"Wonderful School Years": English in a Soviet Special School
In the USSR, there was education for everyone, but there were also special schools where some disciplines were studied in depth. Most of all there were schools with the study of a foreign language, although they were, in general, a rarity ...
I thought for a long time what kind of "pictures" to illustrate this material, so that everyone would be interested and at least a little instructive. Decided that it would be best to use illustrations from textbooks on stories for grades 5 and 6, because they, perhaps, even better than the text, tell about the level at which the teaching of these subjects was carried out, and whether it was the way it needed to be. For example, here's a great illustration of The Ishtar Gate in Babylon. " But ... nowhere in the textbook did it say that they were found, restored and are in a museum in the center of Berlin on a museum island. Or then, in the 60s, they were still not restored? Well, this is quite possible and even needed to be said ...
Memories of the past. In the last material about the school years in primary school in 1962-1966. I forgot to write about the most important and very funny "puncture" of my "first teacher", which took place on May 1, 1966. She had said a month earlier that our fourth grade had been honored by our first May Day demonstration. And the class will be decorated with ... flags of different countries of the world! She brought a volume of the encyclopedia with flags and told them to choose. Anyone other than the flag of the USA and Germany - "they are our enemies." There was a smart girl who immediately chose the flag of Japan, but I didn't choose it and went home to ask my grandmother what kind of fabric we have. And I found out - a lot of white, black ribbons, a little blue and red. Well, what country's flag can be built from this? South Korea, what else! We made poles for us, we fixed flags on them and ... went to demonstrate across the square under the slogans and calls: "Workers of all countries - unite", "Freedom to prisoners of capital!" and the song - "Comrades in prisons, in cold dungeons, we are with you, we are with you, even if you are not in the columns!" Gone ... and then a "responsible comrade" approaches our teacher and begins to reprimand her, as she admitted, that "this boy is walking with the flag of South Korea, and this girl is of Japan," and she is a "satellite of the USA!" I remember that I was scared then to stutter, but the word "satellite" seemed especially scary to me. That is, our… elementary ignorance has failed. Although yes, she taught us to read and write, solve problems and sew buttons! In four years! By the way, later this flag was very useful to me personally. We used it on Zarnitsa as the flag of the “opposing side”. That is, everything that you did with your hands will never be wasted. Of course, if you have a head on your shoulders, and not a head of cabbage!
Pericles (on the right on the stairs below the speaker) retires after speaking at the People's Assembly of Athens. Everything seems to be as it should, but ... in the same picture in the textbooks of the 50s, he has a Corinthian helmet on his head. Moreover, it was known that he really suits him, and that is why he wore it. It is unclear why it was removed in later revisions. After all, this is an established historical fact!
In the fifth grade, we had different teachers. There was more freedom, and the "Rusichka" became the class teacher. She came to the class, lifted us all up and scolded us for about 15 minutes for poor performance and behavior. Well, for the rest of the time, there was a lesson in the Russian language or literature. And in the end I slipped into triples in most subjects. Besides history ... Here I had only A's and holy love and affection from the woman who taught her. As a test - I'll be the first to answer! I drew battle plans with ink, drew pyramids and temples in section ... In a word, "I will be a historian" - it firmly stuck in my head just then!
The uprising of the "yellow bands". Somehow I could never comprehend the deep meaning of this picture. And I'm not alone. And if so, then ... why insert it into the textbook?
In the sixth grade, we had our first special subject - continental geography in English, and I had only A's in it, while in English there were solid Cs, which was very amazed by the teacher who taught her. "After all, you can, but ... you don't want to!" And I really did not understand why I needed this English language, because I was not going to be a translator!
And here - oh-oh-oh, not armor, but a solid fantasy, although the drawing itself is very good. A typical mixed mix, supplemented by “fictions”. It's just that its author, who lived in the USSR, has never been either in Dresden or in Vienna, and, most likely, in the Knight's Hall of the Hermitage
Here, however, my mother intervened in my attitude to study in the most serious way. “If you are a C grade student, you will go to the factory and become a worker. She told me. - If you are a worker, you will go to wash your first pay. You get drunk, you come home dirty and dirty (and the fact that workers come home on Saturdays just like that, I have seen more than once, because I lived on Proletarskaya Street!), And I will tear you from my heart and drive you out of the house! " Soviet education gave me the strength to protest: "And we are all equal!" - I told her this, but where could I argue with the lecturer of the RK KPSS. “On paper and in words - yes, but in deeds ... Look how your comrades live, and how you live. What do I wear to work, and what do their mothers and fathers wear? "
A city holiday on the square near the town hall, and in general everything is as it should be!
And since the way they live, what they eat and how they dressed was before my eyes, and the Kosygin reform had not yet begun, her words had an effect on me ... in the right way and burned into my heart like Cain's seal. And "I will tear you from my heart" seemed just awful. Knowing her character, I never doubted it for a minute. And ... he gave himself a vow to change for the better. Which turned out to be a very difficult matter.
Another non-historical "historical illustration". What kind of tournament is this, what century is it? And what is this "stick" in the knight's hand instead of a tournament spear as thick as a log, and where is the reason he controls the horse? In theory, the rarest form of a tournament with a barrier of the middle of the XNUMXth century is shown here, but something completely different should be shown - the tournament of the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries.
I went through the entire seventh grade in the struggle with myself. Only our Englishwoman, who became our class teacher, noticed my efforts. But ... she did not give me the slightest indulgence. “Do you want an A in English? Earn! " Now I understand how correct and good she was as a teacher, and that this was the only way to do it with me.
Not a bad illustration, although the timing is not entirely clear. And ... the hats are not the same. If the peasants on the left are robbed by the feudal lord, then they should not be dressed like that!
In the eighth grade they added English literature to us, and ... I got more worries. I still remember well how late at night I walked along the whitewashed Dutch stove and learned by heart the text about William Shakespeare: “William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in ...” Lord, what a difficult subject it was! It was necessary to know the biographies of English poets and writers, to learn by heart the poem by Robert Burns "My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here", to retell Kipling's "Mowgli" and to read the novel "The Citadel" by the Scottish writer Archibald Cronin in English. I had to talk about the work of H.G. Wells based on the novel "Mr. Blettsworthy on the Isle of Rempole" (who has not read, read ...), in a word, it was very difficult in all respects, although it was very useful for me.
Joan of Arc enters Orleans. Very nice drawing, isn't it? And everything seems to be on it as it should, and the horse saddle is beyond praise. And yet ... Why is Jeanne painted with her hair down? Well, this could not be, she could not not have a headdress, especially, being dressed in armor. They would pull out whole strands of her, falling into the joints between the armor! A trifle, of course, but ... the devil is just hiding in the details - it was said long ago and very correctly!
Then they added American literature, technical translation and ... oh joy! - military translation in addition to CWP. He was led by a military officer and an English teacher at the same time. It was necessary to describe in English the weapons and insignia of the British and American armies, disassemble, again commenting on this in English, the Kalashnikov assault rifle and another gift of fate - the English light machine gun Bran, and also learn to interrogate prisoners of war. "Now I will interrogate you and it is in your interests to truthfully answer all my questions ..."
All this was interesting, so, although not without difficulty, I nevertheless climbed to the top five by the tenth grade, somehow to the top four in Russian and physics, but for some reason chemistry was given to me very easily. But mathematics - well, nothing. However, the personality of the teacher, who had the nickname (and very telling!) "Pepin the Short", also played a role here. His favorite thing was ... to bully me:
- You say, Shevchenko, that you will be a historian, that you do not need mathematics! How do you go to college and pass the exam there?
- And now they don’t take historical mathematics to the teacher training school!
- How not to surrender?
- And so! Open the manual for applicants to universities, there all exams are listed in black and white!
- Well, you will be expelled from the first year. You won't pass math!
- And now there is no mathematics in history! Here is a curriculum for history with English. Well, where is the math here? Even she doesn't smell!
An absolutely awful picture. Except for the warrior (on the far right), everyone is dressed in something fancy. But the Mexican codes and images from them were already known. Who prevented you from looking and drawing everything as it should?
It is clear that such conversations did not add respect to him or to his subject from me. As for the tenth grade exam, seeing how I sit and suffer, our class teacher (holy woman!) Just took and brought a sheet of paper with solutions to all problems and examples. “Don't forget to make mistakes! She said at the same time. "And nobody will believe if you get five in algebra!" That's how I graduated from high school.
Now count how much English we had, and from the second grade: English itself, the geography of the continents in English, two years of English literature, a year of American literature, two years of technical translation and a year of military service (after which, by the way, we were given information about that we completed the course of military translation and received the specialty "military translator"). So the fact that even our C grade students knew him very well in comparison with ordinary schoolchildren is not at all surprising.
The hard work of the manufactory is shown here. But what makes it clear that it is heavy? This is not visible from the figure at all! Except that the two guys on the left are tense ...
And by the way, then I immediately understood why I was tormented with English for so many years. I started answering the college entrance exam ... and they asked me what school I graduated from. I answer ... "And it was necessary to start with this!" - they noticed to me. “We only lost time. Five - go! " So, again, from the top of my today's "afterbirth" and experience, I can say that the Unified State Exam for schools and universities in modern conditions is preferable to the old examination system, since it reduces subjectivity in the assessments of teachers and gives more chances for admission to universities for children from the countryside. This means that it increases the social mobility of our society!
It's funny that after graduating from this very "special school", and realizing how much education in it can give a child in terms of knowledge of a foreign language, I actually arranged for my daughter to study there as well. But ... there was something "wrong" with her. Then we did not catch the "wind of change". Because she had to study there with the "quick-rich" children of all kinds of "Duneks", and therefore there was an atmosphere ... "appropriate". In elementary school, the class teacher was an outright fool, even worse than mine in Soviet times. In high school, yes, the foreign language was in all its manifestations, but the rest of the subjects were ... "so-so." But studying there demanded a lot of money and practically no real return.
But this illustration is made on the basis of a medieval miniature and therefore does not raise any questions for it. Why shouldn't the rest of the illustrations for history textbooks be made just from old miniatures?
That is why we sent our granddaughter to the most ordinary school, where the primary school teacher was ... a good teacher, judging by the reviews on the Internet. It's good that by this time, by the way, such a thing as the Internet had appeared. And ... she taught her how to write and read, and taught her well. But in technical creativity, she was "not in the teeth" and, having also learned from the Internet who the granddaughter would learn from her, agreed with me that I would lead labor lessons for her, and even a technical circle. And everyone was happy! She was relieved of what was difficult for her. I just sat in class and checked my notebooks. And I had the opportunity to do with the guys what was interesting and easy for me, and what else no one would do with them. That is, by joint efforts we have built a wonderful educational process really at the level of the XXI century. Separate classes were conducted by my daughter, who at one time was engaged in needlework, so the "lessons" were interesting for both boys and girls. My wife spent children's matinees, holidays on March 8, and also the New Year, where again my daughter was the Snow Maiden. By the way, other parents also actively helped the classroom. A parent-music worker took over all the musical design of the events, the rest helped with the repairs, were on duty at the school, on the territory, in a word, everyone "did according to their abilities." And only in high school we got tired of doing this. Still, a lot depends on the personality of the class teacher! Therefore, when I hear calls from some to "improve" today's school, I always want to say: take it, and go to it, organize classes there with children and pass on your life experience, skills and knowledge to them. And then we all know how best "in words". But take it, and try it in practice!
To be continued ...
A scarlet tie blossomed on my chest.
Youth is raging like spring water.
Soon we will join the Komsomol -
So the school years go on.
(Evgeny Dolmatovsky. School years)
Youth is raging like spring water.
Soon we will join the Komsomol -
So the school years go on.
(Evgeny Dolmatovsky. School years)
I thought for a long time what kind of "pictures" to illustrate this material, so that everyone would be interested and at least a little instructive. Decided that it would be best to use illustrations from textbooks on stories for grades 5 and 6, because they, perhaps, even better than the text, tell about the level at which the teaching of these subjects was carried out, and whether it was the way it needed to be. For example, here's a great illustration of The Ishtar Gate in Babylon. " But ... nowhere in the textbook did it say that they were found, restored and are in a museum in the center of Berlin on a museum island. Or then, in the 60s, they were still not restored? Well, this is quite possible and even needed to be said ...
Memories of the past. In the last material about the school years in primary school in 1962-1966. I forgot to write about the most important and very funny "puncture" of my "first teacher", which took place on May 1, 1966. She had said a month earlier that our fourth grade had been honored by our first May Day demonstration. And the class will be decorated with ... flags of different countries of the world! She brought a volume of the encyclopedia with flags and told them to choose. Anyone other than the flag of the USA and Germany - "they are our enemies." There was a smart girl who immediately chose the flag of Japan, but I didn't choose it and went home to ask my grandmother what kind of fabric we have. And I found out - a lot of white, black ribbons, a little blue and red. Well, what country's flag can be built from this? South Korea, what else! We made poles for us, we fixed flags on them and ... went to demonstrate across the square under the slogans and calls: "Workers of all countries - unite", "Freedom to prisoners of capital!" and the song - "Comrades in prisons, in cold dungeons, we are with you, we are with you, even if you are not in the columns!" Gone ... and then a "responsible comrade" approaches our teacher and begins to reprimand her, as she admitted, that "this boy is walking with the flag of South Korea, and this girl is of Japan," and she is a "satellite of the USA!" I remember that I was scared then to stutter, but the word "satellite" seemed especially scary to me. That is, our… elementary ignorance has failed. Although yes, she taught us to read and write, solve problems and sew buttons! In four years! By the way, later this flag was very useful to me personally. We used it on Zarnitsa as the flag of the “opposing side”. That is, everything that you did with your hands will never be wasted. Of course, if you have a head on your shoulders, and not a head of cabbage!
Pericles (on the right on the stairs below the speaker) retires after speaking at the People's Assembly of Athens. Everything seems to be as it should, but ... in the same picture in the textbooks of the 50s, he has a Corinthian helmet on his head. Moreover, it was known that he really suits him, and that is why he wore it. It is unclear why it was removed in later revisions. After all, this is an established historical fact!
New teachers, more freedom, worse academic performance ...
In the fifth grade, we had different teachers. There was more freedom, and the "Rusichka" became the class teacher. She came to the class, lifted us all up and scolded us for about 15 minutes for poor performance and behavior. Well, for the rest of the time, there was a lesson in the Russian language or literature. And in the end I slipped into triples in most subjects. Besides history ... Here I had only A's and holy love and affection from the woman who taught her. As a test - I'll be the first to answer! I drew battle plans with ink, drew pyramids and temples in section ... In a word, "I will be a historian" - it firmly stuck in my head just then!
The uprising of the "yellow bands". Somehow I could never comprehend the deep meaning of this picture. And I'm not alone. And if so, then ... why insert it into the textbook?
In the sixth grade, we had our first special subject - continental geography in English, and I had only A's in it, while in English there were solid Cs, which was very amazed by the teacher who taught her. "After all, you can, but ... you don't want to!" And I really did not understand why I needed this English language, because I was not going to be a translator!
And here - oh-oh-oh, not armor, but a solid fantasy, although the drawing itself is very good. A typical mixed mix, supplemented by “fictions”. It's just that its author, who lived in the USSR, has never been either in Dresden or in Vienna, and, most likely, in the Knight's Hall of the Hermitage
Here, however, my mother intervened in my attitude to study in the most serious way. “If you are a C grade student, you will go to the factory and become a worker. She told me. - If you are a worker, you will go to wash your first pay. You get drunk, you come home dirty and dirty (and the fact that workers come home on Saturdays just like that, I have seen more than once, because I lived on Proletarskaya Street!), And I will tear you from my heart and drive you out of the house! " Soviet education gave me the strength to protest: "And we are all equal!" - I told her this, but where could I argue with the lecturer of the RK KPSS. “On paper and in words - yes, but in deeds ... Look how your comrades live, and how you live. What do I wear to work, and what do their mothers and fathers wear? "
A city holiday on the square near the town hall, and in general everything is as it should be!
And since the way they live, what they eat and how they dressed was before my eyes, and the Kosygin reform had not yet begun, her words had an effect on me ... in the right way and burned into my heart like Cain's seal. And "I will tear you from my heart" seemed just awful. Knowing her character, I never doubted it for a minute. And ... he gave himself a vow to change for the better. Which turned out to be a very difficult matter.
Another non-historical "historical illustration". What kind of tournament is this, what century is it? And what is this "stick" in the knight's hand instead of a tournament spear as thick as a log, and where is the reason he controls the horse? In theory, the rarest form of a tournament with a barrier of the middle of the XNUMXth century is shown here, but something completely different should be shown - the tournament of the XNUMXth-XNUMXth centuries.
It's easy to fall, it's hard to get up!
I went through the entire seventh grade in the struggle with myself. Only our Englishwoman, who became our class teacher, noticed my efforts. But ... she did not give me the slightest indulgence. “Do you want an A in English? Earn! " Now I understand how correct and good she was as a teacher, and that this was the only way to do it with me.
Not a bad illustration, although the timing is not entirely clear. And ... the hats are not the same. If the peasants on the left are robbed by the feudal lord, then they should not be dressed like that!
In the eighth grade they added English literature to us, and ... I got more worries. I still remember well how late at night I walked along the whitewashed Dutch stove and learned by heart the text about William Shakespeare: “William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon in ...” Lord, what a difficult subject it was! It was necessary to know the biographies of English poets and writers, to learn by heart the poem by Robert Burns "My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here", to retell Kipling's "Mowgli" and to read the novel "The Citadel" by the Scottish writer Archibald Cronin in English. I had to talk about the work of H.G. Wells based on the novel "Mr. Blettsworthy on the Isle of Rempole" (who has not read, read ...), in a word, it was very difficult in all respects, although it was very useful for me.
Joan of Arc enters Orleans. Very nice drawing, isn't it? And everything seems to be on it as it should, and the horse saddle is beyond praise. And yet ... Why is Jeanne painted with her hair down? Well, this could not be, she could not not have a headdress, especially, being dressed in armor. They would pull out whole strands of her, falling into the joints between the armor! A trifle, of course, but ... the devil is just hiding in the details - it was said long ago and very correctly!
Then they added American literature, technical translation and ... oh joy! - military translation in addition to CWP. He was led by a military officer and an English teacher at the same time. It was necessary to describe in English the weapons and insignia of the British and American armies, disassemble, again commenting on this in English, the Kalashnikov assault rifle and another gift of fate - the English light machine gun Bran, and also learn to interrogate prisoners of war. "Now I will interrogate you and it is in your interests to truthfully answer all my questions ..."
All this was interesting, so, although not without difficulty, I nevertheless climbed to the top five by the tenth grade, somehow to the top four in Russian and physics, but for some reason chemistry was given to me very easily. But mathematics - well, nothing. However, the personality of the teacher, who had the nickname (and very telling!) "Pepin the Short", also played a role here. His favorite thing was ... to bully me:
- You say, Shevchenko, that you will be a historian, that you do not need mathematics! How do you go to college and pass the exam there?
- And now they don’t take historical mathematics to the teacher training school!
- How not to surrender?
- And so! Open the manual for applicants to universities, there all exams are listed in black and white!
- Well, you will be expelled from the first year. You won't pass math!
- And now there is no mathematics in history! Here is a curriculum for history with English. Well, where is the math here? Even she doesn't smell!
An absolutely awful picture. Except for the warrior (on the far right), everyone is dressed in something fancy. But the Mexican codes and images from them were already known. Who prevented you from looking and drawing everything as it should?
It is clear that such conversations did not add respect to him or to his subject from me. As for the tenth grade exam, seeing how I sit and suffer, our class teacher (holy woman!) Just took and brought a sheet of paper with solutions to all problems and examples. “Don't forget to make mistakes! She said at the same time. "And nobody will believe if you get five in algebra!" That's how I graduated from high school.
Now count how much English we had, and from the second grade: English itself, the geography of the continents in English, two years of English literature, a year of American literature, two years of technical translation and a year of military service (after which, by the way, we were given information about that we completed the course of military translation and received the specialty "military translator"). So the fact that even our C grade students knew him very well in comparison with ordinary schoolchildren is not at all surprising.
The hard work of the manufactory is shown here. But what makes it clear that it is heavy? This is not visible from the figure at all! Except that the two guys on the left are tense ...
And by the way, then I immediately understood why I was tormented with English for so many years. I started answering the college entrance exam ... and they asked me what school I graduated from. I answer ... "And it was necessary to start with this!" - they noticed to me. “We only lost time. Five - go! " So, again, from the top of my today's "afterbirth" and experience, I can say that the Unified State Exam for schools and universities in modern conditions is preferable to the old examination system, since it reduces subjectivity in the assessments of teachers and gives more chances for admission to universities for children from the countryside. This means that it increases the social mobility of our society!
Keep track of time and keep up with it all the time!
It's funny that after graduating from this very "special school", and realizing how much education in it can give a child in terms of knowledge of a foreign language, I actually arranged for my daughter to study there as well. But ... there was something "wrong" with her. Then we did not catch the "wind of change". Because she had to study there with the "quick-rich" children of all kinds of "Duneks", and therefore there was an atmosphere ... "appropriate". In elementary school, the class teacher was an outright fool, even worse than mine in Soviet times. In high school, yes, the foreign language was in all its manifestations, but the rest of the subjects were ... "so-so." But studying there demanded a lot of money and practically no real return.
But this illustration is made on the basis of a medieval miniature and therefore does not raise any questions for it. Why shouldn't the rest of the illustrations for history textbooks be made just from old miniatures?
That is why we sent our granddaughter to the most ordinary school, where the primary school teacher was ... a good teacher, judging by the reviews on the Internet. It's good that by this time, by the way, such a thing as the Internet had appeared. And ... she taught her how to write and read, and taught her well. But in technical creativity, she was "not in the teeth" and, having also learned from the Internet who the granddaughter would learn from her, agreed with me that I would lead labor lessons for her, and even a technical circle. And everyone was happy! She was relieved of what was difficult for her. I just sat in class and checked my notebooks. And I had the opportunity to do with the guys what was interesting and easy for me, and what else no one would do with them. That is, by joint efforts we have built a wonderful educational process really at the level of the XXI century. Separate classes were conducted by my daughter, who at one time was engaged in needlework, so the "lessons" were interesting for both boys and girls. My wife spent children's matinees, holidays on March 8, and also the New Year, where again my daughter was the Snow Maiden. By the way, other parents also actively helped the classroom. A parent-music worker took over all the musical design of the events, the rest helped with the repairs, were on duty at the school, on the territory, in a word, everyone "did according to their abilities." And only in high school we got tired of doing this. Still, a lot depends on the personality of the class teacher! Therefore, when I hear calls from some to "improve" today's school, I always want to say: take it, and go to it, organize classes there with children and pass on your life experience, skills and knowledge to them. And then we all know how best "in words". But take it, and try it in practice!
To be continued ...
Information