"Elevate the steppe without diminishing the mountains" — this quote became the leitmotif of an unusual digital lesson on the topic in Google Meet, uniting schoolchildren from Eastern Kazakhstan ahead of a major anniversary.

The history of every nation is filled with names that become its conscience and support. Sometimes, the destinies of such people seem to converse with each other across decades, creating a single backbone upon which national identity rests. It was this inseparable connection between two eras that became the main idea of the regional interactive lesson.

The lesson participants undertook a deep dive into the destinies of two outstanding Kazakhstani individuals, whose devotion to the people and the country became the foundation of independence.

Alimkhan Yermekov (1891–1970) was the first Kazakh professor of mathematics and one of the founders of the "Alash" party. But his contribution extends far beyond science. He was a brilliant orator and diplomat, whose knowledge quite literally determined the future borders of our country. In 1920, the 29-year-old Yermekov was sent to Moscow, where at a meeting chaired by Vladimir Lenin, he delivered a report on the situation in Kazakhstan. During a heated debate, he managed to defend and return to the Republic territories such as the Semipalatinsk and Akmola regions, as well as the northern coast of the Caspian Sea — lands that, even a century later, hold strategic importance for us.

The continuator of these traditions of service was Olzhas Suleimenov, whose 90th anniversary we celebrate on May 18. A poet of planetary scale, he gained worldwide fame not only as the author of the legendary book "Az i Ya" ("The Az and I"), but also as the inspirer and leader of the international anti-nuclear movement "Nevada – Semipalatinsk". It was his civic stance and people's diplomacy in 1989 that compelled the leadership of the USSR to close one of the world's largest nuclear test sites, which later laid the foundation for Kazakhstan's renunciation of the world's fourth-largest nuclear arsenal. Suleimenov's poem "Earth, Bow Down to Man!", written on the day of Gagarin's flight, and his linguistic research on "The Tale of Igor's Campaign" became a bridge connecting Turkic and Slavic cultures.

The event was organized by the RSE "East Kazakhstan Regional Scientific and Methodological Center for Informatization and Development of Education 'Örken'" of the Education Department of the East Kazakhstan Region. The speaker and guide into the world of history was Salimova Madina Kairbekovna — a history teacher, moderator-pedagogue at the RSE "Secondary School No. 9" in Ust-Kamenogorsk.

The lesson was conducted in the format of a Google Meet online conference, which allowed it to reach a wide audience of students across the entire East Kazakhstan Region. The "digital immersion" format proved its worth from the first minutes — key concepts and symbols (such as the sign of the anti-nuclear movement "Dove of Peace" or the "broken bomb") were visualized using artificial intelligence technologies, and the lesson itself was built on the principles of active interaction.

During the engaging work on research projects, the schoolchildren discovered amazing parallels in the destinies of the scientist and the poet. The main similarity emphasized by the participants was the uncompromising defense of national identity. In different historical eras, using different methods, but with equal strength of spirit, these individuals created the ideological foundation for Kazakhstan's sovereignty. If Yermekov, at the dawn of the 20th century, proved rights to land using the language of numbers and diplomacy, then Suleimenov, in the latter half of the century, fought for the people's right to life without the nuclear threat and for the purity of historical memory using his pen and the public platform.

The final stage of the lesson involved completing tests and analyzing historical sources, which showed that the students did not just listen to a lecture but became active co-authors of this historical journey.

Such meetings not only provide knowledge about history but also, through a living example, show that serving the nation is the work of the mind, heart, and will, accessible to everyone who selflessly loves their land.

Source : https://www.gov.kz/memleket/entities/vko-bilim/press/news/details/1221173?lang=kk