Outreach
World View | RUSSIA: Professional Development for the 21st Century Educator | June 18-30, 2011
“Доброe утро”, or good morning, brushed the ears of twenty-seven North Carolina educators each morning during their 13-day study visit to Russia (June 18-30). As participants in World View’s 2011 international study visit, educators were challenged to look beyond the borders of North Carolina to experience a culture, country, and people different than their own. The participants, from all subject areas and grade-levels, explored Russia’s significant cultural and historical sites in the large metropolises of Moscow and St. Petersburg including Red Square, Kremlin of Palace of Congresses, the Hermitage, and more. Equally valuable were visits to smaller towns where participants shared conversations, events, and meals with local Russians in Suzdal, Vladimir, Plyos, and Ivanovo. The highlight of the trip was a visit to a local K-12 school in Ivanovo followed by individual home visits with local educators and businessmen.
Upon return, the participants are required to demonstrate how they will integrate this study visit experience into their curriculum. A special thanks to the UNC Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies (CSEEES) for their support before, during, and after the study visit as participants prepare their curriculum with CSEEES resources and guidance.
“I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed this trip! I will now have a much richer background for my literature students when we study Dostoevsky. I also plan to write an article for our school’s magazine as well as meet with colleagues in the social studies and foreign language to share some thoughts about ways to increase a ‘Russian presence’ in our curriculum.”
–Marcia Jones, High School English Teacher
Article by Carina Brossy, Assistant Director for Curriculum, World View
Russian Book
In partnership with the U.S. Department of Education, Duke University's CSEEES and UNC's Bull's Head Bookshop, CSEEES has completed a book-mailing project to all public and federally funded middle schools in North Carolina in an effort to spread the Russian language to students of North Carolina in order to spark an interest in the country and its culture.
A total of 698 schools received copies of Usborne’s First Thousand Words in Russian, an interactive picture dictionary with an internet-linked pronunciation guide. The U.S. Department of Education will feature this project among its best practices for international education activities.
CSEEES Associate Director Dr. Jacqueline Olich, who directed the project with Department Manager Karla Nagy, said the chief aims were two-fold: to promote awareness and interest in Russian language among North Carolina students and to make administrators and media resource specialists in every county aware of the Center and its resources.“The response has been gratifying,” Olich said. “One librarian who had adopted a child from Russia wrote to thank us and ask where she and her child could formally study Russian language. Another media resource specialist wrote to say that her school had a copy of the Spanish version that was so popular, it was threadbare; they didn’t have the funds to buy additional books in the series.”This effort was funded by the U.S. Department of Education National Resource Center, with support from Duke University’s CSEEES, the Bull’s Head Bookshop and UNC’s World View International Program for Educators.The Center is working on its next large-scale outreach project, a Google Lit Trip for Gloria Whelan’s Angel on the Square, a young adult novel set in Revolution-era St. Petersburg.