Link 1995 10 (Vol. 45, No. 3).pdf - DRC Home - Wilmington College

Peace Corps: From Boots to Suits
by
Randy Sarvis
T, he mention of the Peace Corps
conjures up images of young Americans
wearing work boots and khaki shorts building
concrete block houses or installing drainage
ditches in an impoverished Third World
country.
Witness the Peace Corps of the 21st
century in which members don business
suits and teach English, ecology and the
finer points of small business and economics
to former communist government officials.
Wilmington College's James F. Cool,
professor of modern languages and English
since 1973 and chair of the Department of
Foreign Language, is in the midst of a threeyear
stint as an English teacher in the Czech
Republic, where his students are primarily
government finance and treasury workers.
"This is a big departure for the Peace
Corps," he said, noting the United States is
determined to assist countries that were in
the former Soviet Union's sphere of
influence as they work toward establishing
democracies and free market economies.
"These are not the problems of the
Third World," he said "The Czechs have a
strong tradition of good education and
development of culture."
After the Czechoslovakian Revolution
in 1989 and the Czech Republic's 1993 split
with Slovakia, it was determined the teaching
of English was something the country
desperately needed—"and needed quickly,"
Cool said, noting that English is the primary
language in the world of finance.
"The Soviet Union had told its satellite
countries in Eastern Europe to stress Russian
as the world language," he added. "Then,
overnight, the people went from having to
learn Russian to no one wanting to learn the
language."
Cool, who now includes Czech among
the seven languages in which he is fluent,
was interested in having an international
experience that utilized his language and
teaching expertise while he had the
16 Fall 1995
opportunity of exploring another culture.
"I like learning new things and I always
wanted to be in the Peace Corps," he said,
admitting it might have been "more logical"
to have joined when he finished college in
1965. "Also, I've always felt very much
drawn to Europe."
He lived in France before attending
graduate school and in Holland while
conducting research for his Ph.D.
dissertation, so spendin g an extended period
of time outside the
United States is not
an unprecedented
experience for him.
Cool and 28
other Peace Corps
members arrived in
the Czech Republic
in July 1993 and
spent the next 10
weeks in training
that was divided
between studying
the Czech language
and culture,
learning technical
methods for
teaching English as
a second language
and finding out how
the Peace Corps
works. While others
were assigned to
teach at universities
and schools, Cool's
charge was to work in Prague, the nation's
center for government and culture.
"Learning the Cze :h language has been
a struggle, as well as a pleasure and a
challenge," he said. "I'd like to speak it so
fluently that I could speak with anyone and
understand 100 percent — I'm making
progress but I'm not quite there yet."
Cool will have another year in which to
perfect the language, as he has returned to
the Czech Republic after coming home to
Ohio for several weeks this summer.
While he started this venture two years
ago with great expectations of teaching
English to "really advanced and motivated"
Hm Cool during a summer visit to campus
students, he quickly realized that learning
English was not of paramount importance
on his students' agenda. Rather, they were
involved in the Czech government's
transition from communism and were
playing key roles in bringing about
privatization and other reforms geared
toward a free market-driven economy.
"The job was not what I originally
imagined it to be," he said. "The first three
weeks were a crisis for me because I realized
how hard it would be
to make progress; then
I realized you need
something outside of
your job for
satisfaction.
Cool found that
satisfaction in gaining
first-hand knowledge
of the Czech culture
in Prague—"a wealth
of stuff," including
opera and classical
music, history, art,
getting to know the
people and learning
the language, he said.
"You must be
willing to be open to
theirculture,"he said.
"You're in trouble if
you come to preach,
reform or bring the
gospel — it's
dangerous going there
feeling like the white knight or that we're
very superior, because the Czech people are
sophisticated in a lot of ways."
Cool said the goal of the Peace Corps is
to offer the host country knowledge about
American civilization, as well as for
Americans to learn about foreign countries
as they supply expertise designed to make
the country more self-sufficient and
successful.
"We're all little ambassadors," he said,
noting the Peace Corps serves as a model for
asking foreign countries to consider another
way — a more American way — of doing
things.