Kylie Webb, a 2018 Boyertown High School graduate, didn’t know anything about the fire service when she received her assignment under the Fulbright scholarship to teach English abroad at an academy for young men pursuing a firefighting career.
If that wasn’t enough of a culture shock, her placement in a relatively small Czech Republic city — where few people speak her language and there’s a six-hour time zone difference from her loved ones in Pennsylvania — contributed to her initial feeling of isolation.
But the loneliness eventually subsided, the 23-year-old Gilbertsville native said in a recent phone interview from her home away from home in Chomutov, a city of about 46,000 along the border with Germany.
She credits her neighbors and the teachers she works with as a teaching assistant.
“Obviously there’s people around you,” Webb said of her adjustment process. “My neighbors are really great. We’re placed in small towns for a reason. The whole purpose is to place you where there’s a need. Not as many people speak English because there’s less accessibility.
“That’s why it feels more isolating, especially in the beginning.”
The program
Webb was accepted for a Fulbright foreign scholarship after graduating from Salisbury University in Maryland last May with a degree in exercise science.
Administered by the State Department’s Bureau of Educational & Cultural Affairs, the Fulbright U.S. Student Program expands perspectives through academic and professional advancement and cross-cultural dialogue, according to the program website.
In partnership with 140 countries worldwide, the program offers opportunities in all academic disciplines to passionate and accomplished graduating college seniors, graduate students and young professionals from all backgrounds. Program participants pursue graduate study, conduct research or teach English abroad.
Webb was placed at two secondary technical schools (roughly ages 15-20) in Chomutov. One school specializes in nursing and social work, the other in firefighting, electromechanical engineering and police work.
One of 31 Fulbright scholars assigned to the Czech Republic, Webb said she has the distinction of being assigned to teach at two different schools. It’s quite a contrast from one school to the other, she said.
“One is predominantly females, and the other is almost exclusively males,” she said.
In firefighting, students are all male because women are not allowed to serve as firefighters in the Czech Republic, she said.
The police officer classes are more evenly represented by both genders, but there’s only one female in her mechanical classes.
Webb said she has made adjustments on the fly, creating games to teach English rather than giving straight grammar lessons.
“My teachers are amazing, phenomenal,” she said. “They help me with everything. They’ve helped me adjust to the students and have them adjust to me as well. I think the big thing was having them feel comfortable with me being there in the beginning, so I’ve been given creative leeway.”
Overseas chat
Last month, Webb arranged a cross-Atlantic interchange between her firefighter students and members of a fire company not far from her home in the Boyertown area.
She started emailing fire companies. Bally-based Eastern Berks Fire Department, replied. She was referred to Chief Michael Mutter.
As luck would have it, Mutter knew her family because his daughter and Kylie played soccer together in high school
She exchanged emails with Mutter for a few weeks and eventually they were able to arrange a video chat. The six-hour time zone difference complicated matters.
“It was a little difficult trying to find a time when they were awake and my guys were in school,” she said.
Mutter suggested they forward a list of questions ahead of the conference.
For about an hour, the young men peppered the Americans.
“My firefighter guys I have in school are pretty passionate about it,” Webb said, “because they’re ready to go into it (the fire service) after graduating.”
Some of her students already volunteered at the local fire station and had recently assisted in fighting a huge wildfire in the region.
Joining Mutter in the chat were Jeremy Wozniak, the department’s information technology specialist; Paul Bartlett, public information officer; Scott Reitnauer, president and assistant chief; and Matt Bakes, a former assistant chief. Among them they have more than 175 total years of experience in emergency services.
Besides answering questions from their overseas counterparts, Mutter said they got to ask a few questions of their own.
The Czech students and Eastern Berks firefighters asked questions and exchanged information about training, equipment, protective clothing, and apparatus in each country.
The Czech students were also given a virtual tour of the Bally station and the department’s rescue engine, tanker, brush truck and utility vehicle.
Mutter said the basics of firefighting are fundamentally the same in both countries, but there are differences.
He said it was difficult for the Czech counterparts to grasp that his department, like many others in rural America, is composed of volunteer firefighters. Eastern Berks Fire Department does not have a single paid firefighter, with many of them, like Mutter, responding to calls from their homes and workplaces.
The Czech system appears to prepare future firefighters through a system akin to an American vocational-technical school. Mutter said he was surprised to learn, however, that the starting pay was about $20,000 a year — well below half of the typical starting salary of a career firefighter in America.
Webb admits she had little understanding of the volunteer aspect of firefighting in her hometown before that call.
“I think I learned as much as anyone,” she said.
Webb said several of her friends have traveled to the Czech Republic to visit her. She also enjoys the support and camaraderie of her fellow Fulbrighters there.
She flew home for a quick visit around Christmas and is hoping her parents, Donald and Karen, will be able to make a visit before her program ends in June.
After her return she’ll be attending a two-year graduate program in prosthetics and orthotics at the University of Pittsburgh.
Source: Berkshire mont
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