This is the second part in a series of blogs which were written to give the reader an idea of what the Kevorkian Seminary is like… from my perspective at least.

The Academic life of the seminary, is very structured. Very very structured. Did I mention that its structured? This was surprisingly shocking to me at first, but in retrospect, its a seminary located on the grounds of an orthodox monastery, its not like it would take any cues from Montessori or anything.

Before going into the details, one of the best things about the academic experience of the Kevorkian Seminary, is that the people who are teaching you in any given subject (especially the high-level courses), are usually masters of the their subjects, in the truest sense of the word. If you are being instructed about the Church Doctrine, your professor is someone who has spent years and years delving into the details of that subject, and in their own ministry are engaged with its development. Likewise for topics like Liturgics, or Homiletics. Its one of the schools most wonderful qualities.

The aforementioned quality is something that most universities can boast of their professors, but in the context of the Armenian Church, the mastery of some of the Church’s admittedly arcane areas of study is a rare thing.

Classes

Every day, Monday through Saturday, there are three classes from 9am-3pm. Each class is approximately two hours long, with a 5-ish minute break in the middle. In the middle of the second class there is an extended break where they serve tea and some sort of baked snack, like a choreg. With very few exceptions, none of the classes are repeated throughout the week. Which means that the students are taking somewhere between 15 and 18 different courses at the same time.

I remember in college that there was a rule of thumb that for every hour of instruction there was supposedly X number of corresponding hours of homework required. I couldn’t say exactly what that X was, because I rarely ever did it, but lets say that it was 2 hours of homework for every hour in class. That means that these kids have 36 hours of instruction a week, and 72 hours of homework. That’s a lot! That homework rule might not stand up 100% here, but they are given pretty substantial homework in some of their classes. How do they do it? I’ll discuss that in the Student Life section, to come.

The classes are taught in a myriad of styles depending on the instructor. The old school soviet era teachers (mostly the lay people) teach in a soviet style. It doesn’t work for me, but most of the students are used to it already, so its not a big deal for them.

The “Soviet Style”, and I don’t know if that’s the right way to refer to it, involves a great deal of memorization. I was never much of a memorizer of things, as we really don’t emphasize that in the American educational system, but its a respectable skill none the less. I’m doing my best to try and pick it up.

The courses taught by the clergy, especially those clergy which have received higher education in Europe, Russia, or the United States, are much more open. They are usually taught in more of a conversational way, which almost all the students engage in readily.

The only class which is taken every year is Church Music. Music is huge part of what goes on in the Church, and it seems as though every student, by the time they’ve gotten through a year or two of training, sings with a powerful and confident voice. The students learn at least one church hymn a week, and are expected to be able to sing it solo, sometimes without being able to see the notes. You can imagine how many hymns they’ve learned after six years of music classes.

They are also expected take four different language classes during the course of their education. They study English and Russian in their first years, then they study Greek and Hebrew.

Etchmiadzin High

One of the things that surprised me the most about the school day here is the bell. At the beginning, the end, and the break of every class, the school bell rings. When I told this to my cousin David, he coined the term Etchmiadzin High, and it stuck with me. Much of the way the school is configured makes it very similar to an American High School, perhaps even an American Elementary School.

I say elementary school because of the way the classes are set up, not in a academic sense but logistically. The seminarians here are organized in classes. Such as the 1st year class, the 2nd year class, and so on (its more like Ա լսարան, Բ լսարան…). Each class has its own classroom, and each student has his own desk. He can keep things like notebooks in it, and pens. Students don’t choose there classes, or receive course schedules, because they simply stay in their classroom and the right teacher shows up at the right time. If a class is canceled because a teacher didn’t show up, or because that hour is free, they have to stay inside of the classroom unless permitted to do otherwise. Its also like elementary school in the sense that when they leave the seminary, either to go for the cafeteria for a meal, or to go to church, they do so in a line from youngest class to oldest.

I don’t mean for the analogy to be demeaning or anything, its just an observation. The truth is that, for reasons I’ll discuss more in later installments, this structure is crucial to the development and maturation of the students.

In the next installment: The Student Life