Democracy Education Exchange Program
DEEP Estonian Delegation
On May 11, the final delegation of eleven educators from Estonia arrived for a ten-day series of professional development workshops with Chicago area teachers.
During their visit, the Estonians discussed strategic partnerships to support civic education, local and global models of service learning, the challenges of diversity and how to teach about controversial issues. The agenda included workshops with local educators and civic education professionals from across the country as well as a tour of various cultural and historic museums and ethnic neighborhoods in Chicago. The delegation also began intensive planning of mutual strategies and collaborative projects between the two nations in order to address each country's needs in civics and government education.
In addition to participating in workshops and planning sessions, the educators spent a day at Chicago area schools partnered with local teachers, where they observed teaching methods, talked with local students and administrators, and, in some cases, taught students about Estonia.
At the conclusion of their site visit to Chicago, the Estonian delegation developed a plan to incorporate what they had learned into a model for improvement. The Estonian team's plan capitalizes on the fact that in spring 2002 a state examination on civics was given for high school graduation. Although this was a voluntary exam, over 1,000 students opted to take it, which is a large percentage for this small country. The team believes that this indicates "students' positive attitude and interest towards civics."
The major aim of the plan is to develop a "Civic Engagement Guide" based on analysis of student test results. This guide, for teachers and students, will focus on areas that students found most difficult and will include exercises to develop "analytical and critical thinking, discussing controversial issues, skills for giving arguments, analyzing graphs and figures that could be used in classrooms". The team has outlined a systematic approach to analyzing the test, developing and piloting the Guide, and providing in-service training teachers to the Guide. An additional component of the Estonian plan focuses on use of the internet for civics instruction. This includes research on available internet sources and development of a web-page with links to quality sources. This page, together with iEARN, will be introduced in their teacher training sessions.
Workshops and other site visit events were hosted by the Chicago Bar Foundation, the Chicago Historical Society, and law firms Jenner & Block and Altheimer & Grey.
Last updated: June 20, 2002
