Quite simply, our students hate most of our schools, and they have reason to do so.

Our education is performance-oriented, designed to increase the absorption of facts and produce good results on exams. What about the other roles that schools must serve? What about personal development?

Czech Education Minister, 1998

If we train children to take orders, to do things because they are told to, and fail to give them confidence to act and think for themselves, we are putting an almost insurmountable obstacle in the way of overcoming the present defects of our system, and of establishing the truth of democratic ideals. Our state is founded on freedom but when we train the state of tomorrow, we allow it just as little freedom as possible. Children in school must be allowed freedom so that they will know what its use means when they become the controlling body, and they must be allowed to develop active qualities of initiative, independence, resourcefulness, before the abuses and failures of democracy will disappear.

John Dewey, 1915

Romania

Revising the content of teaching was imperative after 1989, but ever since then it has been no less important to revise the strategies that are used to teach that content. This is where the RWCT program has proved very useful.

University professor

These methods promise to free the child's thinking from the dictatorship of the teacher's belief that "I know everything and I want you to know the truth that I have."
These methods suggest that we should forget about pedagogical theories and free ourselves from the censorship each of us has been equipped with.

I have learnt more about teaching in these three days than in four years of college. I am grateful to my teachers.

Albania

If I could compare the present with my past, I might say it in one expression. I have become a teacher with big eyes and ears and with a small mouth.

Elementary teacher

To work in a class with the methods of critical thinking means that we ourselves should… be critical, creative, open to accept the diversity… The changes are in myself, in my positions as well.

High-school teacher

Georgia

The critical thinking seminars gave me the possibility to break old stereotype mentality more bravely. I, as a teacher, am happy when my pupils are arguing with me, proving their ideas and doing the same with other teachers. Often, they say that my pupils even have a different expression on their faces.

Nino Japaridze,teacher

Here, in this school I can share a secret with my teacher. We have team works and we have our own rights, which does not exist in other schools. Our school in comparison with other schools is a KING!

Salome Cholokashvili, student

Macedonia

We found out how much it means to be listened to by the others, to express your feelings, beliefs, and to hear those of others. RWCT strategies obligate us to think a lot more than the traditional way, and we are all in the text.

Secondary-school students

I feel free – I choose – I have a great possibility to express myself, to be creative

Primary-school student

Latvia

Participating in this project is one of the greatest successes in my life. This year has been a revolution… I feel the changes not only in my attitude to work at school but also towards life itself. I have become bolder, more natural. I have gained optimism and self-assurance, but the main thing – I am ready to listen and to accept different viewpoints, even though they radically differ from my opinion.

Primary-school teacher

Armenia

My students have become more able to freely express themselves, to speak their thoughts. They also have become more attentive listeners to each other. They actively get involved in the creative process of knowledge building.

Elementary Teacher

Azerbaijan

One year with RWCT gave me more than did 15 years of teaching experience. As a professional with a university degree and 30 years of teaching experience, I consider my participation in the project equivalent to completing another higher education degree.
Every workshop was a discovery. I couldn't wait for the next one to take place.

Bulgaria

The methods offered provide tolerance among the participants in the learning process. This is of vital importance taking into consideration the inertia that has existed in the system of education since the time of totalitarianism.

Croatia

From now on, I will speak less and students will think more. My students say that all the teachers should teach in the RWCT way.

High-school teachers

Uzbekistan

Since beginning RWCT, I feel that I have become like a blacksmith who forges the future of the nation.

Damir Safin, high-school economics teacher at Tashkent School 101