Conventional schooling in Belarus: problems and alternatives.

Conventional schooling presupposes traditional forms of educating students through a teacher-centered approach, relying on:

1) lecturing as a way of transmitting information and 2) test examination system as a way of knowledge control.

Belarus has a highly developed system of education, which proves adult literacy rate (99.8%). However, the system of school teaching here -- conventional schooling -- has become nowadays the subject of multiple critiques. There are those who believe that this type of schooling does not well foster children's potential. Conventional schooling stifles curiosity and kills motivation. Children are regarded just as numbers.

Due to the big number of students in classes and limited amount of time it's impossible for teachers to find an individual approach to each student and to create a high motivation level for the subject. Teachers, due to low salaries, lack incentive and inspiration to give off their best. Rather than nurturing learning, the teacher's presence and questions often inhibit in children thinking more about what the teacher wants rather than the actual subject at hand.

Among the ways of improving the situation is to make education more learner-centered based on the pedagogy of cooperation where the learner shares the responsibility for decisions in the learning process, to minimize pressure upon students and give them more freedom to express their thoughts and opinions, to put the emphasis on creative thinking, to shorten the amount of students in each classroom and thus to establish a contact with each child, to create the atmosphere of trust, to make teacher's schedule less taxing without the detriment to their wages. There should be emphasis on universal human values. Teachers are to respect the view of students.

Thus the key targets of conventional schooling should be the development of personality, democratization and creative thinking. Conventional education should be geared to all aspects of life, including employment. Such steps will help to inspire students to go to schools.

 

CONVENTIONAL SCHOOLING: PROBLEMS AND ALTERNATIVES

Most people have strong opinions about schools they went (or go)to. Often this is "the result of their own personal experiences which leave them feeling that there is much to criticize and' little to praise in the kind of schooling they received.

Conventional school nowadays is very often criticized. There are different reasons for it, starting with the level of education provided by conventional schools, finishing with the problem of truancy and children trying to fl ight shy of classes. As far as our conventional schools are concerned, there "are come problems that - are hardly found in other countries. First of all, there are not enough teachers and "young people take up teaching" as their future career unwillingly. As a result classes today are very often overcrowded, sometimes because" of lack of teachers pupils are not taught some subjects, most often foreign languages, for a long time. At the same time, teachers have to over-exert themselves without being paid much. So the problems are really very acute and some changes in conventional school are needed.

Today there, are lots of alternatives to conventional schooling, such as specialized colleges, gymnasiums, lyceums. Parents today are free to choose what school they would send their children to.

I'd like to speak about such alternative way of education as Dr.Weil's Summerhill school and City-as-a-school Idea.

An alternative in education – the city as School – Has been started in New York, USA. Its idea itself is not new but the New York programme is merally recognised as being the most successful of its kind.

Three hundred and fifty high school students between 15 and 18 attend the City-as-School: it's a school without walls and its classroom is the city itself, students spend their days in the theatres, museums, government offices and businesses of New York in a programme of part-time apprenticeships that are individually tailored to their interests and needs.

Students are accepted into City-as-School after an interview; the only academic requirement is two years of basic mathematics and science at a high school.

Credits are given, for satisfactory completion of each assignment, so that the students stand as good a chance of getting into an American college as their counterparts in ordinary high schools. In fact it was shown recently that 80-85 per cent of CAS graduates are going on to college without problems.

Many of the CAS students are young people who, for one reason or another, were unhappy with conventional education.

The New York CAS is viewed as a useful alternative way of dealing with these final and often troublesome school years. There are however, still some lingering doubts as to whether this kind of life experience can totally replace the academic development acquired in the classroom.

Summerhill began as an experimental school. It is no longer such; it is now a demonstration school, for it demonstrates that freedom works.

Dr. Neil set out to make a school in which he should allow children freedom to be themselves. In order to do this, they had to renounce all discipline all direction, all suggestion, all moral training, all religious instruction. All it required was a complete belief in the child as a good, not an evil, being.

His view is that a child is innately wise and realistic.

Logically, Summerhill is a place in which people who have the innate ability and wish to be scholars will be scholars; while those who are only fit to sweep the streets will sweep the streets. For one thing, lessons are Optional Children can go to them or stay away from them - for years if they want to. There is a timetable - but only for the teachers.

The children have classes usually according to their age, but sometimes according to their interests. They have no new methods of teaching, because we do not consider that teaching in itself matters very much. They have no truants and seldom a case of homesickness. They very rarely have fights - quarrels. There you can seldom hear a child cry, because children when free have much less hate to express than children who are downtrodden. Hate breeds hate, and love breeds love. Love means approving of children.

The function of the child is to live his own life- not the life that his anxious parents think he should. In Summerhill, everyone has equal rights. The absence of fear is the finest thing that can happen to a child.

So we see, that there are really lots of alternatives to conventional schooling. So we are only to choose which variant fits us better.