Photo by Pat Christman
Olga Victorovna Klypa is a professor at North-Eastern State University in Magadan, Russia. She is visiting the United States as part of a partnership with Minnesota State University for research on early childhood education.
MANKATO — The flight from Mankato to Magadan, Russia would take almost 20 hours.
The straight-line distance between the two cities is about 4,500 miles.
But in Minnesota State University's Ostrander Auditorium on Tuesday, the two cities were much closer. In fact, they shared the same stage as North-Eastern State University professor Olga Victorovna Klypa and MSU's Elizabeth Sandell shared the fruits of a burgeoning global partner ship.
Last year, Sandell and MSU Director of School University Partnerships Ginger Zierdt visited Magadan to finalize a collaborative agreement with North-Eastern State.
Within months, Klypa was stateside, ready to begin research on early childhood education in American school districts. Arriving this March, Klypa visited Mankato's Early Childhood Family Education Center as well Hoover Elementary School. Klypa also visited community programs in Mankato and early child hood sites in the Twin Cities.
"In Russia, we need objective assessments and new strategic priorities," Klypa said through a translator. "It's important for us to further the globalization process."
This June, a team of educators and students from MSU and South Central College will travel to Magadan to observe Russian teaching practices. Sandell and Klypa are already creating a joint curriculum and have planned a dual classroom project in which Klypa and Sandell will teach the same class and allow students to communicate and share ideas across oceans and continents.
" There are so many opportunities for the world to be really small," Zierdt said. " When we went last spring, we were able to move past the differences is government and ideology and realize how much we have in common."
Sandell said the biggest difference between Russian and American early childhood facilities is the approach to teaching.
The environments, Sandell said, look and feel the same. But where American preschools favor a free-flowing, almost conversational teaching style, their Russian counterparts advocate more lesson-based instruction.
"We learn more by exploring," Sandell said.
"And Russia is very didactic. But we can learn from that, too."
Sandell said her personal partnership with Russia began 25 years ago when she was at a seminar on how educators can better connect with the business world. The presenter recommended that people visit Russia or China to learn that not all people think like Americans.
Sandell never forgot the message and in 1993, she visited Russia for the first time with her mother.
"I kinda forgot about China after that," Sandell said. "And I just kept going back to Russia."
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