On Sunday evening we went to the City of Taldom. (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taldom) My host Irina's parents live here. Her mother had prepared a traditional Russian meal (this was by far the best borsch I'd had the entire trip), we went to their banya, spent the night, and then got to visit the school that her mother just retired from last year this morning.
The banya is an important part of life out in the countryside of Russia. They don't go to them often here in the city, but many summer homes would have one. It is a small building behind their house that is a sauna. I must say, it was very relaxing!
For their sauna, they alternate between being very hot in a small steam room (heated by a fireplace), and then cooling off either in a small bathtub, or getting doused by a bucket of water. Surprisingly I preferred the bucket of water, the bathtub was too cold! They also use a small broom of Birch trees called a venik. I don't know a better phrase than to say that part of the sauna treatment is to get smacked on your back and legs as a type of massage. For those of my students who remember watching the Families from Russia video with me, there were examples of this in that movie. I didn't get any pictures, because the steam would be horrible for my camera!
After a great night's sleep, we went to Taldom School Number 3.
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| Taldom School Number 3. All schools that we have heard of so far are all K-11. (No 12th grade here, but the students go to school on Saturdays!) In this picture is me, Irina (my host), Anna Z (who came to the US this fall), and Mrs Every (from Logan Middle School) |
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| A second grade class that I got to observe in Music Class. |
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| The students do not have lockers here, so many of the desks have hooks for your backpacks. |
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| They have coat rooms for their coats and boots. |
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| 11th grade students listening to Mrs Every talk about La Crosse High Schools |
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| This has been the first school that we've been able to sit and talk with the teachers during the school day. Both sides were asking a lot of great questions, and it was wonderful to learn from each other! |
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| Not what I would expect to see in the corner of our classrooms! |
You look very happy! :)
ReplyDelete:-) It was a fantastic school. Plus, they don't get international guests often so they really went out of their way to make us feel welcome!
DeleteThe visit of our American colleagues was really a great event for us! We were very happy to show you a little bit of our school life. In 1990-s we had some visitors from America, from our sister City Viroqua but not now, it's a pity! And it's nice that you've liked it here! It was a great honor for me to show you my English lesson and the pupils were VERY happy, too!
ReplyDeleteThe English teacher of school N3 in Taldom Tatiana Ch. (The one on the picture with Mandi)