 25 years to start her own “City of Childhood” Child Development Center. And her younger son just got into Moscow State University (like getting into Yale) and will be at a new satellite campus in Shenzhen, China taking classes taught variously in Russian, English and Chinese! And Julia will have her third child in September so the Center is welcoming two new teachers, one of whom I met, Valentina. It was her first meeting with the kids.
After Elena’s graduation, I will meet her and her husband Sergey at the dacha, but for now, she is, as usual, swamped with work!
