The Mkhitar Sebastatsi Educational Complex, as an authorial educational programme, is a multifaceted, multilayered and constantly evolving educational environment. The different programmes implemented in the Complex’s Primary, Middle and High Schools, College and preschools are all part of one overarching educational logic—a continuation of the approaches, organisational forms, pedagogical practices and culture developed by the Blеyan School over the years.
The work of such an educational system cannot be fully presented through numbers, indicators or a list of individual achievements alone. These are certainly important, but in order to gain a complete picture, it is also necessary to see what has been done, why it has been done, how it has been done, what results have been achieved, what problems have arisen, what has changed and in which direction the educational programme is developing. One needs to read, see, experience and walk through this educational environment.
For us, the report on the authorial educational programme is not simply a report.
It is a tool for monitoring the educational programme, self-analysis, sharing experience, professional dialogue and further development. It is also a tool that helps guide the development of the Educational Complex.
When I began discussing this issue with AI and asked it to provide relevant information and studies, I came across some interesting material. It turns out that, in international educational practice, school evaluation and accountability systems are increasingly viewed not only as mechanisms of control or accountability, but also as means of developing schools. The OECD, for example, views school evaluation as serving two purposes simultaneously: accountability and the improvement of the school environment. One of the important functions of internal evaluation and self-evaluation is to help a school understand its own work, formulate goals and create opportunities for developing plans for improvement.
This is an important observation for us as well.
A report should become a document that can be read, discussed, compared, questioned and used to generate new work. In that case, it can function as a tool for developing the educational programme.
I also revisited the requirements for the development plans of general education schools. They are closely connected with this kind of work: it is important to examine what has been done by collecting the existing material, analysing it, and then outlining directions for further development. If there is no actual body of collected and published material, on what basis is development planned? On imagination? Theory? International experience? …
The Report as a Document of Authorial Pedagogy
One of the distinctive features of the reports of the Mkhitar Sebastatsi Educational Complex is that they do not present only the administrative activities of the organisation.
They allow us to see the learning activity, the project, the educational trip, the camp, meetings with different specialists, public figures and artists, the learner’s work, the teacher’s activities, the parent’s participation, collaboration, research work, the authorial approach to presenting diploma projects, the walking and outdoor activities, the problems encountered and attempts to address them.
From this perspective, the reports are also products of authorial pedagogy.
They bring together experience that is usually scattered across numerous individual publications, projects, meetings, learning activities, discussions and the work of everyday school life.
The report brings this scattered experience together and identifies its key directions and approaches.
Here we can see not only what we have done, but also what kind of educational culture we are creating.
And this is precisely where the value of the report lies.
It is not the work of one person. It is not the work of one school.
It is the result of the collective work of the Educational Complex.
Therefore, a report should be read not merely as an accountability document, but as a presentation of the collective experience of the Educational Complex and as an opportunity to share and disseminate that experience.
From this perspective, feedback is particularly important. By feedback, we should not mean simply an expression of satisfaction or dissatisfaction or the addition of a few comments. Feedback becomes valuable when it helps us understand the quality of the work and identify the next step, thereby guiding further development.
Therefore, feedback on the reports of the Educational Complex can take different forms:
- a reader’s observation;
- a professional opinion;
- a question;
- a suggestion;
- a comparison with the experience of another school;
- an observation from a learner or parent;
- a professional response from a colleague;
- an opinion from an external specialist;
- identification of successful practice;
- identification of a problem;
- sharing or disseminating a particular part of the report;
- a proposal for new collaboration.
All of these can become material for the development of the educational programme.
It is also important that feedback should not turn into a flood of responses such as “good”, “bad” or “interesting”.
Questions are much more useful:
- What have we done?
- Is my specific area of work visible?
- What can I do to contribute to the development of the Educational Complex?
- What is new for us?
- What can be shared and disseminated?
- What needs to be reconsidered?
- What question does this raise?
- What could become a new project, or lead to the development of an existing one?
- What problem keeps recurring?
- What support is needed?
Reading with such questions in mind is already a form of pedagogical work.
I particularly value reading the reports on the authorial educational programme as part of the summer pedagogical camp.
I suggest that we should not try to read them all at once and in their entirety. It is more effective to work with them in sections, focusing on different themes and areas, according to schools, professional groups, areas of pedagogical activity, problems and solutions.
The aim should be to look not for your own name or that of a colleague, or for a particular piece of work, but for the broader direction.
Looking Back at What Has Been Done
A report gives us an opportunity to pause for a moment and see the enormous amount of work that we often fail to notice in the midst of everyday life.
Our daily work is usually fragmented: one learning activity, one project, one meeting, one educational trip, one ritual.
In the report, all of this is brought together, making it possible to see the bigger picture.
It is also important to acknowledge how much work is actually being carried out throughout the Educational Complex.
To see the development of the Educational Complex as a whole.
And it is precisely in this sense that the reports of the Educational Complex can become not only documents recording its work, but also living records of contemporary, authorial and continually developing pedagogy in Armenia.