INSTRUCTOR GETTING SENT TO SIBERIA : EFFORT AIMS TO AID DEMOCRACY.

Byline: Steve Getzug Daily News Staff Writer

Robert Nuranen has been preaching the virtues of democracy to his civics classes since 1981.

Come August, the Sylmar High School teacher will deliver the same lesson, but to students still getting used to new civil liberties, like the freedom to speak out or travel.

Nuranen will be teaching in Novosibirsk, Siberia.

The Granada Hills resident was one of six teachers picked this month for a program in which professionals are dispatched by the U.S. government to help the former Soviet Union's transition to democracy.

Teaching Russian youth after the country's presidential elections, and empowering the students to participate in a government still wrestling with old demons, are exciting prospects for the 50-year-old instructor.

``You have to begin in the high schools,'' he said. ``Begin turning the wheels there.''

In Russia, Nuranen's charges will be students in the School for Creative Development and Free Choice in Akademgorodok, or Academy City, just outside Siberia's largest city.

The social studies teacher visited Russia once before - in 1988, while on break from another exchange assignment in England.

He will detail his new adventures in periodic videos he plans to ship back to Sylmar High.

Nuranen's anticipated 10-month assignment is sponsored by the New Independent States - United States Teacher Exchange Program.

Dozens of teachers nationwide competed and applicants were judged on experience, references and essays outlining how social studies teachers can contribute in the new independent states, said Eric Boyle, a program officer with the American Council of Teachers of Russian.

``We really look for a strong background in civics and community work,'' said Boyle. ``He really had an outstanding record.''

Nuranen is taking a one-year leave of absence without pay to join only a handful of teachers from the Los Angeles Unified School District participating in teaching exchange programs.

While L.A. Unified supports teachers going abroad, the district only pays the salaries of teachers in the Fulbright Teacher Exchange, a decades-old program in which teachers trade places for a year with their counterparts in other countries, officials said.

Nancy McHugh, a former teacher who recruits L.A. Unified teachers for an exchange program to Nagoya, Japan, said the district is shortsighted for not financially supporting teachers in all exchanges.

``I feel personally that the district is sort of disconnected with anything like that - that they weren't interested,'' she said. ``I think the more people of any description who have experience in other schools, other countries, the more they bring back when they return to Los Angeles.''

Robert Barker, the district's assistant director of certified personnel, said no pool of money exists to financially assist teachers looking to teach abroad for a year.

In Nuranen's case, Barker said: ``We made some efforts and inquiries to see if there was a means by which some compensation could be extended and it was just not available.''

For his participation, Nuranen will draw a $2,000 monthly stipend from the United States Information Agency, the sponsoring federal government agency, which also picks up his travel expenses.

Money or not, Nuranen says he is no less excited about his trip.

On Aug. 4, he'll spend a week in Washington, D.C., for a training session, and then he'll be off to Siberia.

As a teacher for 11 years at Abraham Lincoln High School in East Los Angeles, Nuranen developed a student government Constitution that served as a model for other high schools in the L.A. Unified School District.

``I hope to see it replicated in schools in Russia,'' he said.

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PHOTO NURANEN