To Teach Yourself

My professor was disappointed. Almost no one had done the required reading. Thus, class couldn’t proceed smoothly.  The professor proceeded to criticize us.  I felt as if the sheer power of my annoyance would launch me straight through the ceiling.  Last week the professor vaguely changed the one-page syllabus. He’d told us that no more readings were required. Apparently, his actual intent was to cancel the readings after this week’s class.  

This was not the only time I’ve experienced this feeling. Since starting studies at Uniwersytet Wroclawski, I’ve often felt frustrated with the instructors’ methods.      

I graduated magna cum laude from USC’s Marshall School of Business as a global scholar. Professors assigned readings there as well. One needed to do them in order to receive a high grade in the course. Class was related to the texts. Not dependent on them.  

The syllabus mediated any dispute. It was a contract between student and professor, often over ten pages in length. The document delineated the exact required readings and the date of the class they were due for.  If the course involved a presentation, the syllabus spelled out its exact expectations.  I’ve studied abroad in Europe before. The same was true.

We also make presentations for the same class in Wroclaw. Mine isn’t on a topic covered in class. The professor’s rubric is less clear.  You’re expected to discover the knowledge yourself.

I had to Google my assignment’s basic concepts.  As I did this, I couldn’t help but think that I’m paying 600-something euro per semester to this university. Google is free.

In Europe, students rarely buy books. Getting the readings involves some use of a photocopier. My faculty in Wroclaw has a ‘copy-point’ where professors leave their texts for students to Xerox. Recently, Polish class mates informed me of its unofficial importance. If a reading isn’t there, it doesn’t merit doing.

But, this rule is arbitrary. One of my professors is from Chisinau. She teaches a course on Russian politics. Her class consists of asking students about the readings.  At times, I feel like I’ve been dragged in front of the Moldovan inquisition. Once, she admonished me for not doing a rare reading in the library. The other students clearly hadn’t either. I told this to the Polish students. They were surprised, but attributed it to the fact that the professor is simply stricter in this course than in others they have with her.

Cultures and universities are intertwined. There exists a tacit code of expectation in both. You have to figure it out as you go along. Even when it’s frustrating for both parties.

Last week I made another presentation. I had trouble finding some readings for the topic.  The professor responded with a flippant email saying that they were listed as ‘paper’ in the syllabus, and were in the library. Before the presentation, I informed her that past readings with this designation were at the copy-point; she apologized. At the end of my presentation, she said that she was impressed with the original conclusions I’d drawn. “My Polish students just explain the information” she said.  

The Polish word for ‘learn’ translates literally as ‘to teach oneself’. This is reflected in the Polish didactic method. But maybe it goes both ways. There is much for each can discover from the other.  I must adjust to learning in the Polish sense, while continuing to transcend the text in my own way. 

Somewhere

“Everyone’s from somewhere”. Most speakers of English know this expression. I do not doubt this cliché’s intuitive veracity. However, I wonder where that somewhere is.

I spent last Tuesday in Wrocław’s main square, talking with a young woman. She was born of the first emigration from Poland to Germany, shortly after the fall of the Iron Curtain. She told me that she feels more a part of her heritage in Germany than she does in Poland. While proud, she said that she practically dreads mentioning her Polish heritage in Germany. Afraid she will become an object of ridicule. In Poland it’s a different story.

We both went to the same summer immersion program in Kraków.  There, she befriended one of the program’s leaders.  One evening he told her that, as far as he was concerned, she was German.  “I felt hurt when he said that” she told me.

Even as the third generation descendant of Poles who emigrated to America I could empathize with this sentiment. I grew up in a majority Chinese community. To my friends, I was always the Polish one.  They or their parents were from China, or Taiwan. Everyone had to be from somewhere.  Myself included.

In Poland, the same is true. Everyone is from somewhere. But, the perceptions are different.  In California, I might as well be from Poland. In Poland, I am ‘the American’.

After class, the professor, a couple of my first-generation friends and I got into a discussion. They told the teacher of their own dual life. Then she jokingly asked me:  “Of course, you feel as an American.”

My parents raised me to be international. I never really learned to play American football. Yet, from ten years old the highlights of my life were trips abroad. Though I come from a country where relatively few have a passport, I made a life abroad my goal. I settled on Poland as the place where I’d like to build that life.  

In graduate school, I was the only student  to place at the highest level of the Polish course who did not speak  the language at home. I’d be hard pressed to say that I’m a main stream American. I’d never say that I’m completely a Pole either.  

I tried to explain it. Telling my professor where I’d grown up. Telling her that everyone is from somewhere there. Generations removed; I didn’t know where I belonged.  

“But you feel as an American, True?”

 A couple of years ago my parents told me the story of the lupe garue.  The pet of a  man who decided  his dog was too bad for heaven and too good for hell. It was doomed to walk the night as a ghost.

“We’ve raised a lupe garue” my father told me one morning.

I didn’t know how to answer my professor. Even though I knew what she wanted to hear. Everyone is from somewhere.  But that somewhere is differs according to every person we ask.

I could chalk it up to a matter of perspective. I could let it all go as a matter of national pride. All of that seems in adequate.

 A birth certificate might make one have nationality. But from where does that person truly come?

 For my own part it's still a question I struggle to answer.   

Its Own Island

Most often, when I travel to Europe, I go to either the central or eastern part of the Continent. As a result of this, I am more familiar with cities such as Kraków and Ljubljana than I am with the western Europe. When I do go to western Europe, I find that while cities such as Berlin and Paris are nice places to visit, they also are not places in which I would like to live. So, on my trip to London, my expectations were actually not that high. That said, what I found pleasantly surprised me.
On the way from the airport into the city, our driver told us that the U.K. is "Europe but not Europe". This is a very apt way to describe London. While many physical and cultural aspects of the city are very informed by Europe, many aspects of it also remind me of some eastern American cities such as Chicago. The result is completely unique. Even more interesting, and sometimes a bit odd, is the fact that the Brits have preserved many of the stereotypical aspects of the city that Americans think of when they think of London. There really are double decker buses, and all of the taxis look like they came out of a time warp. The city fathers have even maintained the famous red telephone booths even though everyone has a cell phone. This is not something Londoners simply do for tourists and there seems to be a sense that these things are part of their history and must be preserved.
While in London, I took the time to play tourist. Over the past 4 days I have seen many of the major sights, such as the Tower Bridge and Westminster Abbey. However, my favorite part of the city is the strong presence of theater and opera. In my short time here I took full advantage of this by taking in the sequel to "Phantom of The Opera", "All's Well That Ends Well" at a re-creation of the Globe Theater, and my favorite, Verdi's "Macbeth" at the Royal Opera House.
I am currently in the process of applying to various master's programs, one of which is a joint degree between Uniwersytetem Wrocławskim in Poland and The London School of Economics. If I am accepted to this program I think I could be very happy studying, and possibly working in London. Maybe it is because of its unique flavor, but I find London to to be one of the few western European cities that I simply enjoy being in.