Experience Albania: Travel, Pictures, History, Culture

This was one of the first questions one of my students asked my father on the day I brought my family into school. A sincere question, as they couldn’t believe he was 60, still working and looking so young! He revealed his excercise and eating regemen and it was on to the next student who was curious to ask about everything and anything. They were inquired about their opinions about Albania, the number of girlfriends/boyfriends in the past, family life in America and much more. My family’s day at school also held a top ranking of their ‘experience Albania’ activities.

I separated my fourth year class (a class of 36 students) into four groups and then assigned my dad, mom, sister and brother-in-law to one of the groups. The students conducted an interview while also taking notes on a big piece of paper, which they hung up in the front of the classroom for everyone to see. Each group then presented the information they collected on their specific person.

Below: Lauren and her group. They were so excited to interview her because she was ’sooo beautiful!’ From my angle of roaming around the room while the entire class conducted their interviews, I could see all eyes were on Lauren whenever she spoke.


Below: My mom and her group. They loved asking her about her family in general and what it was specifically like to raise me. One student asked her if I was a ‘bad girl’ in high school! I apologized for not living a juicier life and my mom confirmed that I was in fact quite a good kid in high school.


Below: Mike and his group. They wanted details, details, details about his and Lauren’s marriage grilled him on his committment to Lauren … you answered well, Mike! My brother-in-law is more than in love and committed to his wife and it shows

Below: My dad and his group. They were interested in his job (architecture is a very good career in Albania), his Harley and how he would describe his son-in-law in five adjectives (No joke! Mike also had to describe his father-in-law in five adjectives. I was so proud of my students for asking such detailed questions).

The quesitons they asked were excellent across the board. Indepth, personal, and downright entertaining. They also did a great job reporting their finds to the rest of the class. The really good questions came during the last half an hour, when all four family members sat in the front of the room so students could ask any other questions still brewing in their brains. I can only hope they always remain as inquisitive and pointed while meeting and interactiving with other people for the rest of the lives.

Me as MC/coordinator - not too tough of a job as everything went smoothly!

Barb signing yearbooks and tshirts after class. This class will graduated in July.