Project No. BPD-ESF-2.4.0-03-05/0078

Project duration: May 2006–April 2008

Project co-funder: tThe project is supported by the Lithuanian government. The project is partly funded by the European Union

Project coordinator: Lietuvos demokratiškumo ugdymo kolegija (Lithuania)

Project partners:

Šiuolaikinių didaktikų centras (Lithuania)

Vilniaus pedagoginis universitetas (Lithuania)

PROJECT RELEVANCE

The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) has approved a regional strategy for education for sustainable development for 2005–2014, which places particular emphasis on citizenship, reducing social exclusion, ethics education, and other tasks. The importance of these goals is evidenced by the fact that 2005 was declared the European Year of Citizenship. However, at the conference “Civic Engagement and Education in Lithuania” (Vilnius, March 31, 2005), it was emphasized that, on the one hand, Lithuanian youth is the social group that is most aware of democratic rights and principles, but, on the other hand, it is the most passive part of society, unwilling to defend or fight for democratic principles. Such personalities clearly lack a coherent civic position, as their awareness of their duties lags significantly behind their knowledge of their rights, and responsibility is overshadowed by freedom of behavior. This contradiction is explained by the fact that, although education reform documents place great emphasis on the cultivation of moral values in students (which is especially important for class teachers), the mission of education is more declared than actually implemented due to a lack of specific methods and a shortage of teachers with the relevant competence. The consequences of such neglected education are evident today: diligent students know the definitions of citizenship, democracy, and other values, but these do not become part of their personalities; most students know their rights but forget their responsibilities; school dropout rates are increasing; student lawlessness is on the rise, the age of criminals is getting younger, and we lead Europe in the number of suicides. Feeling chronic discomfort at school, experiencing frequent communication and educational problems, and not understanding the purpose and meaning of their lives, some students lose their motivation to learn and become indifferent and passive. It is likely that this situation is largely due to the fact that too little attention is paid in the education process to purposeful upbringing, the development of learning motivation, and the awareness of goals.

The project encourages the government and society to pay attention to young people as a group of citizens with special needs, whose democracy, morality, and ability to solve their own problems can and must be fostered through innovative, purposeful education methods. The project aims to achieve strategic educational goals focused on fostering citizenship, democratic values, and moral ideals, raising awareness of the meaning of human existence, and examining issues relevant to different age groups.

PROJECT AIM

To enhance the teaching of citizenship and other democratic values in general education schools.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

• Developing the professional competence of teachers – their ability to foster students’ value orientations using innovative methods.
• Disseminate the project’s ideas within the Lithuanian education system in order to optimize the quality of educational work, activate students’ civic position, democracy, motivation to learn, and reduce “dropouts” from the continuous education system.
• To create an innovative targeted educational methodology and publish a methodological publication – “Towards Beauty and Goodness: A Class Teacher’s Book.”
• To train teachers to apply and implement new methods and forms of education—the internalization of civic, democratic, and other moral values—in Lithuanian schools.

PROJECT TARGET GROUPS

The target group of the project is teachers-class leaders who are mastering innovative methodology, which will provide a methodological basis and methodological guidelines for further creative exploration and professional competence development.
The indirect target group is students. Each teacher-class leader who participated in the training works with an average of 15 students, so the project’s ideas reached as many as 4,500 students. 

PROJECT ACTIVITIES

Preparation of the methodology

No modern concepts or methodologies for the educational work of class teachers have been published in Lithuania. Therefore, the project experts have developed an innovative targeted education methodology based on the concept of comprehensive education covering cognitive, motor, emotional, and moral aspects of personality. The methodology is designed to foster the value orientations of general education school students, basing this process on the phenomenon of human aesthetic needs and the influence of art, as well as the interaction between Beauty and Goodness, which is modeled with the help of innovative methods of Personal Meaning and Emotional Imitation. With the help of these methods, art in the education process becomes a factor that inspires students’ feelings and provokes their thinking.

The methodology has been published as a separate publication, “Towards Goodness and Beauty: A Class Teacher’s Book,” with examples of music and art presented in the appendices in CD format.

Organization and implementation of teacher training

From September to December 2007, training courses for teachers and class leaders were organized in ten Lithuanian counties based on innovative teaching methods developed by project experts. Out of 329 training participants, 10 teachers who had mastered the material best were selected and received additional training to become lecturers and disseminate the methodology in Lithuanian regions.

Republican scientific conference “The dissemination of beauty and goodness in the socio-cultural space of the country”, 7 March 2008

The conference was the most important stage in the project’s publicity and dissemination. During the conference, teachers and specialists (social workers, psychologists) from across the country were presented with an innovative methodology, a new publication entitled “Towards Goodness and Beauty,” its artistic supplements, and other project products. The possibilities for applying, developing, and integrating the innovative methodology into other areas of education were discussed.

PROJECT RESULTS

• An innovative teaching methodology was developed and a special publication with artistic supplements, “Towards Beauty and Goodness,” was released.
• An innovative teaching program module was developed and accredited.
• Ten teacher training seminars were organized in ten Lithuanian counties, and 329 teachers were trained, 10 of whom were prepared to work as lecturers, experts, and consultants in the counties using this innovative methodology.
• A targeted education training program has been developed and implemented to stimulate the professional development of Lithuanian teachers. The knowledge and skills acquired will enable them to use art as a means of getting to know their students, highlight and solve existing moral problems, prevent their occurrence, and form positive life goals and motivation for lifelong learning.
• The implementation of a special training program for 10 lecturers will ensure the further dissemination of this innovative methodology in schools.
• The implementation of the project’s publicity and dissemination program (publications in the press, television and radio broadcasts, leaflets, posters, final project conference) will promote the dissemination and development of project ideas in the fields of education, special education, social disease prevention, art therapy, and other areas.