"Teaching Materials against discrimination, anti-Semitism and xenophobia" Seminars held in Kyiv, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Vinnytsa
As planned, on the 1st of October 2009 the series of Ukrainian implementation seminars withing the European OCSE/ODIHR project on Teaching Materials against discrimination, anti-Semitism and xenophobia was launched. The seminars are aimed at secondary school teachers and set as a goal acquaintance of the teachers with Teaching Materials, methodology of their use in classroom, advice of Ukrainian expert-teachers, basic theoretical knowledge in Jewish history, xenophobia and anti-Semitism.
The reported block included four seminars held in Kyiv (1 OCT), Cherkasy (8 OCT), Chernihiv (29 OCT), Vinnytsa (23 NOV). Each of these one-day seminars included around 25 participants, and was done within either local in-service teacher-training institutions or other state teacher-training institutions of the local level. Therefore, much is being done to have the seminars embraced into the official state teacher-training programmes.
Each seminar includes 6 hrs of training along pretty the sample programme you will find attached. The main emphasis is on practical skills and methodology of work with the TMs, doing the workshops to be then repeated in class among other things. But the main blocks of the seminar, e.g.: multiple identities and migration or universal aspects of anti-Semitism are combined with short theoretical intrusions. A seminar is finished by the discussion on ways of using the TMs in classroom and topics the teachers find most suitable for their everyday teaching. Lecturers and trainers for the seminar are chosen among the staff of Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies and the group of multipliers specially trained for the project in late 2008. At the end the participants fill out a short questionnaire, where they are asked to evaluate the seminar, its theoretical and practical parts, main topics of interest/disinterest and also to indicate, which chapters of TMs they find most/least useful for teaching. Such feedback is being carefully examined and in the result it will be possible to draw a gerenal picture after the planned 8 seminars.
Each seminar includes 6 hrs of training along pretty the sample programme you will find attached. The main emphasis is on practical skills and methodology of work with the TMs, doing the workshops to be then repeated in class among other things. But the main blocks of the seminar, e.g.: multiple identities and migration or universal aspects of anti-Semitism are combined with short theoretical intrusions. A seminar is finished by the discussion on ways of using the TMs in classroom and topics the teachers find most suitable for their everyday teaching. Lecturers and trainers for the seminar are chosen among the staff of Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies and the group of multipliers specially trained for the project in late 2008. At the end the participants fill out a short questionnaire, where they are asked to evaluate the seminar, its theoretical and practical parts, main topics of interest/disinterest and also to indicate, which chapters of TMs they find most/least useful for teaching. Such feedback is being carefully examined and in the result it will be possible to draw a gerenal picture after the planned 8 seminars.
Concerning the distribution of the TMs, only 1 set for every teacher plus the guide is brought to the seminar. Attached to the materials is a sample order letter, which should be completed and sent out to the address of Ukrainian Center for Holocaust Studies by hard post/fax/e-mail. Upon receiving this official order signed and stamped by school administration, the requested number of copies (but not more than 30 x 3) is sent out by mail or handed out to individual teachers. This allows to trace the TMs and their distribution and also to make sure they get to schools and not stay elsewhere. At present it is hard to tell the percentage of teachers returning the order forms, since they keep coming weeks after the seminar. Currently 16 orders have been received and satisfied.
In general, the first block of seminars can be considered successful and a good start for the new phase of the project.
Sincerely,
Anatoly Podolsky
Vitalii Bobrov
