I was invited to a Student/Teacher Training/Seminar in a town near Karaganda that was organized by one of my students and my counterpart last week.
Heading out to Shakhtinsk... our bus was awesome
FLEX girls. They're both rock stars.
One of my students wrote a grant for submission to the US Embassy. Her proposal is centered around information transfer and how this information can help both students and teachers from smaller communities excel through English….? I’m not really sure of the right wording… I’ll just explain…
First, she gathered a group of about 60-70 students and organized 5 speakers.
Sholpan, from the American Corner, turned them all into Leprechauns.
Topics included: career planning, International University options, FLEX program (one year free at a high school in America), projects in the community provided by Peace Corps, and BOTA (which I’m still not entirely sure what this is…).
My amazing, wonderful, talented counterpart, Gulnaz. 
Man from Bilim Center.
The thing that was most surprising for me was how inspired the students were after the presentations. They were super interested, not playing with their cell phones like I had expected, but actually listening and taking notes. It was really incredible to hear them ask questions that pertained to their own lives and how they could use this information to really create and not just become a miner in their town. That might sound bad… “just to become a miner” but, without this information I feel like the students wouldn’t KNOW what else was out there for them… and just to see their eyes light up with differentopportunities was really neat.
I came home yesterday in the best of moods because one of the students from my school had this idea, wrote a grant for it, and then organized these seminars (after the students left, teachers came and were equally thankful for the new information). A STUDENT.
Birthday girl!
None of this is attributed to work I’ve done with her… she spent a year in America with the FLEX program and was inspired through volunteer work and living with her host family. Listening to her speak about her host family and all of the activities they did together really made me super excited to host foreign exchange students in the future. She was truly inspired by their lives and way of living and she’s been able to kind of carry that on in Kazakhstan. It is difficult because a lot of what she’d like to do… just can’t be done… yet.
She is amazing though and she jokes about being like Mother Theresa or winning the Nobel Peace Prize one day… or being President of the World. Part of me knows she’s joking and part of me wants to push her to do all of those things… she is super smart and talented and so forward thinking in a culture where I feel bogged down with work that may or may not be going anywhere for any specific purpose.
Just thought you’d like to meet/know about her.
Here are some more pictures form the conference…
Amazing dustarhaun
We're finished YAY! Denise came out for the teacher's seminar to share some info! Thanks Denise!!
