School Culture: Two View Towards Ourselves

In 2006 ASPnet school the Contemporary School Centre started the project School Culture: Two View Towards Ourselves, which was granted support in the frame of the 2006-2007 UNESCO Participation Programme. The implementation of the project has already approached the research stage. On the completion of this stage the results of the project will be presented to partners, all the education institutions and the general society. Bellow you may find out more on the project School Culture: Two View Towards Ourselves.

The idea of the project

A wide range of social, cultural, psychological, educational, administrative etc. factors could be listed as decisive to the student's ability, motivation to study and to his/her general feeling in the school, but there's always something more than just a sum of all the factors mentioned above. The microclimate or school culture could be understood as a complex of these different relationships in the school life, which has a great influence on every individual within the school. Such a manifold social phenomenon could hardly be describe (not mentioning - controlled), and that's why school culture is one of the most determining - though slipped from the focus of researches and education theorists

Everyone could recall an examples of a prestigious educational institutions famous by old traditions and high study results, but at the same time - suppresing the freedom and self-expression of the students. On the contrary, the school that has never been famous by any educational innovations could be remembered by the students as the most warm and beneficial place. The core of this project is to research or reveal the school culture. The relationship of social, physical, psychological, administrative and other elements create a unique environment which could be called climate, ethos or school culture.

The project is not aimed at the classification of features of "good" and "bad" school culture. There's no one, but the community of the school, which could evaluate and "work" with their own school culture in the desired direction. The project offers the opportunity to focus the attention on the own school culture (the research) and to look at the different style of school life (exchanges).

The project is initiated by the Baltic Sea Sub-region EFA implementation Working group

The main stages of the project

The main stresses in the course of the project are cultural exchanges and reflective research:

The selected school will be twinned. The group of students and teachers from one school (“guests”) will go to the school of the other country (“hosts”) to take part in the proposed programme or project. The programme or the project prepared by the “host’s school” will depend exactly on the culture of the school: arts (dance, drama, music, visual arts and media) or sciences project, school democracy issues, activities after or outside the school, ICT in learning process or active teaching-learning techniques, etc.

Every school participating in this project will also take part in the research, in which school community members will be asked questions about their school. The “snapshot image” will be taken after the exchanges.

This project is expected to:

· reconsider, evaluate and improve school culture,

· develop cultural, democratic and universal values,

· safeguard cultural exchange and creativity,

· encourage knowledge of cultural diversity and understanding of cultural differences,

· stimulate learning of languages,

· help students become tolerant, active and creative European citizens.

Coordination

The Coordinator of the project is Contemporary School Centre, Lithuania. Other members of the project council are educators from Denmark, Russia, Latvia and Lithuania. The Project Council determines the main course of the project, discusses and decides about school’s possibility to take part in the project, pairs the schools for the exchange, coordinates actions of local coordinators.

There are also local coordinators in countries participating. The Local Coordinators communicate with all the schools-participants from the region, coordinate their actions and consults participants on the different stages of the project.

Schools-participants registers to participate communicate and collaborate with each other implementing separate stages of the project. Certain school-participant could become the local coordinator, as in the case of Contemporary School Centre.

Participation

All schools, interested in the idea of school culture and ready to accept the conditions of the participating, can take part, regardless of their type, background and traditions.

School which seeks to become a project participant must register on the main webpage of the project on time.

The Project Council discusses and decides about school’s possibility to take part in the project, pairs the schools for the exchanges and informs about the decisions.

Evaluation of the effects of the project and results of education research would be presented in the final conference, video film and published.