2. The school and its students after 1935
school reform. New requirements for students in the field of knowledge and discipline. The relationship between students and teachers. Social work. The role of the Komsomol. Student Interests and Political Attitudes
At that time, when the reforms, which I have already mentioned in passing, were being carried out at the school, I studied at the Pedagogical Institute and did not directly observe the restructuring of the work of the school. I went back to school in 1935 after graduating from the Pedagogical Institute. Moreover, I began my teaching career not in high school, but in a technical school.
My observations relating to the period when I taught at the technical school are also of great interest. The graduates of the seven-years went to the technical schools. They took an entrance exam in a number of subjects, including Russian language and literature. In this way, I could form a fairly clear picture of the situation at the school, imagine what knowledge seven-year-olds were graduating with.
True, I taught for two years at an agricultural technical school, where students entered mainly from rural schools. In rural schools, as a rule, the literacy of students was lower. Therefore, in order to imagine the situation in urban schools, some adjustments must be made to the information regarding rural schools.
The examination for applicants to the technical school was not very rigorous. They were given a dictation, several questions on grammar and two or three questions on literature. In dictations, the examinees made from 2 to 40 mistakes. I had to accept those who made 10-15 mistakes. In my notes, there is information that in 1938 (the admission of students took place in mid-August, there were 250 candidates for 120 places), a Komsomol member was admitted to the first year of the technical school, who made 40 syntactic and spelling errors. They accepted her at the insistence of the party organization of the technical school: she had some recommendations on the party line.
I cannot but tell about some curious answers on literature, which are also preserved in my notes.
The examinee tells the biography of Nekrasov and says the following: "Nekrasov's father wanted to send him to the White Guards, but Nekrasov did not want to join the army" ...
The examiner analyzes Chekhov's story "Intruder". Wrinkles.
The teacher asks him:
“Well, was the peasant condemned?”
The examiner, after thinking, answers:
"Yes, they gave him forced labor."
The examiner talks about Furmanov's story "Chapaev". It also hesitates. He speaks quietly, incoherently.
The teacher asks him:
"Who was the commissar in Chapaev's division?"
The examiner hesitates and answers:
"This one, like him, Kolchak."
The first two answers, as we see, are the result of Soviet upbringing, the result of the impact on the consciousness of students of the environment, Soviet reality. Prudraboty, White Guards - the words and concepts of the Soviet period, perceived uncritically, refracted in the mind of the student into a historical past, different both in form and content.
These answers, which at first cause only a smile, should be considered, and then we will see much more. We will see that part of our young people do not know the past of Russia, its history, they do not know, first of all, the good things in this past, they cannot compare it with the present, with Soviet reality. Ignorance of Russia's past, ignorance of the Western world deprives our young people, perhaps not all, but a significant part of them, of the criterion with which they could approach Soviet reality.
Thus, these curious, at first glance, answers contain a deep meaning, testify to the processes that take place in the minds of young people.
The third answer of the examiner, about Kolchak, is apparently due to ignorance of literature in general, low educational level, ignorance, in particular, of the history of the Civil War. Oddly enough, the history of the Civil War was not studied in schools.
The given examples of answers are not an absolute exception. I knew about such answers from the stories of familiar teachers.
However, based on these answers, one should not draw a conclusion about the low development and low educational level of all students, all school graduates. Along with the above examples, I could give examples that testify to the exceptionally high level of development of students even in rural schools, to their great erudition. As a rule, a high level of development was achieved not so much in the process of learning at school as in the process of self-education, in the process of reading.
And one more thing should be noted. Already politically. Also, as a rule, the children of dispossessed peasants, often orphans whose parents died in exile, studied brilliantly (I'm talking about those who came to technical schools from rural schools). By this I do not mean to say that our people have gifted and untalented strata, although the prosperous peasants, of course, were distinguished by their great abilities and great industriousness. But still, I would not like to select any layer. The phenomenon about which I speak, in my opinion, was explained by somewhat different reasons. For several years, the children of the dispossessed were denied access not only to higher educational institutions, but also to secondary ones, such as technical schools. And even in high schools. There were areas where the children of the dispossessed were not given the opportunity to study even in the upper grades of secondary school. As I have already said, the children of the dispossessed, like everyone else whom the Bolsheviks did not give the opportunity to study, bypassed the barriers established by the authorities: they left their homes, took out false documents, and studied. But, of course, not everyone, not everyone managed to break through the slingshots of the Bolshevik laws.
In October or November 1934, on the last page of Izvestia and Pravda, a short note appeared in the chronicle section, announcing that the Council of People's Commissars had issued a decision lifting restrictions on the admission of socially alien children to higher educational institutions.
The very next year, thousands of young men and women, whose social background had not made it possible to study until now, came to universities, institutes, and technical schools. Those who had just graduated from schools, and those who graduated from schools a year, two, three, four years ago, also came. All this mass of young people, having replenished their knowledge with self-education, passionately desiring to learn, easily paved their way to higher educational institutions and technical schools in competitive examinations. It is also quite natural that these young people studied excellently.
I stopped at this question not by chance. After all, it has a purely specific character, inherent only in the Soviet school, the Soviet country. No other country has anything like it. There is only one thing: material obstacles, which, by the way, have always existed in the USSR, although to a much lesser extent. Since 1940, since the introduction of tuition fees in grades 8-10, the obstacle of a material nature in the USSR is as great as in the capitalist countries. If we take into account the low standard of living in the USSR, the insecurity of such sections of the population as workers and peasants, then it can be argued that the material obstacles to education in the USSR are more significant than in many capitalist countries. It is just as difficult for an unsecured family in the USSR to teach children as in the most backward country. And maybe even more difficult.
I will now return to the main issue of this part of my work: the school after 1935.
In 1936 I came to school as a teacher of Russian language and literature. In the six years since I last stepped into the school, there have been significant changes. But much remains the same.
The changes that took place in the school concerned, first of all, the teaching of teaching. The laboratory, brigade method was canceled as not having justified itself. I would add to this: as having crippled several generations. The complex system of teaching was replaced by a subject one. The lesson was introduced as the only compulsory form of education. Examinations were introduced, which at first were called tests, a system of marks from "very bad" to "excellent", and then a digital system - from one to five. Much higher demands were now placed on students than before, both in the field of knowledge and in the field of discipline.
Education began to be conducted according to textbooks. One by one standard textbooks appeared in all subjects.
These reforms produced, undoubtedly, positive changes: every year the general educational level of students began to grow, their development increased, discipline was raised by measures of suggestion and, mainly, by repressive measures. Students who committed gross violations of discipline or systematically failed were even expelled from school. The exception, however, was considered an extreme measure. In 1939-40, school directors generally ceased to exclude violators of discipline and underachievers, since all responsibility for student misconduct and poor academic performance was assigned to teachers and school directors. They were accused of "failing to influence the students."
As I have already pointed out, as a result of the reforms carried out, the level of knowledge increased and, say, in 1940, ten-year secondary schools (the reform introduced ten-year education instead of nine) produced already quite literate people.
But this cannot be said about discipline, it cannot be argued that discipline has improved much. The reasons for this phenomenon would be worth understanding. Shortly after the implementation of the main reforms, a law was issued on universal education (general education), on universal seven-year education. Parents were now required to send their children to school. Teachers were obliged by measures of suggestion, measures of persuasion to involve all children in school.
Now those children who, for various reasons, primarily due to the material insecurity of their families, did not attend it, have come to school. Some of these children worked, others did nothing at all. The so-called neglected, half-orphans also came to the school, some of them had no mothers, others had no fathers. Street children came to school, with appropriate behavior, of course. They immediately shook the discipline at school, and then it was very difficult to deal with them. They missed classes, violated discipline in the classroom. It was literally the scourge of teachers and school administration.
The second reason for the fall of discipline was the events of 1937, mass arrests in the country. Many families were left without fathers, their financial situation was shaken, the children stopped attending school. Anti-Bolshevik sentiment intensified in the school itself. Children sometimes expressed their protest against the regime in the form of violations of school discipline.
Finally, the third reason for the decline in discipline was determined by the introduction of tuition fees. Students stopped looking at teaching at school as a boon that the state does to them. The students began to behave somewhat defiantly. At the same time, they began to study not worse, but better, because excellent students were exempted from tuition fees. Just as in higher education, excellent academic performance ensured the right to receive a scholarship.
The introduction of the lesson system and all other changes in the school increased the role of the teacher and at the same time increased his responsibility. I will talk more about this. Now I will note only one thing that is directly related to students. The teacher began to enjoy great respect and love of students. Of course, there were still loved and unloved teachers, nicknames were still assigned to the unloved, troubles, etc., but the personality of the teacher began to enjoy, undoubtedly, great respect and authority. The more knowledge of his subject the teacher showed, the more interesting his lessons were, the more respect the students had for him. The teacher, on the one hand, rose in the eyes of the students as an authority, as a person passing on his knowledge to them, on the other hand, he approached them as an educator, as an older comrade, as a moral authority.
The role of social work in the life of the school has clearly declined. As before, he sat in the academic committee, as before, OSOAVIAKHIM and MOPR still existed, but when moving from class to class, when assessing the success of students, only their knowledge was taken into account, while social work also played its role before: a student who had poor grades, but actively working as a social activist, he could count on being transferred to the next class precisely as a social activist. The student committees still sent their representatives to the meetings of the pedagogical councils, but these representatives did not have the decisive vote as before.
The role of the Komsomol has remained the same, perhaps even increased. The Komsomol organization could not, say, intervene with great success in determining the progress of a student, but it intervened from the other side, it looked for political motives for certain actions of teachers that seemed to it non-Bolsheviks. Approaching from this side, the Komsomol organization intervened directly in the work of the teacher.
At closed Komsomol meetings, certain actions of teachers were discussed, the work of a teacher and the organization of teaching were criticized. They were looking for a teacher in teaching, if it was necessary along the way, non-Soviet, inconsistent with the era, as they say there. The Komsomol organization could, along its Komsomol-Party line, start persecution against a teacher objectionable to it. This is especially true for the years of Yezhovshchina. About the organization of the party, which included mainly teachers, I will say below.
Now about the interests and political moods of the students. First of all, it must be said that the interests of the students of our school are much broader and deeper than the interests of students of the Western school. I mean, first of all, the German school, which I know a little. In this comparison, I would not like to touch on the education system itself. This is the business of every nation. From our point of view, teaching in an American school, for example, is unsatisfactory. From the point of view of the Americans, it may be that such an education system is in the interests of the nation. I repeat - I do not touch this issue. But we can talk about the breadth of interests of students in our school and the Western one. At the same time, I would not want the reader of this work to attribute the good things that are in our school, among our youth, to the influence of the Bolshevik regime. No, not thanks to, but in spite of the Bolshevik regime, our young people have acquired what is good at their disposal. Both her interests and her demands are not from Bolshevism, but from the eternal features of our Russian character. The desire for knowledge, for deep knowledge, the desire for a continuous expansion of the circle of knowledge and interests, a passion for questions of philosophy, history, and literature has always been characteristic of Russian youth. Our young people have always received, so to speak, a double education: one in an educational institution, on the pupils' and students' benches, the other in libraries, museums, theaters, at their home desks. After all, only in our country the term self-education has such a broad and deep meaning.
The Bolsheviks tried to lead young people away from science, from literature, into the realm of specific politics and the public, which have only one goal: to maintain and strengthen the regime. In the late twenties and early thirties, some part of the youth was fond of social and political work, carried away to the detriment of knowledge, success in the sciences. From the mid-thirties one could observe a sharp drop in interest in social work. The interests of young people switched to science, to teaching, to the work of various circles - literary, historical, physical, etc., to self-education. Increased interest in the book. According to the testimony of librarians, mainly to classical literature, Russian and Western. Interest in the theater increased, and performances were attended mainly with classical things. If in the late twenties and early thirties students showed interest in technical circles, then before the war it was replaced by an interest in the humanities.
Making higher the comparison of our school with the Western, our youth with the youth in the West, I did not want to say that all the youth in the West are deprived of spiritual and scientific demands. To say so is to commit a grave mistake. But it still seems to me that the stratum of young people who are not devoid of such requests is much wider in our country. We have a larger percentage of young people with interests that go beyond the boundaries of the basketball court.
Speaking of sports. We are also fond of sports, they love sports, but not to the detriment of other interests, not to the detriment of teaching.
It is most difficult to talk about the political moods of the youth. Here we take on a great responsibility. But let's not be afraid of it, because this, from my point of view, is one of the main questions in the problem of characterizing the Soviet school.
What, in the end, did the Bolsheviks achieve? Did they get the results they wanted? Does the school educate citizens who are really devoted to the cause of Lenin-Stalin or not? Does it educate ideological supporters of communism or not? Answers to these questions must be given. The general short answer - yes, our school educates ideological communists or - no, our youth is anti-communist, such an answer cannot be limited, such an answer cannot be given. The question is too complicated. Briefly, the only answer is: no, the Bolsheviks did not achieve the results they were striving for, which they were counting on. It can be said: our youth, like all our people, won, they did not submit to the Bolsheviks, they did not break, they did not allow themselves to be made an obedient instrument of Bolshevik policy.
The heroes of A. Fadeev's documentary novel "The Young Guard" Oleg Koshevoy and his comrades, pupils of the Soviet school, died in the fight against the Germans during the war. They organized an underground that fought against the Germans, fought together with the ideological Bolsheviks, defending the Bolshevik regime. This is true. But the real driving force in this struggle was by no means Soviet, but Russian patriotism. Love for the Motherland - Russia - that's what motivated the young underground workers. In the oath that the underground workers of Krasnodon, like the underground workers in our other cities, took, there was not a word about Bolshevism, about Stalin. Only about the Motherland. Significant event!
The tragedy of the Russian youth is that in the last war, while defending Russia, they also defended Bolshevism, covering it with their breasts. It can be said with certainty that throughout the thirties, anti-Bolshevik sentiments grew and spread among young people. What explains this? Where are the reasons for this phenomenon?
Firstly, this is due to the general growth of anti-Bolshevik sentiment among the people. Secondly, the disappointment of youth.
If at the end of the twenties part of the youth was carried away by the prospects of the unfolding industrialization of the country, embraced - there is no need to hide this - by the pathos of construction, then at the end of the thirties there was no trace of this pathos. Instead of the wide distances that the Bolsheviks painted so beautifully, temptingly, the young man or girl had nothing left but to graduate - at best - from the university and work on the outskirts of the country or in the rural wilderness. Knowing about the true moods of the youth, the Bolsheviks at that time began to talk a lot about the duty to the people and the country, which, according to them, consisted in just such ordinary work. To work where the "party and government" sends, to do one's own, maybe a small, but very important thing, important in the general course of "building socialism." A positive hero has appeared in the literature - a student graduating from a higher educational institution and dreaming of his future work as an agronomist in the Kuban village or a forester in the Siberian taiga. I recall one of E. Krieger's talented essays in Izvestia about a small accountant of some collective farm in the Vologda Oblast, who finally understood the significance of the mission he was carrying out. The pathos of petty deeds could not, naturally, captivate the youth, before whom only yesterday wide distances were revealed. Communist, but still given, which beckoned with their apparent grandiosity and apparent nobility of purpose. In the pathos of those distant years, the strings of internationalism sounded not only destructive: "We study and work not only for ourselves, but for all mankind."
Disappointment in the ideas of communism set in long before the Bolsheviks turned all their propaganda on the rails of patriotism. With the idea of Soviet patriotism, the Bolsheviks hastened to fill the gap that appeared in the minds of young people as a result of the collapse of the ideas of communism. The first crushing, really crushing blow to communist ideas, in general, to the enthusiasm of young people for the "building of communism" was dealt by collectivization. The second final blow is Yezhovism. In the spring of 1940, I gave a lecture at an agricultural technical school. During the lecture, he quoted the words of V.G. Belinsky, written by him in 1840 about how he envies the descendants who will see Russia in 1940, blooming, beautiful. When I read this quote, there was laughter in the audience. I pretended nothing happened. But it's not that. The very reaction of students is important, the reaction of many is completely instinctive. After all, it was not an organized demonstration. No, laughter escaped against their will: the words of the great critic seemed so wild to them, who envied them, who saw both the devastation of the village during collectivization, and the famine that followed collectivization, who saw poverty and arbitrariness around.
“I envied you,” one of the students burst out, and his intelligent eyes flashed with such indescribable sarcasm that I still remember them. The example, in my opinion, is quite vivid and convincing, proving that the youth understood what was happening around, was aware of where the Bolsheviks had led the country and the people.
Another example is no less convincing. A teacher from Simferopol told me that in the tenth grade of one of the secondary schools in the city there was not a single Komsomol member. Unfortunately, the school number was not preserved in my notes. No matter how much the Komsomol organization of the school (by the way, very insignificant) tried to involve tenth grade students in the Komsomol, it could not do anything. The students, referring to the workload of lessons and homework, avoided filing applications with the Komsomol. Moreover, they behaved by no means defiantly, realizing that in this way everything can be spoiled.
However, one should not, on the basis of the facts presented, draw conclusions about the anti-Bolshevik sentiments of all young people without any exception. A certain part of it, primarily the Komsomol activists and some of the non-Party people, continue to follow the Bolsheviks. It is very difficult to define this part of the youth in any figures. We can only say one thing: this is an insignificant part, but it still exists.
Some part of the youth actively participates in the life of the country, at least in the same construction, because a person has an indestructible desire for creativity, for the application of his strength in a cause, the results of which a person could see. And now he sees the factories he is building, the hospitals he is drawing up. It takes a great effort of will to realize that behind all this stands the black ghost of Bolshevism, whose goals are contrary to the interests of the people. People are realizing, people are seeing this ghost more and more clearly - anti-Bolshevik sentiments are growing and deepening both among the whole people and among the youth. They grow and deepen, despite the propaganda that pervades all life, despite the many years of influence of the school, which is put at the service of Bolshevism.
What can be said about the results of communist education in the Soviet school? It can be said with confidence that this result is many times less than the efforts expended by the Bolsheviks. This result is also insignificant because the youth themselves, seeing the discrepancy between propaganda and reality, successfully resist the attempts of the Bolsheviks to completely subjugate the younger generation. This resistance of the youth is largely promoted by our teacher.
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My biggest doubt about moving to the village was the transfer of my daughter to the village school. But still, this year we decided. My daughter graduated from elementary school in the city and went to the 5th grade already at a new school.
We bought a house in the village where we live now already 7 years ago. First, under the cottage. All these years we spent a lot of time in the countryside. Usually all holidays, most weekends in spring-summer-autumn and when I could take a break from my business. During this time, our child developed a whole circle of village children of the same age, and I could compare their development and degree of education (this is professional, since I am a teacher by education J)
And what can I state as a result of my observations: the score is in favor of the village school! No matter how unusual it sounds... Of course, I cannot generalize as a whole, but I can only be based on our local conditions and the realities of our village and the established traditions of its school.
First, small classes. When I was in the first grade, we had children over 40 and the class was "g", but there were classes beyond this letter. The area was new, and there were a lot of new settlers with children of school age. There was a huge new school, where there were more than a thousand first-graders alone. At the school where our daughter went to the 1st grade, there were much fewer first-graders, there was a shortage, and after passing the competition, we easily entered it without registration (in our city it is difficult with this). In the village we got a class of 4!!! human. The daughter came in fifth. It turned out to be the smallest class in the school, the rest are larger in content, and this year they enrolled almost as many first-graders as in a city school. (Our village is not ordinary, but at the resort, there is work, the outflow of young people is not so large, summer residents are actively added from our region, and even from the neighboring one).
And so, despite such a small class, his entire elementary school was not combined with others, they conducted the entire program normally. According to the results of final tests, this class took first place in the district. And as far as I can judge their level of English, with our paid classes, we are very much inferior to them by the 5th grade. In our city, young foreign language teachers usually do not stay long in schools, finding work somewhere in business, and not in the budget. Therefore, we had a mess with language teachers all 4 years, each new one came and went, and the children remained at about the same level. Therefore, almost everything! the children in the class studied with tutors or in commercial language centers. And in the village, almost individual training is obtained on a budget.
Secondly, the physical development of village children. Not only because they have been accustomed to working in the gardens since childhood, but also because the traditions of this school are like that. The director of the school is a physical education teacher, the school is the first in the region in all sports competitions. When registering, the first question to us was - how are you doing with physical education? J (And for the last year we didn’t have a separate physical education teacher at the city school, the last male teacher left it). All physical education classes were reduced, if not canceled due to preparation for tests, then at best to jumping rope. And here is a real physical education program from Soviet times. The same goes for music, by the way. In the city school (although it was just competitive in aesthetic disciplines) there was no program, neither the old Soviet one developed by Kabalevsky, nor any new one. So, several songs for all 4 years and the same leapfrog with teachers.
Thirdly, safety. In our city, its condition is such that up to the 4th grade, almost all parents saw off and met the children from the class, especially since most of them did not live near the school, the class was recruited by competition. Well, who had the opportunity to shift this responsibility to grandparents. And after all, this is not vain reinsurance, we really have such a situation. I either drove my daughter myself, or when I couldn’t take her, I asked to call back as soon as I got there. But this is not normal! As in a zone of some kind, and not in a safe city! Even my generation went to schools (and sometimes even to kindergartens before school) completely on their own. I went on my own to a music school quite far from our place of residence quite calmly. Young parents lost my husband at the age of five by accident, and with the help of kind people, he got on the right tram, gave the address and drove safely home. And now, as under escort, honestly! Now my daughter goes to school along the simple village road with her friends, and I worry much less about her safety.
So for now, the score is in favor of the village school. I hope he stays that way.
P.S. I do not pretend to make any generalizations in the field of education, this is all just our private experience J
It is surprising with what speed the school, which is actually a very heavy, inertial structure, according to experts, today moved back to Soviet educational standards. So difficult were reforms stretched over decades, with pilot projects and public discussions, and with what readiness the system turned back! But everything turns out that in this direction it is being pushed by a general trend, not even a political one, but a voluntary one.
While the ministry is thinking about what else to do with the unified state exam in order to please everyone, and the head of the Russian state urges schoolchildren to prepare for work and defense, while the Public Chamber is thinking about a unified textbook on literature, Russian parents are vainly struggling with a decision school tasks, striving for the coveted five.
It seems to them that admitting their own inadequacy in this matter is tantamount to admitting parental incompetence in general, because new methods do not in any way agree with their own experience, which, to be honest, simply does not exist. Of course, there is experience, only fundamentally different, because even the current thirty-year-old parents wore a pioneer tie. And it is precisely the knowledge gained at that time that prevents you from honestly saying that you don’t understand children’s lessons, and shifting responsibility to the child himself and to teachers, with whom you should communicate not only about deuces.
The myth of a good Soviet education is so tenacious not only because it is firmly rooted in the imperial consciousness of superiority. Yes, Soviet education was good, in other words, correct for the fulfillment of the goals set by the socialist state and the communist party. It was also good because pre-revolutionary traditions continued, the old schools worked, and many things arose precisely in spite of it. And people just needed to survive - both physically and mentally, and this is the strongest motivation that can be.
How they taught and how they studied in Soviet times, recall the director of the Federal Institute for the Development of Education Alexander Asmolov, Head of the Center for the Sociology of Education, Science and Culture, Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences David Konstantinovsky and theater critic, translator Irina Myagkova.
Alexander Asmolov:
- My first school was on the 1st Meshchanskaya, which is now called Peace Avenue. And the first teacher bore a textbook name - Anna Ivanovna. And she was 24 years old. And the first thing that happened was I fell in love with my first teacher in first grade. And I still remember how I was tormented by the thought that I sang badly for her.
I was incredibly lucky, because the life of the school was very closely intertwined with the life of my wonderful parents, with life in the village of writers Krasnaya Pakhra. My teacher in life, who, alas, no longer exists, is the writer Vladimir Tendryakov. And he taught me that a personality ends where it begins to exist according to the formula "whatever you like."
And when Bella Akhmadulina, Andrey Voznesensky, Evgeny Yevtushenko, Kamil Ikramov, Naum Korzhavin visit you at home from the 6th or 7th grade, a completely different reality emerges. And this led to conflicts at school. Because at school there were a certain kind of Soviet norms of life and a set of traditional poets who were supposed to be loved more than any others. And if you violated this, the rules of this life were also violated.
Since I studied at a Soviet school, it was supposed to love, in addition to classical poets, super-Soviet - Vladimir Firsov, Igor
In the Soviet school, it was supposed to love, except for classical poets, super-Soviet - Vladimir Firsov, Igor Kobzev, Eduard Asadov
Kobzev, Eduard Asadov. And when you are 14 or 15 years old and the sea is knee-deep, if you are given a certain motivation by those with whom you are in love, you begin to defend your opinion with exorbitant fury and fury. And since I defended, there was a Komsomol meeting at which my behavior was analyzed for the fact that I do not like Asadov and Kobzev, and for the fact that I, following Yevtushenko, repeated that "the unit of Soviet poetry is 1 kobz."
At that time, poems conveyed my attitude towards school. Once, in a civil defense lesson, because I had poor motor skills, I did not perform the commands "right" and "left" correctly, my leg twitched. And then the colonel, who was the teacher of the NVP, said: "Oh, you bastard, you want to dance a twist here, and not turn right and left! You will fly out of my school like a cork from a bottle!" I came to class and wrote a poem:
The school is a barracks, the teacher is a soldier,
The head is empty, but yells at the guys.
A senator in a tunic and a plebeian in nature.
Dirt drives into the head and teaches different foolishness.
How long? The plebeian is tired of enduring.
Getting them out of here is our job.
These poems, because I wanted popularity, I began to throw to the girls in the class. And at the lesson of social science, the director of the school, who taught this subject, intercepted my piece of paper. At first his face was white, then it turned red, his color changed, and he said: "Well, that's it, Asmolov, finished playing! Let's go ..."
Irina Myagkova:
- I still remember that in the fifth grade I received a reader in literature, from which I could not tear myself away. There was such a complete course of Russian literature, starting from "The Tale of Igor's Campaign", continuing with Russian historical stories, and the 18th century, Karamzin, Trediakovsky, it was a literature course, which then only began to be taught at the university, and then it was given in school. But everything began to change quickly, and in front of my eyes, instead of this anthology, a completely different, more adapted, abridged one came. And every year the circle of knowledge, which still remained considerable, was reduced.
We then went through a lot of things, however, we didn’t know any new products, no modern writers. And the difference was huge: on the one hand, the absolutely pro-Soviet, fake Prilezhaeva, and on the other, Frida Vigdorova, who wrote a very honest book, My Class.
Once, a conference was held at Prilezhaeva at the school, and since I was an activist in the library, I was asked to speak. And that was my first critical performance in my life. The book that was being discussed was called "Above the Volga", there is such a poor boy, without a mother, but smart, good, correct, he decided that he needed to captivate his class not with some sort of stamp collecting or other nonsense, but should be captivated by Tchaikovsky's music. And so he made everyone listen to this Tchaikovsky, and the whole class fell in love with Tchaikovsky's music...
When I read this book, I definitely felt that it was a fake, not true. And I went out into the assembly hall, full of children driven from lessons, and
Schoolchildren spoke and said that it doesn’t matter if the book is true or not, it is necessary that it be written as it should be
told them that what was written in the book was not true. She explained that you can’t get carried away with music in the same way as stamps, these are different things, but she wasn’t convincing, of course, but simply said that it wasn’t true, and even though you will execute me for it. Prilezhaeva, who was present at the discussion, then asked our librarian Antonina Petrovna about me, what family the girl was from, why she was like that ...
And then the whole audience was against me, the schoolchildren spoke and said that it didn’t matter if it was true or not, it was necessary that the book was written as it should be. That is, everyone was already brought up in socialist realism.
David Konstantinovsky:
- From the fifth grade I studied at the school, which I graduated from, and it was wonderful! And every time I came to Chelyabinsk, I visited my class teacher. She died only two years ago, she was such a warrior, not much older than us ... Then she, apparently, was afraid that we would get her a lot, so she was very strict. However, it was impossible to get us through this severity. This is a men's school, there are three dozen boys who are knee-deep in the sea!
The children learned very differently. Let's say my neighbor on the desk for a long time was the son of a cleaning lady. There were also children of workers, engineers, the son of a KGB officer, children of intellectuals, petty employees, then they accepted everyone. They kicked us out for something extraordinary, and so everything was forgiven us. There was, of course, an initiation rite: when a newcomer came, after school they went to the back of the school and started a fight, but in this way, in a divine way, rather, they measured their strength.
There were no particular conflicts within the class. Although we had such an active Komsomol member who once denounced us, and this
When a newcomer came, after school they went to the back of the school and started a fight
it was a serious matter. In the 10th grade, foreign language students, beautiful, cheerful girls, came to us for practice. And we had a good company, and we studied well (I started to study well from the 9th grade, before that I didn’t study at all), and for the holidays, the mother of two brothers left the class, and we invited these girls to visit. We drank quite a bit of wine, talked about life, about literature, in general, everything went wonderfully. We did not advertise this event, but we did not hide it either. And this active member of the Komsomol went and reported.
What to take from us? And the girls were going to be expelled from the institute. We didn't learn about it from them, they didn't say anything, we learned it from the teachers. We - to the parents, parents - to the head of the department, he turned out to be a very decent person, and this matter was hushed up, thank God. Although everything was very harmless, even sublime, I would say.
It is impossible to talk about any merits of the Soviet education system without understanding how, when and where it came from. The basic principles of education for the near future were formulated as early as 1903. At the II Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, it was stated that education should be universal and free for all children under 16, regardless of gender. In addition, estate and national schools should be liquidated, as well as the school should be separated from the church. 9 1917 is the day of the establishment of the State Commission for Education, which was supposed to develop and control the entire system of education and culture of the vast country of the Soviets. The regulation "On the unified labor school of the RSFSR", dated October 1918, provided for the compulsory attendance of schools by all citizens of the country aged 8 to 50 years who did not yet know how to read and write. The only thing that could be chosen was to learn to read and write (Russian or native).
At that time, most of the working population was illiterate. The country of the Soviets was considered far behind Europe, where general education for all was introduced almost 100 years earlier. Lenin believed that the ability to read and write could give an impetus to every person to "improve their economy and their state."
By 1920, over 3 million people were literate. The census of the same year showed that more than 40 percent of the population over the age of 8 could read and write.
The 1920 census was incomplete. It was not carried out in Belarus, Crimea, Transcaucasia, in the North Caucasus, in the Podolsk and Volyn provinces, and in a number of places in Ukraine.
Fundamental changes awaited the education system in 1918-1920. The school was separated from the church, and the church from the state. The teaching of any creed was forbidden, boys and girls now studied together, and now there was nothing to pay for the lessons. At the same time, they began to create a system of preschool education, revised the rules for admission to higher educational institutions.
In 1927, the average time of study for people over 9 years old was just over a year, in 1977 it was almost 8 full years.
By the 1930s, illiteracy as a phenomenon was defeated. The education system was organized as follows. Almost immediately after the birth of a child, he could be sent to a nursery, then to a kindergarten. Moreover, there were both day care and round-the-clock kindergartens. After 4 years of primary school education, the child became a secondary school student. Upon graduation, he could get a profession at a college or technical school, or continue his studies in the senior classes of a basic school.
The desire to educate trustworthy members of Soviet society and competent specialists (especially in engineering and technology) made the Soviet education system the best in the world. It underwent a total reform during the liberal reforms in the 1990s.
One of the most significant advantages of the Soviet school system was its accessibility. This right was enshrined constitutionally (Article 45 of the Constitution of the USSR of 1977).
The main difference between the Soviet education system and the American or British one was the unity and consistency of all parts of education. A clear vertical level (elementary, secondary school, university, doctoral studies) made it possible to accurately plan the vector of one's education. Uniform programs and requirements were developed for each stage. When parents moved or changed schools for any other reason, there was no need to re-learn the material or try to understand the system adopted in the new educational institution. The maximum trouble that a transition to another school could bring was the need to repeat or catch up with 3-4 topics in each discipline. Textbooks in the school library were issued and were available to absolutely everyone.
Soviet school teachers provided basic knowledge in their subjects. And they were quite enough for a school graduate to enter a higher educational institution on his own (without tutors and bribes). Nevertheless, Soviet education was considered fundamental. The general education level implied a broad outlook. In the USSR there was not a single one who did not read Pushkin or did not know Vasnetsov.
Now in Russian schools, exams may even be mandatory for students (depending on the internal policy of the school and the decision of the pedagogical council). In the Soviet school, children took the final final exams after 8 and after. There was no mention of any testing. The method of knowledge control both in the classroom and during the exams was understandable and transparent.
Each student who decided to continue his studies at the university was guaranteed to get a job upon graduation. Firstly, the number of places in universities and institutes was limited by the social order, and secondly, after graduation, mandatory distribution was carried out. Often, young professionals were sent to virgin lands, to all-Union construction sites. However, it was necessary to work there only a few years (this is how the state compensated for the cost of training). Then there was an opportunity to return to their hometown or stay where they got on the distribution.
It is a mistake to assume that in the Soviet school all students had the same level of knowledge. Of course, the general program should be assimilated by all. But if a teenager is interested in some particular subject, then he was given every opportunity to study it additionally. At schools there were mathematical circles, circles of lovers of literature, and so on. In addition, there were specialized classes and specialized schools, where children got the opportunity to study certain subjects in depth. Parents were especially proud of their children studying at a mathematical school or a school with a language bias.
School of the middle of the last century ... School of Soviet times ...
Probably, the children were then more obedient and naive than now, and the teachers were more principled. Probably, the Soviet ideology left its mark on the way of thinking of both, on the process of training and education. Now some people idealize the Soviet school, finding in it much of what the present school lacks.
Well ... A word - to a student of the Soviet school of the 60sXXcentury.
Start
My school life began back in 1959 in a small rural area. It was a long time ago, but many moments remained in the memory forever.
I will never forget my first teacher. Her name was Polina Semyonovna. She was an interesting woman. Just imagine: he will get cutlets or lard right at the lesson - and start the meal. Or he opens a tin can, takes a fish after a fish out of it with a knife - and into his mouth. At the same time, the lesson continues: as if nothing had happened, we write something in notebooks. And after dinner, Polina Semyonovna felt sleepy ... The student answers at the blackboard - and she closes her eyes and takes a nap. She said that it was more convenient for her to listen.
The adults must have thought she was weird. To us, first-graders, it seemed just funny. I think Polina Semyonovna, in spite of everything, was an excellent teacher. By the fourth grade, our handwriting became calligraphic, and we cracked the most difficult problems in arithmetic like nuts. And Polina Semyonovna taught us to sing and dance. She managed to get special paper and colorful ribbons somewhere - and she herself made wreaths for us, in which we danced Russian and Ukrainian dances.
In our village there was only an elementary school, and then I had to study in a neighboring village. My friends and I went there, of course, on foot: three kilometers to school and the same back. And in any weather. It used to be a snowstorm in the yard, frost - but in the morning you wake up and go to study. There was no talk of skipping classes.
The fifth grade I remember, perhaps, for the rest of my life. I remember the insult, which I can not forget until now.
History (my favorite subject, by the way) was taught by the director of the school. For some reason, he disliked me, although I thoroughly prepared for the lessons and could answer any question of the teacher. At the very beginning of the quarter, the director called me to the blackboard and gave me a “three” for an excellent complete answer - without any explanation.
For me, an excellent student, it was a real shock. Moreover, on the same day, my friend received an “A” in history for an answer much worse than mine. Then I did not know that her father was some kind of boss, I did not suspect that an adult is capable of meanness towards a child. But she firmly believed: the teacher is always right. It was these words that my parents repeated to me: they did not even want to listen about some kind of childish insult. For me it was a tragedy...
I spent the whole quarter cramming history - but they didn't ask me! The director called me to the board only on the last day of the term - and appreciated the excellent (I know this for sure!) Answer to “good”. In the quarter there was a "troika". The teacher set and forgot. For me, the case ended with a nervous breakdown and treatment in the neurological department of a local hospital ...
And it happened like that...
My husband often told how he studied in primary school. He told and laughed.
His first teacher had a specific (especially for the post-war years) name - Adolf Fedorovich. But it's not about the name. He, too, seemed to be a special person.
My husband's father worked in a store, which means he was, by village standards, a respected person. And, perhaps, therefore, his son was the first student. Adolf Fedorovich used to come to the store - and let's praise his son in front of his dad. "Look," he says, "Mikhail Nikolaevich, your Yurka got a 'five' today!" And the son is sitting under the counter - he is surprised: they didn’t even ask him today! But dad is happy - and he will sprinkle flour for the teacher, and cereals, and sugar.
This is how Yura studied in all four primary classes. Then he moved to another school - and immediately stayed for the second year. Thanks to Adolf Fedorovich ...
Antonina Ivanovna Chumakova
Photos - from the personal archive
