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During a tour of one of the city's high schools, we met Amalia Pavalescu.
Amalia teaches English at the Energetic High School. She gave us their first
school newspaper, which was produced in their computer lab with a word processing
program, with photographs and clip-art pasted to the appropriate empty spaces
on the pages prior to photocopying. Adobe PageMaker seemed to be a logical
resolution to this problem, and Jean offered to try to obtain a copy of
PageMaker for the school computer lab.A year later, Jean presented a gift
copy of PageMaker from Adobe Software, and began teaching a 2-week PageMaker
course to students who had been pre-selected by Miss Pavalescu.
Below, students from the 2000 course work eagerly in the computer lab.
Organizer Amalia looks on.
The school has 2 small computer labs, complements of a Soros Foundation
grant. Students earn special merit to participate in this summer course.
Students are well behaved, polite, and eager to learn; the instructor's
greatest challenge is keeping them off the 'net during class.
The only female students in year 2000 were adults; there was one girl
in the 2001 course. Students help each other with patience, and generally
have very advanced computer skills.
Typing is not taught in public schools here, so students all hunt-and-peck;
touch typing proficiency and 10-key experience is virtually non-existant.
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The Romanian flag graces the old school building. The Energetic
School is similar to an American "tech school," and boys greatly
outnumber girls. It is also a boarding school, housing students who live
in more remote regions of Sibiu county.
The school gets its name from the large transformer lines
that rest in the middle of the schoolyard. Below, students are completing
a "time test", which is one element of successful completion of
general studies for advancement to the next level.
Students watch a video with interest: a private British
college sent their advertising video to lure foreign students.
"Professors of sport" (Dave and Mr. Agarbiccanu
- PE teachers in Romania and America, respectively) visit with Miss Pavalescu
in the hallway after class.
The 2001 Summer PageMaker course had two new volunteer instructors
from Oregon and an entirely new class of students.
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