Moldova RPCV Michelle Haberer taught schoolchildren to speak English



Moldova RPCV Michelle Haberer taught schoolchildren to speak English

Haberer brings Moldovan experience home
By:C.T. Kruckeberg March 06, 2003
How many Washington area residents do you meet who have spent three years living and working in Europe's Eastern Bloc?

Meet Michelle Haberer, an Olds native and WACO school district graduate, who in November returned from Moldova, a small republic formerly associated with the Soviet Union that sits between Romania and Ukraine.

Before joining The Journal news team in late February as lifestyles editor, Haberer was a member of the Peace Corps.

"It was something I always wanted to do," said Haberer. "I saw the ads on TV when I was little: 'The toughest job you'll ever love.' It sounded cool."

Haberer spent three and a half years in Moldova, teaching schoolchildren to speak English. Being part of a system that gives children an education, Haberer was helping in what way she could to better Moldovan lives.

"In order to understand people and to help people you have to have a time commitment," she said. "You have to live in their country."

While a psychology student at the University of Iowa, Haberer visited with a Peace Corps recruiter. She found she needed teaching experience to be approved as a teacher by the Corps, so she spent a year with the Washington school district, helping out in classrooms. The teaching experience was valuable, but it is amazing, Haberer said, how much Moldovan schools and American schools differ.

"It's often easier for people without a teaching certificate to teach abroad," she said, "because you don't have the same expectations."

In Moldova, schools don't run on an American-style system. Haberer taught grades 1 through 12, on a more university-style schedule, she said. Students don't come to class every day as they do here.

And while she taught Moldovan youngsters to read and speak English, Haberer fine-tuned her Romanian, which she now speaks fluently.

Some changes in lifestyle weren't as drastic as others for Haberer.

"In a lot of ways, Moldova is a lot like Iowa," she said. "It's very rural and the weather is similar."

But in many ways, the differences were striking.

©Washington Evening Journal 2003

When this story was posted in December 2004, this was on the front page of PCOL:

Our debt to Bill Moyers Former Peace Corps Deputy Director Bill Moyers leaves PBS next week to begin writing his memoir of Lyndon Baines Johnson. Read what Moyers says about journalism under fire, the value of a free press, and the yearning for democracy. "We have got to nurture the spirit of independent journalism in this country," he warns, "or we'll not save capitalism from its own excesses, and we'll not save democracy from its own inertia."

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December 10, 2004: This Week's Top Stories Dodd says Rumsfeld's answer was unacceptable 9 Dec RPCV Blake Willeford runs classic movie theatre 9 Dec RPCV says education is key to curbing AIDS 9 Dec RPCV Dannielle Tegeder opens exhibition 9 Dec Shalala 1st Woman In Touchdown Club 9 Dec "Today we have a new country" says Toledo 9 Dec DDN wins Investigative Reporting Award 8 Dec Celeste on Panel to study Colorado finances 8 Dec RPCV leads Rotary Club medical team to Togo 6 Dec Vasquez to speak at Hawaii, Wisconsin commencements 6 Dec Tom Murphy warns Pittsburgh on budget abyss 2 Dec Venezuela RPCV Martha Egan runs Pachamama imports 30 Nov more top stories...

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