National Histories in South-Eastern Europe and History of a United Europe |
This project was made posible through the generous support of the Higher Education Support Program of the Open Society Institute (Zurich/Budapest) |
The Project was organised by: |
FINAL EVALUATION REPORT |
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1. From the perspective of selected students, during the four-days European Seminar, we confronted the various cases in the SEE educational systems/curricula in the area of teaching/learning the above-mentioned disciplines in the concerned countries. We evaluated and synthesized the main lacks, misperceptions and anacronic theoretical and methodological approaches in the various academic systems. We also stimulated a dialogue with deans/research responsibles from the universities/institutes in order to harmonise common points of views about the focused issues within the Seminar, and to formulate recommendations concerning the most suitable analytical revisions, and educational tools to be agreed with professors, introduced and consolidated in the further training activities for graduating/post-graduate students and fresh alumni. The representatives of participating countries and organizations presented special reports on the situation of other SEE countries. The Bulgarian representatives put an emphasis on the lack of interest on behalf of teachers to use Internet as a research source. It was mentioned that students often are the ones “supplying” Internet-based information to their teachers. It was acknowledged that a general stereotype “Our nation is the best. Our neighbors are not” exists. Therefore it was feared that students from different countries would not easily find an agreement on the same historical events. The problem of alternative manuals was considered also an important one. In connection to this subject the opinion of the Bulgarian representatives was although numerous and diverse, the content of the alternative manuals is often influenced by the “opinions” of sponsors and founders. One of the main flaws was considered the lack of relevant information with regard to the region of the Balkans. In this respect generous time is allocated to Western European countries, but a certain disregard towards medieval Serbia, Romania, Croatia, and Greece is observed. The Macedonian representative presented the content of the Historical curricula in his country. As a consequence he mentioned that a manual would have a four-period structure: Antiquity, Middle Ages, and The Turkish Rule. Modern History. He also admitted that relevant time is given to the studying of the history of Western European States but he mentioned that important information is also given about the Balkans. He suggested that that the main source of improvement in historical studies should be comparative learning, exchanges of teachers and students. Serbian teachers and students described as main issues that are present in the Yugoslav society the poor financial situation, the accuses of ethnical cleansing. They admitted having an inadequate curricula as to what studying minorities is concerned. They also mentioned having only one history manual. When presenting the results of a survey it was affirmed that 95% of students want to study more national history and only 3% consider they should receive more information on the history of other States. The Moldavian representative explained that the manuals have a good presentation of European history but there are large controversies in regard to the curricula on the national history, mainly due to the three main conceptual approaches: considering Moldavia an independent State, a part of Romania, or desiring a return to the USSR formation. The topics of the three workshops focused on the following problems: Conspiracy; Defending Europe; the Myth of Continuity. The debates during the plenary session established proposals for a change with regard to Historical curricula. The outcome of the debates presented four major proposals: students should learn more about the history of neighboring countries; the importance of introducing the study of local history in elementary schools was brought up and largely debated; an increase in the living standards of History teachers should take place; exchange programmes for teachers and students should be established. Within the evaluation session, we concluded that, for most of the students, the European Seminar was a new, interesting and challenging experience, of learning and becoming aware of different, first hand, points of view with regard to the region’s history. Most of participants stated they will use the information acquired in studying or teaching History, and are hopeful in the development of a new methodology and curricula. The multinational distribution of the participants was considered the main asset of the Seminar. The location was also greatly appreciated, as Timisoara reunites various ethnic communities, an excellent example of co-habitation and multiculturalism. A methodological and theoretical draft document was presented. The Outline aimed to determine the main issues to be studied and focused within the further activities of the project, mainly during the first Seminar and the Final Evolution/Debate Workshop, on the basis of the proposals and suggestions received from partner organisations. Under the coordination of the Youth & Student Department of EUROLINK – House of Europe, and the scientific co-ordination ensured by Prof. Florian Bieber, a permanent multinational mixt Task-Force Group was created. Its aim was to formulate recommendations, orientations of the further discussions, moderate the debates on the Internet, promote and publicize the Agenda regarding the suggestions and best practices emerging from the previous meeting and activities, towards the participants, other interested organisations, educators and ministries of education in the concerned countries. As media coverage of this first event, the public TV channel “TVR 1 - Timisoara” broadcasted a report on the works of the Seminar. The Executive President of the EUROLINK - House of Europe, Prof. Sever Avram, and the USA Trainer, Mrs. Lynn R. Dole, gave short interviews where they explained the role of the Seminar and the expected results of the whole project for Romanian educational system and the SEE curricula in the concerned field. On the basis of the Recommendation no. 1238/1996 and no 15/2001 of the Council of Europe regarding the study of history in SEEC, after the First Seminar, the Task-Force Group elaborated a guiding document, as a result of the common reflection of project co-ordinators and consultants. Regarding the theoretical approach, the document considers that a change of the educational paradigm and methodological styles in the SEE has to start from an input from academic community. The reconstruction of the scientific discourse on the national history in SEEC, as well as on the SEE/Balkan history as a whole, has to start from the need to distinguish between the various stages of this historical and cultural construction. We also itemised the most important changes to be operated by historians in their attempt to rethink on the interpretation of SEE histories. From a theoretical point of view, the Balkans have to deeply transform its (self-) perception as the negative alternative to the civilisated Europe. This implies a long process of reading again documents and historical testimonies, to avoid prejudices in interpreting these sources and looking for establishing criteria for evaluating historical facts. Regarding the methodological dimension, we considered a crucial issue concerning the teaching of national history in SEEC is considered to be the development of useful life-time abilities and concepts. In order to deeply renew the methodological orientations in SEEC, we reconsidered the role and the place of the teacher during the class of history. This situation involves a special attention granted to the active learning, to the learning through exploration, to the use of group learning or independent learning, to the debates involving all pupils or to the access towards a variety of historical sources. The SEEC teachers are to confront themselves not only with the local/general scientific "taboo", stereotypes and misperceptions, but also with the reality of a persistent sensitive and controversial issues in the whole SEE region. We also prepared, published and disseminated to the target-groups the first issue of the Newsletter. EUROLINK kept informed all participants, partner institutions and affiliated networks about the progress of the project and the collected suggestions from the participants. The web page was created and used for publishing the newsletters, publications of the project, the calls for applications, echoes in the media, progress reports and occasional news for the participants and members of partner-organisations.
2. In November 2002, in Lugoj (60 km from Timisoara), we organised the First European Training Session. 31 participants from Austria, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Portugal, Serbia and Romania attended this activity. The training session, coordinated by Ms. Daniela Grabe, Expert from the Centre for the Study of Balkan Societies and Cultures belonging to the Department for SEE European History of the Graz University proposed a debate on various essential teaching methods, aimed to renovate the educational approach in our SEE region. She made a presentation of "History and history teaching in SEE" Project and of the additional teaching elaborated materials: "Childhood in the past" and "Women and Men in the past", sponsored by Kultur Kontakt, Task Force of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Austria, within the Stability Pact. During the same Training Session, Mr. Antonio Eduardo Mendonca, Director of the Centre for Socialist and Post-Socialist Studies at the University of Lisbon, Portugal, mainly related to the future role Balkan countries will play as Members of the European Union. One of the special tasks that is envisaged could be that of a filter for the Union, as it will border Turkey and former USSR. Dr. Carol Capita from the Faculty of History at the Bucharest University gave a lecture on "The Perspectives from Afar and from Near - Minorities and the Other in the Teaching of History in SEE". The lecturer asked for a debate on the objects, institutions, values, ideas and beliefs that create solidarity among members of the society and are aimed at insuring the continuity in time of that human grouping. Several examples on how public/historical perception can be altered with the help of visual, printed materials (pictures, texts, other historical documents). The conclusion was to always check the source for reliability and adequacy. Its interpretation should be done correctly and objectively. A general opinion was that theoretical historical knowledge should be prevented from being mixed with the political rhetorics. Also teaching staff should bring Europe in the foreground of their lectures and adapt to communitary standards and ideology. An ad-hoc analysis was made on the procedures that can be found in Romania on the adoption/modification of the curricula. The lack of educational materials and competent staff with regard to the European institutions was brought up. Also, using proposals of participants, important comments were considered for the improvement of the Agenda of topics of the next Training Session., to be deployed in March 2003. Certificates of Graduation were delivered to all participants, confirming their participation to the First Training Session within our project. The event enjoyed of a special attention from the local media, as it was presented in the regional daily “Redesteptarea” and in the weekly “Actualitatea” within the "Events" section. Interviews on the works of the Seminar, as well as remarks related to its importance, were made by Mr. Ioan Valcan, Director of "The Angels of Hope" Foundation, a humanitarian organisation in Lugoj, Mr. Nikola Zezov, on the behalf of Youth Council of Prilep (project partner), Mr. Silviu Hariton, on the behalf of ERASMUS Society and Mr. Sever Avram, as President of EUROLINK - House of Europe in Bucharest. For more details, please see the attached translation. Also, local private radio channels (Analog and Nova) reflected the event through short interviews and reports after the meeting with the Mayor of Lugoj. After the training Session, a Second Issue of the Newsletter synthesized the observations and conclusions of the workshops, as well as the expressed opinions, suggestions and proposed innovative methods during the First Training Session. The web page was updated and the members of the created network were kept informed about the progress of the project. The Task Force Group collected all proposals for the White Paper from participants and interested institutions. 3. A Second Training Session took place in March 2003, consisting in two intensive training sessions, focused on: 1) the scientific teaching contents, and 2) the innovation of educational methods and tools on teaching national histories. Prof. Florian Bieber, Senior Non-Resident Research Associate at the European Centre for Minority Issues (Flensburg, Germany), currently working in Belgrade - Serbia, and also Recurrent Visiting Professor at the Nationalism Studies Program of the Central European University, Budapest, Hungary. He moderates also an e-mail group-list, called "Balkan List", which is well-known and appreciated in SEEC. Mr. Joaquim Pinto-Da-Silva, Expert of the European Commission in Brussels, Director in the General Directorate Information and Education, a well-known specialist in civil society organisations and exchanges in Candidate and Associated Countries. Prof. Vito A. D'Armento from the Department of Educational Sciences of the University of Lecce, Italy and Vice-President of European Society of the Ethnography of Education (SEEE). Drd. Corneliu Berari, currently completing his PhD at University of Munich, Germany, and also Civic Education Project Fellow Research in Romania. Mrs. Ildiko Pataki, Associate Consultant to the Center Education 2000+, within the Soros Organisations Network in Romania. The main invited trainer, Prof. Florian Bieber divided his presentation in three presentations, two workshops and a simulation game. The topic of the first module was “Historical Legacies and Ethnic Diversity”, which consisted in two parts: “The Ottoman Empire” and “The emergence of Nation-states and forgotten history of the non-dominant groups”. His first presentation was focused on the “Balkans”, as an Ottoman Legacy. The Balkans are a geographical, historical, and cultural space, characterized by a large diversity of its numerous social groups. The similarities of the situations, especially from the South of Danube, are results of the characteristics of the Ottoman Empire: it was a religious Empire where the Millet system allowed the autonomy of the various social groups. The first Workshop has the following topics: the main sources of supposed historical contention. Historical animosities’ conveyed in the educational system; the issues in history and historiography which can be found across the region. Cross-cutting historical developments. The participants were divided in three workshops with the aim to analyze the two topics. They analyzed the images of Bulgaria in Serbia and Romania, the mutual perception of Serbia and Romania and of Moldavia and Romania and the mages of Hungary in Romania and of Ukraine in Moldavia. As a study-case, the trainer introduced the relations between Serbians and Bulgarians. They are and were very good except the memory of the all war from the modern period they have participated and they were always enemies. It was recognized that the most important instruments in constructing and perpetrating this type of public memory are the textbooks and also media. Within his presentation, Mr. Corneliu Berari from Western University in Timisoara, focused on “The introduction of elements of the history of the European Union and its institutions within the curricula of contemporary history in SEEC – Problems, dilemmas and prospects”. The presentation concerned the historical contents about the European Union in the faculties of the political sciences in Romania, and especially within the Western University of Timisoara. Also, as a conclusion of the comparison between the history students and political sciences students, it was issued the important observation that the students from History tends to see the past as a narrative discourse while the students from Political Sciences tends to see the past in a more systemic perspective. The topic of the second module presented by Prof. Bieber was: “Representing Minority in Textbooks and Curricula”, and it was focused on two major themes: Contemporary challenges to teaching and education in diverse societies. “How minorities are portrayed in the educational system and how this is a reflection of larger social trends”, and “Classical issue of stereotyping and ignoring non-dominant groups. Critical reading of both media and textbooks”. The most important idea of this presentation was that within the process of teaching/learning History, the analysis ad adaptation of the text-books are not enough for the aim of reducing and even eliminating the stereotypes regarding different discriminated minoritarian groups. It is useless to simply change the text-books and to maintain unchanged the old corpus of teachers who would continue to disseminate the old stereotypes. So, it is important for the goal of a politically correct process of teaching to educate the teachers, who are the most important components of the process of education of the pupils. Also, common textbooks are based on facts and simply data and events, therefore the political history and the complex contexts are incompletely presented, and the minorities many times avoided, simply because they have not participated in the past in the process of taking the political decisions. As a common characteristic of the South-Eastern European Countries, it was presented the situation of non-liberalized market for textbooks as a part of a general situation of incomplete educational reforms. Within his lecture, according the criteria of the institutional analysis, Prof. Vito A. D’Armento from the University of Lecce (Italy) took into consideration the process of teaching/learning as an input-output process. The lecturer reminded to the participants that during the XIX-th century, the main fundraiser of education was the State, the community of the citizens, which has the aim to educate all its new generations in an uniform way. But, as a result of the strong social differences, one important outcome of this goal was the maintaining and increasing of the illiterate people. As a result, the input of the State was very big in comparison with the output, a situation in decline of the public education. In order to renovate the current state of facts, the lecturer suggested some crucial measures to be taken. The newest challenge that teaching history is facing is to identify the ways to increase its contribution to the basic competencies that the graduate from public compulsory instruction has to prove in real life situations. The third presentation of Prof. Bieber was concentrated on “Minority Rights and Education”, and consisted in two parts: “The larger challenge to addressing diversity in the educational system, in the framework of both minority rights and in the context of educational reform which remains a crucial issue in most countries of the Southeastern Europe”, and “How accommodating minority specific education on one side and on the other side to foster cooperation between the SEEC communities”. The preoccupation for minorities is old enough and it is associated with the theme of human rights. Only in recent past, a few decades, it was issued a more developed interest on the sources of information for the public education as an important topic for disseminating stereotypes and not trying to avoid this situation. Prof. Bieber defined the term of ‘functional minority’ as a problem of relation and interaction rather than a specific subject (human individual of social group). For example, black people were the majority in South Africa, from a numerical point of view, but they were a minority, form a political and even social point of view. The minority rights are the right to their own language, the right to participate in taking decision concerning themselves and the right to their own memory. As a Simulation Game, the trainer proposed the Teacher Training for Albanians in Montenegro. This was a simulation game of a real situation from the nowadays Montenegro, where there is a great need for teachers for the Albanian community and there are great disputes where to place the training location of these teachers. As it was observed, the common characteristic of all the participants was the preoccupation for funding, while the real problem is one of identity: the Albanians insists with no compromise to establish the teacher training location within their living territories even if the logistics are not available. Mrs. Ildiko Pataki from the Center EDUCATIA 2000 + within the Soros Network, presented an interactive and practical module entitled: “Promoting and disseminating the content and the functions of the pro-active pedagogical methods. The role of using new teaching materials and basic resources for research” The trainer started from the “question of the day: to be (or not to be) a teacher… in Europe”. The participants were divided in four groups, received a serial of materials and they were provoked to think about how to make their further pupils to work in workshops. Each group presented its own applied version and, in the end, all the outcomes were discussed together. At the end of the second Training Session, on the basis of discussions and suggestions from lecturers and participants, the coordinators of the project summarised the following proposals. a. On the text-books development: The ministries of education, curricula committees and the publishers should ask the teachers to send their opinions on how they work with the textbooks, what is the impact of the use of the new textbooks in their classroom activity. It is important to remember that a history textbook is not a scholarly book; the authors should ask themselves about the skills which pupils should achieve when learning from textbooks. b. On the Curricula development: While objectives seem to have the acceptance of the majority, some adjustments still need to be made, such as the elimination of certain redundancies, the harmonizing of the objectives with the timeframe established through the learning plan. It is necessary to stimulate teachers to try to innovate in the class-room, to try to change their educational style (debates, group work, the analysis of historical sources as activities and methods promoted by the curricula).The curricula changes have to take as their starting point several documents of the Council of Europe, first and foremost Recommendation Rec (2001) 15 on history teaching in the XXI-st century Europe. The changes, the participants underlined, should contribute to the improvement of the curriculum, and, most importantly, to take into account the effects of its application in the classroom. c. Teacher training activities: There is a common responsibility of teachers and experts in developing the curricula, and writing the text-books. The educational process should be innovative, in the sense that pilot schools should be established in order to introduce new approaches; it should benefit from widely published recommendations of good practice, and it also should involve the mass-media; it also implies that school/local centers for learning should be developed, as well the development of a variety of resource materials; teachers should act as examples of good practice, respecting different opinions and the critical attitude. In order to attain these points, the curriculum should be reasonable (in terms of contests), flexible (for more work outside of curriculum), accessible (enabling the increased use of sources), and objective-based. At the same time, all partners in education (students, teachers, parents) should be questioned in relation to the educational materials. At the end of the session, after collecting and sealing the Evaluation Feed-Back Forms from the participants, a short evaluation of the seminar revealed that the training session was an inspired and interesting idea, which offered the participants the opportunity to meet and learn from each other. All participants received Certificates of Graduation, confirming their participation to the Second Training Session within our project. As an additional event, on the occasion of the sixth anniversary of EUROLINK - House of Europe, we organised on the 24th of March 2003 a special Public Debate, under the High Patronage of the Mayor of Timisoara, dedicated to the “Key-Role of Timisoara and of the Western Region in the accession process to the EU”. We analysed the study-case of intercultural diversity and inter-ethnic harmony of Timisoara, as an example to be promoted for the association/stabilisation process and regional integration in South-Eastern Europe. Our training session enjoyed of a special attention from the local and regional media, both before and after the deployment of the event. The following TV channels promoted the seminar and the Public Debate, and also reflected during their news editions and programmes the international participation, its impact and suggestions coming from participants: public TVR Timisoara-TVR 2, private channels Analog TV and TV Europa Nova. Also, the event was presented in the following newspapers: Magyar Szo (Hungarian language) and Neus Banater Zeitung (German language). These newspapers summarised the mission and the goals of the project regarding the change of curricula in national histories, shortly described the included activities, profile of participants and trainers, explained the achievements and further expected results. The web page was updated and the members of the created network were kept informed about the progress of the project. The Task Force Group collected all proposals for the White Paper from participants and interested institutions.
4. In May 2003, in Bucharest, in order to evaluate the results of the project and to plan the best strategy for continuing the purposes of the project, we organised the Final Evaluation Workshop, with the support of the Faculty of History of the University of Bucharest. On this occasion, the Task Force Group decided that for the reform of teaching/learning national histories it will be important to focus on elements aimed at:
However, the main point is to create a trend that might influence all the components:
The Joint Task Force Group examined and generally approved the Draft Version of the White Paper. In order to be finally published, we decided to consult again Prof. Florian Bieber (CEU Visiting Professor) and Mrs. Silvana Rachieru (Fellow in Ankara University), as well as the National Curricula committees in Romania and Serbia. As soon as the Task Force Group will receive the accept from the scientific consultants, the White Paper will be published and disseminated to the target-groups.
5. Final remarks The partner organisations within the project “National Histories in South-Eastern Europe and history of a united Europe” succeeded to establish a functional South Eastern European student and alumni network on long-term in the field of History Studies, able to permanently promote the cross-border continuous academic contacts and exchanges, as well as the innovative educational and advocacy tools for teaching/learning History from the perspective of the newly emerging Europe. The Outline, the guiding document “Proposal for a Change” and the White Paper contributed to the emergence of a new perspective on the contribution and history of minorities in the region trough implementing within current educational the European vision on their presence and role. According to the common evaluation deployed during the Final Evaluation Workshop, especially thanks to the internet support and multiplication capabilities of the partner institutions, the target-groups acquired a deeper knowledge of the European principles, values and practices within the intercultural orientations of the teaching/learning and within the entire academic process, in participating universities and organisations. Through the students, alumni and SEE student participating organisations, we succeeded to involve alumni in related disciplines in order to improve the content of further lessons, methodological approaches, dissemination of scientific information within the academic environment and high-schools. As a Follow-up, the Joint Task Force Group proposed to advance to OSI-HESP a project entitled “The NATIONAL MINORITIES within the CONTEMPORARY SOUTH-EASTEARN HISTORY. A New Theoretical and Methodological Approach in High-School.” This project should be implemented by the Youth and Student Department of the EUROLINK-House of Europe, in co-operation with student associations and other partner institutions in SEEC.
On the behalf of the organising partners, Youth and Student Department EUROLINK - House of Europe
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