It is exactly twelve years ago that I came to Brno for the first time.

The fresh city link between Brno and Utrecht gave me the chance to give a lecture about Dalton in a seminar with a big audience of educators and officials.

When I try to remember that situation, I see an audience of ±100 people. All were writing constantly during my speech.

I was standing behind a desk on the stage and the audience was far below. No personal contact, no questions. My normal Dalton inspiration broke down more and more within that group of silent writers.

But the problem was not the attitude of my audience, the problem was my speech and the created distance.

My mistake was that I prepared the speech of a missionary who came to sell the word

of Helen Parkhurst’s bible.

I was too afraid that first time to act like the inspired Dalton teacher amongst a group of colleagues. I couldn’t share professional equivalence.

And what is happening today, do prcic / ti brdo  ?

Here I’m standing behind a desk on a stage again and some of you are even writing.

Twelve years of Dalton co-operation.

“What does it mean”, was the question of the committee of deputies for international contacts in Utrecht. 

On the 6^th of April I had to justify in that committee my yearly budget from the city of Utrecht for the Dalton project with Brno.

The committee invited me to explain our activities. It was a nice coincidence that Vladimir Adam, Jana Šancova and Vladimir Moškvan were visiting Utrecht in that same week and participated in this hearing.

Together we could proudly explain the enormous progress of Dalton education in Brno, the spin-off effect in the Czech Republic and the network of international contacts culminating in the yearly conference of Dalton International.

Network of challenges.

This 8th conference is again a proof that we can stimulate the innovation of the Dalton education by an international exchange of expertise.

We are proud of the presence of our Dalton colleagues from Japan. We are also proud of the presence of the colleagues from many other countries.

Three days ago my ‘second – home – country’, the Czech Republic, entered the European Union.

Congratulations in the first place !

But :

Co si o tom myslíš    tsossi ottom misliesj                    What do you think ?

Kolik to stojí ?                                                         (what will it cost)

Will it be a new challenge for our Dalton network?

Perhaps Dalton International can co-operate with other networks like the European Platform and ESHA.

ESHA is the European School Heads Association and in March of this year they had a conference in Budapest. Delegations of several countries talked about the educational policy in the new Europe. Especially the difference in the position of the headmasters in the countries is very odd.

One of the newest developments is the start of an E-learning project with the theme of ‘moral leadership’ . (www.esha.org)

The evaluation of this course will take place during the conference in Stavanger in September this year.

The philosopher Bertrand Russel said :

‘What human beings really want is not knowledge but security’ .

Although I agree with this statement, I think there could be a danger in it, because we must not be satisfied with the security that our Dalton model is successful.

We must work permanently and enlarge our Dalton knowledge because we are never finished with education.

The theory of Helen Parkhurst proved the educational value in the past and even nowadays it is still actual.

Since the first international Dalton conference more than 80 years ago In London,  Dalton International renewed that good practice and created the platform to exchange the interpretation of her concept.

Thanks to the hospitality and support of so many people from Brno already 8 years.

Ellen Stein wrote in the article, published in our first MAGAZINE :

“One reason that Dalton has prospered for almost a century is that we have been willing to adapt the Plan to the changing realities of our world. But that raises other issues: Have we stayed too much from Parkhurst’s original intentions in that adaptation?”

Permanent self – evaluation is necessary to keep us active and critical.

Children don’t go to school to learn, they go to school to have experiences.

And when teachers are able to find a balance between knowledge and experience in their educational design, their pupils will be satisfied.

Several important professionals in Brno were already years ago far ahead the European process. They didn’t wait until 1. May 2004.

They recognized the prospects of the Dalton concept for the Czech education.

In the first line the directors of the Dalton schools and their teams of teachers, but soon followed by the directors of Školsky Uřad Brno, the heads of the educational department in Brno, the head of the department of international affairs in Brno, they all supported the international Dalton development from the first days.

Thanks to the strong involvement of all these official representatives we could grow until the level we reached now.

Therefore it is a great pleasure to me to pronounce in the name of Dalton International

that the following persons are nominated to be honourable member Dalton International.

Rowena Danziger, former  headmistress of Ascham – Sydney

Pavel Vlach – Boskovice

Jana Sancova – Brno

Hans Versnel – Utrecht

They all supported Dalton International  and contributed to the development each on their own way and from their own background.

Roel Röhner

Brno 04-05-2004