School without Walls

Three years ago Pietro Shakarian, a student of magistracy at Michigan University, came to our Educomplex with a special mission. He was taking interviews and collecting materials for his master's thesis, the main axis of which would the historical background, formation, development and present achievements of the innovative pedagogy of our Educomplex. Pietro Shakarian is now a PhD candidate in History at The Ohio State University (OSU), specializing in the history of Russia, Armenia, and the Caucasus.  He now writes on his Facebook page:"Today I presented my UM MA thesis "School without Walls" on innovative education in Soviet Armenia at the Midwest Slavic Conference at OSU. It was a major success! ". Actually, Pietro Shakaryan haz become the most active dissaminator of our innovative, experimental, author pedagogy in the USA. "Dr. Epp Annus, a professor of the Baltic states at OSU's Newark campus, chaired our panel. A graduate of the University of Tartu in Estonia, she was delighted that both of our papers included connections to Tartu (Dorpat), Georg Parrot, and his son Friedrich Parrot. She also proudly told me that the Armenian writer and educator Khachatur Abovian, who climbed Mount Ararat with Friedrich Parrot and who studied at Dorpat, is regarded as a "hero" in Tartu.", writes Pietro.

This video material made by the "Sebastatsies" Foundation shows the content of Pietro Shakarian's research work in pictures. In November 2015 after having got Pietro's permission, I began translating the thesis "School without Walls" into Armenian with the students of my English speaking club. More than half of the work was translated then. I hope that Pietro's latest success will inspire me and I will finish the translation. That is almost the entire history of "Mkhitar Sebastatsi" Educational Complex.