Mkhitar Sebastatsi Educational Complex: Bleyan School, authorial pedagogy… The pedagogy created and continuously developed in the educational complex is open – through various channels of influence, inclusion of different groups, and direct or indirect developments.
The “Impact of Alternative on Education” approach is important and crucial for advancing, nurturing, and developing state general education programs through various channels. Alternative should be viewed as a crucible for new developments, approaches, and organization, where the school of the future is created and developed. Only through the development-organization-dissemination of alternative pedagogy can “new types” of teachers and education organizers emerge, who will become public figures and specialists marking educational developments. They will be people who have created and are creating pedagogy, not alienated from school and school issues.
The study of alternative general education programs in Armenia is in the Complex’s 2025 work calendar. We started with the Waldorf school and “Aregnazan” educational complex. The study was conducted by Mariam Arushanyan, Armine Khachatryan, and students, with Yura Ganjalyan as the project consultant.
We have already discussed the open channels of alternative dissemination of the Bleyan school: they are diverse and multifaceted. Let’s elaborate:
Impact of the learner community as an open community of people utilizing the free choice of Bleyan school…
The educational complex gives students the opportunity to choose and have an individual schedule. Already from primary school – students are given a different and gradually expanding opportunity to choose the educational program. At first, they go through the Entrance Camp, with the opportunity to present themselves. Then they study various educational centers, clubs and laboratories of the educational complex, choosing and composing their individual curriculum with an elective component. The above-mentioned are important and continuously developing, refined components of the author educational program, which are aimed at creating a convenient and open educational environment for the individual. Students’ activities as an open community are encouraged. Individual learners are valued as beneficiaries and disseminators of the author educational program, through awards developed and implemented by the author program of Bleyan School. The student community becomes a disseminator through educational projects, public defense of research works, educational trips, and educational exchange projects. These components are also part of the author educational program and aim to discover and develop the student’s talent and preferences. Individual and group initiatives of students are important in the form of presentations, projects, Students’ Knowledge Sharing projects, and more. A Sebastatsi student who transfers to another school takes with them the part of this experience that has become their own.
Alumni Association: meetings, cooperation
The connection with graduates is important for Sebastians as an effective chain for ensuring educational continuity. Graduates join the teaching staff of the educational complex, regularly communicate with teachers, and attend educational complex rituals. The meetings, which are continuous, are not just events; each is a specific program designed for a specific group of beneficiaries as a project for developing student preferences and professional orientation. The continuous development of cooperation with graduates includes important points for the expansion of the Bleyan School network. The graduate, as an established professional in the field, becomes an organizer of educational work, a supporter-consultant, having both the function of inspiring and evaluating the impact of the author educational program and its influence on their activities and progress, which can point out the impact, and also see and record continuity and development.
Parental Community Impact
This pipeline is also active and is one of the important indicators of the Bleyan school. The parent community is the one who chooses the educational program; the parent chooses the alternative educational program. The parent, as a party to the learning contract, is conscientious and specific; the parent community is an advisor, supporter, and client in the development of the student’s curriculum. In the Bleyan school, the inclusion of the parent community and these collaborative mechanisms work clearly, interconnecting with each other. The parent community becomes the organizer and advisor of the transport network, homeland study trips, and various other projects, being involved in the organization of education through different components.
The influences of the Bleyan network, as an organization of alternatives, are visible and developing. The individuals disseminating them are specific and numerous; Bleyan’s pedagogy in Armenia has long been a network pedagogy, a reality changing public education. We we consider important the need for supplementation in legal acts regarding general and preschool education with alternative – author, international, experimental programs, allowing state and alternative programs to operate on equal legal platforms.
We will address the media channels of the author educational network and other components of distribution in another material.