Gary Scott spent time teaching in Poland for the Peace Corps



Scott was enticed by the ideas of being challenged and traveling abroad, so he underwent a year-long application process that required "every conceivable piece of information and comprehensive medical records," he says, and "I told them to send me anywhere." Upon acceptance, the Peace Corps gave Scott the choice between Eastern European countries Poland, Muldova, Bulgaria and Kazakhstan. Scott chose Poland "because of the music of Henryk Gorecki, the classical Polish composer," he says. "I didn't even give it any thought. They just gave me that list and I said, Gorecki, alright." Scott quickly fell in love with Poland. He spent three years there with the Peace Corps, teaching high school, biking through villages, traveling and taking roll after roll of film, before coming back to the United States for a stint in Boston University's philosophy of religion program. "I missed Poland really badly. I was thinking about it a lot," he says of his time in Boston. "I missed my students. In Poland, I got the kids as freshmen and taught them every year. I left right when my first group became seniors, and I really regretted it. I saw my students in school, in the street, in shops, in church. I was able to have much deeper relationships with them than any student here."

Gary Scott spent time teaching in Poland for the Peace Corps

Peace Corps made big impact on Hughes teacher

Published: Wednesday, November 7, 2007 - 2:00 am


By Emily Price
CITY PEOPLE WRITER

Hughes Academy students have a thing or two to learn from language arts teacher Gary Scott, and not just grammatical rules, Latin word roots and the difference between first and second person.

Scott is a world traveler, wizened by years spent in the Peace Corps and living in Lipnica Wielka, a town of 5,000 that neighbors the Slovakian border in south Poland.

He was trying to decide his next move after college when he recalled a Peace Corps campaign that had inspired him.

"The Peace Corps used to have commercials back in the late '80s with the tag line, 'The toughest job you'll ever have.' I remembered seeing those as a kid," he says.

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Scott was enticed by the ideas of being challenged and traveling abroad, so he underwent a year-long application process that required "every conceivable piece of information and comprehensive medical records," he says, and "I told them to send me anywhere."

Upon acceptance, the Peace Corps gave Scott the choice between Eastern European countries Poland, Muldova, Bulgaria and Kazakhstan.

Scott chose Poland "because of the music of Henryk Gorecki, the classical Polish composer," he says. "I didn't even give it any thought. They just gave me that list and I said, Gorecki, alright."

Scott quickly fell in love with Poland. He spent three years there with the Peace Corps, teaching high school, biking through villages, traveling and taking roll after roll of film, before coming back to the United States for a stint in Boston University's philosophy of religion program.

"I missed Poland really badly. I was thinking about it a lot," he says of his time in Boston. "I missed my students. In Poland, I got the kids as freshmen and taught them every year. I left right when my first group became seniors, and I really regretted it. I saw my students in school, in the street, in shops, in church. I was able to have much deeper relationships with them than any student here."

So he went back to teach in Poland for five more years before making his second return to the United States, this time bringing a bit of Poland back with him -- his wife, Kinga.

American schools pay teachers much more money than the schools in Poland, he says, so the two of them could not have the kind of life in Poland they could have here.

Scott still hasn't put his adventurous spirit to rest.

"Part of me wants to go back and do the 'real' Peace Corps experience, without electricity, in a mud hut somewhere. Part of me felt guilty -- I had an apartment, electricity, a toilet," he says.

For now, though, calling roll in Polish will have to suffice.

Links to Related Topics (Tags):

Headlines: November, 2007; Peace Corps Poland; Directory of Poland RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Poland RPCVs

When this story was posted in November 2007, this was on the front page of PCOL:




Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers

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