Institute of Baltic Studies (IBS) is conducting democracy seminars for students in the basic school (comprehensive school) stage and school teams in Estonia. In total, there will be 80–100 participants from 20 schools, with 4–5 students and 1 teacher per school. The seminars will take place on October 30, 2019, in Tartu (at the Estonian National Museum) and on November 1, 2019, in Narva (at Narva College).
The seminars repeat a practical seminar-workshop conducted in Tartu (at the Estonian National Museum) in 2017 as part of a human rights education study. This previous event included teachers and students from 10 schools, totaling 50 participants (see more details here, p. 45). Both the 2017 seminars and the 2019 seminars are directly based on the results of the 2017 study (“Human Rights and Fundamental Human Rights Values in Estonian Schools and Education Policy”), which, among other things, highlighted significant shortcomings in school students’ knowledge, skills, and also the courage to address or exercise their own rights.
The goal of the upcoming seminars is to introduce students to topics related to democratic participation and human/fundamental rights through interactive engagement methods; and to train teachers/school management on ways to practically implement democratic engagement in the classroom and what methods to use to increase or address students’ awareness of human and fundamental rights issues (including the duties that accompany rights).
Indicative topics to be covered are:
Practical workshops for students (in round tables) will be led by project team members, while a trainer or expert/experts for teachers/school leaders will be recruited externally. Focusing the democracy seminars on teachers is one of the key emphases of this series of events – the aim is to make the seminar as practical as possible for teachers/school leaders, allowing them to start implementing the results or methods in the school environment immediately if they wish.