By MAGGIE I. JARUZEL
In many Russian communities, techno-savvy youngsters are teaching older adults how to use cell phones, automated machines for banking and paying bills, and other electronic devices.
While the schoolchildren are eager to share their understanding of everything electronic, their elder pupils feel comfortable returning to the classroom to be tutored in the latest technology. The duo-benefit is an example of how practical –- and popular -– community schools can be, says Elena Fomina.
Elena Fomina |
“Members of the community know that schools are not just a place for children any more, but they are places where they can be active participants in a variety of projects like this,” said Fomina, executive director of the Krasnoyarsk Center for Community Partnerships (KCCP) in the Siberian region of Russia.
She celebrated International Community School Day on March 2, although the annual event is traditionally celebrated on March 1, which was the date commemorated by many other community school professionals in the region, including Cornelia Cincilei, director of Step by Step Moldova, which is based in Moldova’s capital city of Chisinau.
Cincilei has played an instrumental role in the growth and development of community schools in Moldova because she has worked at the nonprofit organization since 2005, when staff began to deliberately focus on using the community school concept as a way to democratize education in the country.
Step by Step Moldova is a Mott grantee and has received two grants totaling $390,000 since 2005.
Currently, nontraditional students also are returning to classrooms in Moldova to learn new skills. But Moldovans are not enrolling in technology classes like in Russia. Instead, they are attending child care classes in response to a recent reality -- about one million of the country’s four million citizens work abroad.
The national statistic means hundreds of thousands of children regularly lack one or both parents as primary caregivers, so nonparents often step in to fill the void.
Among other places, fathers travel to work at construction jobs in Russia, Italy, Spain and Portugal, while mothers provide elderly and child care abroad, or work in hotels and restaurants in Western European countries, Cincilei said.
“Our unemployment rate would be much higher if everyone was here in Moldova. With parents gone, it means relatives take care of the children, or else they live alone with older brothers and sisters. This is a big problem so we offer classes on how to care for the children.”
The parenting classes also are offered to young Moldovan families who want to learn effective ways to care for, and interact with, their own small children, she said.
A landlocked country between Romania and Ukraine, Moldova is about the same size as the state of Maryland. It was a member of the former Soviet Union, but has been independent since 1991. Today, the community school movement is sweeping the country: there are 43 community schools located in 20 of the nation’s 32 raions, or regions, and another 10 schools are in the development phase, Cincilei says.
For her, the success is easily explained. During Moldova’s transition from Soviet rule to democracy, many public buildings were destroyed and nothing was built to replace them. But every community –- urban or rural -– still had a school.
Consequently, traditional schools are being transformed into community schools. Local residents can enroll in classes to learn vocational skills, such as how to become a barber or a seamstress. But they also can visit the neighborhood school to get a haircut, be measured for new clothes sewn especially for them, or browse racks of secondhand clothes that are sold at low prices.
"Schools are the heart of the rural community,” Cincilei said.
The community school in one village was directly responsible for creating local jobs for residents, she says. When staff of a sewing center (owned by businessmen from abroad) heard that a school in a neighboring village -- the Rosietici village in the Floresti district -- was offering seamstress and tailor training, he met with the coordinator and offered jobs to 19 students.
“Schools are no longer purely academic institutions with authoritarian, teacher-centered classrooms,” Cincilei said.
“They are being changed into community learning centers.”
Fomina agrees.
Like other leaders in the field, she says community school programs look different from place to place because they reflect the unique opportunities, challenges, and cultures of the communities in which they are located. But by design community schools share similar characteristics. They all:
- have a collegial atmosphere in which educators, parents and community members are regarded as partners;
- provide educational activities for people of all ages that are supported by school personnel;
- adapt school facilities for community education purposes and are open beyond traditional school hours for community use; and
- follow the principle that everyone is a teacher and everyone is a learner.
Cornelia Cincilei |
Mott supports community school initiatives internationally through its Civil Society program. To date, the Foundation has helped develop the concept in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Kosovo, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Ukraine, and other countries.
The community education movement developed out of Mott’s afterschool programs, which started in 1935 in the Foundation’s home community of Flint, Michigan. Mott continues to fund afterschool programs throughout the U.S. through its Pathways Out of Poverty program.
In Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and Russia, though, the movement gained momentum after KCCP was established in 1997. It has played a leadership role in establishing, expanding and improving community schools in Russia and throughout CEE. Since 2000, Mott has provided four grants totaling $770,000 to support KCCP’s efforts.
As a nongovernmental organization, KCCP has shared the community school concept with traditional educators and community leaders; provided technical expertise for schools making the transition from the one educational approach to the other; and helped strengthen community schools so they can serve effectively as centers of lifelong learning for people of all ages.
Since 2001, KCCP has promoted March 1 as International Community School Day throughout Russia and across Central and Southeast Europe; Fomina hopes that one day the event will be celebrated worldwide.
For Fomina, activities for the 2009 commemoration were planned for Monday, March 2, instead of Sunday, March 1, so students would be in class and able to officially recognize the day. Seventy-eight schools from Armenia, Poland, Russia and Ukraine joined together for a letter writing exchange program –- the old-fashioned way.
“There is something very special about receiving a handwritten letter, especially from another country,” Fomina said.
In addition to the letters, many schools hosted community concerts, and sponsored volunteer projects for students, parents and local residents to do together.
But schools in Moldova marked the celebration in a different way, Cincilei said. They linked the International Community School Day with the national day of celebration called, “Martisor.”
Traditionally a day when people give each other presents in recognition of the first day of spring, community school leaders, along with community development leaders and local volunteers, asked people to instead earmark gifts for those in need in nearby villages. Moldovan community schools also performed free musical concerts for the public.
“A school is no longer open only for children,” Cincilei said.
"It is a living entity that is closely connected to the entire community."
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES