Village Project - Konferencja 99

Warsztat / Dilna Village

A Polish-Czech-Slovak
Workshop for Teachers

June 30 - July 9, 1999
Wojtowice, Poland

Organized in cooperation with Zdanie / Point of View Association.

Participants at the 1999 workshop built
the town Koperkowo (Dillville)

After the magical success of our 1998 teacher workshop, which had with teachers from five different countries, we decided not to push our luck, and this year we our participants came from only three countries, all culturally close -- Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. The workshop was in Wojtowice, Poland, and was jointly organized with a new partner, a Polish NGO called Zdanie / Point of View Association. The Polish and Czech teachers came from just two school districts, and they will work together over the year, team-teaching at Village and visiting each others’ programs, as part of a larger cross-border project masterminded by Zdanie.

The Slovak teachers, Tana and Slavka, were counselors at last year’s Tabor Village; not having come to a workshop beforehand, they played Village at camp but never had the chance to think and talk about it with other teachers. Such thinking and discussion has become a more significant piece of the workshop, as we’ve realized how essential it is to learning to play the role the teacher must at Village.

Introducing a peep at the 1999 workshop

One of the residents of Koperkowo

As a means of exploring this role, we introduced a new element into the workshops: role plays. We wrote up skeleton descriptions of scenes in which the teacher has to respond to a complex situation in a way appropriate to Village. For instance, suppose a boy decides his peep will open a bordello in town, and another child is upset and offended. What should the teacher do? In small groups, each with a different scene, the teachers decided together how their scenes should be played out, some playing children, others the teacher. In some of the scenes we asked the teacher to respond in a good way, in others in a bad way, and after the groups acted, we discussed what the group had decided the teacher should do. Sometimes, we we would decide to play a scene again, with the teacher playing a good instead of bad role, or vice versa.

Performing a role play

It seems important, after the violence that has broken up Yugoslavia still further, to remind ourselves of last year’s workshop, among whose participants were Serbian and Kosovar Albanian teachers. Since then, one of the teachers, Gasper Karaqi has been killed by the Serbian Police; yet, also, Vesna Krstonic, who bravely continues to play Village in Serbia and insist on a better world, has stayed friends with Agron Haredinaj -- an act that sounds small but isn’t. We wrote a year ago that the cooperation across 6 cultures, using 7 languages, should “give hope to those who insist that the barriers language, nationality and culture set up aren’t unbreachable.” If it’s harder to hope, it’s important to remember what’s possible.

Planning the layout of the town.

Henry and Zbyszek, the Ministers of New Lands in Koperkowo enjoying the view from the town Hall

Slavka building her house

Town Meeting in Koperkowo
with Katka moderating.

Report prepared November 1999
by workshop leaders
Amy Shuffelton and Noah Sobe

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