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Friday September 5, 2008

Math teacher helps émigrés one integer at a time

by angela privin
correspondent

Ask Russian Jewish émigrés why they left the Soviet Union, and a majority will say it was for their children. In the Soviet Union, where the dreams and aspirations of Jews were often crushed by communist anti-Semitism, the youngest generation offered hope and optimism for the future.

Sixty-year-old Leonid Grzhonko is no different. He immigrated to San Francisco from Moscow 18 years ago with his wife, Tatiyana, so his then-14-year-old son could have a brighter future.

Unlike most émigrés, though, Grzhonko didn’t just focus his concern on the success of his own son, but on a whole generation of Russian Jewish children.

Months after arriving in San Francisco with only $400 in his pocket, Grzhonko rented a one-bedroom apartment for his family with the help of Jewish Family and Children’s Services. It was in that apartment that he hung a donated blackboard and taught his first free math class to a handful of émigré children.

In Russia, Grzhonko had taught math and physics to college students majoring in medicine and other technical disciplines. In the United States, he immediately put his skills to use — but this time it was purely as a labor of love.

“I just thought that I am supposed to help these children succeed and get into a good university,” Grzhonko explained. The classes were free, he added, because he felt he couldn’t charge fellow immigrants who didn’t have any money.

Though Grzhonko has a natural inclination toward volunteering and community building, he didn’t learn it in Russia.

“In Russia we don’t even know the word ‘volunteer.’ And you could land in jail for organizing private study groups,” he said.

When JFCS heard about Grzhonko’s work, they gave him a stipend to fund the class. Grzhonko expanded his class size when San Francisco’s Congregation Emanu-El donated a classroom. Though the classes were open to anyone, they were geared toward Soviet émigrés and taught in Russian.

Though Grzhonko admits he’s not good with languages, he credits his students for improving his English. “I taught them and they taught me,” he said.

Grzhonko eventually approached San Francisco State to create a Step to College class, which prepares high schoolers for the math portion of the SAT. During that class he began to teach in English.

After almost two decades of teaching children of all ages, Grzhonko estimates that he has helped 1,200 students.

Yelena Tsurkan took Grzhonko’s classes from fourth to eighth grade. In 11th grade she enrolled in the Step to College class, and this fall she’ll be a first-year student at U.C. Berkeley.

Though Tsurkan says she’s “not a math person,” she thinks her math SAT score was bumped up by her studies with Grzhonko.

“I really think Grzhonko’s classes made a big difference,” said Raisa Chudnovskaya, whose son, a graduate of the Step to College program, just finished his first year at U.C. San Diego. “He’s very good with the kids. The Russian community is small and we talk, and a lot of parents think he’s a very good teacher.”

Chudnovskaya added that her son completed his math requirements in one year, thanks to the preparation and credits he received from the Step to College program.

Currently, Grzhonko works as a math professor at Western Career College in Emeryville and has started the Knowledge Afterschool Program, a free program funded by donors from the Russian community, which, he said, is the only Russian educational nonprofit in the Bay Area.

He still teaches the Step to College class and two classes at Congregation Emanu-El — a total of 55 students, all of whom attend the classes for free. Grzhonko is also deeply involved in the Russian Jewish community, organizing social and community-building events for émigrés of all ages.

As for Grzhonko’s son, after graduating from U.C. Berkeley he moved to New York, where he is currently a successful businessman. Grzhonko’s wife died in 1996, and he has since remarried and is now the father of a 5-month-old daughter.

While his son’s childhood was fraught with fear for the future, this time around Grzhonko’s concerns are different.

“We want to make sure that she grows up speaking Russian,” he said.

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