Memories of school past and present
Learning at school can be an experience for your child with just a little help. Well, for example, a costume song review is being held at the school. What if you sing a song from the movie "Ivan Vasilyevich Changes His Profession"? "He rings with chain mail and speaks tenderly ...!" One of the parents provided boots, chain mail and helmets. I made a sword, shields and spears. The costume for Marusya is from the children's folk choir. And in the end, we got a memorable performance that everyone really liked.
Some talk about the past of our school:
Others argue that it is bad today.
But how many of the critics in education have worked? Do they know from their own experience how everything has changed there over the last half century?
Or their attitude to school is purely consumerist:
But maybe the parents should also help the school, eh?
Demolish patiently
Threats and insults
And do not ask for honors;
Be patient and honest
Do not be lazy a hundred times -
So that everyone understands -
Its repeating order.
(R. Kipling. "Burden of the Whites" Translation by V. Toporov)
Memories of the past. Not so long ago, two materials about the school appeared on VO. One (if I may say so) with a minus sign: today everything is bad, give us back the Soviet school, and ideally the USSR itself. And the second - with a plus sign, where, in general, commonplace things were explained.
Namely: that society develops as the tools of labor improve. New tools abolish old as well as ancient professions. Those of them that were in demand 20 years ago are no longer needed by anyone, but completely new ones are needed, which are not even taught. And if earlier the school had the task of teaching for a long time, today it is completely different - to help itself acquire the necessary knowledge in the required volume.
The most interesting thing, however, is that most of the commentators at the school have never worked. And they only refer to their school skills and the experience of their children.
Well, I will also not refer to different scientific data. And I'll tell you about my school observations. But not a student (I have already talked about this and will continue, but not now), but a teacher.
The simplest homemade product that can be done in elementary school with children for the sake of developing skills and abilities, well, let's say, by organizing a technical creativity circle in it, is a Papuan hut. It consists of only five parts.
This is how it looks when assembled. And you can also tell the children about the Papuans themselves and even show them on the projector screen! The hut itself can be hung from the tree!
Do you want Papuans? Are you an adherent of national log architecture? Here is an old Russian tower made of corrugated packaging. And it can also be hung on the tree. Well, the school needs to hold a competition of homemade Christmas tree decorations. And so that the prize for the best of them would be good!
I had to deal with work in a school, and in a rural one (secondary school in the village of Pokrovo-Berezovka, Kondolsky District, Penza Region) in 1977-1980, when my wife and I worked there in a direction. That is, they worked out our free diploma.
I personally had to teach (due to the lack of teachers) except stories and English (a specialty in a diploma), and also geography (from 5 to 9 grades), history with social studies, labor, and in addition also lead a technical circle. My wife taught English and history in elementary school, plus a home economics class.
Does your school have a pool? Wonderful! The raft of the zhangada just asks to turn it into a homemade model ... And you can also make with the guys models of rafts "Kon-Tiki", totoras, "Seven Sisters", "Nonparel". And, of course, each of them should be told while they are being made. Checked: in 40 minutes of the lesson you will meet!
The school had well-equipped and equipped classrooms for chemistry (led by the head teacher from the local), physics and biology (the same). The historical office was practically absent, it had to be drawn up from scratch.
And it was the same with English. Before me, they studied German for one year at school. And from the very first September, they did not know whether they would have a "language" or not. And, of course, they did not have textbooks.
This is the question of high-quality Soviet education according to a single standard ... Ha! Yes. This standard varied from village to village.
On April 12, they made such missiles with the kids. “Fly, fly, rockets, it's time for us to solve riddles, and reveal all earthly secrets and secrets around! (This song is like that!)
I did my internship at school No. 1 in the city of Penza, which both then and now is considered an elite educational institution. It is clear that I made a decent discount on the level of preparation of children for the first lesson. And everything seemed to be clear to them.
I am convinced that in the fifth grade, in the lessons of the history of the Ancient World, you can work with your hands. Such a pyramid of Cheops can be made by the labors of a small group of students. Stand - pizza packaging
And everyone can make a simple pyramid. Here is such (opening) can be built in the classroom of the history circle.
A week later I ask for a retelling of the paragraph. And in the class "Italian strike" - no one is ready!
I start to figure out what's the matter. And they explain to me that they were taught the wrong way (a retired teacher), that they in the classroom took turns reading the text by paragraph (!), Then they immediately retold it (what they read / read about). And so the whole lesson.
- the guys told me.
And then their teacher confirmed it to me.
But the fact remained. In grade 10, none of the students could retell even half a paragraph, although they listened to me attentively and with pleasure. And even two nicknames were awarded at once: "Buratino" (for my long nose) and "Directory". For the fact that I answered any of their questions, up to the following:
And this is a model of an ancient Greek temple. You ask him to do it at home in parts. And then you collect it right in front of the children before their eyes.
Since there were many consanguineous marriages in the villages around, there were children with congenital deformities among the students. And sometimes even smart ones!
It was worse with those on whom kinship was reflected not externally, but influenced the brain. There were children who were able to remember everything, but did not understand anything. And those who couldn't remember anything at all. And they all studied together with ordinary children. It is clear that this created a lot of problems with discipline and interfered with the training of those who were all right with their heads.
In the 6th grade, God himself ordered the children to make a model of a knight's castle and such a throwing machine from 10 logs rolled on a pencil.
There was also a labor office at school. Workbenches, planes, axes, hammers ...
I tell the director:
And he told me:
The same about the circle ...
But the main problem was the requirements. Yes Yes. Requirements for us, teachers, from the district.
Commentators write that the task of the Soviet school was to educate a creator? No it is not! We were told:
That is, how is it? And like this: to stay!
But "the goat understands" that if the child studies well, he will try to leave for the city, and he will not go to milkmaids, let alone cowgirls. So, we should not teach, but imitate the learning process?
But how do you like such a bus or a car made of packaging cardboard? The competition for the best home-made car for dolls among primary school students is so straightforward to arrange and you want to ... Or a rally of such cars along the school corridors, and let the racers pull them by the string!
No problem.
But there were checks? And then it was required to show that you at least taught the children something? And the children themselves are not so fools? Among them were the children of teachers, state farm managers, office workers. They would have figured it out quickly. With all the consequences ...
But there were those who (especially boys) came up to me and said so bluntly:
And these boys were three times right.
Well, where did you see the combiner reading Shakespeare in the original? He doesn't need it at all!
I answered him:
And they did not bother me, they played sea battle.
But then they had to take the 10th grade exam? And not to me alone, but to the commission and in the presence of the head. district.
It's good that one of them's nerves broke down. And he said so bluntly that he did not need this English, because he would work with his father on the combine.
We gave them three. And so the whole thing ended.
That is, everything was within the framework of Soviet traditions: one thing was asserted, people thought differently, and often said and did exactly the opposite of what was said. And it was such a cognitive dissonance that God forbid!
This is an airplane that can be put on an elementary school child. The propeller rotates from the incoming air flow. We conduct “Air Races of Aircraft of the Great Patriotic War. The aircraft of the hero pilot Kozhedub and the hero pilot Pokryshkin are at the start! " It is necessary that the planes be at least a little like real ones, and you can estimate the "copy number" and "speed". It is not difficult to make such a plane. Checked! And you can make a four-engine "bomber", and let the guys "fly out" on the stage and sing: "We are flying, hobbling in the darkness ...". And then this verse: "Messerschmidt" was shot down by us, and the car flies on parole and on one wing! " The success of this performance is guaranteed!
I returned to the city.
And I can't even think about working at school. And there are no vacant places in universities.
I went to the OblSYUT - the regional station of young technicians. And he began to lead a circle there part-time. Half-time is 15 children and every Sunday there is two academic hours. Oblono was directly subordinate to Oblono, so the supply there was much better than in my Berezovka.
But I did the first lesson, my children made a vibrating walk from a soap dish, and bought in advance a soap dish and four toothbrushes, which cost them 1 ruble. I gave them two DP-10 micromotors (2 rubles), and by the end of the lesson we had already organized a competition: "Races of vibrating walkers." Naturally, the children took their models home.
For the second lesson, I ask for two more motors. And the director says to me - figs you, you ate the monthly limit! I'm going to the chief accountant Oblono. And he told me -
But we are educating the creator, we are sailing into tomorrow, our spaceships are sailing ...
And he told me:
The situation changed a little, only when my guys for the first time in the history of the Penza Oblast Regional Union received gold medals of the USSR Exhibition of Economic Achievements. But again - not much.
But then I gathered a meeting of parents, explained everything to them and asked them to give the children money. And in return they will bring you their homemade products, and you will see that I do not save up for the Zaporozhets. And all parents reacted to this with full understanding. And there were no problems with the supply in my circle.
But on the other hand, classes from free became paid. But high quality. And for those who were dear, I advised the circle "Cut and glue from paper."
Even an ancient Greek helmet, it turns out, is not difficult at all to be made of paper, and even with a comb.
Then my daughter went to school.
But we made a big mistake due to the inertia of thinking: we sent it to my own 6th special school with English from the second grade.
And she got to the most perfect unfortunate teacher, even worse than the one that taught me there in primary school. As a result, my daughter, of course, began to know the language, but learning there was very uncomfortable from the very beginning.
I led a circle there again and the lessons in it confirmed everything that I had written about by that time in my books "From everything that is at hand", "When the lessons are done", "For those who love tinkering." That is, the level of technology of these books corresponded to the level of preparation of children for school at the level of 1–4, up to 5–6 grades.
Years have passed.
And ten years ago my granddaughter went to school. Here we were smarter: we sent her not to a prestigious school, but into the hands of a good teacher, whom we found on the Internet. By the way, the school where she worked was literally next to our house. Which was convenient in every way.
Now we both went to school with her: me and my daughter.
We talked to the teacher. And she confessed to us that she hated the lessons of labor, and the circle of technical creativity was a thing that was completely inaccessible to her. Well, so we freed her from this for the entire training period.
I specialized more in homemade products with a technical bias, and my daughter specialized in aesthetic: greeting cards for mothers in scrapbooking style, 3D drawing of my own hand ...
The wife organized Christmas trees on March 8. One of the parents was in charge of all the music.
By the way, my studies helped to clarify an interesting fact. Children in terms of development of finger motor skills and creativity began to lag by about a year behind those children on whom my books were written. That is, from children of the 70s-80s of the twentieth century.
What I gave then already in the first grade was hardly done here in the second.
But what does this mean?
And that in a family, parents are not engaged in the development of creative skills in children. They did not do this even then, but the children themselves were placed in such conditions that they cut, sawed, glued. And today they do not need this. Press the buttons and the whole world is in your pocket.
So, it is not the school that makes the children stupid, but first of all, the parents themselves do it even before it. They don't know that a child's mind is at his fingertips.
And another thing: 80% of the children in the class coped with the task, and 20% - well, not at all. Their hands did not grow from there. And of those eighty percent, 20% had good jobs, and the remaining 60% had poor jobs. Interesting, isn't it?
In high school, we did not see the effect of such cooperation and it was stopped. They decided to finish 9 classes together and chose a college where the granddaughter would be comfortable studying. And she gets the bulk of knowledge from us herself. Remotely. And he copes with it perfectly.
And this is what all our common experience of both teachers and parents now says: we must learn from the very beginning in a team. This is a necessary socialization. Then your child will have to communicate with "goats" and with idiots, and ...
In short, let him get used to it, while the "goats" are still small. With large ones, it will be more difficult. Isolating children at home is a very poor teaching technique.
Next.
Today, when sending a child to study, you need to choose not a school, but a teacher. After elementary school, when he receives a solid base of primary knowledge, he can already select a school.
But after the 9th grade, it makes no sense to go to school today. This, from my point of view, is a waste of time.
By the way, today I would even send my child to a rural school (of those that are closer to the city!). After all, it is now better there with a basic level of knowledge. And with food. They steal less and therefore feed them less disgusting. Only a car is needed for the village. Plus free time.
One more conclusion.
Everything comes from the family. If the mother is "dunka" and the father is half-drunk "Vanka", then no school will fix their child.
Want your child to read books: read them to him from an early age. And read them yourself constantly.
If you want him to have a healthy stomach, forget about sugary sodas and acrylamide chips. Both you and his food should be healthy.
Bad food at school? Just tell me my baby doesn't eat that.
And a child swam with fat is, first of all, an oversight on the part of his parents.
Is the child not doing well in some subject? There is no need to scold him. Hire a good tutor better. You cannot save on your children. It's like a bank where you save money at a very high percentage of capitalization.
In summer, the school often organizes summer camps. Great, so let the children there make models of armor under your guidance and weapons... And they shoot at targets from a bow. Here in this camp the children made helmets from the Wendel era.
And, of course, our Russian nobles were right when they sent their offspring to travel abroad for education.
Our granddaughter, for example, has been traveling around Russia and abroad since she was three years old. We started with Yeisk and finished with Loriet de Mar in Spain, Monaco and Vienna. But on the other hand, she does not hesitate and speaks English, and she can make an order in a restaurant herself, and ask a police officer, and say the word "no", which is very important and which even many adults in our country do not know how.
In a word, you cannot save on children here either. Anything that increases their chances of success in later life should give them.
In order for a child to read books, one must start by reading them to him. Only then will he acquire a taste for reading. No school of love for the book can instill in a child!
So, as you can see, today's school is a reflection of what we have at home. This is first and foremost.
И She's not as bad as she seems.
And it is in our power to make the good even better, and the bad - let's say, just bypass (so that we don't get into trouble!), As we go around a dirty puddle on the asphalt. If you have neither the strength nor the desire to take the broom and sweep it.
PS
By the way, great changes have taken place in my Pokrovo-Berezovka. Once, on the way from Saratov, my daughter and granddaughter stopped by there. The house where we lived disappeared, collapsed, but there is asphalt all around, the road there is also asphalted. And the economy is booming. As they were told, an intelligent owner started up. It will be necessary to find out in more detail everything. And write about it. And then after all we all repeat -
Only now, it turns out that fields are not overgrown everywhere in Russia.
And in fact, not all villages are now dying out!
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