Thoughts on the Turkish hazırlık, its students and uncomfortable racial discussions

So my camera is out of commission. I, like the genius I am, packed the wrong camera charger when I came to Turkey. So, for nearly a month now I have been wandering around camera-less. Trying to think of something to write without having images to back it up has led to this entry. One about my students. 


Anyone who spoke to me at any point last year is pretty aware of my aversion to teaching. After being a teaching assistant at HWS for the French department, I was pretty aware that teaching is not my calling. However, if you're a broke twenty-something and you want to travel for free, teaching English is the way to go. Still didn't interest me. When I saw the Fulbright ETA program, why on Earth would I have applied then? Teaching university aged students seemed interesting to me. They were adults who would need minor parenting, because they were enrolled in these English classes, they had an already-established desire to learn English. Well, much to my dismay, I was informed, upon arrival in Ankara that I would essentially be teaching kids in a post-grad year. "Damn it," was really all I could muster. 


After nearly eight weeks of teaching, much to my surprise, I actually enjoy my job. Yes, there are days where I want to physically assault a student or two, but really what workplace doesn't have that kind of tension? There are days where I wish either my Turkish or their English were better so I could explain, properly, how they have made my day or even my week with the little things they say or do. There are other days where they pull me out of a pit of dispair without even realizing they are doing anything comical. 


For example: The American government gave us these massive pictures for us to use in the classroom. They are supposed to show "average American life" but I mean, what the hell does that even mean, right? To them it means showing our diversity, be it ethnic, cultural, social, or educational. I decided to use these massive pictures (they're probably 18"x 24") and have them describe what is happening in the images. They could come up with their own ideas about what the people are doing or thinking. The whole goal was to get them to have a combined use of the present continuous (I am doing) and the present simple (I do). Unfortunately, Turkish-English dictionaries can have poor translations and they certainly don't take the time to explain nuance. So, I kind of laughed it off when, to describe an image of two boys in wheelchairs playing tennis, my students started the sentence with "The two defective boys are playing..." For some reason, handicapped and disabled are not in their dictionaries. So after five classes of this, it got to be pretty funny. I had to explain that no, people are not defective but rather that word is used for tables, chairs, windows etc. The students were embarrassed, but things like this happen all the time. 


For example, the word for a black person in the Turkish-English dictionary is negro. Which, yes, I had to take the time to explain was not a word that people use. In fact, it is a word that is very hurtful to many people. It also doesn't help that Eti, a Turkish version of Nabisco, has a chocolate cookie called a Negro.

Yep, that's right. A negro. 

But really, trying to explain such a complex socio-cultural history as racist language, to a bunch of students that think "I am go to the my home" is a correct sentence, is a very difficult matter. It also forced me into some pretty uncomfortable situations. One student, a real rap connoisseur, asked about the word... yes... nigger.  I cringe to even write it here. Saying it in a loud enough voice that my students can hear me, I find myself saying, almost yelling, one of the most foul, hurtful words in the English language. I find myself diving into the deep abyss of racial history, I find myself explaining slavery and Jim Crowe to a bunch of Turkish bio-chemical and agricultural students who really, for the most part, couldn't care less.

Then there are the times when students say truly silly things, for example, they are a street walker. When I explained that this means prostitute, they certainly listened up. They often confuse prepositions. One student told me that his window is in his bed. And, while certainly not a roaring hilarity, it makes me chuckle to see how difficult our language really is. Turkish does not have prepositions but rather cases that indicate in, at, on, under, over, to, from etc. which is really a whole kind of nightmare for me, but they are literally having to include words that simply don't exist in their own language. 

Then there are the little things, like the name Ufuk, a common name here that (it means horizon), you know, the 12-year-old me finds pretty hilarious. There are also little things like these that I see around the city on a daily basis that, while they can't even come close to China's legendary poor translations, are still pretty funny. 

But wait, what's that in the lower right hand corner?

Sexed-semen? Is there any other kind?

Again, heh, my inner twelve-year-old. Snot, heh.

The little white family, with white teeth, on the toothpaste tube, wait, white power? 

The NAACP would do well to come to Turkey and do some sensitivity training...

Now again, not to make light of these racial issues but in Turkey, they simply aren't an issue for Turks. Of course that's not to say they don't have their own problems, but their problems aren't defined by race. They simply have no platform from which to begin to understand my aversion to these racially charged words and phrases. Plus, it doesn't help that you simply cannot discuss their historical "problems" and yes "problems" is in quotations because I can be thrown in jail for mentioning them. Best not to, not here any how. 

There's also a town called Batman.

Hazırlık

I am teaching at a university but in a hazırlık or prep-year. Depending on the university and department in which you wish to study, a proficiency in English is necessary. Because the language programs in most high schools (much like in the US) are quite substandard, many students fail to pass the entrance exam. These otherwise qualified students are then relegated to the hazırlık where they receive 26 hours of English instruction per week for an entire academic year.

Nearly all the Fulbrighters from this year were sent to smaller cities with new universities. Namık Kemal opened, as far as I can tell, in 2006. The school expands greatly from year to year and is still under construction.

Many people have asked how the teaching is going. And, interestingly enough, its going quite well. My students are great and while they may only understand a portion of what I ask them to do, they are very enthusiastic. I am hoping this enthusiasm does not wane in the weeks and months to come, its the only thing that makes the teaching tolerable. Why is that, you ask?

As I mentioned, the university is quite new. In fact the building I teach in is not yet completed which makes for an outrageously loud academic atmosphere.

This is the view from one of my classrooms. Notice the boarded windows and the construction material strewn throughout.

The doors were quickly thrown up a day or so before classes start, some being put on backwards so they do not close (and cannot block out the sound of welding and drilling.) All the classrooms are missing a teacher's table or desk and many were made far too small to house the 25 students that each must hold. Every room lacks a window that actually opens, turning them into ovens, roasting both myself and the students in the afternoon sun.

I tried to put this all out of my mind, I tried not to be such a Debbie Downer but then my colleagues all spent an afternoon complaining as well with one so enraged that she dragged our Rector (something of a cross between a President and a Provost) down to see the situation. After spending no more than three minutes surveying the situation, he told her to calm down, that everything is fine, that she should stop complaining. I suggested she should have asked him to observe a day's worth of classes (where he could sit and roast in his three-piece suit) before passing judgement but it seems that this would have overstepped the lines of propriety.

Even the old buildings aren't safe from the construction crews. Our office building must be updated to become earthquake proof, but the government does not pay to re-build buildings but rather to alter them and their foundations. So, each year they knock down one of the walls, inserting some new foundational elements and then patch the wall back up. The effect looks something like this.

Notice the offices above, mine is on that first floor just to the right of the post. And yes, the building opens to the outside.

Its all been quite the adventure, really. And, let me say, once the classrooms are completed and the workmen go home, and the dust from the construction is finally cleared, the building will be magnificent. Its just the road to get there is already taking a toll. And its only day 4.