Gymnasium faces challenges
Although the region of the Curonian Spit is unique, famous for its wonderful nature, there are no industries, factories, or shopping centers here. The main source of survival and income in this region is tourism, cultural events, accommodation services, catering and several state institutions, says Simas Survila, director of Neringa Gymnasium.
“The school is facing challenges – a constant decrease in the birth rate, the lack of turnover of young families. If we talk about the criminogenic situation in Neringa, it is absolutely one of the best in Lithuania.
If we had a school in Juodkrantė a decade ago, it is no longer there. That number – 136 – has decreased in 20 years from 340 students in Neringa Gymnasium. It used to have parallel classes,” said S. Survila.
According to the director of the high school, new challenges are influenced by education policy at the state level.
“We have said that Lithuania is too small a patch of land on the world map to not see its own regions, not to think about the fact that life in the resort is one way, and in the deep part, on the continent, where there is agriculture, another way. This is not taken into account. Another thing is that we feel that, in general, politicians are currently focusing only on big cities,” the director of Neringa Gymnasium explained the problematic points.
Will try to preserve the only gymnasium in Neringa
In order to preserve and modernize the only high school in Neringa, a cluster of creative industries, natural science and artistic education (hereinafter – Education cluster) is being created. As the educator and coordinator Inga Norkūnienė said during the presentation of this cluster, the aim of this program is to strengthen the competences of teachers and students.
“Learning and teaching together with artists and creators is also a challenge for teachers. In order to have the answer “and for whom?”, it is necessary to make the educational content relevant for a young person. As it was, it is no longer suitable. The man of the future will create a world that has not yet been created. He must acquire competences – he must acquire not only mental intelligence, but he must acquire the intelligence to be able to work in a team, be with people, act, communicate. Here are the competences acquired for all future specialties”, explained I. Norkūnienė.
Narūnas Lendraitis, the vice mayor of Neringa municipality, said that three organizations have been selected to carry out cluster educational programs – “Sheikos Dance Theatre”, Nida Art Colony together with the Curonian Spit National Park and I. Norkūnienė, who will be a consultant, expert and will try to connect targeted groups – school pedagogical staff, students, service providers of educational cluster programs.
“Programs were selected through a tender process, contracts were signed. A contract has also been signed with Inga. As a coordinator, mediator, she has that practical experience and will try to “connect” those players who will provide the services of cluster programs. The school will help arrange learning schedules, help arrange support for subject teachers and things like that.
No more than 10 thousand for one program. EUR was allocated by the municipality of Neringa. Funding has not yet been received from the Ministry of Education. This year we are financing as pilot projects. We want to take a look, test with the teachers, with the students, with the parents – how they assess, how well they are doing,” N. Lendraitis told the news portal “What’s happening in Neringa”.
The vice mayor of Neringa municipality also emphasized that it is desired that as many potential students from the Klaipėda region and the whole of Lithuania learn about these cluster programs, which will start at Neringa high school.
The dog Kuršis will also take part in the unique education
“My colleague Kuršis came with me, we work with him. Kuršis is probably the only dog not only in Lithuania that has a human school graduation diploma.
He graduated from Klaipėda Verdenė pro-gymnasium. He graduated from grade 8 A, has a diploma awarded by the headmistress, and for good reason, because he studied with the students in various educational subjects from the 5th grade. The class that studied together with Kurši, out of 30 children, 15 graduated with the highest grades.
Kuršis will probably also participate in this Education cluster. We will take part in strengthening the competences of teachers – how to combine it, how to bring all that potential and what to offer to students, because the person of the future will have to look at the whole surrounding world”, I. Norkūnienė mentioned about future plans.
According to her, professionals in their fields plan to bring motivation to learn and think to general, non-formal education programs. Professionals will seek to transfer competences on how to live in a world that is constantly changing and full of challenges.
“All academic achievements are based on motivation to learn. The developer is the one who has those thinking tools. I think that a very interesting meeting awaits Neringa high school students in this cluster, during which they will gain a lot of knowledge, competences, abilities and learn to connect not only individual details, but see the whole,” said I. Norkūnienė.
Will offer various competence-enhancing programs
At the presentation of the Education Cluster held with the community at the Neringa Gymnasium, the expected activities were presented. As already mentioned, the Nida Art Colony and the Curonian Spit National Park, the Šeikos Dance Theater, the Nida Culture and Tourism Center “Agila” together with the Audiovisual Arts Industry Incubator are connected to the cluster.
The essential element of the program offered by the Sheik Dance Theater is dance, which is a universal way of human creative communicative expression, perception and knowledge of the inner and outer world through movement. The goal is that during the dance program, students will be given the opportunity to try all the activities of dance art – dancer, creator, viewer, evaluator, researcher.
“The program will have four modules – development of creativity, dance, knowledge of nature and urbanism (city studies). The tasks in this program will encourage interest in the history of the region, the appreciation of art and contemporary dance, the development of dance skills, the cultivation of sustainability and the involvement of the community, and the preservation of nature,” the representative of the Sheik Dance Theater presented the program.
During the educational cluster, students will also be interested in cinema and audiovisual art. Film director Inesa Kurklietytė, in cooperation with “Agila”, will conduct practical classes and create film history together with schoolchildren.
“The language of images, telling the story of cinema is very important for the film and for us to be able to express our feelings, emotions and do it not through a primitive prism, so that we know how to put together visual thinking.
The students of Neringa Gymnasium will create film history – first on paper, then we will film, edit, and make it famous together. My team has a lot of experience, because we have been conducting such training for several years at the Audiovisual Arts Industry Incubator”, I. Kurklietytė described the features of the future program.
The vice mayor of the municipality, N. Lendraitis, added that this cluster program correlates with professional education opportunities. According to him, it is being considered that while studying under this advanced program, the student could also receive a diploma of professional training, testifying to a certain qualification.
Another Education Cluster program will be offered by the Nida Art Colony together with the Curonian Spit National Park. As the representatives of the Nida Art Colony pointed out, the main goal is art, environmental protection, biodiversity and the general nature of the Curonian Spit.
“This project is a continuous project of Neringa architecture, which has been going on for four years. All activities take place in any weather outside, the aim is to try to unite teachers from different disciplines in order to connect and connect activities from different subjects.
The main unifying aspect is sand and wind. We are cooperating with the Sengirė Foundation, so we will delve into different forest spheres, micro and macro processes. We will strive for the students participating in this program to know and understand the environment and perceive it,” representatives of the Nida Art Colony briefly introduced the program.
Parents of students have concerns
The parents of students who participated in the presentation of the educational cluster, after listening to all the planned activities, said that they were afraid that not all children would be satisfied with the subjects offered.
“The first such dilemma that we internally discuss is the question of integration – will those clusters of artistic inclination integrate properly into subjects of non-artistic inclination?”
Second, more from a practical point of view – we all understand that not all of our children are or will be happy to hear that “there are artistic things again”. My idea or suggestion is to cleverly think about how to include these children who say “I will never be an artist” in these clusters”, said the mother of a Neringa high school student who participated in the presentation.
As indicated by the program coordinators, these are the programs that will be available for selection. According to them, everything will have to be based on benevolent cooperation of free will.
2024-08-28 11:38:32