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ISSUE 8, May 2002
Conference
Resource centres
Events
RESOURCE CENTRES Civic Education - for Education of the Citizen Formation of a citizen starts from self-identification as an individual with certain ideas about the contemporary life, political system, state power, government, political parties and movements. This enables a person to be an active and educated member of the society. There are people that stay far from politics, the system of power and political influence, election campaigns, etc. They simply do their job trying to grow up professionally, live a quiet life, but the time comes - and they awake. More precisely, they are awoken by injustice on the part of a person or state authorities. They are angry, offended, and unexpectedly for themselves they find out that neither at school, nor outside it, were they taught to protect themselves and their rights. Not far ago my former schoolmate told me that about twenty years before her husband, her little daughter and herself had got in a car accident which was their driver's fault: on a slippery road he directed the taxi into a tree and in panic pushed the accelerator instead of the brakes. The adults got minor injuries, and a 4-month baby, as everyone believed then, died. It is hard to express the mother's feelings when everyone, rushing out of the burning car, was taking the baby in turn shaking it so that the baby would come back to life. Having undressed it right there on the snow, they managed to awake the sleepy girl and realise she was alive! Afterwards, after a check-up in the hospital the overjoyed parents forgave the driver everything and signed a paper brought by a militiaman saying they did not have any claims. Now, after many years, when my friend takes care of her granddaughter and has acquired some life experience and become another, "non-Soviet", person - would she forgive so easily the one who, undoubtedly, hurt her physically and morally? Today we all know quite well that somebody has to pay for any - physical or moral - damage. To avoid such situations we, adults, should know ourselves and teach our children a simple thing - to live under the current circumstances, be able to assert their own rights and interests, and interests of their families. To achieve this it is necessary that we change approaches to the education of a new generation of Ukrainian citizens for them to become individuals with high level of legal culture, democratic views and believes, individuals who can legally protect common human and social values. Our children must be conscious social life participants. However, it is impossible without an appropriate level of legal, political, economic, and cultural knowledge and skills. Today the state, its institutions and organizations pay much attention to civic education of the growing generation. Foreign countries seeking the development of democratic ideas and values in Ukraine do not stay away either. For the last years there have been developed frameworks for civic education, curricula and methodology for civic education courses in secondary schools and higher educational establishments. A considerable attention is paid to the out-of-school civic education activities work with pupils. To promote civic education, resource centres are set up in different educational institutions: schools, regional and local in-service teacher training institutes, teacher training universities. One of such resource centres is the Centre for Civic Education at the Central In-service Teacher Training Institute of the Academy of Pedagogical Science of Ukraine that has already been functioning for two years thanks to the support of the Education for Democracy in Ukraine Project. Its aim is to promote civic education as a necessary component of all levels of school, university and in-service education, and to expand the civics content of the school extra curricular activities. To achieve this aim, the Centre for Civic Education:
The Institute professors not only use the library at the Centre for Civic Education for their lectures, but also take care of filling it with new interesting publications. The Institute administration also supports the Centre's activities. It is not accidental that it was the CIITT Centre for Civic Education on the basis of which the training for a group of civic education study tour participants from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tadzhykystan was organised. In the future, the Centre for Civic Education will not only provide access to theoretical and practical achievements in this field, but also by means of systematic questionnaires and tests will take care of a better preparation of the trainees on this issue. It will facilitate the introduction to the CITTI curricular of both theoretical courses aiming at political culture development and presentation of civic education conceptual principles, national and international experiences, and practical classes to master the course teaching methodology. Fayina Yasynska
Issue 1, July 2000 Issue 2, October 2000 Issue 3, January 2001 Issue 4, April 2001 Issue 5, July 2001 Issue 6, October 2001 Issue 7, January 2002
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