Values are an integral part of school education. This view was advocated by participants of the 17th All-Ukrainian UNESCO-Associated Schools Students’ Conference, which had “Ukrainian-European Initiatives in the Field of Education: The Values Paradigm” as its theme and was held recently at the Kyiv Palace of Children and Youth under the auspices of the Ukrainian National Commission for UNESCO.
For four consecutive years, the Harmony Humanitarian Gymnasium has taken the responsibility for organizing conferences. The previous years’ forums saw discussions devoted, in particular, to issues of tolerance, refugees and intercultural dialog, and biodiversity. “With this conference, we wanted to offer a kind of summary,” director of the Kyiv-based private Harmony Humanitarian Gymnasium Olena Chynok told us. “It is the world of values that leads a child to discover the world of knowledge and practical action, the world of feelings and communication. As a UNESCO-associated school, we try to integrate within the educational process framework the European and Ukrainian values, which actually belong to the same paradigm. Delegates agreed that the school should not be limited to formal education, which is centered on subject knowledge and mostly not related to daily life. Instead, UNESCO promotes informal continuing education, which aims to teach students to learn and explore, to create and work (with a practical focus), to live (this particularly relates to healthy lifestyle) and coexist (promoting the culture of human relations). Informal education does not involve evaluation and is carried out through various projects.”
The conference events included presentations by scholars, education figures, and government officials. Many speakers addressed the topic of values in the light of the problems of the education reform. The students, representing over 50 schools from all over Ukraine, competed in the art of creating calligrams and collages and took part in a survey. While holding an impromptu debate between “Christians” and “Muslims,” they tried to understand commonalities and differences in values of different religions. The students presented their visions of values using various media. The authors of the best works and the most compelling speakers were presented with copies of Ukraine Incognita, a book from Den’s Library series. Overall, 30 prizes were distributed. At the end of the conference, its participants adopted a resolution which, in particular, supports the European direction of Ukraine’s development and urges that education be recognized as a key element in this process.
