Time to Overcome Delusions with Diary Notes and Author Network

From the Educomplex director’s diary
From the Open Laboratory of Bleyan Open Educational Network

Ashot Bleyan

The two-day open laboratory of Bleyan Open Educational Network on April 26-27  is being implemented as a training-pedagogical project with the highest degree of participation ... starting with the lab content definition, the selection of the participants through the applications until the details are organized ...

Of course, we could have refused to do the tour about the educational garden, and also we could have done the round-table discussions only in the Mother School. We could have missed the April 27 educational divine service, and the concert summary and enclosed the care of more than one hundred and fifty educator-citizens within one day, one event in a closed space instead of turning the fully inclusive, open and creative gathering into a joint life over the weekend. Let alone move the gathering day under pretence of the Citizen's Day of the Republic of Armenia which coincides with the day of our gathering this year.

Never: our creative gathering, like our Sebastatsi life, is alive, mobile, creative and solidary as an educational community. My diary is the place where I publish the working agenda of the Open Laboratory of Bleyan Open Network for April 26 and April 27, and I do it with the right of the founder of the Network and Educomplex. There are and there will be changes in it: it's our life, but each change will be directed to free the author educator's life from artificiality. You are welcome, fill in the application form on April 24-25 if you haven't done it yet.

Rima Yeremyan congratulates and reminds us with gratitude about the fact that during the the gathering days Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western School Gardens got new digital devices, 65 inches wide, touch-screen smart TV sets for round-table discussions. The creative gatherings of our Bleyan Open Educational Network will be all the year round with bridge crossing links.  There is no time to wait: there will not be any rejection on the Network. Each individual, group or an educational institution having made up the educator-citizen's  decision to become the author of their work, will join in the gathering which will be  pre-announced and carefully presented on mskh.am. The Annual May Creative Gathering of the Authors of Author Educational Program on May 13-18, the educational review project camps from May 29 to June 10, the Sculpture and Architecture International Festival in Yerevan, Ijevan and Arates starting from June 1, have already been announced.    

Now let's speak about the creative gathering on April 26-27. Yesterday we made an important amendment in its organization on your consistent statement, especially made by Nara Nikoghosyan. On April 27, the round-table is scheduled in the Mother School. I will take the floor in front of the official audience of the gathering and present the Bleyan Open Educational Network and will answer the participants’ questions. As Gevorg Hakobyan formulated with the precision typical to him: “Bleyan Educational Network will be presented by its author.” It is convincing. Thank you!

Yes, a delusion has been established all over Armenia that a state public educational institution is imposed to carry out the state educational program, that it is not given the right to choose, and that by some mysterious power that monopoly is given only to Bleyan, to the school created by him. By the way, our school functions as a state non-commercial organization like all the state institutions in Armenia, ours was established by the resolution of the Government of RA in 1989. You are welcome! There is everything about us accessible on mskh.am to every user starting from 1989 up to the present day with its approved and functioning regulations with amendments approved by the Ministry of ES in 2017 N 533 Order. Our structure  with the buildings and constructions with gratuitous use right approved by the Government of RA and land plots allocated by the mayor of the city of Yerevan. We are not different from you, but we have chosen an alternative program the right of which has every state educational institution by the law of the Republic of Armenia on public education.

We are coming to you with Bleyan Open Educational Network. We have brought you the April Creative Gathering, then there will be the May Gathering, and then we will have the June Festivals to help you overcome this delusion, to share our experience with you so that you can become the author of your work and face the choice defined by the law of RA.    

You can form school educational communities out of citizen-educators, citizen-students and parents. Another widespread delusion is that state educational institutions should work with the sample curriculum prescribed by the Minister of ES of RA. All the teaching hours are already allocated in it and all the organizational forms have been defined. In my 2019 Manifesto of General Education, I clarified the legal right to be guided by the core curriculum determined by the state general educational standards, and the right of every state school to organize study on that basis. Organizing and implementing community education is the imperative. You should bring diversity with this, you should become real participants in the endeavor of real changes in the system of education. Do, become!   

We have been useful, can be useful and will continue to be useful with our Bleyan Educational Network, “Mkhitar Sebastatsi” Educational Complex and its staff, authors of author pedagogy, with author pedagogical programs beginning from pre-school up to the career college vocational education with everyday open activities, and at the same time, having the support and authorization of the Ministry of ES of RA, educational community and the families of the learners. You can do so on condition that you have started acting independently and open, making necessary decisions.           

The Financial Side to Overcome Delusion: all our activities, first and foremost, are financially-publicly-open. With this link, you will get acquainted with the Educational Complex financial report for the period of January-March 2019 presented to the governing council of the Eucomplex. And Gevorg Hakobyan, Deputy Director of the Educomplex, presents the financial side of the Educomplex author pedagogy at a roundtable.

Yes, we receive state support, grant, in 2019, as in the previous years, by the RA state budget, we should get, we can’t do without it. We present a written and public report on work and money costs quarterly for a year. We have published the act of complex inspections in the Educomplex for the 2018 year done by the State Revenue Committee.

The pre-school education, supplementary (extracurricular) education determined by the Regulations of the Educational Complex cannot but be funded. In our five primary schools we have 14 groups of 2-5 children, 322 children, we have got a developed, open and attractive supplementary training in the following educational centers of the Educomplex: musical, sports, chess, natural sciences, fine arts, and sculpture.

We also have teachers who are the authors of their own activities with the status of developing subject syllabuses and the training forms, running educational blogs, creating and spreading teaching materials, being constantly accessible at school or at home, creating a digital library and network, sharing the pedagogical innovations all over the republic.

 We also provide supplementary services determined by study contracts, curricula and teaching orders, to each learner who has chosen the author educational program. The development plan of our Educomplex for the period of 2019, 2020-2022, which is also on the round table agenda, is a combination of the most participatory, monetary and non-monetary, material and non-material efforts of all pedagogical beneficiaries. We would not be present today without such a sensible, savvy and active education economy, and we would not be presenting our experience to the Armenian society through organizing a network transfer of that experience.

If I replace my essay with one sentence, there will be the title: overcome the delusions, It is high time you did it.