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 Fulbright
Scholar Stories |
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Eric
Freedman
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March
16, 2002
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May
18, 2002
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March
30, 2002
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May
27, 2002
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April
7, 2002
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June
3, 2002
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April
13, 2002
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June
9, 2002
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April
29, 2002
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June
15, 2002
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May
6, 2002
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June
23, 2002
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May
12, 2002
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-- June 9, 2002 --
Hello everyone,
My classes are over. I extended by a number of weeks all
three courses I taught during the second half of my stay
(Art of Reporting, Introduction to Environmental & Science
Journalism and Advanced Feature Writing) and was pleased
when a student in one class said "it's a pity"
when I announced that was the last day. I still have papers
to mark and grades to calculate.
Looking back at my teaching experience, I'm pleased by
what I accomplished but recognize that journalism education
in Central Asia has a long way to go to approach Western
standards for objectivity, fairness, accuracy, balance,
independence and overall quality of reporting and writing.
At the same time, I recognize that there are several things
I should have done but didn't - especially been much stricter
about deadlines for assignments (as I am at MSU). There's
a general attitude here that late is OK but we all know
it's not, especially for journalists. Interestingly, in
the evaluation forms I distributed, some students made the
same point but at least one complained that the deadlines
were too rigid, there was too much homework ("home
tasks") and grading was too tough. (Of course, at MSU
we all get contradictory evaluation comments too.) I also
should have been stricter in evicting students who talked
during class, distracting the others. To be fair, perhaps
at least occasionally they there were translating my remarks
from English into Uzbek.
There are other problems I have no immediate solution
for, such as:
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The varying levels of English comprehension
within a class. In my first-year Art of Reporting course,
a colleague or advanced student usually summarized my
lectures as we went along, but it's not practical to have
a verbatim translation of everything and would mean only
half as much material can be covered each session. The
reason by Art of Reporting had 60 students instead of
the promised 15-20 was the administration's decision to
expose all of them to a native English speaker. That makes
sense from one perspective but unfortunately means many
didn't learn as much as they would have in an Uzbek-language
class.
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The university's grading system, under
which a student who fails a required course (and almost
all courses are required) can't advance (except by paying
a bribe or begging to have the grade revised upward.)
There is no systematic provision to retake courses.
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The fact that most students have no access
to computers on campus or at home or can't afford to use
Internet cafes -- that means virtually all assignments
are hand-written, usually without revisions or self-editing.
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The class schedule - most students have
classes six days a week from 8:30 a.m. to 3:20 p.m. -
makes it extremely difficult to give them practical field
reporting assignments like we routinely do at home. There
are few public meetings or speeches to attend and most
policymakers, politicians and government officials are
wary of the media and dislike being interviewed by reporters,
let alone by journalism students.
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The university's overall treatment of
students like high schoolers, with tight controls over
everything from attendance to course assignments (no electives
at all) to a scarcity of extracurricular activities.
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I've told you before about the problems
of cheating, especially copying and plagiarism, and the
university's failure to implement effective methods of
deterrence and punishment.
My first Uzbek wedding was fascinating. It took place in
the banquet room of a local hakimyat - the equivalent of
a city hall. Guests - more than 200, about 70 percent of
them women - were already seated at long tables when the
bride and groom came in, accompanied by a quartet of musicians
playing traditional instruments.
Otabek, the brother of a student I know, wed Malikakhan
in an arranged marriage, three months after the couple met.
Malikakhan wore a Western-style white dress with a veil.
Otabek wore a floor-length robe of deep blue with gold embroidery,
with a gold turban on his head.
Generally wedding ceremonies in Uzbekistan are civil, not
religious, so a local official wearing a sash in the national
colors read something, had the couple sign some documents,
watched the ring exchange and left.
The bride, groom, best man and maid of honor sat at their
own table on a small stage. The bride wore her veil throughout
the meal and kept her eyes down toward the table. Most of
the time her expression was solemn, and she and her new
husband rarely talked. I didn't see her eat or drink anything.
As for the guests, the bride's were on one side of the
hall and the groom's on the other. Virtually all the tables
- mine was an exception - were all-male or all-female. Men
usually danced in groups with other men and women with women.
During some dances, guests went up to the first couple on
the floor and handed them money; the couple also went to
the head table and collected money from the bridge and groom.
All that money was then handed to the musicians.
Fulbright-Hays researcher and friend Patrick Hatcher, a
University of Chicago doctoral student in the history of
religion, just wrote an interesting short piece about Islamic
shrine pilgrimages in Uzbekistan. It also touches on religious
freedom restraints here. It's on the Web at http://divinity.uchicago.edu/sightings.
If you don't see it on the main page under June 6, it will
be in the 2002 archive under that date.
If you plan to be in Washington early this summer,
visit the Smithsonian's annual folklife festival, The Silk Road:
Connecting Cultures, Creating Trust. There will be performances,
artisans, demonstrations and exhibits from the nations along
the historic trade routes linking East Asia and the Mediterranean.
It's on the Mall June 26-30 and July 3-7.
Please contact us
if you would like to submit your own story and/or photographs.
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