Svetlana Arabadzhi believes that non-formal education will help young people understand educational material better. And the main thing in working with students is to treat them with respect, to be open and to share experience and knowledge.
In her work, an associate professor at the Department of Historical Disciplines at Mariupol State University tries to build relationships based on trust and honesty. Create a comfortable atmosphere for work.
‘I want everyone to feel confident and to be able to express their opinion without being afraid to make a mistake. I use various methods of work. After classes, I always ask what I liked and what next time I would do differently. I explain what we will study and why it is relevant today, I try to motivate students with this,’ the assistant professor says.
Svetlana admits that in her childhood she did not want to be a teacher at all. Her mother and grandmother are teachers, so the girl from childhood saw how hard it was. But already in the fourth year at the university I was fascinated with scientific research. It was especially interesting to learn more about the history of Old Crimea, whose founders are Svetlana's ancestors.
‘I remember how much time I spent studying household books of the village of Old Crimea in 1941. It was interesting to leaf through pages that were more than 60 years old, to build graphs and diagrams, to study marriages and the level of education of the villagers,’ Mariupol girl recalls.
The associate professor tries to participate in as many trainings as possible. To learn from different countries. Compare and share the knowledge with students of Mariupol. For example, in the city of Paralimni (Cyprus) there was an international exchange that brought together active young people from Ukraine, Cyprus, Armenia, Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia.
Together with the team Svetlana acted as the leader of the group. The program included discussion of social inclusion issues through games. As well as improving social, linguistic, creative and leadership skills.
‘Due to the games, I was able to get acquainted with the culture of the five countries. For me it was a pleasant discovery that some of the games are very similar to each other and are aimed at the development of physical abilities, reaction speed and quick wits,’ the teacher recalls.
Before MSU had presented the historic board game ‘Mariupol step by step’. It was developed by members of the student's historical and archaeological scientific society of the university under the guidance of Svetlana Arabadji and the teacher of the department of historical disciplines Vyacheslav Zabavin.
The game covers the chronological period from 1780 to 2017 and has three language versions: Ukrainian, Russian and English.
‘We wanted to present information in an accessible form that is easily remembered. We created the game on the principle of ‘Timeline’. I really want our products to be useful to society and spread historical knowledge in an interesting way. For me it is important that the dialogue platform in Mariupol becomes a place for communication and destruction of stereotypes. And also contributed to the consolidation of society and understanding of each other,’ Svetlana says.
The Docudays UA ‘Human Rights’ media club for human rights operates under the student’s historical and archaeological society of Mariupol State University, at meetings where students watch documentary films and discuss topical issues.
Now she dreams and makes every effort so that the student society and the public organization ‘KOP’ Sens’ to become the center that will send young people to international trainings and youth exchanges in the framework of the Erasmus Plus program.
