[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 151 (Wednesday, November 20, 2002)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11722-S11723]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         FOSTERING DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES AND VALUES IN UKRAINE

  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President. I wish to bring to the attention of my 
colleagues the Civitas International Civic Education Exchange Program, 
a cooperative project of civic education organizations in the United 
States and other nations. The goal of the project is to exchange ideas, 
experiences, and curricular programs to further the development of 
civic competence and responsibility among youth in emerging

[[Page S11723]]

and established democracies. The program is administered by the Center 
for Civic Education and funded by the U.S. Department of Education 
under the Education for Democracy Act approved by the United States 
Congress.
  Recently may office was pleased to meet with a delegation of 
educators participating in the Civitas exchange program from Ukraine 
who have spent time in Alabama working on a curriculum for teaching 
Ukrainian history and civic education. The Ukraine delegation is 
partnered with the Alabama Center for Law and Civic Education in 
Birmingham, which has an outstanding reputation for delivering high 
quality civic education programs under the leadership of Executive 
Director Jan Cowin and Associate Director Wade Black. The American 
leaders of the delegation included two other Alabama natives, Louis 
Smith, Professor, School of Education, University of Western Alabama 
and his wife Carole Smith, visiting lecturer, Mississippi State 
University. I wish to commend all four of these Alabama educators for 
their excellent work in promoting educational excellence in our state.
  The Ukraine delegates include Larysa Seredyak, Teacher of History and 
Civics in Lviv; Anatoliy Kovtonyuk, Teacher of History, Law, and 
Philosophy in Zhytomyr; Volodymyr Gorbatenko, Professor, Koretskyi 
State and Law Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine 
and Professor of Politology and Sociology in Kyiv; Grygoriy Freyman, 
Assistant Professor, World History, Luhansk Pedagogical University and 
Teacher of History and Law in Luhansk; and Nataliya Yuikhymovych, 
Translator and Interpreter in Lviv.
  I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record an article in 
the Montgomery Advertiser about a recent visit by this distinguished 
Ukrainian delegation to a class of sixth graders at Dalraida Elementary 
School. It demonstrates how our teachers and students can benefit from 
these international programs through joint educational projects. Above 
all, it shows how we can work cooperatively with other nations to 
promote fundamental democratic principles, understanding and values 
among our youth.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

             [From the Montgomery Advertiser, Nov. 9, 2002]

                    Students quiz Ukrainian teachers

                           (By Ken L. Spear)

       The schoolchildren bombarded the visiting Ukrainian 
     classroom teachers with loads of questions:
       ``Do you have elections for political office?'' ``Do y'all 
     own, like dogs and horses?'' ``Does your school have 
     computers?'' ``What is your grading system?'' ``When kids get 
     in trouble, what does the principal do?''
       The inquiries are a part of the Dalraida Elementary sixth-
     graders' quest to seek a solution to a common problem while 
     crossing international borders.
       They are in the early stages of a civic project with their 
     peers from Village School in Synkiv in the Ukraine.
       Students here already are talking about how to bridge the 
     digital divide and raising the money necessary to make it 
     happen. There's one computer for the entire Village School.
       ``They should have better communication with everybody,'' 
     said Dairaida's ilyan Unyhkov, whose parents are Russian 
     natives. ``Plus we need to make allies. If we're not friends, 
     we may still get into war.''
       ``The may help us,'' classmate J'Darius Powell added.
       Designed for grades five through eight, the ``We the People 
     . . . Project Citizen'' curriculum not only teaches students 
     about government, but the tools and skills necessary to solve 
     problems in their communities. That includes learning how to 
     monitor and influence public policy, and crafting an action 
     plan.
       Civic participation isn't a foreign concept to the 
     Ukrainian sixth-graders. Two years ago, The Village School 
     joined the ranks of Project Citizen schools. Students there 
     have led projects, such as the restoration of memorials from 
     World Wars I and II that have been neglected by the Soviets 
     and the clean up of community rivers and streams.
       The group of educators is visiting Alabama as part of its 
     mission to develop a ``common national definition'' and a 
     curriculum for teaching Ukrainian history and civics 
     education, said Wade Black, associate director of the Alabama 
     Center for Law and Civic Education at Samford University.
       A final version of the curriculum is expected to be 
     submitted by next summer to the European Union, which is 
     similar to Samford University's law and civic education 
     center.
       Ukraine declared independence in 1991. Under Soviet rule 
     prior to that, citizens weren't taught their history and had 
     no access to a curriculum.
       ``It parallels with black history,'' Black said. ``They 
     want to write a history that unifies the country and defines 
     what it means to be Ukrainian.''
       While Project Citizen is an international program, only 25 
     Alabama schools, scouting troops and church groups are 
     involved. Proration of the education budget forced some 
     schools to cut the program.
       ``If they could just see the difference it makes in kids' 
     lives,'' said Teri Gisi, faculty adviser for Dairaida's 
     program. ``They see what a difference they can make.''
       Dalraida got its hands-on civics lesson when students 
     revisited a 15-year battle to get a sidewalk down a 1\1/2\-
     mile stretch of Johnstown Drive. The sixth-graders devised a 
     plan, appealed to the City Council and was granted a 
     sidewalk.

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