People & Place Part Three: Field Trip to Kruja

Teaching/Learning Democracy by Teaching English: Field Trips to Krujë and Shushicë

So the next two stories are about my outings to two towns: Krujë (pronounced “Crew-YAH”) and Sushicë (pronounced “Shoe-SHEET-cah”).  They started out as stories about the rhetorical act of teaching English, but turned into stories of an Albanian hero, the intricate structure of American democracy and questions about building restrictions, national identity, and what constitutions actually offer to citizens – Whew! That’s a lot.

On top of that, I wish to set the scene a bit for each location—so each story may meander a bit and take some time to come to a point—if it ever comes to a point. Don’t worry—jump to the end OR . . . check out the pictures. They are definitely the most interesting things you will find here today J.

Krujë: Where Skanderbeg Held Back the Ottoman Empire . . . Three times!

The Invitation to Krujë. Last Monday I had my orientation at the U.S. Embassy. Between walking to the embassy (or more accurately being walked to the embassy since I didn’t know the way), having lunch and the orientation, going to the bank, and various essential though nonacademic activities, I managed to be out of the office for most of the afternoon.

At around 4PM, I received a call from one of the professors at the university where I am to teach. He was my first contact when I applied for the Fulbright and is a brilliant scholar of modern languages. He good-naturedly chided me about being so difficult to get a hold of and then asked if I would be interested in accompanying him and another professor to Krujë the next day to do some training for local government workers.

“Just a short presentation on how American government works.”

I eagerly agreed and then set about figuring out what I would talk about. I decided on revising a presentation I have done a few times for civic groups and teacher in-service trainings based on the Project Citizen curriculum (http://new.civiced.org/programs/project-citizen): What I considered fairly basic information, such as various definitions of public policy, the public policy decision-making process, triggering mechanisms that bring issues to the attention of publics and decision-makers, and some basic frames for making public policy arguments.

Uh-huh. Basic stuff.

I emailed the PowerPoint slides I had created or revised to my contact and went to bed rather excited about the prospect of a field trip!

Getting There. The next morning I attempted to meet my colleagues at the appointed time in Wilson Square, which is near my apartment.

[Side note: my colleague remarked that during communist times, American names for streets or landmarks were forbidden, but since the fall of communism, such names have emerged; hence, Woodrow Wilson Square.

Further side note: The young son of a friend of mine here told me that certain given names were also banned during communist times; that is, parents were allowed to pick names for their children only from a list of approved names. I have not had a chance to investigate the veracity of this, though.]

I say I attempted to meet my colleagues promptly because once I got to the square, I realized I didn’t know which corner of the “square” was to be our meeting place. The “square” is really a roundabout with traffic coming into the square in four different directions. In other words, I had the choice of eight different places where we could possibly meet.

I did not choose wisely L

After a bit, my colleague came up to me and said he had been waiting on the exact opposite corner for about fifteen minutes.  No matter, we quickly crossed the street, met our other colleague and drove off to Krujë in a fairly new red Peugeot. (Yes, that red Peugeot—the one featured in the previous post.)

On the drive there, we saw some beautiful scenery. Once we were through Fushë-Krujë, the road turned into one hairpin turn after another as we climbed higher and higher to the town where Skanderbeg, a [perhaps the] national hero of Albania, held off the Ottoman Empire, not once, not twice, and three times. In fact, he kept the Turks at bay until his death in 1468. My colleague related the story in brilliant detail as we made our way up the mountain.

I can see how Skanderbeg could be successful at defeating the forces of the Ottoman Empire in this mountainous region. For one thing, he would have known the lay of the land, and for another, he would have had the vantage point of being able to see for miles—all the way to the Adriatic Sea on a clear day.

But perhaps most importantly, he was defending a most beautiful, uniquely Albanian settlement. As one of the women in the training remarked, “There is saying here that you haven’t actually been to Albania until you come to Krujë.” Here are a few pictures that may serve as evidence for her assertion:

This is the view off the second story balcony of the municipal building. The turret-y structure to the right in the background is part of the Museum and Castle at the top of the mountain.

This is the view from the plaza in front of the municipal building. That's a statue of Skanderbeg on a horse in about the center of the picture.

Standing near the back of the Skanderbeg statue on the terrace of the restaurant where we ate lunch. My colleagues told me that on a clear day, you can see the Adriatic Sea in the far distance.

A view up the mountain from the main road in Kruja. On the left in the middle background is one of the construction projects I mention later in this post.

My colleague and I looking over the souvenirs in the ancient bazaar. The souvenirs are not ancient (obviously).

The Training. As soon as we arrived in the center of Krujë, we found a café to have coffee and water before going into the municipal building to do the training. As we were sitting there, it dawned on me that my colleague and I had not talked about the slides I had sent or the structure of the training. So I asked him, “Did you get the slides I sent?”

Yes, he had, but he thought the training should be far more basic. He handed me a jump drive, I found the file labeled with my name, copied the file to my computer, and opened it up.

Oh my!!

Yes, in some ways the information was very basic: guiding principles (e.g., popular sovereignty and inalienable rights), branches of government and their functions, important documents (including amendments to the US constitution), and a few economic terms (socialism, communism, capitalism).

But it also included lots of information that, although I am sure I was taught at some point, I had completely forgotten—like the senate has the power to elect the vice president if the electoral college fails to do so and the house of representatives has the power to elect the president if the electoral college fails to do so.

Or the gist of the Monroe Doctrine—the New World telling the Old World to leave us alone.

Before the training, I joked with my colleague that he knew more about my government than I did, but really is wasn’t much of a joke!

I had to laugh at my own naïveté of preparing a presentation that both ignored the intricacies of the democratic system and explained too much about the public policy decision-making process. It would have been a disaster!

As it was, I am not sure the training went that well, but what faults there were must be attributed to me. I had never given a presentation that was translated as I made it. I kept talking way too long before I gave the translator a chance to jump in. I also didn’t “stay on script” which made the translating even more difficult, but we managed to muddle through anyway.

What struck me during the training was that the young people who attended already knew everything I had to say (well, except maybe for the Monroe Doctrine). They were the most fluent English speakers there and almost every time I’d start with the name of a document or an amendment to the constitution, they would comment on it: “freedom of speech,” “freed the slaves,” “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Their knowledge of English seemed inextricably tied to their knowledge of American democracy.

I had never really thought about the teaching of a language as a rhetorical act before I did this presentation. Perhaps I am just hopelessly dense in coming so late to this revelation. I mean, of course, it is a rhetorical act, just as any teaching is.

But the act of teaching a language seems so profoundly rhetorical to me since the teacher is instructing the learner on how to act into a culture and what is important to know of that culture.

While the first lesson might be innocuous phrases such as “Good morning,” “Thank you,” and “Please.” What comes next? Who gets to decide?

Will we read the King James version of the Bible? The US Declaration of Independence? Or The UN Declaration of Human Rights?

Will we browse through People magazine to understand syntax? Or Mother Jones? Or National Review?

Will we listen to Fox News to learn how native speakers pronounce words? Or maybe NPR? CNN?

In the end, teaching English by teaching American democracy (or is it the other way around?) seems as good a way as any as long as people are also taught to be critical consumers of the information. 

That’s the key, isn’t it? The critical thinking aspect of any teaching/learning enterprise keeps all of us on our toes and ensures freedom of thought and expression.

I haven’t been here long enough to know exactly how the critical thinking aspect of the teaching/learning enterprise works here. I am eager to learn more about it and am sure I will once I start teaching in a few weeks.

After the presentation, we took a few group photos (one is below) and then my colleagues and I went off to lunch.

Post Training. My colleagues and I went to a restaurant in town recommended by one of the people at our training. We (well, my colleagues really) ordered salad, pork chops, pan-fried potatoes, and a “meatball” soup (the meatballs here tend to be more log than ball but really delicious!).

The food was good and the conversation was lively. The restaurant looked over the town and as we sat there, one of my colleagues commented on the various construction projects going on—one about half way up the mountain, one smack dab in the center of town, and one toward the castle and museum far up the mountain. What my colleague noticed about all of them was they disrupted a view, particularly the one in the center of town that obstructed a clear view of the Adriatic Sea and the one that obstructed the view of the castle and the museum.

Such rampant “progress” can be one of the by-products of a free market economy and, as my colleague noted, makes vividly clear the need for strong government regulations to ensure the integrity of an environment and the preservation of historical and natural phenomena. Finding that balance between free enterprise and government control is tricky and something the people in Krujë (and people all over Albania really) are just now starting to grapple with.

There is one more thing I wish to share before ending this post. It is also something one of my colleagues noted at our lunch in Krujë:

Did you know that Albania is surrounded by countries that have significant populations of people who identify ethnically as Albanians? My colleague rattled off various countries (Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo, Greece) and the percentage of people in each who identify as Albanian (anywhere from 5% to 30% as I remember, but I don’t remember exactly what percentage went with which country).

Moreover, nearly all of the people who live in Albania identify themselves ethnically as Albanian—somewhere between 95-98% (although those statistics may be outdated).

I’m not exactly sure what the significance of these statistics is but they are interesting nonetheless.

I plan to ponder on them for a while. You may wish to ponder also J

Next time: Sushicë

Mirupafshim! (See you later!)