Case Studies

Name of the teacher

Marija Daunoriene

Email:

Subject taught:

Social educator

Years of experience:

6

Name of the School:

Kaunas Alexander Pushkin gymnasium

School Typology:

Upper Secondary School

Country:

Lithuania

City:

Kaunas

Web site:

www.puskinas.kaunas.lm.lt

Background and Context:

It has been over 80 years of work, which has helped to create strong traditions in our gymnasium. One of the traditions are the decades devoted to remember the famous poet Alexander Pushkin. The name of Alexander Pushkin was given to gymnasium in 1999, in commemoration of the poet's 200th birth anniversary. The gymnasium works in two shifts.
In the morning shift, the programs of education are such as pre-primary, primary, basic and secondary education. The teaching language is Russian. There have been established classes, where the Lithuanian language is taught since 2009 of September 1st. In the evening shift, the programs of adults’ education and working youth (16-17 years) are carried out (basic and secondary education). The teaching language is Lithuanian. Our gymnasium has a structural unit with basic education program and this unit has been established since 2012 of September 1st. (address is Kreves pr. 50). The education is organized for pupils from 5-10 forms and those students’ motivation is weak or they have socialization problems. There are students with different abilities and needs in our gymnasium. We have three social workers, two psychologists, two speech therapists, special teacher, teacher's assistant. There are taught 1,020 students and 106 teachers are working in our gymnasium.
Through carrying out the education reform, our gymnasium’s community has chosen the pattern for the future: "Equal opportunities for all ethnic communities and confessionary strands“(„Vienodos galimybės visoms tautinėms bendruomenėms ir konfesinėms pakraipoms“). There are students with various nationalities: Lithuanian, Russian, Jewish, Ukrainian, Latvian, Estonian, Armenian, Belarusian, Polish, Tatar, Moldavian, Kirghiz, Americans, Afghans, Bulgarian, Azeri, Georgian, Tajik, French, and Uzbek.
Administration and teachers are actively involved in various international, national, city events, projects, develops a range of their competences, improve their qualification, and prepare students for examinations and various Olympiads well and properly.
Considerable attention is paid to students' informal education and permanent involvement of students. There are 20 circles of informal education. Gymnasium students have access to a gym, fitness room, auditorium, and choreography hall, a conference hall with a 3D feature, a library and the information centre. All classes are fully equipped and properly prepared for productive, interesting and the innovative teaching (learning). There are interactive or smart (smartphone) boards, projectors, computer, tablet computer class in all classrooms. Teachers and students have free access to printers and copy machines.
Our gymnasium is located in the city centre. Transportation is very convenient, and it is an easy way to enter and access from any other neighbourhood or district. Near our gymnasium, there is a large city park, Kaunas Mosque, Kaunas Christ's Resurrection Church, school of sports, a swimming pool, medical institutions, a shopping centre, a bus station and a railway station.
Immigrant consists about 15% of all gymnasium students and about 20% of immigrants are in each class.

Factual Description:

In 2015 of 1st of September the girl and her family came from Tajikistan to our gymnasium and started her education in the sixth form. We do not know the causes why her family decided to move to live in Lithuania. The whole family speaks Russian excellently, and never had any major problems with the communication, as in the first shift of lessons the main language is Russian language. Girl knows several languages: the native language of the Tajik, Russian, French and a little bit English and German. Most difficulties arise with Lithuanian language, it is difficult and hard to learn and to know it. One of the objectives of the gymnasium’s strategy is to enable the migrant students to foster language skills. For that objective, the project "The creation and implementation of the linguistic education model” is for students who have problems when learning languages. We have proposed additional Lithuanian language lessons for a student and her family, but the student was very reluctant to attend these classes. She could attend additional Lithuanian language lessons 2 times a week. But unfortunately, she had attended them very poorly. She constantly provides causes of non-attendance lessons by pointing out that she is very busy and attends other clubs or simply forgot that she needed to go to the Lithuanian language classes. A Lithuanian language teacher regularly provides the information about the student's poor attendance, also points out that if a student comes to class, she often does not perform the tasks. For a poor-quality activity during the additional Lithuanian language lessons, the girl’s main explanation is that for her Lithuanian language is unnecessary and that she and her family do not plan to stay here to live. However, it is known that this family has already been living in Lithuania for 2.5 years. However, we haven’t heard from the parents about their plans of the future and about the departure from Lithuania. In fact, parents are not so much interested of the gymnasium’s life and educational process and attend activities very rarely. Throughout their stay, the parents only twice have attended the class meeting. Teachers have neither seen nor communicated with parents, they communicate only with the master of the class. The overall situation is that a girl is very talented, artistic, friendly. Always she is very willing to participate in various competitions. A girl has attended the conference in another school where she needed to introduce herself and to say greetings in her native language. She also participated in the creation of a movie about our gymnasium, where it was also necessary to introduce and to use her native Tajik language. A girl is interested in the informal circle of chess and checkers, and represents our gymnasium in the city competitions, where she usually wins prizes. From the very first days a student very easily integrated into the class. Classmates have accepted her very friendly. However, it should be stressed that so far there is one nuance, the girl walks with the hijab because of her religious beliefs, and some classmates are getting increasingly interesting how does her hair looks like. Therefore, we regularly conduct meetings and talk about cultural and religious differences in that class. There is another problem for this girl, particularly in the physical education classes. There she almost has never done or do nothing, she does not do any activities. As she explains that she feels ashamed and do not want to change her clothes, together with all girls from her class in the dressing room, so we let her to change alone, but it does not help. Physical education teachers write comments on the electronic diary Tamo for parents, but we are not getting any reaction, responses, or any help. We assume that she just does not want to go to physical education classes, as she is ashamed of her body.

Activities carried out:

The situation is such, that there are 40% of arrived students exactly in the 8 form, where the girl is learning. To integrate and adjust quickly and well in the gymnasium and education process the particular attention and help is provided by our specialists (psychologist and social pedagogue) in order to help
Also, all teachers who are working with this class try to give timely assistance for a student and other, who are newly arrivals, also teacher try to detect and to prevent the bullying. It has already been 5 years as our gymnasium has done the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program. I am the Olweus program instructor in our gymnasium.
The implementation of the program has been very difficult. Initially, there was a tremendous resistance, especially from the teachers, because for they had to meet in groups and trainings for two times a month, where the group had explored what a bullying is, how to recognize it, how to react, what to teach students and their parents.
Now things are going very naturally and fairly smooth, even the technical staff prevents bullying very often. Our cleaners are very pleased to be able to contribute to this prevention and educational process.
During the class meetings, class leaders and professionals are analysing issues within the broad range of the topics that help students to develop social skills and to identify and respond to bullying.
Parents are also trained how to react and how to behave. Events, promotions encourage students to get to know each other, to make friends and to have a good time together, to understand what are the social skills and how to apply them in different situations.
In my opinion, another important aspect is the success criterion, that is the organization of the learning process, the teacher must maintain the proper atmosphere in the classroom, where students are not afraid to reveal, are willing to communicate with each other and collaborate.
The teacher must have confidence in their students, to trust their abilities and their desire to self-knowledge, to solve problems, to study the sources, and students should trust a teacher and his abilities. The teacher should try to get a feedback from his students and other teachers. According to the received information, he should improve the teaching / learning process. During the preparation for this case’s description, and talking with the teachers, even from a few people, I have learned that in preparation for homework for that particular 8 class, the major benefits granted such books: „Prohibiting discrimination integrate. The norms, stereotypes, prejudices, options“ and "Open school for a diversity: why and how to achieve intercultural dialogue.

Assessment and lesson learnt:

This year a girl has participated in the poll organized by the gymnasium "Adaptation of incoming students”. Even though a student has been living for several years and studying in Lithuania, we have provided the survey and to fill in the questionnaire. The questionnaire showed that a student feels very good in our gymnasium, she did not feel and do not feel any discrimination. She agrees with her classmates, teachers, and trusted professionals. In distressful situations, she has named some people and how to seek for a help or an advice: a class leader or a social pedagogue or psychologist. This year, we have seen the girl's mother, who also confirmed that a girl does not feel discriminated against, and there are no complaints about bullying. Mother knows that her daughter is reluctant to attend Lithuanian language lessons, but she doesn’t put serious concerns forward this situation. For a mother, most important thing is that her daughter must be a disciplined at school, must learn according to her capabilities, to participate in various informal activities, outings. Therefore, we can assume that they really do not plan to live there for a lifetime. But nevertheless, we still need to continue our work and we must try to motivate a to learn the Lithuanian language. We also need to involve her parents. As already mentioned, there is wide cultural diversity in our gymnasium: Lithuanian, Russian, Jewish, Ukrainian, Latvian, Estonian, Armenian, Belarusian, Polish, Tatar, Moldavian, Kirghiz, Americans, Afghans, Bulgarian, Azerbaijani, Georgian, Tajik, French, Uzbek. It is unrealistic for teachers to learn all these languages, so we require at least a minimum of skills of Russian and Lithuanian languages. We are very excited that we can work with so many students with different cultures and that teachers manage to maintain a good image of our gymnasium in the level of the city, republic and to maintain a good climate. It is because each student feels welcome, he is respected, tolerated and his culture, and we manage to avoid discrimination in our gymnasium.
Children who are learning in our gymnasium has many more advantages than any other students from other schools in the city. Because, there is bilingual education which has been strengthened. With so many different students from different countries of the world, it is fact that it obviously broadens students' horizons, otherwise there is a new awareness, a different cultural and revealed a more favourable attitude towards the other person. For students, it is more fun and interest to learn about another culture, traditions, religions, and especially from another person, through his experience, not from the book.

Description of the Case Study in National Language: