A conversation with WorldView mentor teacher Kristine Avetisyan
Kristine Avetisyan, a graduate of the WorldView Mentorship Scholarship Program, returned from the United States this summer after taking part in an educational training program lasting five weeks alongside teachers from around the world.
It was there that she realized how closely her own professional preparation aligned with contemporary international teaching practice. Many of the methods introduced during the program were already familiar to her from the WorldView Mentorship Program.
“I came back extremely satisfied, but I am grateful to WorldView for giving me that foundation. So much of what I saw there made me smile. I kept thinking, ‘Seda has already taught us this. I know this. I know that too.’ The methods that were being introduced as something new were methods I had already learned through the Mentorship Program. More than that, I was already using them in my classroom, so I felt very confident. When we were asked to prepare a project, I chose migration as my topic and used the WorldView platform itself. What Visual Armenia is introducing in our country today has been used in the United States for years. We are not behind in ideas or thinking. The difference is in technical resources,” Kristine says.
She is glad that, at the time, she followed a friend’s advice and applied to the WorldView Mentorship Program.
By then, however, Kristine had already known WorldView for years. She had encountered the platform when it was still in its early stages and was among the first teachers to use it in the classroom. She remembers clearly how her school principal first suggested that she learn more about WorldView, how she visited the Visual Armenia office for the first time, and how quickly she became excited by the idea behind the platform.
“I felt as though I had found myself in the right place at exactly the right time. I went, I saw it, and I fell in love with WorldView.”
She also remembers how the platform began to change the atmosphere in her classroom.
“In one of my first lessons, I used the map to show how Tiridates travelled to Rome and how Nero crowned him. The students were fascinated. I want my lessons to be engaging. I want even the least interested student to take at least one small thing away from the lesson. I consider that a success. After that lesson, I gave them a written assignment. Every student answered correctly when asked who had crowned King Tiridates. They spend so much of their time on their phones. Now we are turning that same environment into a tool for learning.”
Kristine’s journey with WorldView developed step by step. First she became familiar with the platform. Then she and her students won a smart board competition. Later, she joined the Mentorship Program.
Together, these experiences transformed the way she approached both her students and her teaching, and in the process changed her as a teacher as well.
“The Mentorship Program was constantly equipping us with new ideas and methods. It was changing the kind of teachers we were becoming,” says Kristine, who joined the program in 2024 as one of thirty selected participants.
“I teach at a high school, so I work with teenagers. You have to keep renewing yourself and stay creative if you want them to feel that there is something they can learn from you. I feel fortunate to have taken part in the Mentorship Program. It empowers teachers and represents a new culture of professional development in our country. I was especially impressed by the culture of feedback. Seda’s comments and observations encouraged and motivated us. I have now trained around fifty teachers myself. If I have managed to inspire even one or two of them, I already consider that a success. I believe in the art of small steps. In education, you plant the seeds and then you wait to see the results.”
Through those small but steady steps, Kristine continues to move forward, bringing her students and fellow teachers with her.
She says she is now able to involve even the most challenging students in her lessons, something she attributes to the combination of WorldView, the teaching methods she strengthened through the Mentorship Program, and the smart board in her classroom.
“WorldView is a program that responds to the challenges of the 21st century. I want it to receive state support and become a required part of schooling. I also want the Mentorship Scholarship Program to continue, even if one day it continues without the scholarship itself. If I have the opportunity, I would gladly take part again. Today, the competitive teacher is the teacher who never stops learning.”