Reflection: Learning

LEARNING

Where do I start on this reflection? I WONDER….

Wondering is the start of all learning, and I certainly spent lots of time wondering what the heck was going on around me in Hungary. I wonder what that store clerk is asking me? I wonder what that sign says? I wonder what’s in that package on the grocery shelf (is it butter or nice spreadable pork fat)? I wonder what this poster is advertising, where the event will be, and when?

With my background as a librarian, a traveler, and my father’s daughter, I did prepare for my trip to Hungary. I bought guidebooks, phrasebooks, and dictionaries. I read about Hungarian writers and poets. I listened to Hungarian language CDs as I walked the neighborhood, secure in the belief that if people heard me speaking Hungarian to myself, they wouldn’t be able to criticize my pronunciation. I bookmarked helpful sites, including that of EKF. I asked questions about our likely living situation, work expectations, and climate. I determined what clothes we would need, resulting in: 1) too many, 2) too warm, and 3) too formal.

I decided that a blog would be a good way to demonstrate and document learning, and came up with a framework and a tool to use (Blogger). I prepared as best I could, and went into the experience with the attitude that I would carefully observe, risk mistakes, deal with resulting anxiety, push through shyness, and take advantage of every opportunity offered. That pretty much describes what happened.

Observing was pretty much a given. On the surface, Eger was not a very strange environment. A very pretty small city, with streets, stores, cars, banks, theaters, college buildings, churches, bicycles, and people that seemed familiar. First observation—yes, navigation is easy, but understanding where you are is not. Obviously the difficulty of the language was foremost—it doesn’t help if you’ve studied French or Spanish or German—the words on the sign are not readable, and they are definitely not pronounceable. So there was a lot of good reason to watch and learn—at the store, at the bank, and especially at the train station! Observing also led to speculation—again, to WONDER what was going on, come up with a hypothesis, and then check it out later with colleagues at the office. More than once, that resulted in great hilarity when I missed my guess!

But risking mistakes, and dealing with the resulting anxiety, was also an important component in my learning. Those of us who have been successful in our jobs and social interactions take everyday competence for granted. Living in another culture strips that competence away in a hurry. Take for example the butter example from above—yes, I bought the nice block of pork fat, widely used in Hungarian cooking. I learned from my mistake—but didn’t end up spreading my mistake on toast in the morning! It’s constant work to make sense of an unfamiliar world, and the experience provided me an interesting, personal, and concrete example of developmental learning processes. I have more empathy for learners, whether they are strangers in (our) strange land, or students beginning graduate work in an unfamiliar discipline. Anxiety, mistakes, and fatigue are givens, as are discovery, comprehension, and satisfaction.

Making the most of all opportunities was most important in learning from this experience. Most people don’t think of me as a shy person; I’ve learned to push through that in everyday life when I have to do so. I had to sometimes do the same in Hungary, and ‘play the part’ of a confident visiting professor. I was helped by an excellent piece of advice offered to me by a VSU professor who had been on faculty exchange to other countries, “Accept every invitation.” Doing so brought me into many different situations, and put me into lots of great ‘learning environments’. I would add another piece of advice, “Go to everything, no invitations necessary.” It became a habit to look for posters (events are often not advertised until just before they happen), take digital photographs of the poster, and then go home to interpret what, where, when, and how much, using the dictionary. Sometimes this method worked, sometimes not, and sometimes led to interesting confusions (is this a Hungarian dance where you dance or is it a Hungarian dance where you watch dancing?).

It is interesting to think about changes in learning over the four months. As I understood more, and was more comfortable and competent in the daily or common tasks, I think my pace of learning slowed. I noticed that I wasn’t studying language as much, nor taking as many ‘sense-making’ photographs. I found that some tasks (like buying train tickets in Eger) had become quite easy, a marked difference. I never did get around to learning metric quantities, settling for the foolish-looking (but effective) practice of asking for two handfuls of beans at the market. I eventually managed to answer my phone (usually, but always reluctantly), make calls (usually), and replenish minutes at the T-Mobile store. I figured out (duh!) why my colleagues wanted to call me rather than email (their oral English proficiency, written English lack of practice, and general cell phone addiction), and why I wanted them to email me (my oral comprehension anxiety, email addiction, and general cell phone aversion).

I did continue to query my colleagues and asked advice and interpretation on everything from food to politics. I shared what I learned through the blog, including some reflection. I continued to have some frustrations, particularly around miscommunications, but embraced those “rabbit hole experiences”. I must admit I did sometimes look forward to the expectation that when I was “back home” I would be competent again, and not have to try so hard everyday to figure things out. That has happened (although I have had a time catching up at the office), but I find I miss the inevitable sense of WONDER that living in another culture brought to each day.