Source: Peter Arnds, 785-532-6933, parnds@k-state.edu
News release prepared by: Megan Wilson, 785-532-6415, media@k-state.edu
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
K-STATE PROFESSOR OF MODERN LANGUAGES BUILDS CULTURAL BRIDGES WITH WORK IN AFGHANISTAN
MANHATTAN -- As part of an exchange program between Kansas State University and Kabul University in Afghanistan, K-State's Peter Arnds, professor of modern languages, spent the month of November in Afghanistan teaching a pedagogy course to faculty and students at Kabul University.
The class is a part of K-State's World Bank-financed project to improve the English and engineering departments at Kabul University.
Arnds, who is a professor of German and director of the Italian language program at K-State, said that while teaching the content was important, his main goal was to help build cultural bridges. He said that the cultural exchange benefited him as much as it did those he was teaching.
"Building a cultural bridge works as much for the Afghans as it does for us," Arnds said. "As a teacher, it allows me to bring back what I have learned about their culture and incorporate that into my classes here at K-State. In that way, we are helping both campuses."
The job was a challenge, Arnds said, because the way the Afghan professors teach is different than the way professors teach in the United States.
"I usually teach in a very conversational setting, where I have a lot of exchanges with my students," he said. "I tried to do that in Afghanistan and it didn't work as well. They expected the professor to lecture more and be more of an authoritative figure, so I had to adjust my teaching style a little."
Arnds went to Afghanistan only a month after attending the 80th birthday celebration for Gunter Grass, a controversial German Nobel laureate.
"It was a bizarre contrast," he said, "coming from the celebration in Gdansk, Poland, where they spent almost 150,000 Euros on one person, to a setting where most people have to live off very little."
After returning from Afghanistan, Arnds had the opportunity to further reflect on his journey in an article published in the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In the article, Arnds stressed the importance of building cultural bridges and discussed the progress made and yet to be made in Afghanistan.
"One thing is clear to me already: it will be much easier for the engineers in our partnership with Kabul University to build their bridges. Bridges made of concrete are built the same way all over the world," Arnds said.
"Cultural bridges, on the other hand, are much harder to erect," he said. "Does not the recent movie ban in Kabul for 'The Kite Runner' reflect this, too? Even if the children can fly their kites again these days, something that was strictly forbidden under the Taliban, they still get trapped in barren treetops here and there. No doubt a symbol for how uncertain the flight of freedom still is in Afghanistan today."
Although he was often asked about the dangers of traveling to Afghanistan, Arnds said that he only encountered very friendly people on his trip and that he enjoyed the culture and the scenery.
"One of my favorite memories was going up to a lake in the mountains above Kabul and just being in that place with its beautiful landscape," he said. "It was a very liberating feeling."
Despite the dangers, Arnds said that he would be willing to go back to Afghanistan.
"I would go back instantly. A cultural exchange is a mutually enriching process and I would be happy to take part in it again."