Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, vol. 49, no. 2,
March–April 2011, pp. 23–28.
© 2011 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved.
ISSN 1061–0405/2011 $9.50 + 0.00.
DOI 10.2753/RPO1061-0405490203
Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, vol. 49, no. 2,
March–April 2011, pp. 23–28.
© 2011 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved.
ISSN 1061–0405/2011 $9.50 + 0.00.
DOI 10.2753/RPO1061-0405490203
Tetyana Koshmanova
Based on retrospective analysis, the article addresses the issues of the School of the Dialogue of Cultures (SDC) movement in Russia and Ukraine, which represents a promising direction for global educational reform toward teaching humanitarian thinking. It specifically argues that the SDC promotes multiculturalism and democracy in conflict/postconflict nations and in developed democracies.
Background and legacy
I am a Ukrainian researcher and educator who has been participating in the project Dialogue of Cultures: Ukraine in the Global Context of Philosophy of Education (Cherepanova, 2002) throughout the past two decades. I recall memories of heated discussions on dialogical education at the Ukrainian Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, universities, and other institutions. This was a time when we started examining the works of Lev Vygotsky, Mikhail Bakhtin, and Vladimir Bibler; and when the innovative movement of the “pedagogy of cooperation” was placed on the agenda of all-national deliberations (Koshmanova, 2007), specifically on the topics of student communication, learning dialogue, and developmental education.
There was a broad discussion about the correlation of the two activity-based categories of psychology–developmental education (Davydov, 1990; Gal’perin, 1986) and dialogical communication (Bakhtin, 1979; Bibler, 1993; Leontiev 1977). Hence, the general network of the structural components of student activity was combined with the reality of ommunication and the emphasized dialogical methodology of student learning. The result was that teachers and students became equal partners in communication and activity, learning about each other, and moving toward self-cognition and self-evaluation.
In developing the concept of communication as an activity, the two main approaches of Soviet psychology—activity-based developmental learning (Davydov, 1990; Leontiev, 1977) and dialogic communication (Lisina, 1986)—merged and complemented each other and gave a new birth to the theory of activity. On the one hand, learning is always an activity, and it includes all the components of its structure (setting the goal, selecting the content, motivating for participation, organizing the process of learning, and evaluating the results). On the other hand, learning is an interaction of teachers with students and of students among themselves within a certain historical epoch, during which students not only improve their knowledge, but, in addition, develop the image of self and the understanding of the other. Dialogical activity became a source of student psyche development and a mechanism of activity formation.
This latter approach helped overcome the strict programmed nature of the activity theory by humanizing it and paying more attention to the students’ needs (for cooperation, respect, recognition, etc.) and interaction of their inner and outer speech. Educators in different regions of Ukraine started speaking about humanization and humanitarization of student learning in schools (Ziaziun, 2000), dialogue of cultures (Bakhtin, 1979; Bibler, 2009; Cherepanova, 2002), friendly learning environments, as well as teachers and students as equal partners in the learning process. It emphasized the need for teachers to meet student needs when promoting their lifelong learning and sustained personal development in the light of building a civil society in Ukraine. However, like life itself, which is not free of contradictions, for years the ideas of dialogical, developmental pedagogy have been fueling the creativity of the minds of Ukrainian educators, as well as their students’ ability to understand and accept these contradictions.
Today, however, the ideas of the School of the Dialogue of Cultures (SDC) seem to have “slowed down” in Ukraine, which is confronted with postconflict social and economic realities, the youth of democracy, national identity movements, ethnocentric trends, and the hidden domination of authoritarian (homo sovieticus) ideology. By targeting education for reform, political leaders capitalized on the potential of schools to instill ethnocentric values and articulate norms and traditions of Ukrainian culture to a heterogeneous Ukrainian population. Efforts to redefine a nationality through socialization in public education are based not solely on residency and citizenship but on cultural factors as well. Schools are called upon to espouse a Ukrainian national identity as an important factor in their patriotism or loyalty to Ukraine.
Although during almost nineteen years of independence (1991) an interest in Ukrainian ethnic cultural identity developed in the liberal consciousness of the population of the East, a latent conflict is observed between these “two Ukraines,” which became especially evident during the recent 2010 presidential elections and the 2004 Orange Revolution. The dangerous trend toward Ukraine’s splitting into two parts—the Ukrainian-speaking West and the Russian-speaking East—revealed that the overwhelming majority of the Ukrainian population was unprepared to make a responsible, civic, reconciling choice in the contradictory conditions of de facto multiculturalism.
Prospects
I believe that the style of reasoning promoted by the SDC’s philosophy may help students of modern Ukraine as well as students of any postconflict nation to better understand and accept the ideas of a multicultural, civil society. This philosophy teaches students critical thinking in learning any subject. In addition, this such humanitarian discourse of the SDC (Bibler, 2009) suggests rich “vertical” and “horizontal” (Solomadin, October 2004, personal communication) multicultural contexts for the development of their independent critical thinking. In addressing this kind of reasoning, Bibler (2009) justified the philosophical content of the dialogue as “humanitarian thinking, taken in its universality” (Bibler, 1990, p. 300), and believed that it promoted the various contexts of creativity, a dialogical perception of the world, and a polyphony of views to achieve better understanding of the other, even if one remains within the borders of his/her cultural tradition (Bakhtin, 1979).
The SDC represents a methodologically rich basis for developing the entire complex of civic values of students who live in divided, conflict, or postconflict societies as well as in a developed democracy. For example, using the SDC philosophy, my colleagues and I (Koshmanova and Holm, 2007) have successfully taught tolerance and acceptance of others to our students-prospective teachers in two different cultural contexts (Ukraine and the United States). This philosophy allowed us to believe that three conditions had to be met in order to achieve the goal: first, a democratic classroom is essential if we want to build a democratic society. Students learn democratic principles by practicing them. Second, students need to learn to care about those who are different. Caring, however, is not enough, but needs to be combined with critical thinking in order for students to become activists working for the acceptance of cultural diversity. Third, we believe that academic service-learning is a way for students to confront others based on their own identities, stereotypes, and prejudices.
In a democratic classroom the instructor models both the intellectual and moral virtues that preservice teachers will need to learn to model and to exercise as practicing teachers in a democratic, culturally diverse society. The intellectual virtues that promote open communication include encouraging questioning, listening carefully and respectfully, and analyzing statements in order to better understand others. Students need to learn that it is safe to take a stand and to evaluate positions. Teachers need to model critical thinking and expression of their views. The moral virtues include modeling tolerance of and respect for others and their views as well as caring about others’ points of view. However, it is important to note that the instructor is not an equal of the students. The instructor bears the responsibility for developing a democratic classroom, not a relativistic classroom where all views are regarded as equal. The goal of teacher education is to contribute to building a democratic and peaceful society, not an ethnocentric and nationalistic society. The instructor together with the students needs to strive to build a classroom community where the participants learn to critically examine both “vertically” and “horizontally” (Bibler, 2009) the written and lived curriculum for intolerance, ethnocentrism, and bigotry.
In other words, students must also examine critically their own as well as their fellow students’ views. It can be a difficult and painful experience to acknowledge one’s own stereotypes and ethnocentric views. It is helpful for students in this process to understand their own locally grounded experiences in the light of a larger, more global perspective (Koshmanova and Holm, 2007).
Applying the SDC concept of the dialogical nature of human consciousness to teaching tolerance and multiculturalism it was useful for us to closely connect it with the activity (Leontiev, 1977) and cultural-historical (Vygotsky, 1978) theories. The constructed activities should have a foundation in the students’ own interests. To achieve the goal of developing students’ levels of tolerance and multicultural understanding the instructors used the system of the two motives (Myasishchev, 1960). The first is a concrete motive, which is personally meaningful to students. This motive, based on students’ immediate needs such as the recognition of others, interesting communication with friends, a good grade for the assignment, and so on, becomes the primary goal of doing a certain activity. The second motive of socializing with others is more meaningful, although it is not initially perceived as a meaningful motive. However, such a motive can become an important goal, if the student has a positive personal experience from participating in the activity (Koshmanova and Holm, 2007).
In our seminar where teacher education students were assigned to do fieldwork in a culturally different community, we discovered in the students’ reflection journals that they were indifferent or opposed to the ideas of multiculturalism in the beginning and did not want to become involved in a cultural activity in an ethnic minority community. However, they wanted to fulfill the instructor’s assignment with the primary motive being their grade for the course, as well as the chance to spend more informal time with their classmates in the group who were also assigned to be in the ethnic community. Through enjoyable communication with friends, work on an assignment grade, personal experience in the activity (visiting the community several times), and communication with minority children, students gradually began to realize that they liked this activity. Their biases and stereotypes toward this ethnic minority became less harsh, or even diminished and disappeared (Koshmanova and Holm, 2007). In reality, the secondary motive became as powerful as the primary motive, thanks to the pleasurable activity in which students let down their guard and at least temporarily forgot their ethnic biases and stereotypes.
When applying the SDC philosophy to teaching students multiculturalism, we also tried to develop students’ care for each other. Caring is an important characteristic for teachers, especially learning to care about marginalized students. However, in a society that is driven by ethnocentric public policies, caring about those who are excluded is not enough. Teacher education students also need to learn to think critically about the societal structures and policies that exclude and marginalize the children and youth of culturally different backgrounds.
For many U.S. university students it was the first time they had regular contact with and built a relationship with a person of color or a person living in poverty (Boyle-Baise and Kilbane, 2000). It was often a challenge for these U.S. university students, but once they had worked with one student they began to comprehend what some of the issues were going to be later when they would have their own classrooms with students from diverse backgrounds and cultures. The university students also learned that diversity means more than ethnicity and race. Social classes and gender issues exist in all schools, and create chasms that have to be bridged. The students wrote weekly electronic reflection journals and participated in an electronic discussion about the issues they encountered with regard to the students and their families along with the school structure and curriculum. In both schools the curriculum resembles what Haberman (1991) calls the pedagogy of poverty, with worksheets to keep the students busy and under control. Learning is often not the focus of such a curriculum. These kinds of issues made the university students question their own schooling that, for the first time, they understood to be privileged.
Conclusions
I am convinced that Vladimir Bibler’s (2009) School of the Dialogue of Cultures movement in Ukraine and Russia, presented by Matusov (2009, pp. 3–19) and discussed in depth in the works of SDC teachers and researchers is a promising direction for global educational reform toward teaching humanitarian thinking. It promotes multiculturalism and democracy in any society. It is applicable in both conflict/postconflict nations and in developed democracies. While I concur with Matusov’s (2009) five wonders of the SDC, I want to add another two wonders promoted by SDC pedagogical theory: (1) students become lifelong learners, and (2) students develop the qualities necessary for effective functioning in a democratic, civil society.
The political, cultural, and educational policies in post-Soviet Ukraine are steering the country in an ethnocentric and intolerant direction. This is of particular concern since Ukraine, as well as most of the other countries in the former Soviet bloc, does not have an ethnically, linguistically, or religiously homogeneous population. The various minorities have no place in current Ukrainian society. I submit that changes in the direction of becoming a country that accepts and appreciates cultural diversity can be built from a grassroots level through educational institutions that practice SDC educational theory. Teacher educators and consequently teachers themselves who develop humanitarian, dialogic, critical thinking in their students can actively contribute to building a democratic and tolerant post-Soviet Ukraine. By practicing democracy in their classrooms, young people and children will learn what democracy is. Furthermore, engaging in academic service-learning contributes to students’ civic engagement. Interactive learning strategies, including simulations, cooperative learning, and constructive criticism require an atmosphere of trust and can forge a socially cohesive learning community, which teacher education students can later expand into their own classrooms. Teacher educators and their students can also further the development of a multicultural society by confronting and reflecting on their own positions, privileges, stereotypes, and attitudes in contemporary Ukrainian society.
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Tetyana Koshmanova is a professor of sociocultural foundations in the College of Education and Human Development at Western Michigan University. She has consulted with schools throughout Eastern Europe on the issues of teaching for multiculturalism and peace. For the past fifteen years she has served on task forces examining teacher education reforms for peace and democratic citizenship in Ukraine and Russia.
E-mail: tetyana.koshmanova@wmich.edu.
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