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In January, 2002, when the RWCT Higher Education project was being launched, one of Thinking Classroom/Peremena editors, Olga Varshaver, interviewed the authors of the new programs, Charles Temple, Jeannie Steele, Kurt Meredith, and David Klooster. For various reasons the interview was not published then. Now we are bringing it to your attention.
Olga Varshaver: We know that lately most of the program effort has been redirected toward higher education. What kind of demand instigated this switch?
Charles Temple: The imperative for reforming teaching is felt at all levels. The modern university is squeezed between its traditional mission of providing detached and scholarly reflection on the world, and its obligation to prepare young people to navigate their way through a future whose dangers may be its most discernible features. Distinguished universities are called to provide distinguished teaching as well as scholarship and research. While good teaching without good scholarship may be an empty exercise, sharing scholarship without empowering students to think productively within the disciplines falls short of what is needed to prepare the next generation to face new challenges.
Jeannie Steele: By the way, I do not see the focus on higher education as a redirection; rather I see it as an extension. We will continue our efforts with RWCT in basic and secondary schools and in university pedagogy divisions. That is the base for our enormously successful work, and that work will continue. The higher education focus is an extension, which grew out of the thoughtful insight of OSI Program Officer Liz Lorant after she made a visit to the region and talked with people who said that RWCT was excellent and was needed for everyone across all disciplines, not only pedagogy.
A major step forward in the initiative came when Kurt Meredith and David Klooster wrote Critical Thinking for Faculty and University Students (CTFUS). Indeed, the course is for both students and faculty and will be used in some countries as a course for university students, in other countries as a staff development program for faculty, and in some countries for both student and faculty development.
David Klooster: As we go forward with our work in higher education, I think it s important to remind ourselves how much is at stake for students during the university years. University students are at an age when many of the fundamental questions of identity are being addressed. They are asking themselves these questions: Who am I? What will I do in my career? Whom will I love? How do I relate to other people? What are my politics? What is my system of beliefs and commitments? How do I translate my values into actions?
All of these questions of self-identity are open questions for university students, and in their lives in and out of our classrooms they are engaged in a series of conversations with friends, family, classmates, and professors about the issues that will help to determine what kinds of people, what kinds of citizens, they will become.
When our classrooms are open to many voices, to controversy, to debate, to inquiry, all of these questions of self-definition and social understanding can more naturally become part of the intellectual formation of students. When we make efforts to connect the classrooms to the lives our students are living, we find that the perennial issues in our disciplines become compelling issues for our students. And when we intentionally foster connections in our courses between learning and living, we can have a great influence in not only the intellectual development of our students, but also in their social, psychological, and broader human development.
Kurt Meredith: The change now toward more involvement of universities does not mean we are leaving schools. But it is a recognition that we have students now who are going through the school process and entering the universities. And it makes some sense to broaden as much as possible to include all of the educational community and stretch its resources. It seemed that we were not really getting the educational community on the whole until we started this new initiative.
OV: Has there been actual demand from in-country groups or, maybe, authorities?
Kurt Meredith: The countries currently involved in RWCT have implemented the program in different ways. There are different countries emphasizing different directions. Macedonia, for example, began very early to work with higher education. Some other countries have many more higher-ed participants than some others. So it was not a universal pattern, but some countries have always been heading in this direction. Estonia and Lithuania are other examples of where this has been happening. Higher-education involvement required some time. So there was real interest expressed there.
OV: What is the overall aim on a national level as you see it: reforming a certain department/university in a country or creating a critical mass of progressive and like-minded faculty across the country?
David Klooster: I would say the latter. I do not think that we are targeting now only one department, one faculty or university. But we are trying now to work across disciplinary lines, starting there with people who are interested, who are friendly and open to new approaches, and offering professional development resources for them as they continue their work. Many of them are younger faculty members, though not all. And I think the intention is to try to spread the interest in critical thinking by attracting people from many different places, many different departments, many different universities.
Jeannie Steele: As with everything we have done in RWCT, this initiative is collaborative and responsive to the needs within each country. Therefore, RWCT leaders in each country will decide how to proceed. Their decision will be based on consideration of many factors within their country. We will assist country leaders in making action plans for implementation in their individual contexts. We have developed a document to assist country teams in doing a contextual analysis of their situation, which can lead to informed decision-making with specific well-considered plans for implementation.
OV: You have considerable experience in working in this part of the globe. What are your expectations with the higher-ed project? Will it go quicker or slower, be more or less successful, than your work on the school level?
Jeannie Steele: I have been amazed with the unprecedented success of RWCT. I think the present higher-education initiative will go well, and once again we will be surprised with the creativity and dedication of the RWCT leaders and participants in each country. It is true that traditionally higher-education institutions and leaders, as a whole, have been slower to change than have school leaders. However, I think we are presently at a crossroads for universities. Universities are now seeking avenues for change that assists them in their efforts to educate citizens who can think critically, solve problems, and contribute positively to their civic society. In each country we have excellent trainers who can lead the expansion of RWCT across the university. It seems a daunting task, but we should remember that implementing RWCT in schools and pedagogical universities seemed a daunting task when we started.
OV: From what you say it is clear that the whole RWCT movement will continue being school-focused. Still, many teachers may think they have been left out . .
Jeannie Steele: It would be a tragedy if school-based people thought that we were no longer interested in RWCT at the school level. That is simply not the case. The school-based program continues to be a primary focus of RWCT and will always be so. It is because the school and pedagogy-based RWCT programs have been so successful, coupled with the existing need for RWCT across the entire university curriculum, that we have been able to begin the expansion to the entire university.
Kurt Meredith: We do not see that this makes any real statement about leaving schools behind. This is an addition. So there is no sense we are leaving schools at this point. It is our hope that the work being done in RWCT at schools will continue and that the number of teachers involved in RWCT programs will continue to grow at the school level. But this is an implementation idea that comes in addition to that.
OV: What sort of international follow-up or support or sharing has been envisaged for the teachers community initially involved in the program?
Kurt Meredith: There are several ways in which we will continue to support the national activities from an international perspective. It is unlikely that the volunteer work will continue on the level there has been. Eventually it will stop altogether as was the initial plan. However certification system is another international idea. The process of issuing international certificates should continue to provide some international support and information promoting inter-regional interaction, so that a lot of people from the various countries would come together, would know each other and each other s work. It will help RWCT to sustain as a program.
We ve created a network of colleagues and friends that stretches halfway round the world, and those friendships and those professional relationships will find many different ways of surviving.
And then, the Thinking Classroom/Peremena journal is that mechanism. We hope it will be the lasting means by which we will have an international dialogue about RWCT and learn what is happening in various countries. And through that mechanism additional ideas about classroom activities may be communicated and some issues may be resolved.
OV: Jeannie and Kurt, to be honest, when you first came to Slovakia did you expect anything like this? Did you feel you were launching a project of such scale?
Kurt Meredith: When we went to Slovakia we were unsure even that we could offer anything to the Slovak educators. So the idea that we would some day be working with 28 different countries never occurred to us then. The fact that what seemed useful to them proved useful to many others is incredibly rewarding and quite surprising.
Jeannie Steele: No, we did not expect such unbelievable response. We are thrilled to see how it has gone. We believe that the success has been primarily due to the fact that we have stuck to the process school-reform model. To the extent that we have deviated from the process model we were less successful. The model has many facets that were refined as we worked with Slovaks to implement a nationwide school-reform program after the Soviet era. The model has seemed to resonate with other nations who faced similar difficulties and needs after the fall of Communism.
OV: Is there any explanation for the RWCT phenomenon? For its sustainability? Many flash-up programs die shortly after they have been started and are now long forgotten, but this program flourishes. Why (aside from the charm and beauty of the only woman director)?
Charles Temple: I would give the following explanation. An education that includes learning to learn does not start becoming outdated upon graduation, but rather prepares students to keep up an intellectual conversation with the world that continues to help their minds to grow.
Kurt Meredith: I believe teachers everywhere, whether it s in Europe or in Central Asia, in the United States, in Australia just about everywhere are all looking for ways to improve teaching in their classrooms. Or many of them are. So there is a real hunger to find the means to make a difference in the classroom. I think teachers are also hungry to work together, to share what works well for them and their kids. It is important to bring teachers together to talk about teaching and learning.
And I think, too, we began in a region where schooling was quite similar. So many of the people were having similar problems, similar issues to resolve. So there was a sense of camaraderie about the struggle they had to go through to meet the need of the students. And finally, I think, from my point of view, there is the fact that the program is flexible it is the core of this program that it is flexible and it involves a lot of collaborative work so that nobody tells anyone what to do. Everybody is trying to make out together what makes sense, and that is compelling to people, you know. And it unites people in terms of sustainability. We have really tried to move this program from an externally delivered to an internally delivered one. The expertise now is based within each country. This is also important for sustainability.
David Klooster: I would add that the model for professional development that is at the heart of RWCT, of bringing a core group of teachers together four times during a year, gives them a chance to learn something new and then bring it back to their classrooms to try it, and then engage in a continuing conversation with their colleagues about it. That time is essential in this program. There are many other professional development projects, as you mentioned, which try to do something quickly. And lasting change in the teachers work takes a long time. The elements a teacher needs are time and support. That s what a teacher needs to have a feeling that he/she is working with others, that other people are engaged in the same thing; if he/she has to go back to his/her own school and to be all alone, and never have any feeling of camaraderie or friendship with others engaged in the same process, then the changes do not last, they cannot be sustained. So that time is essential for the change process in teaching. And the other element that counts from those repeated meetings is friendship that people become really good friends with each other, and so they are supporting each other not only because they are engaged in the same work but because they generally enjoy each other s company as well.
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Interview with the authors