Out for a ride with time to think

The morning sun shines into my room, and birds are chirping. The two-month holiday at the language school where I’m working has just started. It’s a bit difficult to believe that the time for the last entry for this blog has already come. I still have lots of thoughts to share with our readers!

Lately I’ve been riding my bike in the countryside in the evenings – it’s a good chance to relax after a very full year and to improve my skills in photography. Along the way, I think a lot about the enormous difference between rural and urban areas in my country, and between their inhabitants’ mentalities. What’s difficult to explain is that many Russians would like to move outside the city and buy nice houses there, but most villagers prefer the idea of finding a job in the city (or at least sending their children to get educated there). Of course that’s due to the financial divide between these areas, but we need to make this division less extreme.

Apart from modernizing infrastructure and offering programs aimed at stimulating young teachers to work in village schools (or small towns) by offering them additional money for several month stays and providing them with accommodation, we also need to promote studying abroad. But at least when it comes to my own pupils, I have been really glad to talk to them and discover that practically all of them think globally.

A toast to the first year of my friends' start-up

What are my expectations for the future? As I said in the very beginning, I’m the kind of person who embraces change. I’d like to try something new – not as a hobby, but as a job. Now a couple of my friends and I are working on an Internet-based project which will try to encourage people to waste less time online. Like Kathrin mentioned, the Internet can be great for learning, but it also presents plenty of distractions. I guess that as technology develops, we’re bound to see more edutainment (a combination of education and entertainment) in this sphere.

When we started the blog, I never would have thought how interesting it would turn out to be. I got impressions of educational systems in other countries, got to know my fellow bloggers more and got somehow inspired by what they discussed. It’s a pity there are regions that prevent citizens’ voices from being heard (as in Hellgurd’s case). However, youth can be an enormous force for change. I do hope there will be chances to work together with Hellgurd, Maria, Emmy and Kathrin on other projects – why not on our own?

Does education suffer far from the urban centers and elite universities?

This week I expect to get my diploma – one more step in my higher education which began in 2006. I’ve been thinking a lot about what these years have meant, especially in terms of my decision to leave my original university and study somewhere else.

Several weeks ago I read an interesting column in a daily business newspaper where famous and respected economist Konstantin Sonin touched upon university ratings. The professor’s argument astonished me because he compared the Russian higher education system with its foreign counterparts and went on to say ranking Russian universities at all has basically no point! The reason, he said, is that in our country most university departments offer students a strictly fixed number of courses and disciplines, while there is more variety available to students in other countries. Those models let students adapt their studies to their interests, for example, and it can help them make the transition to working life more smoothly. Kathrin also talked about how this kind of flexibility is important to young people here.

If I hadn’t changed my university in 2008, the article probably wouldn’t have caught my eye. But even 3.5 years later, I remember others asking me: “Why did you do that?” or “Aren’t you dissatisfied with what you find in Smolensk?”

The same old questions suggesting I had made the wrong decision got annoying, and my typical answer was, “You may be right – but what are you doing beyond complaining and trying to frighten others?” I mean, on the one hand, I was seriously dissatisfied, but that can also be a great source of motivation. Either you take the mess and sluggishness that we face here (for instance, rules in most regional universities require high attendance records, which leaves fewer opportunities for flexibility, regardless of whether it’s a lecture that could just as well be followed online or a project discussion where your presence is actually vital) – or you demand a new educational model. I proposed one here.

A question for me - where will my path take me next?

A new, more open approach to education shouldn’t just be applied to schools. It could also be beneficial to cultural, social and economic life generally in Russia and may help us get rid of some stereotypes. As things stand now, we are too dismissive of people with certain issues. For example, I have a friend Nadin, who is a popular beauty-blogger. She writes about fashion and make-up; she adores communicating with people from different countries and trading insight. Using a wheelchair as she does, however, causes a wide reaction of sympathy – hidden or evident – which I find totally wrong and stupid! I’ll try to explain with a simple example: imagine seeing a person carrying a huge pile of books and approaching a closed door. What’s the better move – to stand there feeling sorry for them for having to carry such a heavy load or to open the door and get a thank-you-smile?

Another way to help reduce stereotypes is by studying abroad or popularizing universities in your country with foreign students. This is something Emmy discussed in this entry. The benefits of doing so are often underestimated.

These stereotypes about other countries or ethnicities and about people with disabilities remind me of Francis Bacon’s theory about idols. I believe the more educated a nation is, the fewer “idols” it has. By removing these seemingly fixed ideas, it helps create more opportunities for sustainable development and prosperity.

Many cultures and colors: one goal

Traveling over long distances can be exhausting, but sometimes it can be also rewarding depending on the comfort of the flight and the route. As I returned home from the Global Media Forum, I had over four hours to wait for my flight from Germany to Nairobi. I took advantage of those long hours to read some newspapers.

Even though I was not looking for articles on education, all the newspapers I read touched on this topic, reminding me that it is an issue that affects all areas of our life. Articles in a German publication and in a publication from the Gulf region that I read took up the same questions of culture and education.

The German publication stressed the importance of German institutions becoming more international so that Germany can produce excellent students and scientists able to compete on a global platform. My father would agree. He encouraged us to attend schools beyond our home area. His thought was that by living in these cultures, we would learn some soft skills beyond the subjects taught in class, such as intercultural communication and tolerance of people different from us. He, therefore, was happy to let me study in Germany with others from more than 10 other cultures. I described this before as a ‘global classroom.’ The article proposed that more universities in Germany should have a strategy to internationalize themselves. I think Germany has already started this, taking an example of the master’s program I did, which was not only composed of international students and teachers but was also taught partly in English and in German.

Globalization at our finger tips

The other article from a publication in Dubai posed the question: Who are internationally educated children? The publication asserted that children benefit from stepping outside of their own culture. Globalization and its effects on education and on life in general demand from us that we extend our knowledge beyond our horizons. The so-called ‘international students/learners’ are more tolerant of different cultures, races, religions, opinions, and, as such, may be less prejudiced. Even later when they start working, they are more marketable on the job market, as multi-cultural skills are one of the strengths that international companies look for.

In Kenya, there are just a few international students, either on exchange or learning English from China and Turkey. I think the low number is mostly the result of doubt about the quality of education here. Kenya also needs a strategy to internationalize its education system – especially at the universities – to make it attractive for international students and professors.