School of Education leads delegation to Lithuania
Group including dean, State Senator Vi Simpson, and two Bloomington teachers, focusing on civics education.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
A delegation from the Indiana University School of Education leaves tomorrow for a week-long visit to Lithuania on a trip designed to help a young democracy teach its young about democracy. The trip to the former Soviet-bloc country is part of a continuing exchange between the IU School of Education and the state of Indiana with Lithuania. It’s part of the Civitas International Civic Education Exchange Program.University Dean Gerardo Gonzalez, exchange coordinator Terry Mason, associate professor of curriculum studies, State Senator Vi Simpson, as well as social studies teachers Rebecah Boyle of Batchelor Middle School and Karen Johnson of Childs Elementary School will visit schools and meet with government and educational leaders in the capital city, Vilnius, Lithuania. The visit comes a couple weeks after a Lithuanian delegation came to Indiana.
“For a week during one part of the year, we’ll have the Lithuanians come here, and each year it varies—where we go, what we do,” said Mason. The School of Education became involved when the first Civitas exchanges began in 1995. The U.S. Department of Education funds the program to pair international educators from Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Gonzalez said the diversity of perspectives on civic education within the Indiana delegation will be valuable to the Lithuanian hosts, who are grappling with teaching about democracy in a country that declared independence from the Soviet Union just 18 years ago. “Our delegation can communicate with the people who are there in the trenches, so to speak,” Gonzalez said. “We’ll be able to offer some perspective to teachers who are working to develop the curriculum, but also with the ministers of education, with the policy makers.”
The group will participate in panel discussions, one-on-one visits, and make presentations during their time in Lithuania. Gonzalez will offer his personal story about why democratic education matters, delivering a keynote speech describing his background as an immigrant coming to the U.S. from Communist Cuba. “Building a system that helps educate the younger generation is essential because the older generations, even though they value the newfound freedoms, don’t have the expertise to teach it.”
Simpson said she’s looking forward to sharing her views on education policy, but is hoping to pick up some things herself. “I think we can learn a lot, because they don’t take anything for granted like many of our own citizens do,” Simpson said. “I’m anxious to share with them what I know about my experiences here in this country, but I’m also anxious to hear about them and the process of growth that they’re going through right now.”
For the two area social studies teachers, they will get a look at some of what the visiting Lithuanian delegation told them about during their Indiana visit in March. “The visitors remarked about how relaxed our students were,” said Johnson. “The students in Lithuania stand when an adult enters the room and they are corrected if not using proper posture while sitting at their desks.” Both Johnson and Boyle said the experience is a once in a lifetime chance which will enhance their own teaching. “When I go there, I’m able to get a good look into the Lithuanian culture and a country that’s still in its infancy stage with regards to independence and democratic organizations,” Boyle said. “I’ll bring that back for my students so that when we talk about democracy and what that looks like, we can compare different government types.”
Interview Excerpts
Gonzalez describes his unique perspective on visiting Lithuania as a part of the delegation: (Listen to this sound bite)“My role in the delegation is not only to represent the IU school of Education and the partnership that has evolved around civics education with the school, but also because of my personal perspective, having lived in a country that had a Communist revolution and then coming to the United States and having to adapt to an educational system."
The delegation offers different views of the democratic education process: (Listen to this sound bite)
“I think Terry did an absolutely superb job of putting together a delegation that communicates with the people who are there in the trenches, so to speak, teachers who are working to develop the curriculum, but also with the ministers of education, with the policy makers who can relate to the kind of work that Vi Simpson and other public officials do and the role that they play in the democratic society and then looking institutionally at what universities can do to help foster teacher development, and the policy research and the policy expertise that’s needed to evolve as a nation and to support the democratic institutions that are being developed there. So I think it is fortuitous that we have such different perspectives in our delegation and of course we had a delegation from Lithuania that was here as well and so they were able to observe the institution in which these people work so now they’ll be better prepared to answer questions or to ask questions about the actual work and how it relates to the kind of activities that they’re undertaking there.“
Boyle says after hosting the Lithuanian visitors last month, she has an idea of what they hope to do with their civics education: (Listen to this sound bite)
“From the 3 representatives that were here, I think they’re focusing on pre-service teachers and how to better help set up those new teachers with new pedagogy and methodology and what it looks like in the 21st Century, as far as methods in the classroom, with hands-on activity, critical thinking, a little more creativity from what I gather than what they’re used to in the classroom. So I think helping pre-service teachers and then looking at ideas of special education and what that looks like in a public school setting especially with regards to mainstreaming and inclusion, not so much self-contained, which is I think, and I could be wrong about this, but I think that’s their general practice, to pull students out of the setting. Whereas here in the United States we really look at least restrictive environment, so getting students into regular Ed school classrooms as much, so I think they were really curious about what that looked like here at Batchelor.”
Mason speaks to the things the Indiana delegation can offer those working with Lithuanian education: (Listen to this sound bite)
”Some of those have to do with promoting civic education; some of them are more general. How they cope with issues such as school size. They have a declining population, for example. So they have rural areas where the student population is so small that they’re consolidating school districts. That’s something we’ve had experience with in this country. So we can share our experiences with them about issues like that. And then on the other hand, how do we organize civic education in our schools. What does the curriculum look like? What are some of the models and methods that we use? We demonstrate that.”
