School

It may seem that all I do is eat things and take pictures here in Slovakia, but in fact I also work as a teacher at the University of Presov, where I eat things, take pictures and teach:



I am a "lecturer" in the English and American Studies department, where I teach both American Studies and Conversational English classes. The students are great, and the faculty is very nice. They even gave me my own office:



Well, it's almost my own office, except for the couple days a month when Professor Svoboda drops in from the Czech Republic. It even has a sink:



My students are very bright, but initially they had trouble understanding me, because I spoke too fast. How do I know I was speaking too fast? Because during the second week of classes I received this e-mail:

Hi, (M.L.).

Let me introduce myself :-) My name is (name removed for purposes of confidentiality) and I am your student at US Institutions. In my homework there is a reaction to the Am Government.

My personal message for you: I would like you to speak a bit slowly. I have difficulty understanding you. Your rapid casual speech makes me unhappy.
Thanks, (name removed, again for purposes of confidentiality. You don't know them anyway, so whatever)

Just how unhappy can rapid casual speech make a class of Slovak students? Let me show you. Here is a picture of my "Institutions of the United States" class before I was informed of my speech problem:



But with more formal speech, at a slower pace, this happened:



Case closed on that one.

In my classes I've been given the freedom to teach whatever I come up with, within the scope of the course description. In some courses, such as "Institutions of the United States", this has allowed me to basically teach U.S. law. Here are some of the issues we cover, and materials we use:





You might be wondering why I would try to teach U.S. law to Slovak college students. They were actually wondering the same thing. However, it has worked out well as they seem to like discussing controversial legal issues in the U.S. that they hear about in the news.

On the other hand, I was asked to teach a class called "Introduction to American Studies for Freshman", without being given any guidelines as to what to discuss. Due to this, the class topics are sometimes a bit broad or unfocused. It also doesn't help that my last American History class was in high school. Here are some of the weekly lectures that I have given, which can be summed up pretty easily by a sentence or two:

Week 2: Slavery and Native Americans- We're so sorry. Really sorry.
Week 5: Women's Suffrage and the Civil Rights Movement- Everyone's free! But not really!
Week 7: The 60's and Vietnam: Everyone was so angry!
Week 10: American Culture: Britney Spears!

The majority of students live at home with their families, in towns close to Presov, and they commute to school each day. A few students live in the dorms next to the school, which are very similar to my college dorm, Oliver Hall:



For those of you who are O.H. alumni (I'm looking at you, Rebne), you know this is not a compliment.

Occasionally after classes I will go across the street to one of the school bars, where the lecturers and students hang out. I prefer the Teacher's Cafe:



When the students are in their final year, they write their name in chalk on the sidewalk:



I really like my job, and have quite a bit more to say about it. I plan on doing a photo-exposé on the cafeteria, but first I have to slip my camera past the lunch ladies. Wish me luck!