Daniela Claudia Orășanu, director of the “Unirea” Railway Technical College from Pașcani, Iași county, is the Director of the year 2024. The distinction was awarded to her during the eighth edition of the Awards Gala for Directors of the Year, organized by the Association for Values in Education . “This award confirmed to me that what I have done so far for the school I have done well. And it motivates me to keep fighting,” the teacher declared for “The Truth”.
Daniela Claudia Orășanu is the director of 2024. Photo source: facebook
Daniela Claudia Orășanu has been the director of the “Unirea” Railway Technical College in Pașcani for 10 years. And all this time he managed to transform the educational unit into a nationally recognized center of excellence. “From this point of view, our school stands above many theoretical high schools“the director told us proudly.
High school economics teacher, Daniela Orășanu started her career in this very school: “I have always taught here. After I finished the Faculty of Economic Sciences in Iasi, I returned to my hometown and was an economist, for a while, at the Curtain Factory. But my dream was to become a teacher. And finally I succeeded. Who would have thought?”
The headmistress confessed to us that, before she was a teacher and director, she was a woman with a child’s soul. “I think that this award, this validation, is something for the child in me, who needed a confirmation that he is doing the right thing and doing it well”.
The biggest challenge: changing mentalities in the Romanian school
One of the biggest challenges in his teaching career was to change the outdated mindset of those around him. “We have to somehow get out of our circle, push our limits a little and see where society is heading. Let’s pay a little attention to the dynamics of society and the needs of children. The school should be about the learning process and not about the knowledge that the student acquires by memorizing or taking everything from scratch.” The teacher refers to the fact that the exams the students take and the grades they get at school are based only on the validation of knowledge that, in the real world, is of no use to the children. “It is more important that these children are taught to think, more important is that we create some spaces for them to explore the world around them and to understand it. To be curious, to ask, to discover step by step. Our children need healthy critical thinking, and this school should first and foremost teach them.” considers the teacher.
Students should be given tools to safely simulate everything that happens in the real world: “The school must invest in children, create projects in which students can discover themselves, see what they are good at, in which field they excel and be encouraged to develop these skills of adaptability, creativity, innovation , of critical thinking etc”.
The subject matter should keep pace with the reality that children live
I asked the director of the technical college in Pașcani what she thinks about the thick material that is taught to students in class, about the concepts and notions that, many of them, no longer find their place in today’s reality. And the answer was as direct as it was simple. “The matter should be adapted to what we live now, in the year 2024. On the one hand. On the other hand, we need a better correlation between the subjects, because there are many gaps, many breaks, there is no natural continuity between the contents. For example, in the 7th grade, at Physics things are asked that are based on information from Mathematics. But the students haven’t gone through them yet”, the teacher also told us.
Last but not least, the teacher believes that through this mad rush for grades, a rush in which the students are pushed by their parents, they are doing nothing but stealing their hats themselves: “Why do we send our children to school? To get a degree or to become functional adults? Grade 10 kids are not necessarily perfect kids. Grades do not reflect knowledge either. What parents should know is that a 7th or 8th grade student, who understands how things work, is a thousand times more profitable than one who has 10 on the line but doesn’t know what to use in life day by day the information it holds”.
Meditations have become a fad
Moreover, the pursuit of high grades and diplomas has given birth to a real scourge: the private meditations, with which the headmistress does not agree, but she cannot judge the parents very harshly either: “Somehow they are understandable because they don’t trust the education system. And, because they want the best for their children, they go for this option.” On the other hand, however, the teacher believes, we are dealing with a real trend, a real fashion of meditations. “I managed to attract some funds to pay the teachers who do extra training hours with the students at the school. For students, everything was free. All they had to do was stay overtime at school. But we had problems with certain parents who did not agree to leave their children after hours to study more. The reason? They had more faith in the teacher who came to their home, whom they paid. He wouldn’t have paid a penny at school. But it was said there is a kind of coat of arms. There is much more to this than the fact that the school does not offer. Yes, he offers, but there are cases when he does it for nothing, because there is no interest”.
Digitization prevents absenteeism
The director of the college in Pașcani managed to reduce the rate of absenteeism by implementing the digital catalog: “We then had a sudden drop of 37%. The reason? The moment the student is marked absent, the parent knows. Find out in that very second. So somehow fear guards the melons. Then there is another aspect: our students like to stay in the school because we have an intelligent, smart, digitized school, the classes are interactive, interesting, the environment we promote in the school is one that invites learning and knowledge. We have very good children and we are very proud of them”.
It is also the reason why he rejected the idea of the detention room from the start: “I would rather send them to the library. But no. I do not agree with such a thing, and there will be no punishment room in our high school”.
Sanctions are also not given for the use of mobile phones during classes for the simple reason that students do not use them: “Ever since 2018, we have introduced boxes in the school where children store their mobile phones. And the rule is also for teachers. But I don’t want students to be banned from technology. On the contrary. We are a digital school, with interactive whiteboards in every classroom, we have implemented a number of technologies to help in the teaching, assessment and learning process. Children need to know how to use the internet, social networks, but do it in the right way.. Banning mobile phones is not a solution. Instead, you could teach them how to use them safely.”
College students learn using VR goggles, flying drones and taking inspiration from the Minecraft video game business and accounting simulation classes. “Why would they feel the need to sit on their phones playing games or talking on social media when they have all the tech and technology right at school?” asks the teacher.
