"Know Your Ukraine." Ukrainian traditions become part of modern education
This year, we have taken an important step towards a more systematic study of Ukrainian traditions in the educational process. Soon, teachers will be able to use methodological materials for conducting lessons and school events created within the framework of the educational project "Know Your Ukraine".
The project is implemented on the initiative of the Charitable Foundation "Kolo" together with the National Center of Folk Culture "Ivan Honchar Museum" and the EdEra platform. This is an online course on Ukrainian traditional culture, which, through the holidays of the annual calendar cycle, introduces children and adults to the history, traditions and cultural heritage of Ukraine.
We recently signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine and presented the project at an educational conference that brought together over 700 teachers, representatives of the public sector and business.
When we started this project, our goal was to introduce children and adults to Ukrainian traditional culture. Together with specialists, we developed an online course about traditional holidays – Christmas, Pokrova and Kupala, and currently work is underway to create an Easter course.
We were amazed by the interest in the project. People from different regions of Ukraine not only took the course, but also joined trainings and competitions, and offered their own initiatives. In particular, more than twenty communities from all over Ukraine joined the Christmas Star March. In the first month alone after the launch of the Pokrova and Christmas blocks, more than 10 thousand adults and children took the course.
Later, we began conducting free trainings and webinars for teachers who wanted to organize traditional Ukrainian holidays in their schools and introduce students to cultural heritage. Having received positive feedback from teachers from different regions, we decided to expand the project.
We began to create additional methodological materials and lesson plans to help teachers integrate Ukrainian traditions directly into the educational process. The materials were expertly evaluated and received recommendations from the Ukrainian Institute for the Development of Education (UIDO) for use in the educational process.
I consider this our joint victory. After all, when I was at school in the first years of Ukraine’s independence, we mostly learned about culture and traditions from our grandparents. Back then, it was difficult to even find books on this topic, and the Internet was not yet part of our everyday lives.
Today, the situation is changing. Thanks to projects like "Know Your Ukraine," children can become acquainted with traditional holidays and culture not only at home but also at school. This helps them better understand their own roots, form national identity, and see Ukrainian culture as a living part of modernity.
This is especially important today, when Russia is trying to destroy Ukrainian culture and erase our historical memory. Knowledge of one’s own culture and history is becoming important not only for Ukraine, but also for Ukrainians who, due to the war, ended up abroad or in temporarily occupied territories.
It is important for us that modern Ukrainian education provides young people not only with professional knowledge and skills, but also helps them learn about their own culture, history and traditions. The educational environment can become one of the key spaces where Ukrainian culture is not just preserved, but remains close, understandable and alive for the new generation.
All course materials, webinars and trainings for teachers are free of charge, you can take the course at the link https://study.ed-era.com/en_gb/courses/course/5983.
To learn more about events for educators, I recommend subscribing to the Know Your Ukraine course social network.
