"Labor. Technology. Creativity": a traditional large-scale project has been implemented at Vyatka State University.

      On October 17, the Faculty of Technologies, Engineering and Design of the Polytechnic Institute of Vyatka State University (VyatGU) hosted an annual event bringing together students, faculty and school labor (technology) teachers. The creative meeting served as a summing-up of the large-scale project "Labor. Technology. Creativity," carried out by the Department of Technology and Methods of Teaching Technology and the Department of Design and Fine Arts.

      The event opened with a showing of the "Oktyabrskaya" clothing collection, created several years ago by faculty alumna Sofya Egorova. Sofya Igorevna now teaches students herself. Commenting on the collection, the designer stressed the importance of turning to the traditions of folk costume — a trend that, in her opinion, has only been strengthening recently. At the meeting, pressing issues were raised, above all those related to the role of the subject "labor" in the modern school. Today labor is a compulsory school subject — and that is right, the attendees expressed confidence: technological education is directly linked to solving tasks that are strategically important for the country. In this regard, there is a need to raise the prestige of labor teachers and to train new qualified personnel.

      "It is a great pleasure to work with our technology teachers. I thank them for taking our students on practice and for sharing their professional secrets, revealing the specifics of teaching methodology in one module or another," addressed her colleagues the head of the Department of Technology and Methods of Teaching Technology at VyatGU, Lena Morilova.

      It is encouraging that labor (technology) teachers form a cohesive and constantly developing professional community. Much credit for this belongs to various participants. Elena Bykova — a methodologist at the Institute for the Development of Education of the Kirov Region and a postgraduate student at Vyatka State University — has for several years successfully run a group for technology teachers on the social network VKontakte, which now has around 12,800 followers. In her presentation, Elena Leonidovna shared her experience in creating high-quality content and emphasized the importance of feedback and attentive responses to comments. The public page, the speaker noted, serves as an excellent platform for presenting Vyatka's folk crafts — this information invariably attracts interest from colleagues in other regions. VyatGU professor Galina Nekrasova acquainted the audience with the results of the All-Russian scientific and practical remote conference "Problems of Artistic and Technological Education in School and University," which was attended by a large number of students and teachers from various parts of the country.

      The geographic reach of participants in the "Creative Traditions of My Family" competition was also wide; the contest, held for pupils in grades 1–11, university students and teachers, included two categories: "Decorative and Applied Creativity" and "Culinary Masterpieces."

      Among the winners was future labor (technology) and additional education teacher Marina Svetlova, a second-year student at the Pedagogical Institute of VyatGU. For the participants of the creative meeting she conducted a master class on making a brooch in the shape of a kokoshnik. Learning the string-art technique captivated everyone and became a bright finale to the significant event.