Comission: Teaching Teachers in Russia

“Russian education today is open to Christian values,” said Dr. Aleksandr Asmolov, Russian deputy minister of education, speaking at a press conference in Anaheim, California, last month. After appealing for volunteers to more than 8,000 Christian teachers assembled for a convention there, Asmolov compared the over seven decades of Russian domination by atheistic ideology to the Hebrews’ wandering in the wilderness. “For 75 years, we were in the desert of communism,” he said, lamenting the spiritual and ethical impoverishment of the Soviet era. “But the truth is that people’s mentality can be changed through education.”

More than 60 Christian educational and evangelistic organizations have banded together to help transform the post-Communist republics of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) through education. That united effort, called the CoMission, hopes to recruit 12,000 North American Christians to spend a year in the former Soviet Union. Their primary task will be to teach teachers there to use a newly developed curriculum entitled “Christian Ethics and Morality: A Foundation for Society.”

Interactive Teaching

In addition, the Western volunteers will coach their Eastern counterparts in interactive teaching methods, such as role-playing and class discussions. The totalitarian nature of Soviet society fostered an authoritarian approach to education, and the lecture method has dominated Soviet classrooms.

Other goals include training in the use of the Jesus film, establishing video Bible classes in schools and community centers, and developing indigenous leadership to take over the CoMission’s activities.

The invitation to North American educators was born of a contact two years ago between the Russian Ministry of Education and Paul Eshleman, director of Campus Crusade for Christ’s Jesus film project. When the film premiered in Moscow in May 1991, officials of the Ministry of Education asked that the film be made available for screening in all Russian classrooms, Recognizing that the task of reintroducing basic Christian principles into a once-Christian culture was beyond his own organization’s resources, Eshleman shared the need with other ministry heads.

The resulting project may be the largest joint effort ever undertaken by American parachurch ministries. CoMission chair, Bruce Wilkinson, characterized the level of cooperation, saying the ministries “threw ‘turfdom’ out the window.”

Well-known organizations that have joined the CoMission include Walk Thru the Bible, of which Wilkinson is president, Campus Crusade for Christ, the Navigators (which is responsible for volunteer training), Moody Bible Institute, and the Association of Christian Schools International.

Already, some in the former Soviet Union have complained about the invasion of Western religious ministries. But careful planning for the CoMission’s efforts is aimed at forestalling a possible anti-Western backlash.

Orthodoxy’s Endorsement

Early on, CoMission representatives took proposed curriculum materials to the office of the Russian Orthodox Metropolitan in Moscow to get his staff’s evaluation and endorsement. Orthodox representatives noted that the materials were prepared from a Protestant viewpoint, but that they were appropriate for teaching the foundation of morality and ethics, based on Scripture and the Christian faith.

Additional precautions:

• Classroom teaching will be done only by Russian teachers.

• Volunteers will receive cross-cultural training to enable them to live and work effectively in the CIS.

• The project must be turned over to Russian leadership by 1997.

Similarly, the Russian education ministry hopes to prevent criticism by introducing a new concept, “Additional Education,” meaning that courses in Christian ethics and morality will not be mandatory and will be taught at “centers of spiritual pedagogy.” Nevertheless, Asmolov says, we have not “the right to deprive our children of the knowledge of God.”

“We are supposed to give a plurality of approaches,” added Asmolov, “because a single ideology in education means an absence of individual thought. We have long been slaves of ideology. No one will want to be a slave again. Only free choice can give faith.”

One of the most important safeguards against a backlash, says Eshleman, is to stress “that we are going by invitation.”

That high level of commitment, however, must be shared by about 12,000 volunteers, who will need to raise $20,000 each in order to spend a year in the CIS. “This will not be an easy way for American Navigators or for Russian teachers,” said Asmolov. “The people who go to Russia commit a heroic deed.”

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