Privet! Kak Dela? Don’t know what that means? At least 30 kids in the school do, and that number is still growing. As Russia becomes a more powerful player on the global stage, more students are taking part in Whitman’s strong Russian program.

The founder of the program, English teacher Michelle Quackenbush, explained that a student gave her the idea to teach Russian in 2001 when he approached her and asked for individual help in learning the language.

After starting a club and holding weekly after-school meetings for one year, Quackenbush requested that a formal class be offered in the fall. The administration fully supported her idea, and the school offered Russian classes for the first time that year.

Many students who initially enrolled had a background in Russian, or planned to visit the country in the future. But in recent years, the program has expanded to include students of different experience levels, who have taken the class for a variety of reasons.

Junior James Bell, who switched into Russian from Spanish, wanted to challenge himself by studying a less common language.

“Russian is a difficult language to understand since it isn’t Latin-based and also has 33 letters in its alphabet,” he said. “It takes a little while to finally get the hang of it.”

On the other hand, senior Michie Dressner chose the language for its practical application.

“Opportunities are widely available for those who know Russian,” she said. “It’s a critical language, since our relationship with Russia tends to be rocky. Since I want to go into a field of criminal investigation and FBI work, Russian would definitely make me an asset.”

But regardless of the students’ initial intentions, they all agreed that they enjoy the class and overall program.

“We all love Ms. Quackenbush, who we refer to formally in Russian as ‘Mila Petrovna,’” Dressner said. “She volunteers her time and energy in order to maintain the program and give us the extra support necessary to learn such a difficult language.”

Quackenbush attributes the program’s success to a flexible teaching style, focusing on individual progress rather than complete fluency to ensure that each student gets as much out of the class as possible. Consequently, she teaches the students about Russian culture and history in addition to the language to fully immerse them in that part of the world.

As part of a more unconventional method, Quackenbush allows her students to determine the content of their own final exams, writing up the tests after students identify the concepts that they have learned the most about during the semester.

For further reinforcement, she encourages her classes to use online resources such as RussNet and to find other creative ways of learning the information.

“Sometimes students will bring in songs from Russian bands. Others have Russian TV at home,” she said. “It’s the tiny things. While it may not be all academic, it’s language.”

But students receive more than their fair share of purely academic material. Quackenbush encourages all of her students to participate in the annual Russian Olympiada, a written and spoken Russian competition, which was held on March 5 this year.

Russian speakers from around the region converge in Baltimore once a year to compete against each other in skill categories ranging from Level 1 to AP. During the competition, participants demonstrate their knowledge of Russian language and culture in front of a native Russian speaker through various tasks such as memorizing a Russian poem or answering questions about the nation’s customs.

At this year’s competition, Whitman students had record-breaking results, winning seven medals across six categories. Highlights included Konrad Slepoy, who earned a silver medal in the level five competition, and Yarik Kuznets, who won a gold medal in the native speaker category.

Senior Vera Carothers, who received a gold medal at level one, said that, in addition to providing her with a challenge and a means of greatly improving her skills, the competition helped to connect the local Russian-speaking community.

“There aren’t many Russian classes and programs that are offered around the state, so it’s a great way of bringing everyone together,” Carothers said.

Because Russian is viewed as uncommon, classes are still rather small. Last year, about 30 students enrolled in the single period offered. This year, Quackenbush gave up one of her planning periods for a second period of Russian, hoping to provide an AP-style class for advanced students.

While classes are still composed of students with various levels of knowledge, sophomore Nathan Golightly explained that this has created a unique learning environment.

“Personally, I enjoy the mixed level class and the ability to talk to the higher level students,” he said. “In a typical foreign language class there’s only one real teacher, but in Russian there are many people you can turn to for help.”

Quackenbush said that this dynamic is the reason why she loves teaching the class so much and will continue to teach in the future.

“It’s very exciting to come into Russian class each day,” she said. “The kids are happy to be here. They help each other and support each other like a little family.”