The “Challenges for Schools” project of the British Council has been completed in Ukraine. Thirteen countries, including ours, participated. For a year the adolescents contemplated on what the school of the future should be and what excited them the most during their studies.
The total of 70 school students participated in the final part of this project, which took place in Pushcha-Vodytsia near Kyiv and was open to all who wanted to join it. The organizers of the project told that the present-day students want to ruin the walls between their schools and homes and dream about open education. They want to involve their parents in the education process and view their teachers as their friends and partners. The project coordinator Olena HORSHENIOVA of the British Council in Ukraine and the communications coordinator Volodymyr SHEIKO told in detail about the project and the students’ vision of the future.
What were the criteria used in selecting the participants of such a serious project in Ukraine?
Olena HORSHENIOVA: “Ukraine was represented by six schools, two students and two teachers from each one. The selection was based on competition; we asked the oblast departments of education to spread the information. In general, students and teachers representing 49 schools in 13 European countries took part in the project. The children were 15—16 years old because the project was intended for teenagers.
“We offered fairly simple criteria: some experience in international projects, statement of purpose for participation and a statement on the minimal obligations the schools can undertake. We wanted our children to be heard; we wanted to get them involved in communication in international mass associations to make them think and plan something. We have one more parameter: Ukraine had to have representatives from as many regions as possible. So students from Luhansk, Vinnytsia, Smila (Cherkasy oblast), Sambir (Lviv oblast), Kherson, and Kyiv took part in the project.
“In this project the children formed an international association as they contemplated on what the school of the future can be. They spoke about two aspects: the security of the school and its link to the concept of knowledge-based society. These two aspects were in the focus of our project. A special Internet platform enabled the students and teachers to communicate throughout a year on the given topics, which were announced at the very beginning.
“The directions in which the students worked were very much alike. In October, November, and December 2008 the schools met with each other. We have formed several groups and one school were hosts to each other’s representatives. In our case, representatives of five out of six schools went to Great Britain, whereas the sixth one (Ukrainian) hosted the meeting with North Ireland, Lithuania, and Estonia.
“When they gathered together, they continued the intellectual process, something they were unable to do online. Finally, in March they gathered for the final conference, where each of the groups made its presentation and together they formulated a problem. Thus, they put together a general concept of characteristic features of the school of the future. We did not deal with typical programs, and the participants actually went beyond the limits of their typical programs.”
What proposals did Ukrainian school students have concerning the school of the future? What are they afraid in schools?
O.H.: “There is nothing superintellectual or unreal. These are children who understand that they need to have a partnership with teachers and parents: the list of proposals contains the wishes of our children.”
Volodymyr SHEIKO: “Our children paid less attention to the facts of intimidation than students from Northern Ireland, because those children pointed to the special form of intimidation connected with the use of the newest technologies, particularly mobile phones. Our children did not speak about this aspect as much. They said that, of course, there are complicated relationships between some students in school, but this was not the matter of major importance for them.”
O.H.: “The Irish children conducted a survey using special questionnaires. Therefore, they approached this information like analytical data and discussed it.”
V.Sh.: “Clearly, our children also understand this. For example, the Sambir school distinguished itself by paying attention to the condition of the school building. They singled out the problem of comfort and the conditions in which they are studying. This issue is less important for the students in better developed countries. However, the sets of problems defined by the Ukrainian and the European students are nearly a perfect match.”
O.H.: “If there were no common vision, the groups would have fallen apart. And the fact that we have not lost one school in this project is proof of children’s interest and success. In the end three students (from Kyiv and Vinnytsia) came up to me and said, ‘We are about to finish school. How can we stay in this project? What can we do?’ This was very telling, a proof of very serious motivation. Apparently, what happened in this project was very important for them.”
The children emphasized the problem of developing partnerships between students and teachers. Have the two groups really switched their roles?
O.H.: “Everyone was speaking about this, both students and teachers: teachers have ceased to be the single source of information. Today children may know, hear, and see more than their teacher, when they come to class. But Ukrainian children also mentioned that schools continue to be very authoritarian, although not every school had problems with teacher-student relations. Importantly, the children’s goal was not criticism only…Instead they were building the future — the message of what should be was stronger than reasoning about what we are lacking.“
Apparently, such projects are a source of good communication.
O.H.: “Yes, you have mentioned the main reason. This gives them an opportunity to meet, understand, and express themselves. The children said that they were listened to and heard. In general, the entire format of the project was prompting their development and cooperation. Children and teachers were happier to meet each other in person, when they could be together. The children don’t have an opportunity to be together all the time, but cyberspace enables them to carry out such large-scope projects.”
However, 12 participants is not enough to represent entire Ukraine.
O.H.: “In fact, there were more of them. Only 12 students took part in the final stage. In reality every school in every country had an opportunity to get access to our program (with 30 children from each). In Ukraine this project was built in such a way that the entire school contemplated on the school of the future. Nearly all the schools that had agreed to take part in the project got involved in it. Another thing is that six schools out of 21,000 is quite a small number. So this does not change anything in a systemic way.”
What will happen to the project and its participants?
O.H.: “Children want to continue communicating with the world. And they will do this telling others via the Internet what they are doing in their education institutions: doing repairs at school, conducting research, surveying parents, children, and teachers on interesting topics, analyzing the data, etc. This was very serious. Smila and Kherson, which took part in the international survey, were very good at this.”
So, this project urges children and teachers to engage in self-organization.
O.H.: “Yes. The process of realization, self-organization, and manifestation in a civic sense was the most important thing. The project’s goal was not to tell someone how schools should be changed. I don’t know whether this is possible at all. It is a one-year project for the British Council. The movement may be continued on the national scale in the future. And we hope that it will be so.”
