発表内容

「世界の学校教育におけるインターネット活用」
新１００校プロジェクト　国際シンポジウム'98
国内の事例発表　中学校

The Internet for our school in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Alma Zecevic, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
UCITELJSKA SKOLA
(Teachers School Sarajevo, a secondary school for teachers)

http://www.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de/~reinfel/ohz/peter/schoolba.htm

Abstract
A description of our school, our current work and our future ideas and dreams.
The Teachers School in Sarajevo have suffered during the past years because of times of war and post-war problems. Through the internet and its possibilities practical work at school and educational and personal prospects have tremendously improved. A future-oriented school for young future teachers in Saravevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, is trying to put future ideas and dreams into practice.

Keywords
Sarajevo, Teachers School, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Alma Zecevic, English, future, teachers,

2.Body: 1) Aims: To get into contact with schools and institutions worldwide to be able to cope with modern methods of project-oriented teaching.; 2) Seeking Schools for Exchange: Through mailing lists such as of "The European Schools Project" and UNESCO, Germany, others welcome, WWW too, no specific priority.; 3) Topic Selection: Mainly teachers' topics and pedagogical contents of discussions, others, too. Students' interests in the English language.; 4) Theme: not yet decided, suggestions always welcome !; 5) Activity: We had a practical project concerning the English language.; 6) Exchange: Exchanging English language knowledge to Slovenia and other countries.; 7) Children and Students' Reactions: Very positive ! We tried to cope with the past of traumatised youths and their future plans and prospects.; 8) Results and Issues: We achieved a lot of positive results; 9) Difficulties or Mishaps: Youths have not always been able to exchange messages about war times and typical problems, problems were more difficult than expected.; 10) Advice: one should think about your students' needs and interests and problems.; 11) Others: see below

The Internet for our school in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Dear colleagues and friends,

I'm Alma Zecevic, a computer teacher of the Teachers High School in Sarajevo. This is in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The main purpose of our Teachers School as a secondary educational institution, is to train, educate and qualify students for practical work in primary schools from the first to the fourth class and to educate students for the work in pre - school institutions ( kindergartens ).

The education at our school lasts for four school years and contains the following subjects:

Bosnian language, foreign languages ( English, French, German ), history, philosophy, sociology, mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, geography, art, music art ( playing musical instruments ), computers and sports.

Furthermore we have some vocational subjects such as psychology, pedagogical psychology, children's psychology, pedagogy in didactics, school administration, methodics in general education and in each subject, and hygiene.

Practical and methodical work lasts for two years and is practised during the third and the fourth class.

We have some optional classes and courses as well. Moreover we teach free activities, too.

At the moment we offer:
a choir, an orchestre - accordion section, a section for biology, chemistry, physics, mathematics, literature and drama, a journalists' section and a folk dancers' section.

After the fourth year our students have to pass their examination. Then they get their Secondary school diploma for teachers ( for the work with children in primary schools or in kindergartens ).

It is MOST important to know that we had a terrible war in our country some years ago which had an enormous inpact on our lives and our surroundings.

During the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina many teachers were killed or expelled from their homes and schools and accordingly displaced. When the war was over it became obvious that Bosnia and Herzegovina would have many problems with regard to the staff at its schools. An initiative was taken and it resulted with the school reopening its door in 1994. In that year the students were taught in five classes in the first year of high school, in one class in the second year and in one class in the third year.

This year we have 712 students in total and 8 first year classes. Six classes are for the second year and 4 are for the third year. Three four year classes are presently taught. Those students who will complete their education this year will be the first generation of teachers after 1972.

During these four years of war (two years in war and two post-war years) the problems we had were numerous and referred to all segments of the education process. Basic problems were: the lack of staff, lack of books, lack of the pens/ pencils, lack of school equipment and furniture, absolutely no heating at school and others. The only thing we had was an empty school building and a program which was made with no possibility to consult current programmes in Europe. That's why we were and still are the only school in Europe whose students get the title "Teacher" after having completed their education. Nowadays, the activities are undertaken in order to change our school's curriculum and program. The school representatives made a proposal about the future organization of the work at school. It was proposed to form two departments at school:
one of them lasts for four years and it is for those students who will like to continue their education at one of the universities which can give an education to teachers. The proposed duration for the education in the second department was five years. During the fifth year the students are to be taught in those subjects which are specific for the Teachers school (mainly focusing on practice in Primary Schools).

The specific way of life and the specific life experience gained during the war resulted with the big change in the way of thinking and acting (we simulated ordinary life and work with no compromise).
The existence itself is still questionable. Many Bosnian people still don't have a job and those who have one are not in a position to provide an ordinary life to their families. Because of that, it's easy to understand that just a few teachers are willing and have time to get involved in voluntary work (the same applies to the whole population). On the other hand, we want to provide and must provide the conditions for the ordinary education of young people as soon as possible.
This means for my school:

- in order to realize the simplest project of cooperation with their colleagues from other countries our students will need at least the commitment of three teachers; one who teaches the subject concerned, then the English language teacher who translates the texts and finally the operator (I can do this) who helps the students to write, send and receive the messages through E-mail.
So the literature which we still lack could be provided and the resources could facilitate a communication. But very few teachers are so well positioned to be able to do these jobs on a voluntary basis, and the school doesn't have the funding to cover the costs for these activities. At the moment our school and the teachers are just interested in being involved in activities which seem to bring more concrete financial results.

Again, there are just a few people who are motivated in different ways and who are able to work on something which might bring the results in the future. With the knowledge and information that we have now we can only be involved in projects of local importance.

Why am I more than happy to be here with you ?

Last year, I participated at a conference, the "European Schools Project Annual Conference" in Slovenia. A conference dealing with presentations of projects, plannings projects and improving internet-oriented teaching at school.
At that time my participation in that conference was purely accidental. I had fought my way through post-war conditions in Bosnia and Herzegovina to Slovenia which for some few hundreds of kilometers took me about more than 20 hours time and thought that something like that conference won't never happen again. It was wonderful, it was like a dream.
The companionship with the members of that conference for me was something like a dream. I never had had such a feeling before, especially because of my experiences during the war that we had had several years before.
I met very many ordinary people who were very kind and at the same time highly qualified and full of understanding, people who were patient and supported me and helped me to achieve my future teaching methods.

When I came back to Sarajevo I wanted to share at least a part of my impressions of that conference with my colleagues at school. Therefore, I prepared my first computer presentation. It was a computer presentation about that conference. It was the first computer report my colleagues had ever seen. As a result I was awarded with a modem for the computer in my classroom. That was the first step towards the realization of getting the e-mail account for my students, our contact to the world.
During the computer classes with my students I discussed the impressions about the conference.
Furthermore, I wrote a text which was published in a Students' Magazine. My students were very interested to do something to keep in contact with the European Schools Projectmembers in the future. Because of that we founded the so-called "Teachers Club".
The objective for the members of The Teachers Club was to try and establish a communication link through email with their colleagues from all over the world. We sent out the first message to some of the conference members and one day after, we received more than 20 responses. You can't imagine how excited we were while translating all those messages into the Bosnian language.
My students wanted to know everything about the persons who had written them and we spent the whole day at our school. We glued all the messages onto the walls in our teachers' room.
After that , in collaboration with students and their teacher Vesna Ilic from a school in Maribor, Slovenia, a pilot - project " Let's teach each other English " was initiated.
During our summer holidays we were very active as well. We took part and gave technical support for the six-months-long project for our " Center for Young People " at our school.
There were several more activities but there is not the time to mention all of them here.

Finally, I accomplished two very important aims:

The first one was to get linked to the Internet free of charge for our school. Owing to SOROS FOUNDATION which is based in Sarajevo, our school can use their server for two hours a day.
The second one is that SOROS FOUNDATION funded my trip to Copenhagen, where I could participate in the second conference held in March this year. So I had not been right last year ... I HAD the chance to participate in such a conference again, and I am VERY happy that this could happen.

For my students all these experiences have been new and very different to all of those experiences they had before..
Given our minimum conditions, I did my best:

to make them get in contact with students from all over the world,
to make them realise that they are not alone,
to make them understand that they have to learn foreign languages
to teach them to have respect different opinions
to teach them to support the right things
to teach them to be able to use all the resources, especially computers, to improve their knowledge....

I can't predict how successful we will be because, my opinion is that we didn't miss just four years because of the war but forty - four years of our lives.

Finally, I would like to add something just for myself: I have been learning English and I have completed the first course. I hope that the knowledge I acquired will be enough to be able to thank you for the impact and support you gave me for my everyday work. Thanks to all of you I have achieved very many things at our school and I am very grateful for that.

Thanks again

Alma Zecevic

1998.6.17 Update