Teachers of Vladivostok Served Internship in USA

VLADIVOSTOK. January 22. VOSTOK-MEDIA – A group of teachers from Vladivostok- two headmasters and two teachers served free internship in the USA at the end of the October, 2008. It became possible thanks to the participation of the teachers in exchange program ‘Open World’, conducted by United States Congress. It is not for the first time that teachers and headmasters go to learn in America, exchange their experience there and discover something new. To go there they draw up package of documents, fill up forms in which they represent their educational system, their interests and the length of service as a teacher and then send it to Moscow through the Internet.
Thus the headmaster and teacher of history and social studies form the school #78 and the headmaster and his deputy from the school #76 were inviter in the Vladivostok’s sister city- San Diego, California. During the visit the Russian teachers got acquainted with their US colleagues, took part in the work of the pedagogic group and exchanged their experience.
“As for me it was very interesting to learn the way out-of-school activities are planned and foreign languages are taught.”-says Tatiana Baranova, the headmaster from the school 76 – “We visited various middle schools and universities of San Diego and saw that there were many athletics classes and hobby groups where pupils study music, visual arts, dance and perform on stage. It is very popular in America. But the bad point is that they do not have common standard of the education. There is only accepted system, developed by the government in the Russian Federation. There is no such system in the USA. The authorities of every state decide what should be taught and how it should be taught on their own”-stated Tatiana Baranova.
“The educational methods of our country and American one have many things in common.”-added Tatiana Kulishova, the headmaster from the school #78.-“And I think there is no big difference in the quality of education, because pupils who strive for learning and want to make a grade do not care where to learn: in the USA or in Russia.”
Before the departure of their teachers the pupils from the school #78 wrote letters in English to their peers in American school. The headmaster from the middle school in San Francisco was very glad by that; he promised that his pupils will surely write to Russian ones in reply. This cooperation with foreign pupils will help ours in learning of English language. Headmasters of Vladivostok’s schools made arrangement about further cooperation.
The next joint program between Vladivostok and San Diego will be the exhibition of children’ paintings, which will take place in the USA. The paintings of our pupil will be shown to their foreign peers and published in special catalogues.