Образовањем се сатире беда: CONTEXT AND CHALLENGES

The Mlava River flooding

Izvarica is a village loctated a the foot of Beljanica. It has a population of about 320 adults mainly engaged in agriculture. The average age of the population is 47 years, and in recent years the number of inhabitants has dropped significantly. In addition to a lower elementary school, the village has a store, a local community centre and a cultural centre. Until a few years ago, the settlement had a problem with water supply throughout the year, which was manifested also during classes.

By 2017, the settlement was also facing problems with the road network. After almost 30 years, the first more modern and better way to Žagubica and other towns was made, as evidenced by the video (HERE).

A large part of the road network in the village itself is not paved. In the last few years, due to the abundant precipitation and flooding of the Mlava river flowing through the village, water has been flooding the road, leaving the settlement isolated from the main road and other settlements.

During the school year, I spend most of my time with my family in a damp school apartment but due to the lack of financial resources, we have to live in it (see photos down).

The school in Izvarica operates in the form of a combined class with four grades. When starting school, students here generally do not have reading and writing skills. They spend their free time helping their parents around agriculture or taking care of younger brothers and sisters, and none of them attends theatre, cinema, private piano lessons, English language classes, and so on. The only option for them is playing football on an unmarked grassy field in the schoolyard or in the field next to the Mlava which is often flooded.

I have provided modern teaching resources thanks to "Best Educators of Serbia" award; books for reading, student shirts and children's musical instruments have been obtained from the funds I have collected with my students by selling own products. My classroom is a classroom without investment. Using the existing teaching aids, together with students I made four corners student learning is based on a reading corner, a mathematical corner, a music corner and an ethno corner.

Due to lack of time, some parents are unable to provide their children with additional support when it comes to homework assignments. Therefore, I formed a Viber group and a student page on the blog, so that they could have adequate learning assistance after classes.

The road to the village centre

Damage on the road leading to the village centre

The consequences of flooding on the football field

Inside of my house

The road from the village centre to the school

Physical education teaching is carried out using improvised teaching tools - benches, bottles filled with water, improvised training grounds, and students practice table tennis on an old school board replacing the original table.

In the village, however, there are certain advantages I use while working with students. Namely, there is a private dairy farm for processing Homolje milk, internet, cable television, telephone, rural households and estates (fields, orchards, vineyards, raspberry orchards), but also old objects very important for exploring the customs and past of this region.