| In July, in a small northeastern Slovak
town, we held a Polish-Slovak Teacher Training Workshop. A group
of lively peeps built a town called Pipstopia. How would we make
the village into a place that accommodated the dreams of all of its residents?
A large public space was reserved in the center of town, with peep houses
to be arranged in a circle around it. A knight needed space to practice
his jousting, a painter wanted to be able to pursue his interest in landscape
painting. Pipstopia decided to have a great design competition to
propose layouts for the town center and through much intense, careful deliberation
decided on a precise plan of parks, fountains, paths and roads that was
eventually built through the volunteer efforts of all townspeople.
Pipstopia became a reality – a contented, complete community of peeps.
The Pipstopia workshop marks the beginning
of what we hope will be a major initiative in Slovakia. Working in
cooperation with the local education department's Methods Center in Prešov
we plan to have another workshop for Slovak teachers in August 2001, and
look forward to more and more Slovak children being able to play Village
in the future. |
villageproject.org
