Thanksgiving in Russia

(Note: Miss Sheri Medlock, former eighth grade reading teacher at South, is in her first year of teaching in Russia and has agreed to provide us with weekly updates.)

You never really consider traditions until you are away from people who celebrate them. Of course Thanksgiving is an American holiday, but the truth of that never really dawned on me until Thursday last week. I got, prepared for my normal lessons, ate a hot dog, then went to work. I taught from 4 o'clock until almost 10. Then I called my family.
I spent the day Thanksgiving discussing traditions with my students. My students were curious about the food we eat on this day. They had tasted turkey and mashed potatoes, but most had never tried pumpkin pie, and few had heard of stuffing.
"So everyone has this dinner on Thanksgiving?" they asked me.
"Well, some families may change some of the dishes, but mostly, yes," I replied. "Aren't their Russian holidays with traditional food?"
They told me about a holiday that celebrates the end of winter and the beginning of spring. You can image, after five months of winter, this is a big deal. The holiday, which name I can't pronounce, dates back to pre-Christian days in Russia. Families build a doll of straw that symbolizes winter. They burn it in the streets. And what is the traditional food they eat? Pancakes. There's nothing quite as Russian as pancakes. They eat pancakes rolled up like burritos. Inside the pancakes they put everything from fruit and cream to mushrooms and meat.
I hear the Russian word for "pancake" a hundred times a day. "Bleen" sounds like a very obscene Russian curse word. They substitute this word the way Americans substitute the word "shoot" or "dang."
Oh, I need to finish planning my lessons. Bleen. I better go now.
Blessings,
Sheri Medlock

LAST WEEK

My first year at South Middle School I experienced the normal struggles of a new teacher. After teaching 3 years, I thought some of those struggles were behind me. However, I have discovered a new difficulty as a teacher. Can you imagine your entire class knowing a language you don't? It is a bit unrealistic to ask my students to speak in English the entire 2 hours of my class periods. However, when they aren't speaking English, I have no idea what is being said. I've had to learn Russian curse words fairly quickly.
I teach all ages and all levels of English proficiency. I have students that are adults who want to improve their English and children and teenagers whose parents are forcing them to take the class. On Saturdays I teach a class of 8-10 year olds. The class is meant to be "conversational English." In other words, I have to try to get them to talk for 80 minutes in English. However, this has been a little bit difficult. The first day of this class a girl walked in and I said, "How are you?" She replied, "Ten years old." Last weekend I asked the class, "What did you do last summer?" They replied, "Yes."
Sheri Medlock