The trip overall consisted of a fairly regular skeleton of a schedule. Work in primary schools Monday through Friday, travel on the weekends. But looking back closer at each week and day, it was anything but routine. Every single day was a new adventure, with something different to discover and to learn about Poland, or even to learn about the US.
Before anything else, work in schools comes first. What an amazingly rewarding experience. Every single school I taught in, the teachers and students were so welcoming and so excited to have us visiting them. A typical class would probably be about 45 minutes, taught to a class anywhere from 6 to 13 years old (Polish kindergarten finishes around age 6, and primary school goes through about 13, after which students move on to gymnasium/junior high, and then on to high school). Learning to interact with the students was a continuous process - I learned more every single day about fun and better ways to engage them, to learn from them, and to help them learn from me. Not a single week went by that I didn't tweak my plans a little bit to make my lessons more and more exciting for the kids, and fun for us to experience together. A normal class could have been anywhere from 10 to almost 30 kids, who spoke a range of almost no English to pretty proficient English. With the youngest kids, who have only been learning English for a couple of years so far, the teachers did lots of translating for me. Either way, I found that a great way to get the kids to open up to me and ask questions was to have them teach me some Polish! My Polish pronunciation isn't the greatest (some of their sounds don't exist in English) but sometimes that made it even better for the kids to laugh at me and with me, and really open up to see me as a friend. (For a little bit of fun, try this Polish tongue twister, like one of the ones my kids taught me! -- Spod czeskich strzech szło Czechów trzech. -- just ask Google translate to read it out loud! The 'sh' and 'ch' sounds are so difficult!)
I think the most interesting things in class, though, were seeing not only what the kids already knew about the US, but also what they wanted to know about the US. It was honestly just as exciting for me to learn from them as it was for them to learn about the US from me. And some of the questions are priceless! I got an enormous variety of inquiries, ranging from normal things like 'What kind of food do you eat?' and 'What is the weather like?' to much more imaginative things like 'Do you have green french fries?' and 'How old were you when Apollo 17 launched?'. Beyond that, there were tons that related to their knowledge of US media and films, which is a large part of what they know - things like 'Do you know Batman?' and 'Where does Eminem live?'. I never failed to find the most creative and curious kids, and to be impressed and amused by the things they wanted to know.
Outside of school, my time was spent in two big ways. The first was exploring Poznan with the rest of the interns. Poznan is full of beautiful charming places to visit, gorgeous churches, and endless numbers of cute streets with shops and fountains and beautiful squares. After school each day, we'd meet up to explore another new place, see Poznan, and trade stories with each other about our lives at home. I think I've learned even more about Azerbaijan and the Philippines than I have about Poland! It was so interesting getting to talk with the other interns, find the similarities and the differences between our lives at home, and start wanting to come visit each other at home! Such an amazing experience getting to sit in a beautiful open air cafe in the middle of the old square of Poznan and enjoy the summer weather with new international friends.
The other huge portion of my time was spent with my host family. With the exception of one week, I lived with a family of four in a small but beautiful flat right near the city, and they really became my second family. My host parents, Johanna and Piotr, really began to treat me like part of the family, and were more welcoming than I could have ever hoped for. We'd have dinner together as a family of five, hear about how each other's days went, and talk about Polish traditions or American traditions or any number of things. And then after dinner I'd usually end up spending a few hours just talking with my host parents, about the kids or their jobs or the way Poland used to be, or anything at all. They're such wonderful people, and such great parents to their kids, both of whom are brilliant and are going to do huge things some day. Michal, at 10, speaks fantastic English, and he and I became great friends over the course of my time there. Maciek, at 5, speaks almost no English, but when he runs up and hugs me after I come home from work, words really aren't necessary! They're the most amazing kids, and the most welcoming family in the world.
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