Entry 16: Battle of the Sexes, a.k.a. Men are from Omsk, Women are from Tomsk

So, as hinted earlier, it's been a bit more difficult getting the older students to participate and enjoy class than it has been with the younger children. The main reason for this seems to be that, whereas activities with the younger children often involve more of a physical, visual, or otherwise nonverbal component (drawing, games with a ball, etc.), activities with the older children are, as a rule, strictly verbal. Standard activities in most English classes around here include reading texts and translating them, answering text-based questions, and doing grammar exercises from a textbook... unfortunately, it seems that half of this is that teachers only want to prepare their students for their entirely written university entrance exams, and, even more unfortunately, it seems that the other half is due to the fact that English teachers themselves don't know the language well enough even to engage their students in conversation. None of them seem to have ever been to an English-speaking country (which I don't fault them for... visas alone can be $1,000-2,000 around here; also, I've met some teachers who speak excellently despite a lack of experience abroad), and there are precious few opportunities for interaction with native speakers, so they end up having to rely mostly on materials, which, as I've noticed, use very clumsy, unnatural language at best (though, what's worse, they're often just plain erroneous). Apparently, one of the best primary- and secondary-school textbook series is called "Happy English," which, as I told Natalya Mikhailovna, almost sounds like something you'd find on a menu in a Chinese restaurant.
This is all just a very roundabout way of saying that the older children need something different: something more active and more social, though still comfortable and not intimidating. With that in mind, I often try to come up with original games and activities for them, though this sometimes takes a great deal of thought, and I only manage to come up with a truly interesting activity every once in a while. I remember one day, I was about to put the students into two groups so that they could debate something that I could tell wasn't really going to work out anyway (the existence of UFOs, or some such drivel [I, by the way, believe entirely in UFOs -- I do not, in the least, doubt the existence of flying objects that go unidentified]), when one of my students asked if we were going to divide the class into boys and girls. I liked his decision and decided I was going to try to use the natural competition and sexual tension between high-school-age students to my advantage: instead of the originally planned debate, the topic of our debate would be "Who is Better: Boys or Girls?" I figured that, aside from just my none-too-selfless goal of keeping the class occupied and interested for a good amount of time, I could finally make some sort of contribution to the world at large and settle the age-old question once and for all. The rules were simple: each team would offer an argument for their sex or against the loyal opposition every turn, with the order of turns to be decided by the flip of a coin. Since Natalya Mikhailovna had already freely admitted that she believed boys to be girls' superiors ("Girls are naughty," she argued; "That can be one of their best qualities," I countered), I was to preside as impartial judge... sure, I might be a boy, but, seeing as most of my mothers, sisters, and girlfriends had been of the female persuasion, I wasn't entirely indifferent to plaints of the less-unfair sex.
It turns out I had no idea what sort of epic battle was in store. The debate ended up spanning two days of class and lasting about 4 hours (a long enough time for a debate of any sort, let alone in one's non-native language)... what's more, not a single side even once filibustered. The debate started out tame enough -- boys make up ninety-something percent of all government officials in the world, girls make up a larger proportion of the population, only boys are allowed to serve in all capacities in the armed forces, girls live longer than boys -- but things quickly got desperate, and, consequently, more interesting. I'll leave you with some of the highlights, including...
The bizarre:
-Only boys can be gay
The scatological:
-Boys can write their name when they go to the bathroom
The blatantly sexual:
-Girls can please men in saunas
-Boys never say they have a headache
-Girls don't involuntarily raise the blanket in the morning (this one took me a while to get)
The just plain shocking:
-Boys don't have slits below the waist
And, perhaps my favorite, the illogical, but somehow irrefutable:
-Boys are better than girls because they don't want to sleep with boys (though I argued that this was not always the case)
In the midst of such heated debate, we took a break for lunch, per usual, but this time, the girls were none too amused... although usually more than willing to get everyone's lunch and bring it to the table, they went on strike and got only their own lunches. Fair enough, but they somehow left out their impartial judge... "Oh, now they'll pay," I thought to myself, but, as I went up to get my own food, I heard girly giggling and turned back only to find that my portion had mysteriously materialized right in front of my seat. I guess girls are indeed as smart as they argued they were...
We went back to class and I realized that, having come to the end of the second lesson of debate, it was finally time to put an end to the madness. Fortunately, both sides were starting to grow weary and desperate at the same time, so I decided to settle the debate as fairly and amicably as possible... by an appeal to a higher power (a method I knew all too well from my AA 12-step program). So, we flipped a coin, with the boys calling the side (since the girls had called it at the beginning), and... who won, you ask? O dear reader, I am always most appreciative of your interest and inquisitiveness! Methinks it may not displease you to find out that the female sex is not only the fairest (...they never once cheated during the whole debate), but also, hands down, the best. There, I said it... the question has finally been resolved once and for all. And, strange though it may seem, I'm not the least bit upset about the outcome... You see, I've always got the option of defecting (those heels do fit me perfectly, after all).