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AS IS well known, the Russian language is rich in proverbs. One popular proverb, TO ocee , TO o H ë ‘What you sow, that is what you will reap,’ is appropriate when one considers the influence that Dan Davidson has had on the Russian language teaching profession. I concentrate here on the projects Dan and I have been involved in together, namely the NEH-CORLAC Institutes in Russian Language and Culture and materials development projects, and on Dan's role in programs involving high schools that teach Russian, the high school exchange program, and two national contests.
Dan has been an important crusader for summer workshops and institutes in which teachers can enhance their knowledge and improve their teaching. The first workshop under Dan's leadership, held at Bryn Mawr College, was in 1977; the most recent one was in 1998. For eight summers (1987, 1988, 1989, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996) Dan and I were codirectors of four-week NEH-CORLAC Institutes in Russian language and culture, also held on the campus of Bryn Mawr College. (The Ford Foundation funded the institutes of 1990 and 1991, both of which were codirected by Dan Davidson and Richard Brecht.) A total of 176 teachers—two-thirds high school teachers, one-third a combination of elementary school teachers, middle school teachers, graduate students committed to a teaching career, and teachers from small colleges—participated in these eight NEH-CORLAC institutes.
Our philosophy for the institutes was that, in those morally responsible times, with the Soviet Union in its waning stages, we needed Russian language teachers who had studied Russian literature, intellectual history, culture, and everyday life in an atmosphere of shared intellectual inquiry. To build a corps of American students fluent in Russian and cognizant of Russian culture, the institutes strove to upgrade the skills and cultural awareness of language teachers. Teachers need to be challenged by and knowledgeable about their subject matter if they are to challenge students to think.
When John Schillinger, of American University, the outside evaluator for the 1995 NEH-CORLAC institute, came to visit, he was presented with a list of the institutes' six goals:
The statement of goats concluded with the following: White field development is not an official goat of the institutes, we are aware that we need to focus on it in our profession. We need to develop new programs and extend support to existing programs. This concern is of paramount importance to us as professionals.
Because of the materials and the methodology to which teachers were exposed at the NEH-CORLAC institutes and the supportive networking that ensued, Russian language teachers took on leadership roles in their schools. Participants stated that they had nothing to share with teachers of other foreign languages—until now. Likewise, they wanted to share what they had learned and give papers at national conferences, such as the annual meeting of AATSEEL (American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages), the AAASS conference (American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies), and the annual meeting of ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages). In the programs of these meetings appear the names of numerous participants and teachers from past institutes. They are an important part of the Russian profession today.
Dan's contribution to these institutes was significant. During the first three summers he taught nineteenth-century literature, and in later years, in a revamped institutes format, he taught grammar. Dan's wide knowledge of the people in our profession helped us identify faculty members and outside evaluators for the institutes. In addition, he brought international scholars to the Bryn Mawr College campus and to international meetings of Slavic scholars, such as the MAPRIAL conferences in 1992 and 1996. (MAPRIAL, or the International Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature, is the organization of which the American Council of Teachers of Russian, or ACTR, is a constituent member.) Such exposure allowed the institutes' participants and staff members to become acquainted with leading scholars from around the world and to hear from them about their projects, their successes, and their worries. That these exchanges took place at Bryn Mawr College, in the midst of its regular summer Russian language program, not only guaranteed a lovely setting but also provided colleagues and students with interests similar to those of the participants.
The success of the institutes is reflected in the evaluation submitted by Schillinger to NEH. In a letter introducing his report, he writes:
The energy and seriousness of purpose displayed by both the teaching faculty and the participants was truly remarkable. At the time of my visit—the very end of the institute—it was very clear that the participants had completed a rigorous program. Each recognized the personal achievement and sacrifice represented by his or her participation. As is evident in their individual evaluations of the institute, much had been demanded of them, but I found that they were no less demanding upon themselves. The results were clearly worth the effort, and I am pleased to submit the attached report to more fully characterize this very successful program.
Similar letters were written by the outside evaluators James Billington (US Librarian of Congress), S. Frederick Starr (Oberlin Coll.), Robert Belknap (Columbia Univ.), and William Mills Todd III (Harvard Univ.).
In a classroom situation, however, capable, language-competent Russian language teachers are at a disadvantage if they do not have good teaching materials. In the 1970s, Dan focused his efforts on initiating the first joint Soviet-American textbook project. This effort culminated in 1980 with the publication of Stage One (Bitekhtina, Davidson, Dorofeyeva, and Fedyanina).
Under Dan's leadership ACTR sought funding from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation for a four-year, basal textbook series, aimed initially at the precollege level. This was ACTR's response to President Reagan's call, at a 1985 meeting with the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, for improved Russian language exchanges between the United States and the USSR. This proposal, which received enthusiastic support from the United States Information Agency (USIA) and the Soviet Ministry of Higher Education, included plans for a textbook for teaching American English to Russian students, a project undertaken and completed by Thomas Garza, of the University of Texas, working with Russian scholars.
The need for a four-year, basal textbook series in the United States was acute. On the high school level, the last Russian language textbooks directed at an American audience, the A-LM series, published by Harcourt, Brace, and World, had not been reprinted since the 1960s. Teachers in United States middle and high schools had the choice of using this outdated textbook, with its antiquated methodology, language, and facts, of using textbooks designed for college students, or of using “generic” Russian materials, that is, materials written only in Russian, without any orientation to the American student. None of these options was satisfactory.
Teachers overwhelmingly voiced their dissatisfaction with the teaching materials available to them. Letters in support of ACTR projects, or of grant proposals written by CORLAC in cooperation with ACTR, came from teachers who worked in private as well as public schools. They taught Native American, mainstream, inner-city, privileged, and disadvantaged students. In one such letter, Andrew Tomlinson, a teacher at Western High School, Baltimore, commented on the outdated, dull, and culturally inaccurate texts that were available for Russian language teachers. He states:
Abandoning the current texts, however, forces teachers like me to rely on materials we prepare ourselves. While such materials might be effective, they usually make a poor substitute for a carefully planned, sequenced program which has had the benefit of professional, expert review. The lack of standard, professional materials also sends the message to our students that the study of Russian is somehow slipshod, subject to the whims of their individual teacher […]. I have initiated Russian programs in three Baltimore high schools since 1988. I believe that the future of these programs, and of my own career, rests largely on the future availability of adequate texts and ancillary materials. Without these, maintenance of adequate student enrollment will likely be impossible and proper curriculum planning will be impossible.
For the writing of textbooks and other materials, we believed that collaboration was the best approach. Consequently, the projects involved at least two coauthors. Following in the footsteps of Dan's 1980 Stage One textbook, most of them were also bilateral; that is, an American and a Russian, most frequently from Moscow's Pushkin Institute, combined their talents for each project. Russian Face to Face , level 1, set the precedent, with George Morris (St. Louis Univ. High School) collaborating with Lilia Vokhmina and Mark Vyatyutnev (Pushkin Inst.). For the textbooks, Dan excellently garnered the necessary funds. For example, in connection with the textbook M p pycc K X ( The World of the Russians ), the salary of coauthor Tatiana Stramnova was absorbed for two years by a grant from USIA to ACTR (Dabars, Morris, and Stramnova). (This grant allowed ACTR to bring Russian language teachers to the United States to benefit the Russian teaching profession.) The results of these projects are the textbooks Russian Face to Face , levels 1 and 2 (Dabars, Morris, and Smirnova), Russian Faces and Voices (Dabars, Morris, Sosenko, and Vokhmina), M p pycc K X , and Russian Reference Grammar (Watzke and Sweigert) and the videos Russian Faces: Language and People (Shamshin and Dabars), Visit to Russia (Shamshin, Dabars, Liro, and Bialy), and In Search of Orlovsky: A Video Mystery and PyccKNe TeMbi (Russian Themes ) (both by Shamshin, Dabars, and Sosenko).
I would like to turn now to four programs that are particularly germane in demonstrating ACTR's and Dan Davidson's commitment to the teaching of Russian on the high school level: the US-USSR High School Academic Partnership Exchange, the US Spoken Olympiada, and the Russian Essay Contest. In 1987 ACTR received a grant from USIA to administer, together with the National Association of Secondary School Principals and Sister Cities International, the innovative US-USSR High School Academic Partnership Exchange. The exchanges paired seventy high schools in the United States with seventy Soviet high schools and sent ten to fifteen students from each to live in each other's homes and to study in each other's schools for a period of, generally, a month. Academic year 1998–99 is the eleventh year of the exchanges. Nearly ten thousand students have participated in them.
On the Russian side, the ideals of democracy and the free market economy to which Russian students (and students from the other republics of the former Soviet Union) were exposed in the United States were shared with family members and friends back in the Soviet Union. When the August 1991 coup attempt against President Mikhail Gorbachev occurred, a large number of Soviet citizens who defended Moscow's White House may have been there because of such contacts between the two nations.
On the American side many students—and their families—have formed lasting friendships with Russians and other natives of the former Soviet Union as a result of the exchanges. International understanding in such situations is not just a vague concept but a reality. After participating in the exchanges, students often decide to continue their study of Russian in college. Many decide that they will return to Russia to work.
In 1988 ACTR was awarded a grant from the Ford Foundation for the ACTR-Ford Foundation High School Development Project. Designed as a companion to the partnership exchange, this project was aimed at increasing the quantity and quality of Russian language education in United States high schools and at improving the teaching of Russian nationwide. The Ford Foundation awarded a second grant to ACTR in 1992 to continue the project. An additional grant, in 1996, made possible the establishment of RussNet, a Web site to support teachers in the schools and to facilitate the teaching of heritage learners.
ACTR also sponsors two national contests, the US Spoken Olympiada and the National Russian Essay Contest—A Written Olympiada, in which over a thousand students participate each year. In 1996, 1,076 students participated in the US Spoken Olympiada, under the leadership of the national chair, Guenther Teschauer (Tenafly High School, NJ). In 1997, in the National Russian Essay Contest, under the leadership of Jane Shuffelton (Brighton High School, NY), 1,480 students wrote an essay on the topic My Life. These contests give students an opportunity to test their knowledge of the Russian language and compare it with the knowledge of their peers on a national level. The importance of these contests is increased in the absence of ETS and AP exams in Russian.
This annual support of programs that benefit the high schools teaching Russian is of paramount importance. The records of the Committee on College and Precollege Russian show that more than ten thousand students were taking Russian on the precollege level in fall 1995. This number would be lower if it were not for Dan's and ACTR's support of these programs.
In conclusion, I would like to return to the Russian proverb I quoted earlier: YTO IIOCeeIIIb, TO N IIoXHeIIIbë ‘What you sow, that is what you will reap.’ Dan saw the importance of summer workshops and institutes in upgrading the teaching skills of Russian language teachers, and as a result of the NEH-CORLAC and the Ford-ACTR institutes, the United States has a corps of dedicated, well-educated teachers. Dan saw the need for new Russian language teaching materials and initiated the practice of choosing bilateral Russian-American coauthors to produce these materials. Russian language teachers now have a rich choice of textbooks and videos from which to choose. Dan recognized the importance of exchange programs and national contests to stimulate high school students. Thousands of students have been able to take advantage of these experiences. The Russian teaching profession is reaping what Dan has sown—and we are the richer for it.
The author was for thirteen years Director of the Center of Russian Language and Culture (CORLAC) at the Friends School, Baltimore. This article is based on her presentation in a session honoring Dan Davidson at the 1997 MLA convention in Toronto, Ontario.
Bitekhtina, G., D. Davidson, T. Dorofeyeva, and N. Fedyanina. Stage One . Moscow: Russky Yazyk, 1980.
Committee on College and Precollege Russian. CCPCR Census and Database Page . Mar. 1997. CCPCR. 9 Dec. 1998 <http://russian arizona.edu/ccpcr/census.html>.
Dabars, Zita D., George W. Morris, and Nadezhda I. Smirnova. Russian Face to Face: Level 2 . Lincolnwood: Natl. Textbook, 1995.
Dabars, Zita D., George W. Morris, Ellina Sosenko, and Lilia Vokhmina. Russian Faces and Voices . Dubuque: Kendall, 1995.
Dabars, Zita D., George W. Morris, and Tatiana Stramnova. MuppycckNx (The World of the Russians ). Dubuque: Kendall, 1997.
Morris, George W., Mark N. Vyatyutnev, and Lilia Vokhmina. Russian Face to Face: Level 1 . Lincolnwood: Natl. Textbook, 1993.
Schillinger, John. Letter to NEH. 4 Oct. 1995.
Shamshin, Leonid B., Zita D. Dabars. Russian Faces: Language and People . Videocassette. Natl. Textbook, 1998.
Shamshin, Leonid B., Zita D. Dabars, Joseph Liro, and Renate Bialy. Visit to Russia: Friends and Places . Videocassette in preparation.
Shamshin, Leonid B., Zita D. Dabars, and Ellina Ju. Sosenko. In Search of Orlovsky: A Video Mystery . Videocassette. Kendall, 1997.
———. PycckNe Tembi (Russian Themes ). Videocassette. Kendall, 1997.
Tomlinson, Andrew. Letter to United States Department of Education. 26 Oct. 1993.
Watzke, John L., and James W. Sweigert, Jr., Russian Reference Grammar . Dubuque: Kendall, 1997.
© 1999 by the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages. All Rights Reserved.
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