Greg in the News

SO recently the local newspaper did a feature on none other than yours truly. The following is a translation of the article in its entirety (and no I didn't just make up the translation). The article is pretty positive I think, if not a bit random. But hey, I'm glad that they think I'm newsworthy haha...


Gregory Herb: Now Veliki Preslav is like my home

Greg Herb is the volunteer from the Peace Corps in Veliki Preslav since last October. Greg is from the State of Florida. He has been in Bulgaria since July of 2008 and now can speak Bulgarian very well.

In school he studied Psychology and Child Develoment at a university in the States. His mother is a teacher, and his grandfather is a college professor. Maybe from there he got his interest in education and working with children. He says that his interest is working with at-risk children - orphans, minorities, the Roma people ("gypsies"). In Bulgaria there is an opportunity to work with these children he says. Because of this, a part of his work in Preslav is at the local Home for Children. He helps with math, English, and reading. There is competition in sports, and participation in art. They learn life skills which are very important for them in his opinion. He works in small groups of about 5-10 children. He tries to get every child to participate in at least one group every week. In his opinion, the children are not very aware of of the dangers of the use of narcotics, of human trafficking, of prevention of HIV/AIDS, of alcohol and nicotine addictions.

"The orphanages in America are different from the local kinds," describes Greg. "The children are placed in smaller houses and more volunteers work with them. The children are placed with foster parents more, and they are more comparable to these SOS Villages in Bulgaria. In America, only children who do not have parents or who have parents but that absolutely cannot care for them can stay in orphanages. There are many organizations that work with these children and make many things possible for them, such as finding a new home, because this is very important for them" says Greg.

Other than the orphanage, he works also with the children at the preschool. He teaches them how to begin to speak words, to know the different colors, and different skills such as washing hands for example.

"Now Preslav is like my home. I have many friends here," says Gregory. He says that sometimes it is hard to be far from home but that his loved ones know that his work is here, and that they support him.

One of the many skills of Greg is cooking. He cooks alone in his apartment, and cooks soups, moussaka, and other Bulgarian cuisine. "Here there are great fresh vegetables. In America, there are more preservatives and less fresh food," says the volunteer. On the topic of Bulgarian television, Greg says he follows "Survivor" and "Dancing Stars" but does not like the soap operas.

For Christmas, the American plans to meet in the mountains with his other colleagues. He hopes there will be snow, so that there will be a good holiday feeling...

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I'm not sure why they put in the part about me cooking and watching Bulgarian TV. I think it's because Bulgarians are not accustomed to seeing people my age living by themselves, much less supporting themselves alone. Anyway, that's the impression people have of me here apparently...

In the same newspaper, a project that I am helping with is described, and I will get to that in the next blog post...

Practical...

It’s been a little while since my last post, which I feel kind of bad about since much has happened in between then and now, and especially since I left the last post with a kind of negative note. I figured I’d get back into the swing of things by showing a bit of what I’ve been doing in my work to provide a kind of contrast to the rote memorization/copy method that I think is doing damage here.

A girl doing chetichki (Note that the characters in the bottom right corner of the book are NOT actually letters)

As I’ve said before, I have a number of groups focused on developing basic skills for the children at the orphanage. I focus most on math and literacy (a fact recently covered in the local newspaper, but I will get to that another time). In these groups I have tried to provide a different method of learning from which the kids are normally exposed. In this way, my goal has been to get illiterate kids up to speed as quickly as possible so that they don’t fall further behind in their classes. In a couple of my groups, this has meant starting by teaching the alphabet to children who are as far as 5th grade. I have since moved on with these kids to associate sounds with letters, and to string these sounds into words. That most basic of reading groups is now able to understand somewhat complicated words, and we are currently working on constructing our own words.

The key here, rather than to have the kids write letters over and over again, to have the children make associations with the letters and how they fit into the grand scheme of things. Copying the alphabet may create amazing penmanship, but it does little to show the children how to use those letters practically. Likewise, memorizing the alphabet and being able to recite it upon command (while a vital skill) does little to show how those letters can be arranged in different ways to create words.


With my special needs kids, I have been emphasizing the sounds of the letters as well, and in some instances the kids can begin picking up on words that start with the same sounds. It’s not much right now but it’s a start, especially considering that their conversational skills are still not their strong point…


Recently I have noticed that a tutor has been reinforcing the sounds of the letters rather than having the kids copy the letters over and over, and is giving many of the kids one on one attention. While this may seem pretty basic to those of us who were lucky enough to have gone through a child-focused educational system, this has been a breath of fresh air for me here. It shows that there is at least a desire to have the kids learn how to practically apply the lessons they learn rather than just have it make it look like they can.



I have heard from some coworkers that there are now some after-school groups for reading and other basic topics that are open for the kids. This blew my mind when I first heard it. I was so excited to see that the kids are being given attention in smaller groups like they need and deserve. I was even more excited to see that the teachers are actually willing to spend the extra time with the kids (something that I have rarely seen in my year and a half here). Education is not simply a 9-5 profession but a desire and a need to ensure the success of the next generation. This isn't a scientific observation, but I'm willing to wager that the success of a class is directly proportional to the amount of support given by its teachers and care providers. I know that there is a huge potential here amongst the kids in Bulgaria that's just now starting to be tapped. It's exciting to me that the child care professionals in this country are realizing this. And I’m so glad I can be a part (however small) of that ever-important realization…

Until next time…