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Over three days, 20 primary school teachers (5-7 August 2019) and 23 secondary school teachers (8-10 August 2019) got acquainted with the contents of the Media Education textbook for III-IV and VII-VIII grades respectively. They developed their teaching skills for this optional course and tested various teaching methods that make the learning process interactive and attractive to pupils.
Anastasia Nani, IJC Deputy Director, emphasized the importance of teaching the new optional course in schools in the Republic of Moldova, encouraging teachers to take this course in the new 2019-2020 school year. “We all have a common mission - to contribute to the development of critical thinking in our society. Media Education is the school subject that responds to this need, generated by the large amount of information we are exposed to daily”, Anastasia Nani stated.
Both training programs were developed on the basis of the Media Education curriculum and the textbooks for the primary and secondary education levels, respectively.
The course trainers, Loretta Handrabura, PhD in Philology, and Natalia Griu, Chief Consultant at the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research, helped participants to ‘explore’ the topics, emphasizing that “the main mission of teachers and parents is not to abandon the children in front of a phone or a computer”.
“Quitting reading and traditional communication, giving up sports and other extracurricular activities in favour of a computer is today’s challenge. It is true that we must instill confidence in our pupils. At the same time, it is important to check which websites they are viewing to ensure their online safety. Usually, teachers are not informed, parents do not manage and pupils choose the information that they deem as important. Many times, however, they fall into various information traps, some of which can even endanger their lives”, Loretta Handrabura said.
Natalia Griu urged teachers to become ‘ambassadors of media education in their regions’.
During the trainings, primary and secondary school teachers discussed about media consumption, the new media, online reputation and behavior, addiction and virtual environment traps. They also practiced a series of games that will help them teach these topics in an interactive and engaging way for their students. As a result, participants managed to overcome the fears they had at the beginning of the training, finally gaining confidence in their relationship with the new media and learning new teaching methods. An interactive tool used during the trainings, which aroused curiosity, was the game on the Mediacritica.md platform MediaErudit, which the teachers can use during classes.
Media expert Viorica Zaharia offered practical tips on how to identify truthful news and manipulative ones and encouraged them to be vigilant when sharing articles with sensational headlines or news with only one source.
Primary school teachers were impressed by the content of the textbook and by other educational materials available, as well as by interactive activities and games chosen by trainers. “These topics are relevant not only to pupils, but also to parents and teachers. In fact, every citizen needs media education and media culture”, said Valentina Ghilas, teacher at ‘Tudor Strisca’ Secondary School, Satul Nou village, Cimislia district.
Maria Tulbure, teacher at Zimbreni High School in Zimbreni village, Ialoveni, was convinced of the need to teach this course in her high school. “In our daily lives we interact more and more often with the new media. Precisely for this reason it is important to know how to use them for the benefit of the society”, the teacher said.
Secondary school teachers were particularly interested in topics such as online harassment, internet addiction or online reputation.
Cristina Cernei, English teacher at ‘Onisifor Ghibu’ High School in Chisinau, believes that Media Education is a valuable course for teachers, as we are overwhelmed with information from various sources. “We, teachers, become a reliable source for our pupils who do not yet have clearly defined values. Our mission is to educate and help them understand what sexting, grooming, cyberbullying is, make them understand that it is very easy to become aggressive online and it is very difficult to get rid of this negative reputation, because any information reaching the virtual environment stays there forever. The media literacy course is an important subject that needs to be used to the maximum”, Cristina Cernei says.
After three days of training, Olesea Jechiu, Romanian and English teacher at Zimbreni High School in Zimbreni village, Ialoveni, came to the conclusion that the course should not be optional but rather a compulsory course in the curriculum. “Daily experience proves that this course is a must for pupils of today”, the teacher says.
The Independent Journalism Center has trained so far 124 primary school teachers and 101 secondary school teachers. The Media Education optional course has been taught in schools in the Republic of Moldova since 2017. In the 2018-2019 academic year, more than 1500 primary and secondary school pupils from over 40 schools took this course either as optional or during the personal development course.
The training was organized by the Independent Journalism Center as part of the ‘Strengthening Freedom of Expression in the Republic of Moldova’ project, implemented by IJC with the support of Deutsche Welle Akademie and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
