The Best and the Worst

This year I had an incredibly thought-provoking experience when I facilitated a group discussion among a bunch of ESL students. It reinforced to me how fun it could be to teach English for a living overseas. There were kids from Ukraine, "Turkish" people from Russia (they had never actually been to Turkey - yet they made a point of noting they were not Russian), Somalia, Liberia, Sudan, Karon people from Burma (they made a point of noting they were not Burmese even though they grew up there), Yemen, Palestine, and China.

My first question I asked them was "if you could bring anything to America from your home country, it could be a belief, some sort of infrastructure, a food, a game, anything, what would it be? What is something we could adopt from your country that would make America better?"

Oh my, the floodgates opened.

To a person, the number one thing they felt would make America better that they admired from their home country was....







guess....can you guess it?







The number one thing they felt would make America better is respect for authority, teachers, and parents. It literally hurt them to see classroom minutes chewed up in attitude and disrespect. These students didn't understand the point of it. In class, here is someone trying to give you an education, and frequently what they see is American students not appreciating it or stepping up to the plate studiously to take advantage of it. They felt most American kids did not think past 'who is dating who and what shall we do this weekend?'

They also viewed Americans as remiss in taking care of their parents. They were appalled by the idea of nursing homes. I shared with them that I once had a Ukrainian exchange student in my house who described one of her friends as afraid he was going mentally ill because the toll of caring for him mother was so burdensome. Her point was that in the Ukraine, he may go crazy caring for her, but he did it because it was his duty. All of the students nodded in agreement and respect with this thinking. You can be darn sure I called my mother that night and effusively thanked her for raising me!

Of course it is easy to guess the next thing they feel would improve America. Soccer. They wish, wish, wish, Americans loved soccer. I told them, "there is, only one person in the entire world who could probably get America interested in soccer." Who? Who? Who? They wanted to know. Who could make this magical thing happen? "David Beckham." They laughed.

The third thing was scooters. Why do Americans have to drive cars EVERYWHERE? They felt Americans were obsessed with having their own car and these students felt most in-town driving was completely unnecessary. "You Americans drive to McDonald's! Why can't you walk or ride a bike?"

One student from China said one thing that would improve America is high-speed trains. He said there is a high-speed train in Shanghai that travels 300 mph and gets people from downtown to the airport in five minutes. "Could you imagine?" he said, "we could all be in downtown Chicago in five minutes?"

I explained that if there was anything the people in my town lusted after, it was a train of any sort to downtown Chicago, even one going 50 mph! Currently it takes around 1.5-2 hours to drive into downtown Chicago depending on traffic. Mass transit has just not been a priority in America but I believe that will change with increasing gas prices.

The other thing they didn't understand is why Americans insist their children are "grown" and adults at 18? Why can't kids live with their parents for a lot more years? And why don't Americans lend money to each other and help each other out? Why must everyone be so independent?

The Africans students, conversant in two or three languages each, asked "why do the black students here refuse to speak English properly? They always call us 'whitey' when we use proper English." One of the Liberian students asked "why did white people start slavery?" Wow. That's a lot to answer for!

When I asked what is the one thing you wish your home country had or could benefit from that you see here in America?

The answers varied less. Can you guess what they said?






Got your answer? See if it matches:








The first was education, especially higher education. They were blown away by the quality of American higher education. They loved that everyone in America had access to education and that anyone could go on to college. Being accepted to college (of some sort) didn't depend on smarts, connections, or being the right age.

The second thing they admired was that the education and the diploma involved was real. To a person, they all said, in my country, if you didn't do well on the right high school test, one would just pay off the teacher with a bribe and he would fix the grade. They found the lack of corruption in America surrounding education and life in general, astounding. Kind of makes me want to always have an American dentist, surgeon and pilot!

I asked them to take this discussion to American teenagers which they did not want to do. Americans rarely hear this stuff because so few of us ever leave our country. I cited some research that said 14 million people come to the States every year from all over the world to study at our universities, yet only 250,000 Americans go abroad to study each year. Most Americans are never put in a position to compare their culture with someone else's. I'm grateful to have experienced this comparison. They remind me to say:

Thanks Mom.

If I haven't told you this yet today, Mom let me say it now -- you rock.