UWC Dilijan Teaches Children From Various Countries to Understand Each Other

YEREVAN (Mediamax) — One of the objectives of UWC Dilijan College is to teach children from various countries to listen to and understand each other.

Chair of Board of Governors of UWC Dilijan College Veronika Zonabend said this in her interview to “Theories and Practice” online magazine.

“UWC system gives more opportunities to children for self-education in terms of choosing the schedule and intensiveness of the classes as well. Apart from the serious academic curriculum, children should be ready for a completely different level of social activity. Imagine you go to a foreign country, live and study with representatives of various cultures who you wouldn’t have probably met otherwise. Very often, UWC colleges are attended by children from conflicting countries. For instance, we have children from Palestine and Israel, from Turkey which by itself is quite uncommon for a school based in Armenia, from Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, Iran and the U.S.. In this regard, one of our goals is to teach them to listen to the other side, understand each other and communicate”, noted Veronika Zonabend.

“Of course, the children come here with their background. Many of them come from families with very modest incomes; we even have children from refugee camps. They are ready for one thing, while not prepared for another, but at that age they change fast. For instance, a boy from Palestine was at first quite tough to Israel and Israeli people, but now he easily communicates with the students from this country”, said Chair of the Board of Governors of the UWC Dilijan College.

Speaking about the situation in the education system in general, Veronika Zonabend noted that “the current education system should change as it doesn’t stimulate creativity and curious approach to the world”.

“Dependence on the standardized testing system based on the multiple choice answers doesn’t nurture a creative approach to the process and seeking of out-of-box solutions. The most important thing that education system should take into account is the fact that all the people are different, that’s why there isn’t and cannot be one single solution to everyone”, she said.