Identity and Values
The program is about worldview issues. The main topics include personal and collective identity, epistemology, and axiology. The purpose of the program is to promote conceptual thinking, shape community-building culture, and spread the dialogue about values in Armenia and the Diaspora.
The National Component of Education
The traditions of Mashtots school. State normatives of the educational program. International baccalaureate programs: Araratian Baccalaureate. Teaching methodology of the disciplines related to national identity. Selection and training of the teaching staff. Introducing the study course “Identity and Values” to high school.
- Speaker: Meri Hovsepyan
- Host: Deacon Vardan Aslanyan
National Music
Sources and distinctiveness of Armenian music. Armenian spiritual, folk and classical music. Music from alien cultures, refinement and purification of Armenian melodies by Komitas. Formation of musical taste in society.
- Speaker: Daniel Yerazhisht
- Host: Deacon Vardan Aslanyan
Museum Education
Museum culture in Armenia. The methodological basis for organization of museum exhibitions and their educational significance. The integration of teachers and students into the museum environment. Museums as guardians of national identity and values. State policy in the museum sphere.
- Speaker: Alvard Grigoryan
- Host: Deacon Vardan Aslanyan
National Ideology
The difference between national ideology and chauvinism, nationalism and other destructive ideologies. Distinctive features of nation-state. The participation of the intellectual elite in creation of the national ideology. Garegin Nzhdeh and his Tseghakron movement. The necessity of national vision and of a long-term state plan.
- Speaker: Gagik Ginosyan
- Host: Deacon Vardan Aslanyan
National Language
The family of world languages. The nation-preserving function of the Armenian language. Conditions of language development. Regulation mechanisms of the state and law institutions. The historical layers of Armenian—Classical Armenian, Western Armenian, and classical orthography. New teaching approaches of Armenian. Teaching of foreign languages and in foreign languages.
- Speaker: Davit Gyurjinyan
- Host: Deacon Vardan Aslanyan
Evolution of Human Thought from Enlightenment to Metamodernism
The periods of Western thought. The rationalism and freethinking of the Enlightenment. Doubts concerning the maturity of human thought and its abilities in the modern and postmodern reality. Metamodernism and AI. Dangers threatening human identity and values.
- Speaker: Aram Pakhchanyan
- Host: Deacon Vardan Aslanyan
Value System and Leadership
Literary masterpieces that transform human life and our worldview. “Citadelle” by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Eternal values. Creation of cultures and civilizations. The leader as a teacher and shepherd. Uniting people through love. Engaging in daily work and creating something good instead of judging others and complaining.
- Speaker: Shushanik Tamrazyan
- Host: Deacon Vardan Aslanyan
Culture and Anti-culture
Culture and civilization. Culture as process; bearers and creators of culture. Global, national and Christian culture. Cultural starvation and lost of identity. Anti-culture and subculture. Modern challenges and the prospects of the antagonism between culture and anti-culture.
- Speaker: Karine Yaralyan
- Host: Deacon Vardan Aslanyan
National Scars
Events that leave scars on the psychology of nation: genocide, forced migration, massacre, war. Impacts on the national dignity. Threats of losing national identity: vanishing, assimilation, religious conversion. Armenian Genocide in the context of global history. How should we remember the Genocide? Having been subjected to genocide, yet not backing down on national identity and values. Trauma recovery mechanisms. The need of changing the national psychology.
- Speaker: Shushan Khachatryan
- Host: Deacon Vardan Aslanyan
Truth
Truth as a core value. Rhetorical and philosophical question “What is truth.” Search for the truth as a way of attaining knowledge; limitedness of human cognition and its levels. The words of Christ: “I am the Truth.” The hidden and at the same time revelatory character of the truth. The need for development of independent thinking in the education system instead of enforcing formulated “truths.”
Speaker: Fr. Mesrop Aramian
Host: Deacon Vardan Aslanyan
Introduction
The necessity of this project and social processes behind it. Thematic elements of the radio program. Core values. National and human values. The uniqueness of Armenian identity. Values as factors of building human identity. National interests and ideology. Transmitting the national identity and values as an educational program.
- Speaker: Fr. Mesrop Aramian
- Host: Deacon Vardan Aslanyan