New schools
This is what the 6th Linguistic Gymnasium looks like today from the adjacent park. There was a lot of greenery in the past, and there is a lot today - alpine hills and flowers. But today it’s all under the snow...
...and you will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free.
Gospel of John 8:32
and the truth will set you free.
Gospel of John 8:32
People and culture. Periodically, articles about the shortcomings of modern schools appear on the VO website. And this is right, because the school prepares our replacements, raises patriots of their country, future potential defenders. Therefore, its shortcomings need to be revealed and dealt with. But... at the same time, few of those who write about them visit schools themselves and talk with their directors and students. That is, it provides information from hearsay, and this is clearly not enough today.
There are, of course, also parents who express their opinions based on the words of their children. But what can a student know about the work of his teachers, their salaries, etc., when there are even people here at VO who did not know, as it turned out, that teachers have two months of vacation. It was like that in the USSR and remains the same today. Both at school and at university!
Therefore, I think it would be useful to tell about a modern school to a person who worked in it (albeit periodically) for many years and who also had the opportunity to observe the same “kids” coming to the university after school, so to speak, to see all the results of their work .
And this is the renovated school No. 47. An ordinary school in all respects. But now it’s very warm
Let's start with the purely... external perception of students. Since my granddaughter graduated from the 9th grade and entered college, I, of course, never went to the school where she studied. Young children running and screaming, some strange high school students... In a word, all this did not inspire me.
And then I had to go on business to one of the nearby schools, where renovations had been going on all summer before. He came and, first of all, did not recognize the children; it was as if they had been replaced. The kids run around, but somehow in a human way. And older schoolchildren look more serious, they talk about serious things. In my presence, a whole group went to some kind of creative conference, and it was clear that they were clearly interested in it.
Recent meeting of graduates of the 6th linguistic gymnasium. Due to... the spread of all sorts of illnesses, it was very short. And yet, those gathered danced and sang... And what a parquet floor there is! Glitter, and that’s all!
Talked to the teacher stories. Children became interested in homemade models and layouts, she told me. Moreover, after looking at what they were shown in class, they try to do something themselves at home, here’s how. Mobile phones are increasingly being used not only to chat, but also to get the information they need from the Internet, that is, the process of self-learning and self-management has begun.
I went to another school to check my observations. True, this school is more the exception than the rule. 6th Linguistic Gymnasium, where children are selected, and getting there is not at all easy, just like studying. The children there have wealthy parents and are very ambitious in nature, but even there their seriousness and focus on learning caught my eye.
However, almost at the same time I had to meet sixth-graders from two other schools. There was only one “typical kid” from “the school of my time” and “my granddaughter’s school” (2010–2019), and only in one class, and he began to “get excited,” but I quickly put him in his place. And everyone else, again, was quite serious for their age, and most importantly, they asked very smart questions that were a pleasure to answer. That is, our children have clearly become wiser, and this cannot but rejoice.
It is possible that the consequences of nuclear tests have finally ceased to operate, since children become stupid from the radiation that entered the pituitary gland, or some other social factors have begun to operate, I cannot say, but I cannot help but note the fact itself.
A very funny girl sang about teacher problems. Well, the children from the “sixth” have always been distinguished by their relaxedness...
True, there is also a negative in this.
At the same gymnasium they told me that their two most successful students, who took some super places at all-Russian competitions, were immediately invited to study at a special school in Moscow. The level of training there is prohibitive, not all stress can be withstood, and besides, you have to live far from home.
But this is the result: the girl, who studied English and French at the gymnasium, also began to study German, and entered MGIMO, and the boy is also already studying at Moscow State University, and was accepted there without exams. “Moscow,” they told me, “is sucking out all our best students from our best Penza schools like a vacuum cleaner!” And this is the opinion not even of an ordinary teacher, but of a director, a person who is far from the last in the school education system and communicates with both the authorities and other directors.
It’s nice that many of the school’s classrooms have begun to look like museums... There is something to look at in class and admire a beautiful artifact from the last century
And now this: if this process is happening everywhere, and this is exactly how it should be, then... We are not threatened by a lack of talent in the country, nor by a decline in the level of education in general.
By the way, everyone doesn’t need him tall and doesn’t need him. I know a boy whose “father was imprisoned”, whose mother… was a “slut”, twice his physical teacher and military instructor brought him to school drunk “to the point of amazement”. So what kind of education does he have? They didn’t even take him to a driver’s course after school (!), and now the “child” is serving in the army, and everyone hopes (in my opinion, completely in vain) that she will rehabilitate him. And there are such “children” in both urban and rural schools. So let them go and rake them out from under the cows. Someone should, right?
A modern school also means modern scientific and technical support. In both schools it is excellent. Electronic boards, computers, televisions - all this is available and used. Maybe not in all classes yet. But this is where things are heading, and besides, staring at a TV screen all the time is harmful. Let them occasionally look at the brown board with linoleum for the sake of interest.
This is a writing instrument from my childhood!
But it was cold at the school where my granddaughter studied. The heating system did not work well, the windows were old. And the “class girl” also required a dress code. Well, aren't you stupid? But this year everything has changed at this school.
More than a dozen Penza schools were allocated amounts in the amount of 104 million rubles for repairs. The 47th received 94 million, the 6th gymnasium - 24. The first had all its walls insulated with glass wool and repainted them. New heating equipment was installed and the roof was re-roofed. And it became not a school, but a candy! And for some reason it immediately stopped smelling like yesterday’s cabbage soup... The sports ground was built for them by Gazprom as a gift exactly on September 1st.
Well, in the 6th gymnasium, the roof was redone and the facade was updated. But there are other problems. It was built in 1920! On two floors. And only then they built a third one. And the pipe factory built it for itself, and later the ZIF, and built it from homemade bricks, so today they are crumbling. Moreover, the school was overhauled 17 years ago, but it didn’t help either. A new building is needed, and they are thinking about it today...
With such a device we needed in 1962–1972. They showed it at film school!
Now about the problems.
The low salary of a beginning teacher is the main one. Only 12 thousand rubles. Moreover, in Moscow it is much higher, and an experienced teacher, without straining, receives 150 thousand. Therefore, for example, in the 6th gymnasium for two years now they have not been able to find another mathematician and two workers teach... 40 hours a week. This seems to be good for the salary. But... the level of load this gives is prohibitive. But they also have their own families.
Previously, the school was left with all the money it earned from additional foreign classes and TOEFL exams. And they used it to pay cleaners extra and buy televisions and electronic equipment. Now every penny goes to the budget. It is clear that foreign teachers supplement their work by tutoring, but... this, again, is difficult. A teacher must learn himself, and throughout his life. Read books, go to the theater and conservatory, have the opportunity to knit in your spare time, play sports.
And under this regime, what kind of sport? The modern teacher is also bullied by a lot of all sorts of papers. Why so many? And after all, everyone understands this, but for some reason there are not fewer of them...
But the most annoying thing is the requirement... to write text messages to students and their parents. Report how their children are learning, “keep their finger on the pulse.” Is it necessary?
Those parents who “need”, they will find out everything anyway, call the school and come there in person. And for those who “don’t need it”, who really don’t care about children, such “care” is useless. And again - the child has grown up - “neither here nor there” - let him go to “dirty work of digging the earth.”
There is no need to be sad about this at all. It is not people, but the Lord God himself who divides children into lambs and goats. And so it was, and so it will be, and no amount of text messages can correct it. Mitrofanushka D.I. Fonvizin was taught by two home teachers at once, and what’s the point?
In this sense, no amount of electronics will solve anything. We need to set an iron rule: parents educate, school teaches. A child learns more about life before the age of five than during the rest of his adult life until death, and that says it all. So the school already receives a personality, and it is physically unable to deal with its correction.
And, of course, it depends only on the parents where their children will go to study: to college after nine years, or to a university after eleventh grade!
PS
Many people here like to remember how many different circles there were in the Soviet era, and “all of them were free.” Well, since the author himself worked for three whole years at the Penza Regional Station for Young Technicians, it makes sense to remember what it was like then (1980–1983), and what it is like now, and what is there today. An article about it is already being prepared.
Former Penza Regional Station for Young Technicians. Crossroads of Lermontov and Kirov streets
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