Saturday School is Coming Back!

Every season GZAAT hosts ‘The Saturday School’, a program organized by teachers and students which provides children from other schools an opportunity to spend five Saturdays with GZAAT students, who teach various different subjects. The most important aspect of this program is the student-to-student experience. High school students of AAT have the opportunity to create any course they like and teach others. Some of the courses include: History of Music, Philosophy, Literature, Physics, Mythology, Chess, Religion, History of Arts, Political Science, Debates and etc. Every year new courses are being added and more and more kids are interested in being a part of this project. Due to the current circumstances, Saturday School has already been hosted online once. The virtual lessons were a big success, as the format allowed kids from different regions to join. Of course, behind every successful project there are people who organize it, make sure everything goes well and everyone is satisfied after the 5-week course.

To get more information about this project, its success, and organization, we asked one of the organizers, Tekla Khmiadashvili, a few questions:

Interviewer: How did you get involved in this project?

Tekla: Before attending GZAAT, I was a student at the Saturday School, so this program meant a lot from the very beginning. When fourteen-year-old I witnessed how supportive and encouraging teachers and administrators were at the Saturday School, I knew I had to become part of that team and motivate hundreds of students. As usual, at the beginning of the academic year, various clubs and electives were presented by GZAAT students and teachers, including the Saturday School. At that time, I knew I had a responsibility to give back what I had gained from attending Saturday School. So, I decided to join and try myself as an administrator and a teacher.

Interviewer: Did you teach any subject(s) and can you talk about the actual experience of being a ‘teacher’ as a student?

Tekla: Being a teacher at the Saturday School is a challenging experience. I started teaching in my freshman year with my two friends Sophio Chikhladze and Ninako Kharshiladze. We were teaching science at that time, and it was a bit stressful since sometimes we had older students in the class. But our course turned out to be very successful: students were enjoying Jeopardy games and were actively participating in scientific discussions. Proper preparation for class is crucial for the teacher. Sometimes one may think that she/he has enough points to discuss during the class but exhausts all the topics in twenty-five minutes. After the first session of the Saturday School being a teacher becomes a more and more enjoyable experience.

Interviewer: In your opinion, why is ‘Saturday School’ an important and successful project?

Tekla: I think one and the most rewarding reason why Saturday School is an important and successful project is that the students are encouraged to learn and get involved in various activities. Students themselves start looking for opportunities and try to get as much from their lives as possible. We had cases when students tried to hold similar programs at their schools. I think in 2018, students of Saturday school held lessons at the fifty-first public school. Others started participating in summer schools and educational programs.

Interviewer: How did these current circumstances change ‘Saturday School’?

Tekla: When the pandemic started, we all were very disappointed that we could not hold sessions at the school. But we managed to adjust to the challenging circumstances and decided to hold online Saturday School. The pandemic showed us new opportunities. If before we were only able to teach up to fifty-sixty students per session, this time we had over two hundred students in each session. We were able to receive students from all the regions of Georgia and found so many interesting people with whom we could collaborate. Of course, we all miss the in-person classes at Saturday School. I hope next year administrators and teachers will be able to hold sessions at school and carry on the tradition.

Interviewer: Thank you, Tekla!

Tekla: You are welcome!

Saturday School Before the Pandemic

We also asked one of the High school students, Liza Jariashvili about her experience of teaching in ‘Saturday School’:

Interviewer: When and why did you decide to get involved in this project?

Liza: Freshman year of high school a lot of my friends were participating in Saturday School projects and after speaking with them I realized I wanted to be a part of it as well. They were having a lot of fun teaching and communicating with students and I wanted to experience it as well.

Interviewer: What was the experience like during the lessons?

Liza: The first lessons were always a bit quieter and the children were very reserved to express their opinions. So, in our lesson, we always started with the icebreakers. It was a lot of fun and it is certainly a great memory. After that, we went straight into explaining a certain topic, and oftentimes as we followed the discussion we would find ourselves speaking about a whole different subject. We were testing the water with each group and went along with their desire to know about a certain issue.

Interviewer: Was it different or difficult to do ‘Saturday School’ online? And what was the main difference?

Liza: Lessons online and at school were totally different, but during both the communication with the students left me with the feeling of accomplishment. It’s amazing knowing that with 1-hour lesson every Saturday you made an impact on so many people. The difficult part was not being able to see the students because most of them chose not to have their cameras on. Also, as I mentioned before, on the first lessons everyone seemed very quiet and did not speak at all, which was even more exaggerated as I was looking at a Google Meets windows, but that was later taken care of and after we got to know these children they opened up and were no longer holding back their opinions.

Interviewer: Do you think this project is important? Why?

Liza: I think the project has a great impact on both Academy students and the participants. Firstly, explaining some topic to other people reinforces your knowledge. But mostly, it is important because we start conversations with people with so many different backgrounds and we argue about so many interesting topics for which all the students provide unique input.

Interviewer: Thank You, Liza!

Liza: You are welcome!

Overall, this project is an amazing opportunity for GZAAT students, as other than spending time with new people, older or younger, they also spend time talking about topics they are interested in, learn how to teach, and gain a lot of experience out of it. The applications for the teaching position are still open for GZAAT students and everyone is more than welcome to join!

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If you are interested in teaching at the Saturday School contact:

Tekla Khmiadashvili (tkhmiadashvili@aat.ge)

Edited by Elene Berelashvili