I went to high school at Amherst Regional High School in Amherst, MA. I am very proud to say that I studied Russian for four years under Jude Wobst. I originally decided on Russian because it was NOT the language my older sister was taking. But because of that juvenile reason, I had many positive experiences.
We competed in the annual ACTR Olympiad event in Cambridge, MA. It is a spoken Russian competition. I earned many accolades from my ability to speak Russian, know her geography and her culture. I was lucky enough to be able to participate in a foreign exchange trip with a school in Petrozavodsk. I spent almost 4 weeks completely immersed in daily life- going to school shopping, trips to museums. By the time I left, my dreams were in Russian.
Last night I learned that ARHS was ending its Russian Language program. To me, and many others, this is disastrous news. Over the many years that the Russian program has been around, it earned a reputation for being one of the leading public school programs for the language. College professors of Russian all around the country knew of our tiny program. We had achieved national and international success.
Several of the programs graduates went on to study Russian and Russian Area Studies. They work in a variety of fields, many would not be where they are today without the experiences they had while studying under Jude.
Today, it was bittersweet as I went to my son's school and talked to his classmates about the Russian Language and taught them how to write their names.
I wonder how many lives have been influenced by the program that is being ended next month, or could have been influenced?
So to Jude, Thank you for teaching me. Thank you for believing so passionately about the importance of learning the history, culture, and language of such a beautiful place. Thank you for allowing me to have all the opportunities that I would have missed.
I love this blog.And am soooooo sorry that the program is ending. Even we parents were deeply affected by this program. Not just because of the experiences our children had, but because we were included in hundreds of small ways. This is real loss, not just to ARHS, but to education period!.
ReplyDeleteHey, Candace, I was one of the FIRST students of Russian at ARHS. The program was started by the German teacher, Mrs. Peppard, who was only a little bit ahead of the students in Russian! We learned, primarily, by listening to tapes in the language lab at our own pace, and by reading the textbook. Once a week, Mrs. Peppard had office hours where we could come in and take tests. In my last year, Jude came, I think, as part of her teacher-training! It's sad to witness the end of the era.
ReplyDelete