My English exam certificate

The week seems to have gone great! I’ve read the entries by Kathrin and Emmy from the Global Media Forum, which I find quite interesting. In spite of the red tape that prevented me from visiting the conference and meeting my fellow bloggers, several positive things relating to education happened to me, as well, this week. They brought about a storm of emotions, but they also gave some food for thought.

First of all, shortly before the launch of our education blog, a group of my adult students and I took part in an international English exam. And I’m really glad to hear that most of my students passed it successfully and got their certificates from Europe this week!

During the course we’ve also touched upon their expectations and life goals. Despite having different ages and positions in society, everyone agreed that learning a foreign language would give them many more opportunities abroad. For some, that meant in terms of working (one of my students was an international journalist). For others, it was about having the chance to study abroad. Some even hinted at encouraging their children to emigrate – if they end up not doing it themselves (This is a topic I discussed here). I hope the summer will give my students a chance to put their skills into practice and endow them with new ambitions.

Summer: time for some relaxation

Secondly, my university group had to go through defending our senior theses, the research papers that are required to earn our degrees – and we did it successfully! Looking back on the months we spent on preparing our research and analyzing statistics, I wonder to myself whether out efforts were worth it; did we pursue anything apart from getting a top mark? But unfortunately, I cannot answer with an emphatic “yes.” Why?

Well, any department offers its students a range of topics for their senior papers – but in regional universities, there are more chances to get a topic that has nothing to do with real life and the skills you may need in building your future. It’s mostly because some universities give courses for appearances’ sake – to show off (“Look, we’ve opened a new department this year – it’s like in the X university, which is in the top 50 in Russia. Of course, what they do not say is: We don’t have enough staff to deal with the curriculum and the equipment is a bit out-of-date.”). This is where the issue of a degree’s value arises. Still, in my group there were research papers devoted either to the professional sphere (a project on a new type of language school) or to vital social topics (like tolerance).

It kind of makes me think of Pink Floyd and the image of a wall. In a positive sense, I now have a new brick to add to my educational wall, and I intend to continue building it.

The anticipation builds ahead of a panel at the GMF

Wow! I’ve found the Global Media Forum really interesting so far. The first thing that stood out to me was the diversity on display – people from lots of different countries mix at the conference, some in suits, some more casual or in business wear. There are lots of colorful dresses, men from Africa in robes and women in headscarves. The clothing is just an outer signal of how many cultures are represented here. And in the middle of it all are my fellow bloggers and me.

Emmy, Hellgurd, María and I met up for the first time here. But I have the feeling that we’ve known each other for a while now. We’ve given each other insights into our lives and the educational systems in our countries here in the blog, so we’ve gotten to know each other a bit along the way. But it’s a real shame that visa problems prevented our fifth blogger from being here: Pavel was unable to leave Russia.

As I mentioned in my last entry, I went to a workshop yesterday that discussed how algorithms influence contemporary education and worldviews. At the podium were Falk Lüke, Mercedes Bunz and Marc Jan Eumann (State Secretary in the Ministry of Federal Affairs, European Affairs and Media of North Rhine-Westphalia). All three had interesting information to present, and the audience had plenty of comments and questions.

I especially liked Bunz’s idea that, with the Internet, we have created an additional public space, but until now, this space has primarily been shaped by economic interests. I think she gets at an interesting point there. Of course there are lots of publicly sponsored content providers on the Internet, but they often play a smaller roll, largely because they don’t offer their own search engines that could provide an alternative to Google. Would it be possible to have a publicly financed search engine? After all, here in Germany we have public broadcasters that offer an alternative to private stations.

But instead of giving the state the task of developing algorithms that deliver search results, I found Eumann’s approach better. Being aware and critical are just as important online as they are in the analog world. Schools could support these values by putting information online that helps people understand power structures and interests better – including those of Google or even of traditional newspaper publishers, for example.

Critical analysis of these topics and of technology in general is very important, which Bunz also discussed, saying that although we continue to conceive of technology as the “other,” it is constantly with us. Conferences like the Global Media Forum are a great way to take up this topic, and the opportunities for international exchange are especially good.

The GMF brings participants from around the world together

The global exchanges taking place here in Bonn are really extraordinary. At a workshop yesterday afternoon, the participants were from India, Malawi, Colombia and North America! Everyone talked about their experiences with free radio programs that are co-produced by lay people. These programs provide important information. Since many people take part in the production process and get to have a say in the programming, the interest in the result is much higher, and listeners find the statements contained therein more trustworthy.

Charles Simbi of Story Workshop Educational Trust presented a “message matrix.” It’s a systematic table in which, for example, one can work out the topics that should come up in radio programming for a given community – and how these topics should be presented. The tool is structured for topics that have social advantages for the community, such as medical help during pregnancy. I think we can learn a lot from practical tips like the message matrix and that we should try to incorporate them into other projects.

Libraries have organized discussions for teachers - but none about their rights

Reading Maria’s entry where a teachers’ strike was discussed made me think about dissatisfaction with the Russian education system – both from teachers and others.

What surprises and worries me most is that our teachers never organize strikes or try to make their voices be heard. It happens neither in small cities nor in big ones. I know that most of our university professors do some tutoring or give private lessons throughout the year to earn additional money (for example, before high school students enter a university, their parents often find somebody to give a term-training course to prepare a teenager for the entrance examination). I think a collective demand for better salaries or modern equipment is reasonable – it might result in improving the situation in the whole region (or even several regions), and it is not about giving benefits to any single teacher.
But let’s take a step back – to high school. Several years ago, the process of examination was modernized: Pupils used to take final school exams in June and university entrance exams in July. It meant they had to spend at least 2 months with nerves on end both intellectually and emotionally. Moreover, it seemed to give more dangerous possibilities for corruption: the more links in a chain there are, the more complicated the system is. That makes it easier to find a hole and turn it to one’s advantage.

Forms for the new Unified State Exams

After the so-called reform, the standard pattern of final exams – the Unified State Exam (USE) – was introduced, and the results one earns have replaced the old entrance exams. The government claimed that the new exam would provide students from provinces with more opportunities to study in well-known universities; also, it was supposed to eliminate corruption as the exam marks are not given directly by your teacher but are sent to a special committee that releases its grades only after several days have passed. However, the USE is designed as a set of tests of different types. It is obvious that tests are not enough to discover a student’s creative potential; in fact, they actually obscure creative skills. What about those who want to dive into studying music or arts?

In spite of concerns like these and parents’ complaints, the USE was instated. Recently, there has been a rumor that it may be divided into different levels – from easier to more difficult. I’m afraid it’ll bring back fertile ground for corruption – who on Earth doesn’t want to say they’ve gotten high marks..?

I believe teachers will make their voices heard on the issues relating to the USE. And since we live in a civil society, citizens’ voices on the whole need to be heard. But the question for me is: How much time will it all take?

We could use a different approach to technical education

At the beginning of the week I was talking to my coworker Patricia about how education is approached in our country. She coordinates a regional program aiming to strengthen technical education in different fields, like math, science, industry-applied technology and school management. The program’s various groups in different regions of the country do not work directly with students; they work with teachers and school principals. The aim is to train educators and hence improve technical education by setting higher standards.Patricia was telling me how Gabriel and Alejandro, the head tutors in the school management area, have a liberal approach to education, and what a challenge it was to introduce these principles in technical education.

“They want to empower the student, work with the previous knowledge they have. You say this to an engineer, and he will frown and shake his head. Engineers think of their science as hard knowledge that cannot be approached through discussion. The problem goes even deeper: It originates in the conception of one perfect student that all alumni should try to live up to. This is not just a viewpoint from engineers, but from almost all actors in the educational system. Nowadays we are trying to uproot the concept of the model student, and we are working to introduce subjectivity into educational approaches,” she told me.

I knew what she was talking about.

Sergiu, a classmate from Berlin, gives a presentation on a sculpture in Florence

Doing my master’s in Berlin was the first time I encountered liberal education. It has many principles, but in general terms, we could put it this way: There are no professors, there are only classical texts; knowledge is gained through discussion and questions. A typical day started with a lecture from a faculty member, who gave his or her interpretation of the chapters we had previously read, and opened the field for questions and discussion. Then we would go on to our seminar group and discuss the text and our ideas on it. This was the method for core courses. For electives, we only had seminar groups. Furthermore, there were no exams – only essays.

This approach to education really changed me irreversibly. I strongly believe it develops critical thinking in students, a capacity to question everything (with a proper argument), and not just take in anything from whoever is saying it. It is about building skills for having rich discussion with well-developed ideas. And it appeals above all else to the students’ creativity, while at the same time it empowers them by valuing their capacity to reason and their previous knowledge.

Thinking of what Emmy said in her entry, that education in Kenya kills creativity, I believe it could strongly be related to how theoretical learning is approached. This is, I believe, similar to the challenge I was talking about with Patricia: How to introduce a liberal approach to education in hard science teaching. I think it’s not about denying the value and strength of theories, but, rather, finding a way to make the student aware of his or her own capacities and encourage them to use these as the principal motive to acquire knowledge.

Teachers protesting in front of government offices in Buenos Aires

In March this year, there was a huge strike from the teachers’ union in which they demanded a salary raise. Every year, the timing works out almost identically: the academic year in Argentina starts in March, and some three weeks to a month before that, negotiations with the union take place. There was the threat that classes would not actually start because no agreement had been reached. Teachers in Argentina have some of the lowest wages in society, so it’s very common that they have to overwork themselves to make a decent living.

Teachers’ demands for better wages was in the public agenda this year when congressional representatives voted themselves a raise of 100 percent. The deputies and senators involved already had a very good salary before this increase. However, the teachers’ claim was turned down. On top of that, on Opening Sessions Day in the Senate, President Kirchner disregarded the educators’ claim, saying they only work four hours a day and have three months holiday. A national teachers’ strike followed the next day, and it lasted for two full weeks.

Why would our president make such a dismissive statement and openly break bonds with such a key sector? I didn’t get it… There must be another explanation, a hidden purpose, I thought to myself.

So when I was visiting my friend Maria Eva in the province of La Pampa, I asked her mother about all of this. I value her opinion a lot: She supports the current administration and is a teacher herself. I asked her about this big fall out between the union and the president. She didn’t see much significance in the things Kirchner said: “What she said… well, is a very commonplace idea, as old as the sky.” Ultimately, I interpreted the president’s remarks as a way of trying to side with the ordinary citizen, who has just a basic education and a lot of economic worries.

Netbooks were widely distributed, but computer literacy is another thing...

Our current administration is clearly a populist one. However, I think this kind of public discourse usually just gets in the way of what really needs to be done, and Argentina is facing an emergency situation. The teachers’ union has been an ally of the ruling political party ever since it took control of the government in 2003. We are now going through our ninth year with this government, and the economic situation for teachers has not changed much. Money is not only about personal enrichment: it is recognition to you as a professional. A good wage means you can let go of some material problems give thought to other concerns that might help you develop your vocation further.

A very concrete example is the program “Conectar Igualdad” (Link up Equality). Through this action, the government has distributed more than three million netbooks to kids and teens of primary and secondary schools in Argentina. It happens often that the kids have a new computer, but there is no Internet in the school, or the teacher does not know how to work with it inside the classroom. An alarming proportion of educators don’t even know how to use a computer. When I ask about the learning spaces that complete this initiative, the training for teachers, I am told this takes place on Saturdays. Why would any already under paid professional volunteer for work on a free day?

The government’s actions seem only to touch the surface of problems. When you remove that layer, the actions do not really go as deep as they should.