#6402 #6403
#9
From: Matthew J. Lister (mlister@sas.upenn.edu)
Sent: Tuesday, August 13, 2002
Subject: Re: Peace Corps
With the recent controversy over the qualifications of and visas for Peace Corps volunteers in Russia I thought I'd add a bit of context with a brief description of what I did on my assignment there and with some information as to the qualifications of the members of my group. I'll add my two cents in the end.
I came to Russia with the 7th Peace Corps group to serve there in late Aug. Of 1999, in a group of about 55 volunteers. About 2/3rds of us were TEFL volunteers (including myself.) All volunteers had at least a BA from a university in the US. Most TEFL volunteers had at least some teaching experience. Personally, I had an MA, had worked as a tutor and a TA while in graduate school, and had worked with the Intensive English Language Program at SUNY Albany for a year before starting with the Peace Corps. At least one member of the TEFL group was an ESL teacher in the US with several years of English language teaching experience, and another had been a special education teacher for several years. The group included at least two retired school teachers. Many others had at least some TEFL or ESL experience. Some had been Russian studies majors and had already spent time in Russia. The group of business volunteers included members with significant business experience, including sales, management, and marketing, with major companies such as Walmart and 3M, to name some off the top of my head. We had members with MA's in marketing and MBA's, a former US Judge, a man who had been both a farmer and lawyer, an architect who worked both in the US and Russia on improving access for the physically disabled, an accountant, and several other successful business people. No one came to help out unemployment statistics. (It was still the boom market when we came.) So, while some volunteers may have been less qualified than might be hoped for, this was, I'd think, the exception rather than the rule. Jynks Burton (quoted in the Washington Post article, [JRL 6398]) thinks this to be otherwise. She was in the group that arrived a year after my own, and I cannot comment on the specific make-up of that group. All one can say is, no one was forced to take and assignment, and if she did not feel qualified, she should have either not accepted it or resigned. Some volunteers, to their credit I think, did this. (Additionally, I think Peter Baker would have done well to contact more than one rather disgruntled former Peace Corps volunteer. We are not hard to find, with a large number of us lurking on this list.)
Volunteers received two months of in-country training in Russian, TEFL methods, Russian business practices, and cultural knowledge. This training included practicums at local schkolas and business groups. During this time volunteers lived with Russian families and gained some knowledge of the life of average Russians.
The Peace Corps Russia volunteer support staff is around (probably over) half Russian, and has Russians in several important administrative posts. There was little if any feeling that Americans were dictating to Russians what they needed to do.
My own position was at the State Pedagogical University in Ryazan. All assignments were different, but mine was not extraordinary in form or style. I worked in the department of English, helping train future teachers of English. I did not have a group of students that I alone taught, and I was not expected to be a full teacher of English. Rather, I worked regularly with several groups of students that specialized in American English. In this work I was supervised by the regular teacher for the group. I helped supplement their regular lessons. Additionally I taught several courses of American studies in areas that I was competent to teach in, such as the structure of the American education system, work in America, American political traditions, feminism and the American women's movement, and philosophy in America. These courses were offered to both students and to current school teachers back for additional training. While I cannot say that all of the classes that I taught were wonderful, I think I improved with time and that my students learned something that was both useful and would not have been learned if I was not there. Of course, American students would also benefit from similar experiences. But since these students were to be future teachers of English, and most will not have a chance to visit the US or England before taking up teaching posts, I'd like to think that extended contact with a native speaker was a special benefit to them.
Additionally I attended and took part in several professional conferences on such topics as the status of women, American literature, and scientific philosophy. I helped the University English department receive a small grant, and helped other organizations apply for grants. I also did a small bit of work with a local gender resources center. This sort of additional work was entirely typical for volunteers, and most did more than I did.
Some sites seemed to see having a Peace Corps volunteer as a marketing device, a source of cheap labor, or a matter of prestige, but this was the exception, as far as I could tell. Also, some sites had poorly worked out ideas of what they wanted a volunteer to do, to the ultimate disappointment of both the volunteer and the site. But many sites made good use of the volunteers and both came away enriched. I count my own experience in this category, and think it would be a small tragedy if the Peace Corps left Russia. Rather, as a former country director for the Peace Corps in Russia once said, I'd be thrilled to see the engagement spread the other way, with young (and older!) Russians spending two years living and working in the US.
A few final thoughts on the situation- Obviously I have no special insight into the causes of the denied visas. I suspect that my friend and colleague Chris Mahon (JRL 6399) is right to think that Hubris played at least some part. I'm sure that xenophobia also had a role to play, as we were often asked if we were spies and were known to be watched closely by the FSB. Several volunteers served in areas where foreigners (especially from the west) were still almost unknown and not trusted. More or less run-of-the-mill bureaucratic idiocy probably had a part to play as well. But, I hope that we will all keep in mind that in general the Russian visa regime is no more bureaucratic or capricious than that of the US. As it is, a low-level state department employee can, on his or her whim, keep a Russian (or other foreigner) out of the US for failing to satisfy his or her judgement as to whether the applicant will return to his or her home country or not. These decisions are obviously highly charged with class and ethnic bias, and have on several occasions (though not to my knowledge in Russia) been shown to be out and out corrupt. There is basically no chance to appeal such a decision, and reasons for them are kept secret by the US as well. Our own system is also full of a xenophobic bias which assumes that everyone envies us and wants nothing more than to live forever in the US, leaving behind families, jobs, education, and personal ties as if they meant nothing. To this end our visa regime assumes others, including Russians, to be less human than we are. None of this, of course, exempts the poor treatment and slander of the Peace Corps volunteers in Russia which they have recently received, but is meant to remind us that our own visa regime is hardly free of troubles as well.
(Please note that the views expressed above are my own only and should not be taken to represent those of the Peace Corps, other present or returned Peace Corps volunteers or employees, or the Ryazan State Pedagogical University.)
Sincerely,
Matthew Lister
Returned US Peace Corps volunteer
Ryazan, Russia 1999-2001
JD/Ph.D. program
Department of Philosophy and the Law School
University of Pennsylvania
mlister@sas.upenn.edu
August 14, 2002:
#6401 #6402 #6403
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