Tbilisi's Own Tragedy of the Commons

That’s a dramatic name for what has the potential to be a boring essay.   I’ll try to live up to it.

Long story short, in Pennsylvania people shovel their sidewalks when it snows and in Tbilisi they don’t.  Where I’m from in the US, those that own property in widely travelled areas such as city sidewalks are morally if not legally obliged to provide a path for the general public across that bit of sidewalk that stretches across the front of his/her property. Generally speaking, this is accomplished by some combination of the 4 “S’s” of snow management:  shoveling, snowblowing, salting, and sanding.

Whenever it snows more than an inch or two, I go out to shovel the driveway, and then we’d make the trek to my mother-in-law’s house to help out over there.   And if memory serves the snow at her place was always at least waist-deep (or so it seems, anyway).  Our tools were simple:  a flat, metal shovel that was heavy and small, and a wide plastic shovel that was cheap and that held so much snow that it was unmanageable when fully loaded. We shoveled for hours before going inside to warm up and dry off before wandering back home before dark (OK, maybe not for HOURS, but my back always thought so).

So the question you might ask is, why do people do this?  Why do they drag out their snow removal equipment (if it’s not shovels, it’s a cranky snow blower that has spent the last six months acting as a portable shelf in the garage and has to be itself unburied before it can be used.  And that’s assuming the damn thing will start which is, at best a 50-50 proposition.) and take to the streets to remove every last snow flake from every concrete surface?  It’s not out of philanthropy.  No – in lots of places, if you don’t shovel your property, the law will come for you. My father always said you’d get a ticket if you didn’t shovel out in front of your house. I don’t know how true that is, but everyone seemed to be out shoveling, right after a snowstorm, so they must have believed it, too.

I do know that if you have a business, you are responsible for keeping the sidewalks in front of your property clean and litter free throughout the year, and maintaining a snow-free safe path in winter, and the Department of Sanitation issues heavy fines if you fail in these duties.

It’s actually one of the few community things that people still do in America – at least, in the heavily residential areas. Shoveling snow is one of the few times I’d see my neighbors. It was always kind of nice to see people out shoveling, everyone in the community pitching in.

And sure, we could have just paid a tax and let the government hire snowshovellers, but in a rare display of good sense our public officials apparently decided that that would be a horrifically inefficient way of coping with snowstorms, which are sporadic and hard to predict, and it would be much better to just let residents do it themselves.

As for people who can’t shovel for themselves? Well, some have kind-hearted son-in-laws and grandsons (ahem) who will do it for them. For others, local kids go around with shovels, offering to shovel driveways and sidewalks for a nominal fee. It’s good for kids to develop a work ethic, as Newt Gingrich might argue. The system just sort of works.

And yeah, there are always a few people who don’t take care of their property. You can tell because pedestrians beat down a path, so these are the people with packed ice and sludge in front of their property instead of a proper walkway. Maybe you’ll find one of these every few blocks, and it’s annoying, but it’s a minor annoyance.

In Tbilisi, every sidewalk is like that.

Every sidewalk is covered in slush from curb to building – that is to say, when there is a sidewalk at all. In most places the snow is packed down into ice, which is slippery and makes walking difficult. Georgians seem to be used to it, but it takes me at least twice as long to cover the same ground as it normally does. Little old bebias (grandmothers), and women in four-inch-heels, are leaving me in the dust.

No one shovels any paths. As a result, you have hazardous and difficult terrain throughout the city.  Now I don’t know if Tbilisi has any municipal rules dealing with snow. If I were to guess, I’d say that Tbilisi deals with snow the same way Tbilisi deals with stray dogs, burning plastic, cars parked on sidewalks, litter, and all of the other stuff that happens in cities when they become a lawless free-for-all: by ignoring the problem.

I mean, Georgians have other stuff to worry about, right?  Our neighborhood, Nutsubidze Plateau II, lost water for a couple of days this week because of frozen pipes. Surely that ought to take preference over making walking easier for pedestrians in Tbilisi.

On the other hand, given the high levels of unemployment in Georgia, there can be no shortage of able-bodied individuals who would love to shovel snow to make a few laris or to help out their aunts-uncles-cousins. So why not just make a rule saying that property owners have to make sure their property has a path through the snow?

Well, this gets into a much deeper difference between America and Georgia. Georgia just has fewer laws and fewer lawsuits. If you slip and fall on the sidewalk and break a bone or something, you can’t sue the city for allowing ice to remain on the road – in America, you’d be surrounded by lawyers before your second bounce. Georgians are less litigious, and there are also fewer rules governing behavior.

Walking around Tbilisi, even when it hasn’t been snowing, demonstrates this. There are holes everywhere. There are ledges without guard rails. There are open stairs that someone could easily fall into. The kind of stuff that you would just never see in the US.  OSHA here is a dog’s name, I think.  It’s essentially a much more Libertarian society here than in America.  

This leads to the title of this piece:  Tragedy of the Commons.  One of the issues that is often discussed in areas like the theory of government is a problem called the “Tragedy of the Commons.” This “tragedy” arises when a group of people share a common property, and they let it fall apart because no one takes responsibility for taking care of it. In theory, one of the reasons why government arises is that people need to delegate responsibility for taking care of common properties. (Originally this term was used to explain overfeeding on shared grasslands, but it can be expanded to cover all sorts of interesting phenomena).

So one of the downsides of having more freedom is that overall, if people are free to disrespect a common area, they will. If there is no rule saying that people must shovel their sidewalks, then generally they won’t shovel their sidewalks. If there is no rule saying that you can’t park on a sidewalk, then generally people will park on the sidewalks and make it so that pedestrians have to walk in the streets.

And so it happens in Georgia – Georgia, whose beautiful landscape is all too often marred by the ubiquitous plastic shopping bags that dot the hillsides like a fungal infection, whose streets and sidewalks are a constant nightmare for pedestrians, whose air and waters are polluted, whose dogs roam free and attack at random, whose restaurants leave all their patrons smelling like an ash tray for days…

(Which is not to say that Georgians have no rules at all. There are no seats reserved for the elderly or disabled in Georgian buses, and yet on every Georgian bus, unwritten social rules guarantee that the all of the elderly, disabled, and pregnant (and even in some cases mothers with children) passengers on the bus get seats while the young and healthy stand. Georgians are very personally respectful in a number of different sorts of social contexts.)

Ideologically, there are two ways to deal with the Tragedy of the Commons – either abolish common property altogether (i.e. privatize all land, streets, etc. – a radical and untried solution that seems to have some obvious flaws that would need to be worked out) or establish a government to govern the common property. The government makes rules, the rules are backed by fines and enforced by law enforcement officials who ultimately have the authority to take away peoples’ freedom entirely – for instance, by jailing them – if they do not comply with the rules.

Or, if neither of those seem palatable to you, you could just not deal with the Tragedy of the Commons. You could just get used to living with the smells of burning plastic and dog poop and buy yourself a nice pair of cleats to navigate the city streets throughout February. You could buy yourself a car – the upside is that you’d never have to worry about parking, as long as there are sidewalks where you’re going!

One final side-note. I noticed that all of Tbilisi’s… well, I call them “flagship streets,” while others call them “Western streets” – places where extensive renovation and modernization and Europization have gone on – have physical barriers placed strategically along the edge of the sidewalks to physically prevent cars from parking on them.  I bet it never even occurred to the people at City Hall that they could just outlaw cars on sidewalks and that fines would not only provide a little more income for the city but just might help to keep cars on the road instead of the sidewalks.

But it is interesting how Georgia is moving, in its own (very unique) way, towards a more Western way of doing things.

Thanks for reading.

Education in the Republic of Georgia

I self-identify as an educator.  (I’ve also been known to self-identify as a generous and thorough lover, but that’s for another blog.)  So, whenever I deploy outside the US, I spend some time trying to learn about the local education system.  In Iraq it was difficult to learn about the education system because it ceased to exist after the US invasion.  There were also cultural aspects there such as treating women as second-class citizens.  So I was eager to examine the way Georgian children are educated.  For my sources, I talked to our translators, two 24-year olds with Master’s degrees in Foreign Languages and a 27-year old with a BA in Linguistics – all women.  They were born and raised in Gori, a fairly large city about 70 kilometers (42 miles) from Tbilisi, where they attended primary and gymnasium (high school).  Two of the three graduated from the State University in Gori and the third from the Technical University in Tbilisi.

The school system here closely follows the US and European models.  First off, the schools are coeducational.  Boys and girls learn and study together from the first day of kindergarten all the way through college.  Most schools make the children wear a specific “uniform” -- normally a white blouse with a dark skirt for girls and a white shirt with long, black pants for the boys.  Each village has its own school and in the cities there are schools in every neighborhood, it seems, so most of the students walk or ride a bike to school.  Those kids that do require rides take public transportation, at their own expense.  There are no school buses and no school district provides its students with free transportation.  Children do, however, qualify for a discount on monthly bus passes.

All schools are public schools; there are very few private or parochial schools in Georgia, and those that do exist are specialized schools, mostly art academies.  The academic year begins in early September and continues until the end of May.  There is no summer school for remediation or credit recovery.  The school day starts at 9am and goes until 2:30.  There is a lunch break, but lunches aren’t provided by the school.  Instead, students either bring their lunch or there may be local vendors who run a small “café” in the building that sells kachipuri (bread w/ cheese filling) or other fast foods.  No one seems to be worried about the caloric intake or food pyramid or healthy alternatives in the school.  There are also no free or subsidized breakfast or lunch meals – all students pay their own way.   In fact, schools don’t offer breakfast or after-school snacks. 

During the school day the average student has six periods (talking about middle school and high school here).  Standard courses include geography, math, science, Georgian language and history, world history, music, art, and PE.  (Yes, I know that’s more than six classes.  They don’t take all of them at the same time.  Each semester they switch classes.  So sometime during each academic year students are going to take these standard courses.)  English is mandatory starting in first grade and Russian from fifth grade.  There are very few electives, if any, and generally mean doubling up on any one subject area (for example, Keti has English as her required course and American Literature as her elective while Iza has biology as her required science and meteorology as her elective).  It’s noteworthy that PE, art, and music are required classes all the way through school.  In the US, as you know, these areas are the first to be cut when money gets tight.

Let’s talk about money for a minute.  Schools are funded by federal funds here.  (In the US the vast majority of school funding – often close to 90% -- comes from state funds with very limited federal money.  What federal funds a school district does receive is usually earmarked for specific uses – special education or school lunches, for example.)  Parents don’t pay for school expenses except for the obvious stuff like school supplies and clothes.  There are also no special fees for students wanting to participate in extracurricular activities.  All of that comes from the federal government. 

There is no tracking or specialization in Georgian schools.  All students take the same curriculum and are assigned to class by chance.  In the US and Europe, schools tend to have one math class for the very best math students, one class for the average student, and a remedial class for those who struggle in math.  You don’t find that here; everyone is expected to meet the same standard.  There are special education students here, but there are no classes dedicated only to special education students.  All students are mainstreamed and those requiring extra help either get it from the teacher or pay for extra tutoring outside of school.

Students here are graded just like students anywhere else – tests, projects, and homework.  Georgian schools don’t give extra credit or even grades for effort, participation, behavior, citizenship, or anything like that.  Everything here is objective and grades are norm-based – no grading on the curve or trying to spare the child’s feelings.  You won’t find students here getting ribbons for attendance or rewarded for participating or being recognized for their outstanding attitude or cooperation.  Because of that, there is what in the US would be an unacceptable failure rate.  If a student is recognized for academic excellence here, s/he has earned it.  In many schools in the US, you’ll find as many as 40% of the student body on the Honor Roll.  You’ll also find in those schools a great discrepancy between the number of students on the Honor Roll and the number who do well on the end of year standardized tests. 

You also find a lot more “tough love” here.  Students are held accountable for their academic performance and their behavior – even if they can’t really control it.  Diagnoses of ADHD, ODD, etc. are rare here.  That’s both good and bad.  On one hand, a student’s performance is assumed to be more a matter of choice than by a neuroscientific lottery beyond his/her control.  On the other hand, students with actual, real needs are not served in Georgia as they should be.  I think it’s fair to say that only the Church of Scientology seems psychiatry – indeed, all of psychology – with more suspicion than the Georgian education system.  This obviously contrasts with an American system that seems to provide every day a new escape hatch from the psychiatric and educational communities:  Co-dependency, addictive personalities, inherited personality disorder, multiple personality learning disorder, no personality whatsoever disorder, fetal membrane subcutaneous infectious submissive sexuality disorder – it seems that we’re going over a Niagara Falls of educationese in a barrel full of holes.  OK, off my soapbox.

Schools offer extracurricular activities here, just like in the US.  While there aren’t any interscholastic sports teams, there are clubs in each school that challenge other nearby schools.  Most schools offer football (soccer), wrestling, tennis, boxing, dancing, and track & field.  You don’t find a lot of what we’d call clubs here.  No drama club or French club or yearbook club or anything like that.  Like European kids, Georgian students looking for those outlets find them in private clubs outside of school.

At the end of a student’s high school career, s/he takes the national exam.  All curricula and class time is focused on passing this exam.  While educational methodology in Georgia is not exclusively lecture, there is a heavy practice of “teaching the test,” that test being the national exam.  Students take examinations in English, Georgian, math, science, and one area of the student’s choice.  This exam has tremendous weight.  Admission and placement in university depends on this test.  Do well and the world is your oyster – you’ll get to go to the best universities and choose your professional future.  Bomb it and you might not even get into college.  Plus, if you do poorly enough you’ll be denied a high school diploma.  So everything is focused on passing this exam.  There are private tutoring services that focus only on passing this exam and many families pay top dollar to ensure their kids do well on the national exam.  A student’s success on this exam also affects his/her eligibility for financial aid.  Unlike the US, where financial aid is needs based, money here is given to those students who do best on the national exam.  Need is not a consideration. 

University is not free here.  Most state universities (and practically 80% of all college students here are enrolled in public schools) charge roughly GEL 2500 for each academic year, approximately $1500 US.  Private universities, again mostly specialized schools – music, science, or technology – can charge as much as GEL 13,000 (about $7800 US) a year.  Very few schools are “resident” schools; most students live at home or find some place on the economy for rooming while attending college.  The college curriculum looks a lot like what you’d find in any US college or university.  Getting out, however, is a bit more difficult in Georgia.  Yup, you guessed it – you get your diploma only when you pass the final, comprehensive exam.  This exam looks at your academic record over your four years in college and tests you in those courses you took.  Remember what you were like your final semester in college.  Would you like to be tested on a course you took your fall semester of your freshman year?  That’s what happens here.  You also have to complete a research project – a thesis, if you will – in your major, whatever that might be.  If you fail either of these – the comprehensive exam or the research project – you might not graduate.  Not surprisingly, you find a lot of Georgians here with three years of college.

The educational system here – based on equal parts of US, European, and Soviet education systems – works for them.  Students tend to come out of school with more in-depth knowledge than their US counterparts, but nowhere near as broad an education.  Sort of a choice between being a mile wide and an inch deep or an inch wide and a mile deep.  Georgia has opted for more depth in a smaller range of areas.  This is evidenced by the lack of electives in school along with the dearth of “magnet” or specialty schools here.  But, as I said, it works for the Georgians.  Students who leave Georgia for undergraduate or graduate training in the US or Europe seem to do as well as their US or European classmates, and the teaching profession in Georgia is seen as a higher status profession than in the US (although not incredibly higher; education majors here are still almost exclusively female and the average starting salary for a teacher is only slightly higher than for those who graduated with any other major).

So what we have, in the final summary, is a system that is different.  Not better, not worse, just different.  Georgians look to the West, however, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see modifications made that reflect US or European practices.  Pity that in some ways.  Georgians are, by almost any standard, well-educated and value education.  Still, they are willing to look at their system and do what is best for their kids.  And isn’t that the only true measuring stick for an effective and caring system?

Thanks for reading.