Efim Borisovich Shteinberg
Moscow, Russia
Trust, compassion, and creativity at the "Nadiezhda" youth centre
The CIDA project, promoting collaboration among Russian and
Canadian educational theoreticians and practitioners working with at-risk
children, has given me the opportunity to learn about the inspiring
experience of our Canadian colleagues. First, I wish to commend the
professionalism of the Canadian educational system in its selection and
training of experts capable not only of diagnosing children with mental
and behavioural challenges and weak communication skills, but also of
developing strategies and procedures for providing these children with
appropriate psychological and pedagogical support. I also must express
my admiration concerning the financial security and remarkable facilities
enjoyed by Canadian school programs for at-risk children. We have been
deeply impressed by the wonderful industrial workshops for various
trades, extensive libraries, student lounges, modem printing facilities,
gifted folk dancers, amateur talent groups, and art workshops for the
creation of various crafts.
It is my hope that our Canadian colleagues have found equally
rewarding their opportunity to observe the multi-faceted and meaningful
work of our Russian teachers in solving the psychological and socialrehabilitation
problems of at-risk children and youth. Such joint efforts
oi teachers and theoreticians from different countries, based on intensive
studies of international practice, will surely help to promote a climate of
universal social acceptance for all children. The spirit of trust,
compassion, and creativity thus nurtured will help our students to feel
protected and secure and to find their path in life and their place among
others. Hopefully, the reflections and personal experiences of the author
will also serve this noble mission.
We understand "socialization" to be the process of an individual's
integration into society. The individual's acquisition of social roles and
cultural norms, which generates changes in the development of
personality, prompts, in turn, changes in the structure of society. It is
known that the family, as the individual's primary social group, plays a
special role in child socialization, creating a foundation for future
behaviour. Relationships within the family may be characterized by
various types of patterns, which may later be projected onto the child's
relationships with other social institutions. Social values are learned
through the network of family relationships: the family serves as the link
or mediator between the child and other micro- and macro-structures of
society. Because of this mediating role, the family serves as a unique
interpreter of the values that prevail in various social structures and with
which a child must deal in the future. One may say that nothing so
profoundly determines a child's "image of the world" as family. An
individual leaves the family with a model of values, behaviour patterns,
and an "image" of society; subsequent socialization to a large extent
depends on the child's primary socialization within the family.
However, family and societal values may not coincide and may even
contradict one another. According to the International Youth Foundation
of the Russian Federation (Langan & Katchalova, 1998), the Russian
family, as an agency of socialization, has been gravely affected by an
acute crisis that reaches into the moral fabric and values of family life.
This crisis involves extremely low living standards, parental abuse of
alcohol, an increase in single-parent families, and a dramatic decline in
the number of families with two or more children. According to their
survey, about 40% of mothers question whether teaching children to be
hardworking, honest, and educated citizens will help them be successful
in life in Russia.
Since the inception of perestroika, fundamental changes in all
spheres of Russian life have led to a major reassessment of traditional
reference points. The country has lost faith in the ideals of collectivism
and altruism, and few educational institutions have been capable of
effectively addressing children's need to express independence, engage
in socially useful activities, and develop meaningful relationships.
Since various social structures and informal groups play a crucial
role in the teenager's development of life values, a humanistic
educational environment is sorely needed within Russia's new socioeconomic
conditions. Such an environment could preserve the purity and
innocence of the child's inner world and resolve the moral problems
experienced by the majority of teenagers, including those identified as
"at risk."
Observations made over the course of an extensive pedagogical
career permit me to affirm that, unlike adults, all children and teenagers
are potentially at risk. The child is raised not only within the family unit,
but also within society, an enormous educational space in which
interpersonal contact is continuous and its outcomes unpredictable. Each
of the family situations listed in Table 1 has the potential to become the
basis of a serious problem in the formation of a teenager's character and
patterns of interaction.
With conditions such as those highlighted in Table 1, social
institutions must take on the challenge of reconstructing the environment
and relations that a healthy family should provide. This includes creating
a comfortable setting for children - one in which they are accepted for
who they are, receive attention and care for their physical and moral
health, and feel that others are interested in their personal growth.
Children's organizations must generate productive solutions to the
problem of how to promote the positive socialization of teenagers. In our
view, the "Nadiezhda" (Hope) Unit is a protptype of such an institution.
Nadiezhda has operated for more than 40 years within the Centre for
Creativity of Children and Youth of the East District of Moscow, a
recreation institution which provides children with the opportunity to
engage in various creative activities outside of school. The Unit was
created in 1960 at the regional House of Young Pioneers and Pupils (the
former name of the public institutions created throughout the USSR to
provide students with useful multi-disciplinary extracurricular activities).
At that time, the Unit served as regional headquarters of the Pan-Union
Young Pioneers Organization. Originally, the team's main task was to
organize for community service all the Young Pioneers of Moscow's
Kuibyshevsky District. As well as helping war and labour veterans, our
students earned money to provide assistance to children of countries struggling for independence, cleaned yards and streets, gathered paper
and scrap metal for recycling, and participated in various athletic
competitions and games.
Features of the Social Composition of Families whose Children Attend
the "Nadiezhda" Unit (%).
| № | Family Feature | % |
| 1 | Single parent | 20 |
| 2 | Child lives with a stepfather or stepmother | 3 |
| 3 | Son has no father | 15 |
| 4 | Daughter has no father | 5 |
| 5 | Only child | 25 |
| 6 | No grandmothers or grandfathers | 4 |
| 7 | Many children (4+) | 2 |
| 8 | Genetic disease in family | 20 |
| 9 | History of family trauma | 3 |
| 10 | Family members with (criminal) convictions | 1,5 |
| 11 | Elderly parents - late child | 2 |
| 12 | Young parents - early child | 3 |
| 13 | Parents quarrel | 12 |
| 14 | Parents have opposing views on childrearing | 64 |
| 15 | Children have chronic disease | 72 |
| 16 | Parents temporarily or chronically unemployed | 48 |
| 17 | Poor living conditions | 10 |
| 18 | Divorced parents | 4 |
| 19 | Chronically ill parents | 40 |
| 20 | Family living below the poverty level | 80 |
| 21 | Family extremely wealthy | 1 |
Even at that time, the Unit's activities focused on developing core
values while recognizing each child's unique interests, ideas, and
challenges. Relationships at Nadiezhda are based on mutual understanding, support, and caring: our motto is "Bring kindness and joy
to people!" This motto reflects our aim of fostering relationships across
the generations and within the community by encouraging members to
engage in socially valuable activities, thereby developing their sense of
responsibility for themselves and others.
The nurturing environment of our multi-age association is
characterized by an emotional and intellectual intensity that stimulates
participants' curiosity about the world around them and encourages them
to creatively explore answers to their questions about life. It provides
every participant, regardless of age, with an opportunity to enter into a
significant relationship with another; it offers the prospect of lifechanging
events that will stimulate personal growth.
We consider the educational environment a space for social
interaction, a key factor in the development of personality. One of the
essential features of such interaction is openness. We cultivate openness
by creating a special psychological climate, an atmosphere of trust
conducive to participants' mutual giving and receiving of influence. The
openness of Nadiezhda's environment is defined, first of all, by the fact
that attendance is voluntary - participants may come and go as they
please. The atmosphere of trust is engendered by our readiness to accept
teenagers for who they are, with all the complexities of their lives,
personal problems, psychological states, and behaviours.
Some children are referred to Nadiezhda by law enforcement
agencies. Among these are marginalized teens and children who have
already committed some infraction or crime in order to escape from an
environment in which they felt outcast or rejected. As a rule, we have
many socially unprotected or at-risk children in the Unit.
From a teacher's (Efim) diary:
... At the end of the academic year, children had to
return the Unit's uniform for the summer. By June, all
had already handed them in, except for Slava. He kept
promising to return his uniform "tomorrow," and
"tomorrow" yet again. Then, he began to avoid meeting
with us. One of the boys informed me that Slava's alcoholic father had sold the uniform for liquor ... and
also that, in general, Slava's life was miserable without
his mother, who had died of cirrhosis of the liver. At
present he was simply sick.
We went to visit Slava. For the first time (I was still a
young teacher then), I realized there was a completely
different form of existence for some people in the world.
I understood why Slava was so thin and pale, why he
spoke non-stop and almost always spoke about nothing,
why he Was always defiant over minor things: it was
because he wanted to be significant and appreciated, at
least by somebody. We entered the apartment: it was
unclean and disorderly with dirty dishes and leftovers
from a simple meal; empty vodka bottles were
everywhere. An inebriated woman slept in the father's
bed. Together with the boys, we forced her out of the
apartment. Father, insane from drinking, fought us off
Slava cried. ... He became even closer and dearer to us.
That was when Nadieazhdans learned for the first time
about real suffering and the kind of lives others endure;
for the first time, our students realized that they had to
do everything in their power to ensure that such things
would never occur in their families. One of the children
who accompanied us on that occasion was Sasha.
Today, Sasha is a school principal and has been for
many years - a model to all the community. Citizens
voted him Deputy Chair of the Mossovet (City Council).
He is the central cultural figure of the district, a
magnetic personality, and always surrounded by our
students. His life position — kindness — was born out of
this experience with Slava ...
When our students are especially successful in concerts and
competitions, we often hear criticism for having selected "special"
children to compete. To a certain extent this reproach is fair, but the
question must be asked: How do we select our children? Frequently, we
accept those whose life circumstances are difficult, who are hostile
towards the class and their peers, because we know that they require our
understanding and support more than others. We invite teachers to direct
children who rebel against the formality and injustice of regular school -
those who cannot find friends among their schoolmates - to the
Nadiezhda Unit.
From a teacher's (Efim) diary:
... Volodia (a grade-8 student) was a boy whose interests
lay outside of school; very weak academically, but
athletic, brave, and a risk-taker. He was a leader in
informal groups, with a fine sense of justice and strong
self-esteem. He sought recognition by defending schoolmates who were offended by unfair grades or rude
remarks from the teacher.
Volodia was defiant towards his teachers, who publicly
and loudly discussed all of his minor offences at every
parent-teacher meeting, each time threatening to expel
him from school unless his mother forbade him to
participate in sports and in Nadiezhda life and forced
him to concentrate exclusively on his studies. These
teachers awaited a chance to retaliate against the boy,
and, at last, an opportunity presented itself ...
One day at recess, Volodia accidentally knocked down a
4 '-grade student. The younger child's injury was serious
enough to warrant a week's absence from school.
Volodia helped the boy get to the school doctor's office
and visited him at home every day. The victim's mother
did not blame Volodia but reassured him that all was
okay, receiving his visits kindly every time. Volodia
subsequently took the little boy under his wing.
Notwithstanding, Volodia's teachers called for a special
meeting during which they castigated Volodia and his
mother for all his transgressions over the preceding four
years. They collectively wrote to the Nadiezhda Unit,
demanding that he be banned from all extracurricular
activities. Volodia was also severely reprimanded at a
number of school student-committee meetings, during
which he tried to protect himself as best he could. At the
general meeting of the Nadiezhda Unit, we listened to
Volodia's side of the story without condemning him. We
believed in him. We arranged tutoring for him in the
basic academic subjects. Rather than suspend him, we
began to entrust him with the most difficult assignments,
giving him the opportunity to prove himself a
responsible, wise, and just person ...
Upon joining the Unit, the first hurdle teenagers must overcome is
the psychological complexes that their previous experiences have generated: fear that adults will not listen to them, fear that their peers will
not accept them, fear that their communication skills are poor and their
vocabularies limited. Their mistrust towards adults is already established.
They are initially unwilling to openly express opinions; even after being
shown acceptance by the other children, they show disbelief in their
peers' sincerity. Lacking experience with positive relationships, they are
often suspicious and reluctant to accept kindness, perceiving it as a
display of hypocrisy.
Complexes generated at school aggravate this uneasiness: students
experience strain in relationships, constant anxiety, and feelings of guilt
both at school and at home. Of the 140 children in the Unit who come
from about 40 different schools, 5% are eager to go to school each day;
10% "take it easy" - while not enamored of school, they do not find it
stress provoking. The remaining 8 5% experience daily stress. Teenagers
want to avoid school because of feelings of discomfort, fear, and guilt,
which depress their mood and deflate their confidence.
From a teacher's (Efim) diary:
... Julia is a very pretty but heavy-set girl. ... The
students of the Unit liked her, but she was concerned
about her appearance. The way she was treated at
school, where she was subjected to taunts of 'Fatso!
Klutz! Hurry up!", had accustomed her to the role of
"klutz " and induced a negative body image. As a result,
she had become shy.
We organized a number of concerts, but Julia never
attended. What to do? All she would do was sit shyly in
the back row of the concert hall, hidden from view.
During one concert, we decided to dedicate a
"chastooshka" (traditional Russian humourous couplet)
to her during which the singer was to ask her to step
forward. After singing the first line, "1 recognize my
girlfriend Natalia by her waist," the singer brought
Julia up to the middle of the stage and continued:
"When the girl's waist is wide, I know that's my
Natalia!" Julia spun around and fetched the singer a resounding slap across the face. The audience was
delighted - everyone was laughing.
At the wrap-up meeting, we all thanked Julia. The
audience had loved her performance!
At the next concert, Julia sat closer to the stage so that
the singer could locate her more easily. By the next
concert, she stationed herself in the first row, getting
ready. ... From then on, she became popular because of
her "full" beauty; this was the beginning of a new life
for her.
Recently, Julia and the boys of the Unit prepared a
sailor's dance for the concert program ...
Children's complex interrelationships within the family and at school
frequently lead to self-esteem problems (complexes), which we deem
necessary to prevent or correct. We have defined certain conditions,
which we find to be essential for ameliorating children's low self-esteem.
The first condition is to display interest in the newcomers, showing
attentiveness and a kindly spirit. We demonstrate our desire to involve
them in games, and encourage participation in general conversation. For
the teenager, a relationship with an older friend at the Nadiezhda multiage
Unit is an important pedagogical support. The second condition is to
acknowledge children's special strengths and gifts and to place them in
situations where their abilities may be publicly recognized and affirmed.
This entails a structure of mutual relationships based on sincere interest
in their lives and their self-affirmation - very different from what they
have been accustomed to.
The creative activities available to each child within the Unit (e.g.,
concerts, on-site performances, talent shows, and performance tours
across Russia) are especially beneficial for overcoming and preventing
anxiety. In some cases it is necessary to address the specific condition,
which is the source of the anxiety, in order to design carefully thoughtout
strategies to empower the teenager.
From a teacher's diary:
... Despite her cleft palate, a girl in the Nadiezhda Unit
is able to sing songs and read poetry. Educators have
done their utmost to redirect the other children's
attention from her physical appearance to her
extraordinarily rich inner world. She is a child with a
philosophical mind and artistic skills, a natural-bom
psychologist - always attentive and kind with people -
who loves reading. Children in the Unit admire her
qualities, and her appearance has become unimportant.
The girl appreciates this attitude and has accepted with
pleasure the Unit's rules, which apply to all.
In cases in which a child has suffered a serious life trauma, our
multi-age Unit plays a role in psychological rehabilitation. For example,
a boy who had conscientiously practised figure skating for a number of
years and already became a candidate for the distinction of "Master of
Sports" (awarded for exceptional athletic achievement) was diagnosed
with a serious knee-joint condition and was obliged to abandon figure
skating. This teenager was an individualist by nature, a tendency
reinforced by his chosen sport. After coming to the Nadiezhda Unit,
however, the young man started lo become more open to exploring new
activities. He became a champion tri-athlete (target shooting, skiing, and
swimming), a weightlifter, and an arm wrestler. He took up the art of
reciting and won a local poetry-reading competition, and also learned to
play guitar and sing. Having learned managerial skills, he is now a
student at the Faculty of Law, Moscow Pedagogical University.
From a teacher's diary:
... Sergey A. was in grade 4 when tragedy occurred in
his family. The next year, he came with us to summer
camp; it was important for him to be with kind,
understanding people after the psychological trauma he
had survived. At that time, it was virtually impossible to
talk to him. When you complimented him for something
well done, he cried hysterically and ran away. If you
made any suggestion or comment, he would cry like a wounded bird. ...A year ago, we went on a picnic to
celebrate the birthday of one our students, and Sergey
forgot his birthday present at home.
"Sergey, where is your gift? " I asked him.
"I don 7 have any!" - and he ran away into the woods. I
followed him.
He sobbed, crying uncontrollably again. "I shall leave
the Unit!"
"Why?"
"I cannot speak normally, I cry all the time!"
I embraced him. "Sergey, do you know why you cry?
Because your heart is kind. Many people are not able to
cry at all, they are not able to have feelings, and you feel
pain because you did not have a birthday present for
your friend at the right moment. That's OK, you will be
fine ... "
Later, Sergey became our master of ceremonies at the
Nadiezhda Unit's mega-concerts. He learned to
generate a positive emotional atmosphere in the
audience. After each concert, many adults continue to
come to embrace Sergey, press him to their hearts, and
thank him sincerely, with tears in their eyes, for his
kindness ...
The Unit's activities are designed to encourage children to actively
participate in life and to learn skills that will make them feel valuable
and be perceived as such by others. To that end, we have developed a
program called "Apprenticeship Hours." This program consists of
seminars, taught throughout the year, which promote personal
development and enrichment. Our experience in delivering different
community programs at Nadiezhda has convinced us of the need to
"bring something special" to our youth: if we wish to empower them to engage in dialogue with intelligent, well-educated, and thoughtful
people, we must help them cultivate those capacities in themselves.
Accordingly, we offer a rich variety of options in our Apprenticeship
Hours program. For example, we teach a seminar in acting and rhetoric;
these subjects are not seen as ends in themselves but as means to develop
expressiveness and communication skills. Because music directly
connects with the emotions, everyone in Nadiezhda learns to sing. Older
teenagers in our Unit, who must work closely with children of different
ages, are taught games that promote child development. All members of
the Unit are trained at survival/wilderness camp, and love touring the
countryside; they often go on trips, tours, and expeditions. In addition,
children have the opportunity to learn basic computer skills. Boys take
martial arts and work out in the gym — this may be helpful should they
be required to defend themselves or their friends. Girls practise aerobics,
which improves their posture and gracefulness. All of these forms of
training contribute to the quality of our concerts and musical
performances. Our Apprenticeship Hours program thus serves an
important function: by helping our students build competence in various
areas, it helps them become well-rounded, interesting, and socially
attractive individuals. What is more, it is our former students who, as a
rule, teach all these courses - mainly because they want to transmit those
values which they themselves learned at Nadiezhda.
Forming a perception of oneself as an important and valued person
("I am needed." "People like to be with me." "They turn to me; I have
something to offer them.") is one of the leading goals of teenagers'
acquisition of social experience. However, this goal cannot be attained
merely through participation in cultural activities, such as theatre,
camping, and tours. It is essential for young people to discover
something meaningful that they can engage in — a project or activity
that unites people and promotes charity, kindness, and the ability to
respond to other's needs.
In life, there are many difficult, appalling, even repulsive events.
Teenagers who come to our Unit sometimes have to deal with cruelty,
betrayal, and violence in their lives. Here is an example from the life of
one of our students:
From a teacher's diary:
... A young father was killed by gangsters in the
backyard of a bakery. Police did not even try to solve the
crime. The young mother, a kindergarten teacher, was
left with two sons, one in grade 8 and one in grade 4.
The older one was secretly going every evening to the
garbage containers next to which the crime had been
perpetrated, leaving flowers in a pool of his father's
blood. During the mourning period, the older boy kept
repeating that evil had overpowered the modern world
and that our aspiration to bring kindness and joy to
people was meaningless, unrealistic, unachievable, and
quixotic, and that revenge was the only option in his life.
Over the same period, the senior members of our Unit
worked as labourers, unloading cargo from train
wagons and transport trucks, and in few days the family
received a huge sum of money, which the mother did not
expect at all. On the day of her husband's funeral, more
than 600 neighbors, friends, and relatives gathered at
the house. Almost all of the Nadiezhda team was there as
well. Now the destiny of this family and our Unit are
bound together.
When children encounter cruelty, treachery, and lies in their lives,
they begin to understand that "goodness" must protect itself; it must
stand up and fight. But we must not allow children to give up their belief
in justice and goodness. What we demonstrate at the Nadiezhda Unit is
that there are two ways of struggling with evil: by fighting it or by
increasing the good.
We are convinced that every person must be placed in a position
where it becomes obvious that our mission in life is to increase the good.
Caring for those who require help is a way to develop empathy — the
ability to feel for others, have compassion, and respond to others' needs.
We try to teach this by manifesting the values of kindness and
understanding in our efforts to help others. For example, life is especially
difficult now for elderly people who are sick and alone. Supporting them
is one of our priorities.
Some hold the opinion that children should not see suffering; some
parents, for example, in order to protect their children from stress, refuse
to take their children to a grandparent's funeral. Our experience at
Nadiezhda convinces us that suffering helps the growing person to
master life to the same extent as do positive experiences.
Children are not always ready to deal with difficult issues. When
they first come to Nadiezhda, children tend to be attracted to the pleasant
things: the peer relationships characterized by warmth, respect, and
courtesy; the unusually positive relationships with adults; the chance to
meet and communicate as equals with famous Moscow actors, principals,
scientists, and businessmen (former Nadiezhda students). One day,
however, an unexpected meeting or brief encounter with people who are
"different" may mark the beginning of change in the teenager's inner
world and lead to a different perception of life.
From a teacher's diary:
... A new student, Sasha, joined our Unit; he is a mature
student (grade 9) from a financially secure middle-class
family. They have a good apartment and the parents
earn a decent wage. We were about to visit our Irina
Aleksandrovna, a sick and lonely woman. I asked,
"Sasha, would you like to help our boys bring some
groceries? Are you available? " He agreed, although he
had been at our Unit for only three days.
Every Monday, we have general meetings at which we
discuss the results of the past week's work and plan
things to do in the coming week. That Monday, our boys
reported on the visit to Irina Aleksandrovna. I noticed
that Sasha was a bit tense. "Sasha, do you have
something to say? " I asked.
First, he refused, but later stood up, blushed, and
revealed, "You know, boys, this is the jirst time in my life
Eve seen how unbearable the life of some people can be.
Fve never thought that it was possible. ... " The students,
motionless and silent, listened to him as he concluded, "This is just terrible. We should visit her more often."
He didn 7 say anything else. It was a shock for him. But
he was old enough to overcome it...
For the pedagogues of our Unit, it is important to promote teenagers'
ability to see the world optimistically, despite all the social travesties and
misfortunes that come their way. By interacting with people who
desperately need our help and identifying with the pain and sufferings of
others, children experience a catharsis, an emotional release. And if an
adult is united with a child in carrying out an important shared task, and
this task brings joy to one or more people, the experience is guaranteed
to result in the development of values of goodness, compassion, and
responsiveness to other human beings. By engaging in such tasks -
developing collective creative projects for the community during our
winter and summer camp gatherings; providing practical help to ill,
lonely, elderly people and physically handicapped children; volunteering
in orphanages, hospitals for war veterans, rehabilitation units for child
victims of the Chernobyl disaster, and oncology units of children's
clinics — and by watching the sad, sick, ugly manifestations of life, we
learn to create the beautiful.
Naturally, the level of self-management by teenagers that exists at
Nadiezhda cannot be achieved in one day. It should progress from the
application of general rules pre-established by the Unit's adults, to
collaboration between children and adults, and ultimately to independent
or self-management. This process is based on our teachers' democratic
philosophy and on their confidence in children both as individuals and as
a group. Our humanistic pedagogy expresses itself in our extensive
application of methods of facilitation founded on Carl Rogers' (1994)
work: we assist children, support them, promote their successes, and help
them find a niche for their special talents where they may excel and
receive recognition.
Adults at the Unit sometimes provide pedagogical support by
assuming a parental role. We strive to compensate for the lack of warmth
that children may have experienced in their families of origin by
expressing care, tenderness, acceptance, and a willingness to understand
- all of which are critical for teenagers who have suffered parental
neglect or who are in the midst of a family tragedy.
From a teacher's diary:
... Alexander referred his neighbor, Natalia, to the Unit
when she was in grade 6. When she was only two-years
old, her mom had abandoned her, leaving her with her
father, a chronic drinker. Natasha1 lives with him in a
bachelor apartment, which they are often compelled to
rent to seasonal merchants, at which times they
themselves sleep on the floor in the corridor or kitchen.
At first, the girl was always unkempt, starving, very
loud, and easily angered. The children at her school had
nicknamed her "the alcoholic's daughter. " Alexander's
parents gave Natasha some food, bought her some
clothes, and then asked us at Nadiezhda to take her with
us to a summer youth camp. Being in this completely
new environment, in the company of compassionate
people, was a liberating experience for Natasha; she
proved to be very artistic, with a sense of humor.
However, she was still very short-tempered and abrupt,
mistrustful in stressful situations, and capable of deeply
offending a person when rebuked.
For a long time, Natasha remained defensive. It has now
been five years since Natasha came to join our family at
Nadiezhda. ... We are united by our desire to be her
friends, to help her at any time, to protect her when
necessary, to assist with food and shelter, but also "to
give her hell" in case of any inconsiderate act. Now she
has loyal friends to share things with and a shoulder to
cry on. And, when a younger or weaker child at the Unit
suffers hardship, she also has someone else to care for.
Natasha is currently a student at a pedagogical
university.
As a rule, Nadiezhda's teachers have come from the ranks of our
former students. Many of them needed help in the past themselves to
improve their relationships with others and change their self-concept.
Having experienced humane relationships, attention, care, and
recognition from the members of our Unit, these former students realize
the true value of kindness and understanding and now desire to "give
something back" to the community. Their time at Nadiezhda helped them
discover their own talents and abilities and to win the respect and
affection of other children. Through their experiences (working with the
younger children in our multi-age Unit), they have developed teaching
skills and an interest in pedagogical work. They express genuine love for
the children and eagerness to help. It is also important to note that a
teacher's ability to build relationships between children may be more
significant than his/her ability to build relationships with children.
An important principle in our communication with teenagers is
pedagogical support for positive behaviour. We believe in reinforcing
initiative, independent decision-making, and confident self-expression.
We put this principle into practice by encouraging students to participate
in decisions related to Nadiezhda life and in the development of our
Unit's legal documents (e.g., the Charter, Laws of Life, and Rights and
Duties of Members). Support for independence and initiative, the right to
choose the form and type of Unit activity, the selection of an adult as a
close friend - all of these features of our Unit allow our students to gain
experience in communication, collaboration, and self-governance.
Open dialogue is another critical principle. At Nadiezhda, we rely on
dyadic or group discussion to address emergent issues, to summarize the
results of our work, and to analyze the different stages of our activities.
From the perspective of a humanistic teacher, this principle is embodied
in a readiness for free dialogue based on the equality of each
participating member - teacher or student. Authoritarian-type pedagogy
is unacceptable, whether it appears in the form of lectures or in the
behaviour of adults who fail to help their young partners achieve equality
in adult discussion. The following remarkable incident brought this
lesson home to us:
From a teacher's diary:
... A grade-8 student suddenly illuminated something
that no adult could make clear to me. "Efim Borisovich.
you are always right. It's difficult to argue with you. "
Children have been telling me this for a long time, ami
my typical answer has always been, "Well, it means that
I know how to argue effectively. Learn this skill from
me!" This is how I responded, perhaps a thousand times,
and, one thousand times, I thought that I was right.
Then suddenly this child replied, "EJim Borisovich, but
you are able to construct the arguments against me, but
as I'm not experienced at it yet, so you have to help me
to build my arguments against you. "
These remarks caused me to stop and rejlect: "To be
honest, I do start to argue quickly and energetically,
and, as it seems, with persuasive counterpoints, because
I have a rich and extensive experience in debating an
issue. But it is so difficult for a child to argue with me:
the child becomes very confused. The end result is thai 1
am satisfied, but the child is frustrated. "
After this incident, we, the teachers, started to build our
dialogue with children a little differently. Now, when a
child tries to formulate an idea, not always clearly, the
teacher offers help: "Are you trying to say this? "
"Yes!" answers the student with gratitude.
The teacher continues, "And my opinion is this... Let's
now think about it together ..." - and they solve the
problem as partners ...
The personal approach is the governing principle of the Nadiezhda
Unit. This principle is predicated on the teacher's readiness to address
problems not only on an organizational-pedagogical but also on a psycho-pedagogical level. It manifests itself in the teachers' recognition
of every child's right to be unique, in openness to the student's point of
view, and in a willingness to help the children in any way possible -
from offering support in solving family or school problems to helping
resolve peer conflicts. It should be emphasized that in order for a teacher
to be accepted, particularly by children, it is vital that he/she be held in
high regard and possess a charismatic personality.
We, the pedagogues of the Nadiezhda, do not "work" with children.
Rather, we share a part of our own lives with them at a time during
which their philosophy of life is beginning to develop, their moral values
are beginning to define themselves, and their patterns of communication
with others are being learned. Our goal is to help these children negotiate
the process of integrating into society, learn social roles and cultural
norms, and develop a need to influence their environment for the better.
