THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 11, 1995 TAG: 9511110536
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B01 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KATE HUNGER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 107 lines
It won't be memories of the academics at Chesapeake's Indian River High School that will stick with Timur Ganzha for the rest of his life.
Not that the 15-year-old Russian exchange student disparages American education. He was simply more impressed with a different aspect of life he's experienced over the past four weeks in South Hampton Roads.
``At this school, there are people of all different kinds of skin - black and white,'' he said about a week into the program. ``I prefer this.''
Ganzha was one of 14 students from Kaliningrad, Russia, who participated in a four-week exchange program between Kaliningrad's school system and several high schools in Chesapeake, Norfolk and Portsmouth. The students and the 11 educators who accompanied them are heading back to Russia this morning.
Sasha Sharkov, 15, visited Norview High School in Norfolk. The towhead acknowledged differences in American and Russian education and customs, but he insisted neither country is better than the other - except in one category.
Girls.
``(American girls) are different,'' Sharkov said, giggling. ``They're better than ours. Here they are equal, and in Russia, girls are girls and boys are boys.''
The exchange program that made Ganzha and Sharkov's trip possible was funded by a combination grant: $150,800 from the U.S. Information Agency and $21,209 from participating high schools and Old Dominion University.
Dr. John Turner, an associate professor of occupational and technical studies at ODU, worked with the grant proposal and said the intent of the government grant was twofold: to help the Russian school system develop an Internet network and to promote an exchange of information in the areas of language, math, science, fine arts, international studies and school-to-work transition.
Turner said he recognized areas in which the school systems could benefit each other during a trip to Poland, which is bordered on the north by Kaliningrad. He said he was impressed by the fine and performing arts and language training in Poland and Kaliningrad. And they - he said, - admire the technology in American schools.
Although the schools in Chesapeake, Norfolk and Portsmouth developed different activities for the students they hosted, all the hosts and exchange students traveled to Jamestown, Mount Vernon and Washington, as a continuation of an ODU American Studies course they attended.
But at this point in the program, the exchange students and their American hosts spent far more time soaking up each other's company than hatching methods for fostering inter-school communication.
And since the American and Russian students both speak the other's language - albeit in a range of fluency - they were able to practice on each other.
Codie Ferguson, a senior at Indian River, hosted 16-year-old Dina Gourova. When the two girls first met, they stayed up half the night talking, Ferguson said. A month later, they've established a friendship they hope will last forever.
``She and I are good friends now,'' Ferguson, 17, said. ``We're like sisters.''
Cramming American culture into one month was a tall order, Ferguson said. The 20 minutes students were budgeted at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum attests to the shortage of time, she said.
When asked about the biggest impression she has of her trip, Gourova didn't launch into a list of theme parks, national monuments or malls. She wanted to talk education. With the resources available to American students, they have a big advantage over her classmates in Kaliningrad.
``Our students have to do it by themselves,'' she said. ``We think your government gives enough to develop education.''
Gourova's impressions, granted, were formed by visits to schools with computers and the type of facilities some schools in the United States can only dream of.
Sharkov highlighted what he sees as the biggest difference between American and Russian education. He said Russian students have to learn everything - even subjects they don't like and won't pursue - in detail.
In America, he said, students have the freedom to choose from a wider range of electives and spend fewer years drilling the basics. Russian students may spend five or six years on a particular math or science, Sharkov said, but their pace is slower than it is in America, where the same class may be crammed into a single year.
Ganzha, the boy who was struck by the racial diversity at Indian River, said schools in America allow students to pursue more extracurricular activities than his school does.
Sharkov also said the relationships students formed with each other are the program's most valuable asset.
But these friendships, he said, are most important because of their potential for creating peace.
If Russian and American students talk openly, he said, they just might be able to prevent more wars.
``Then there won't be cold wars like there was after World War II,'' Sharkov said.
Ganzha's host, Alex Winston, a freshman at Indian River, could easily serve as the exchange program's poster child. The 15-year-old second-year Russian language student said he can't wait to visit Kaliningrad in March. He said the exchange has surpassed all his expectations.
``I think it's obviously the best thing that's happened in my life in a long time,'' he said. ILLUSTRATION: [Color photo]
BETH BERGMAN/The Virginian-Pilot
Russian exchange student Sasha Sharkov, 15, was with his American
friends at a going-away party at Nauticus on Friday night. Sharkov,
who visited Norview High School in Norfolk, said, ``(American girls)
are different. They're better than ours. Here they are equal, and
in Russia, girls are girls and boys are boys.''
by CNB