Schooling....in borshch

Today, I had the real pleasure again of sharing time in the classroom of the Lviv Academic Gymnasium with students in the 8th grade, kindly invited by their English teacher, Oksana. In the photo I like the two lads at the back. No doubt discussing the complications and joys of modal verbs...reminds me of me when I was at school....

Since coming to Ukraine, I've enjoyed one of Ukraine's national dishes a lot: borshch. A sort of beetroot soup, but so much more. I thought it might be interesting for the students to tell me how to do it. And they did. It was a large class, but I was really impressed by their engagement and knowledge of English, considering that the average age was 14. I look forward to trying out their recipe. However, I was reminded by the pupils that every family will have their own very special way of making it. From me they now have a recipe for Spaghetti Bolognese....
One point of interest. In passing, there was a comment about women doing the cooking....it was noticeable to see the different reactions of the boys and girls. I was interested to know if there was teaching around equality and gender issues? The answer was that it was not in the curriculum. Maybe it's something that is discussed at a later date in the school. I get the impression, and it is only an impression, that Ukraine may have a way to go on equality issues. 

Whilst I was doing this Fiona was liaising with Tomasz, who was bringing a van over from Krakow, filled with medical aid for a hospital. We set off tomorrow morning, early, on our next aid run. It will be a journey of some 2000 kilometres, there and back.

Comments

  1. Franklinatsea9 May 2023 at 12:31

    Hello there! Sounds like a good chance for the students to have you visit them. It doesn't happen often to have a native speaker visitor come spend time with them. Where are you off to tomorrow?

    ReplyDelete

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