What is College Like in Armenia?

Thoughts after the first day of college:
School is so odd. The teachers don’t have their schedules yet, which is bizarre to me. I have so many questions about what happened today… I was told I could come at 11:00 tomorrow. I don’t know what class I’m going to, or how long I’ll be there, but I just said okay.

A few days later:
I went to my counterpart’s computer class. I think there were 3 pupils. Two students seemed to be trying to design a book cover and the third student just seemed to be opening and closing files.

Another day:
I had a good time getting to know class members, when their teacher didn’t show up for one whole hour. When I asked where the teacher was, they said she was coming, but she had two classes during the same hour, so she was with the other class at the moment. [Cue to make an "Are you SERIOUS???" face.]

A month later:
I’m at the college right now, as I write this… According to my notes, my counterpart is supposed to be teaching today, but I don’t think it’s going to happen. I haven’t seen any students, and she has been sitting and talking to the other computer teacher for an hour already. No idea what (if anything) I’m going to be doing today.

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College in Armenia is different than America. The kids are mostly high school-aged, because after 9th form, they can choose to either go to college or high school. College classes are more like trade schools in the U.S., and high school is more academic.

Most of the classes I’ve been in are very small, with anywhere from 0 to 7 students. I’ve been told that there used to be 20 or so students in a particular grade, but most of them don’t come anymore because they got married, or they have to work, or don’t feel like coming, or various other reasons that seem odd to me for 14-17 year olds.

The teaching methods I’ve seen and heard of are also very different from what I’m used to. Oftentimes, teachers give a dictation (read straight from a book), and students copy it down. The next day, they recite the dictation from memory. I have been in a “computer” class that was held in the room next to the computer lab, where the teacher drew Photoshop tools on the chalkboard and read their functions from a book, which the students dutifully wrote down in their notebooks.

I don’t understand how students learn anything using this system.

There are also frequent interruptions during class. In Armenia, pretty much without fail, if someone’s cell phone rings, they will answer it. This can be a student or a teacher, or in the case of our Peace Corps training, it could be any one of our trainers in the middle of a lecture, or any of our support staff attending the lecture.

Cell phones are a common interruption, and Armenians always take the call.

If the phone starts ringing, they will stop everything, look at the phone, and then say, “Hallo.” If it’s a long phone call, they’ll take it out in the hallway.

Other interruptions happen because people randomly pop in and out of class, or open the door looking for somebody. I have seen girl students make the teacher wait while they applied their make-up, and I have seen boy students get bored and walk away while the teacher pleads with them to come back and learn something.

There are numerous distractions in class that take up valuable learning time.

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My college has two computer labs. One has seven computers, and the other one has four. Neither computer lab has Internet. If we want to get online, we need to get the one modem from the college director’s office, and hook it up to the computer.

The lab with seven computers has fun pictures on the walls; all the computers work most of the time, have all the same programs installed on them and are infected with few, if any, viruses. This lab is always full of students eager to learn.

But, as you probably guessed, “my” computer lab is the other one and is pretty much the complete opposite. The walls are bare, the computers all have different programs and are filthy with viruses, a couple are missing the CD drive compartment, and the most popular computer is the one with “Vice City” installed, a computer game that the boys play during class.

When students come, they generally all crowd around one computer to see and hear what the teacher is teaching.

It is common for students to crowd around one computer, to learn the lesson during their computer class.

The ones on the fringes usually lose interest right away because they can’t tell what’s going on. They start wandering around the room or talking to one another. Or they jump on the computer with Vice City and start playing that.

Discipline is generally not used or not enforced, so the students get away with a lot that I can’t imagine being acceptable in any of the classrooms I’ve ever been in, in the U.S. I have asked a teacher why (for example) she wasn’t teaching one day, and, pointing at the boys playing Vice City, she said (in a nutshell), “They’re busy.” Also, “They don’t want to learn and I can’t make them listen.”

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These are the challenges I’m dealing with, along with (as always!) the language barrier. In the next two years, I want to help fix up the computers and the computer lab (and maybe get a few more computers), get Internet for all computers, show the teachers and students how computer classes work in America, give all students a chance to sit at the computer and learn, and get them excited to come and learn. In my next post, I will talk about my role at the college and how I hope to help turn things around.