What I Saw When I Visited a Russian School

As I was heading off to visit Russia, a friend told me of a friend who knew a Russian school teacher. I asked if I could visit the school, and I brought along a couple of American friends. Here's a video of what we saw there.

We met first with high-school-level students who gave us a tour of the school and then asked us all kinds of smart questions, all in perfect English. These kids were clearly very well educated and very eager to learn anything they could. We asked them questions as well. While a leading Russian journalist has told me that young people all want to enter into the careers that make the most money, none of these students told us they did. They said things like history, biology, higher mathematics, economics, and languages when we asked them what they wanted to study in college.

Then we met with elementary-level students. They were even more eager to speak, and they asked us many more questions, ranging from "Do you have dogs?" to "Do you like Russian music?" The teachers told us that they have brought groups of students to the United States before and would love to again. If you know of a school, organization, or group of potential host families that would like to help them out, please let me know. If you know of anyone who pictures Russians on the basis of the information available in U.S. news reports, please send them this.