"I'm loving" or about the problem of raising and educating children

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The famous teacher Dima Zitser is a practitioner who has been engaged in non-formal education for a quarter of a century. In his pedagogical philosophy, children are not tin soldiers, who clearly need to be taught a set of disciplines and taught to follow the rules. Zitser says that children need to be loved. And he loves.

He is also not afraid to call a spade a spade, and sometimes it sounds harsh and sobering. Read the most interesting excerpts from Dima Zitser's speeches:

Family and school: decide which side are you on?

Why do you need a family? For communication, for real, deep relationships. I need a family, because with these people I can do what is impossible to do without them. And if you say to me, "Wait, but we can do almost anything without them," then maybe this is a good reason not to be a family? I am convinced that family is about love. In practice, almost all families have a policy of "My dad and I decided so, but keep your mouth shut!" That is, the smallest family member is excluded from deep relationships.

Here comes a child from school:

This is Love? This is commonly referred to as parenting. And at what point does love begin?

"But I love my child!" - you say. This is such a wonderful parental excuse. You know, in my life I have never met a single school teacher or parent who would say to me: "I do not like children." At the same time, I saw so many adults who did amazing nasty things under the banner "I'm loving." 99% of adults with this phrase give themselves indulgence for anything: manipulation, tyranny, even cruelty.

We find ourselves in a crazy conflict, and a natural question arises - how then to be? Not to insist, not to force you to do your homework, to let everything take its course? We are under multi-vector pressure. On the one hand, the school, on the other - the grandmother, who knows exactly how it should be, on the third - the tolerant community, which condemns for a slap on the buttocks.

What about the school? How to reconcile the love for the child and the demands of the school, if the school is a priori an institution of suppression? Usually, parents motivate the child by the fact that it is great at school, there are friends, communication, interesting activities. And I always say: stop dissembling, there is nothing cool at school. You can make friends without school, and from classes a maximum of 6-7% is absorbed, and even less comes in handy later in adult life.

Realize that the school is an educational provider

A month ago, at my reception, a wonderful, intelligent mother said: “Dima, what should we do? School is so g … but I'm sorry. But you have to learn. " I ask: "What, there is no good school in Moscow, which would be pleasant to your child?" She says: "There are, of course, but in Chertanovo." I say: "Well, then move." Answer: "Are you out of your mind?"

So is it really important to you, the first priority, if you are not prepared for the inconvenience for the sake of the child? Then stop lying, parents, that you do not sleep at night from anxiety. You have the first priority - where you live, and only the second - how you live. And the third - so that you are not touched and everything will somehow work itself out. This is parental relaxation - to endure and close your eyes when the child is ill.

Another popular excuse: there is no way out, this is how everything has been established from century to century. Yes, school is an egalitarianism and a concentration camp, but nothing can be done about it. These are all lies from the first to the last word. Why does the school look the way it looks? Who made it?

You know, there is a story about Picasso. He was finishing painting "Guernica" on the theme of the Second World War (a Spanish city turned upside down, monsters), when a young fascist burst in to him. He stopped in amazement in front of this picture and exhaled: "My God, did you do this?" To which Picasso replied: "No, you did it."

The school is like that, guys, because you made it. It's a simple story. Just tell the teacher: "You will not shout at my child," "I forbid raising my voice at him," "I forbid humiliating him."

It's so easy to really understand that a parent meeting is actually a meeting of parents, and for parents to evaluate the quality of the educational services provided to you. And not to be in awe of Bagheera Panther in the form of a teacher or headmaster. From the point of view of the law on education, you and your children are the customers of education. Otherwise, it turns out to be a completely perverted "love" with which we began our conversation. At this moment we have not love, but a conspiracy. Collusion of one strong group of the population (parents and teachers) against another, weak group of the population - children. This is called in simple language discrimination.

We have almost eliminated discrimination against women. For example, 200 years ago there would not have been a single aunt in this room. Do you know why? Because men, relying on the most modern theories at that time, were convinced that a woman's brain is small, her nature is vicious, her place is in the kitchen. And if you let her out of the house, she will go and give herself to the first person she meets, for she is a thoughtless and sinful creature. We laugh at it today or resent it.

But 200 years ago from a historical perspective is yesterday. Likewise, there would not be a single person in this room with a different skin color, different nationality, etc. We sort of figured it out with this. But look at how convenient we are to inscribe discrimination against children in our lives - they are also stupid, not thinking anything, in need of total control and distribution of instructions.

And we tell them that we know how to do it, we know how to arrange their life. We are convinced that at this moment we suffer terribly and worry about them, we strain, we try our best, and they, ungrateful brutes, are completely unable to appreciate it. So, my dears, this is an absolutely discriminatory model from start to finish. It turns out that we are not on their side at all.

Question: when was the last time, as customers of an educational service, formulated your order? Example of an order: "I do not allow yelling at my child." Or "Why should children sit in this position in the classroom - on the edge of a chair, with their hands in front of them?" Why is this so, if it is natural for a child to be motion, and not static? At least asking a question is already an order. At the same time, it is possible and necessary to offer options. If you deny something, offer it. If you ask questions, offer them.

Our teachers often proudly say: "Nobody dares to utter a word in my class." Here, they say, what a gorgeous discipline and order! My fly won't fly in the classroom! Sorry, but the silence in the class is a sign of what? The fact that the lesson takes place in the cemetery, most likely. Because when we are learning and when we are interested, we talk incessantly.

A friend comes to you, a girlfriend, you sit down, pour some tea, and what, will you speak with your raised hand? Yes, we interrupt each other, argue and cannot stop! And here - deathly silence. Why is it the way they teach at school? This is an order. I am not for parental scandals, I am for a clear understanding of why, why and for what. Try to clarify these issues - so we de facto, and not in words, go over to the side of the children.

Quite often, by the fifth or seventh grade, our children are in complete despair. Outwardly, everything is calm, but inside there is a heaviness and a nightmare: you cannot protest, you cannot ask "uncomfortable" questions, because there is someone nearby who decided everything for us. Say that the teacher is also in a subordinate position? Is the Ministry of Education pressing on them and releasing all the directives from there? Forgive me, I have worked and work in different schools. It is not true.

The moment the teacher closes the door to the classroom, what happens outside the door is in the teacher's hands. There are more good teachers than bad ones, I am 100% sure of that. Does the ministry give instructions: shout, humiliate? Or maybe the ministry prohibits teaching the subject in such a way that children open their mouths with delight? What exactly does the ministry prohibit doing? Does it forbid to sit down so that children can see each other's faces and can interact, because this is the motor of interest? Doesn't prohibit. I repeat: the school we have today is a silent order of parents.

What do I suggest?

1. Take a pen and paper and write what love is in practice.

2. To take the side of the child, come to school and ask: why do they sit like that, why do they communicate like that, why the lessons are arranged in this way and is it possible in any other way? Suggest: why don't we have a nice general get-together on this topic? Why don't we rotate the desks in the classroom so that the children are looking at each other? It's so easy to do. I know what you are thinking now: who will give us? Who will listen to us? And the problem is precisely in this, and not in the formidable ministry or teachers.

In my opinion, you need to make a decision that you will not try to be good for the school.

When a child comes to you and says: “Mom, I can’t take it anymore. I am finished, I am drowning in this geography, I feel bad, I have no friends there ", etc., a rather strange answer at this moment:" Be patient, baby, all this will pass in 11 years. " How to sit for a murder: "Be patient, kitty." I have only one question - why? Understand correctly, I am not urging you to relax. On the contrary, I say “strain”, because a relaxed state is just like saying: “Learn geography. I taught, and you will not go anywhere."

Don't set up a home concentration camp

For a child of six or seven, mom is always right. "Eat porridge, otherwise you will be sick and weak." But I, a man of five years old, understand that I do not want porridge. But mom is right. And here's a cognitive dissonance. Do you want your child to do well with personal taste, so that he understands what he loves and what does not?

Right now, at this moment, he develops his own taste, and not only in relation to porridge. Do you want your child to do well with thermoregulation? Remove phrases like: "I said, put on a hat!" From the lexicon. Do you understand that it will be filmed around the corner? That at this moment you are organizing a wonderful game "Come on, lie to your mother", which supplants the bodily sense of self: am I hot or cold now? Do you want children to understand and not confuse the state of satiety with the state of hunger? Do not force to finish. Hear the child, feel it.

Recently there was a question from a young mother: "How can I explain to a child what is good and what is bad?" I will only say one word: relax. Why? Because by the time the child was seven months old, he was counting so many things from you, from your behavior - good, bad, different, such and such - that “Mama don’t cry!” The best thing to do is live cool, live passionately, so that everyone is jealous. Be bright, get carried away, saturate life with events. Hammer on his mugs, screw it up! At that moment, when the mother is passionately working, or enthusiastically frying cutlets, or dancing salsa, the child gets the best example in the world when he wants to live and wants to go forward.

Or such an example: a 15-year-old daughter says: "Mom, I'll come at 10 pm." At 10 she's gone. At 10-15 she's gone. At 10-30 she is not, and at 11 she is not. At 11-20 the door opens, this bastard comes in. Happy! It's okay to be late, but the mother's heart cannot bear the last fact, can it? How many times have I heard from my parents that there is nothing more important than childhood happiness … So it came to you. Then the scenario is standard: “How could you ?! If only she called and warned! No more parties, you sit at home!"

Why is this happening? You tell me - because mom is afraid. Indeed, my mother is afraid, but is it good because of her own fear of taking other people hostage? This is the first thing. Second: if your daughter comes at 10, as promised, what do you think, mom will calm down? She will have a new fear.

Third: let's figure out why my daughter didn't call? Because what for to call her? Her only opportunity to be happy and have a good time is to steal that hour and a half from her mother. Steal, because my mother does not give them away. Because my mother said, “I have a monopoly on your body. I have a monopoly on your time. I have a monopoly on your friends."

How to make your daughter call? It's very simple - she should want to call you: "Mom, I kissed for the first time." Do you think this does not happen? It happens. We call whoever we want to call. And if the call is the maximum that I can hear: "Well, quickly go home!", Why should I run into something?

Overcome the "inner beast"

How can an anxious mom set herself up? In short, all our emotions are localized in the body and tied to physical sensations. The moment you are ready to shout: "Come on, go learn your lessons," stop, feel the tension in your throat, in your hands, which spontaneously clench into fists. Breathe in deeply, try to relax. Shake with brushes.

When angry, save that grimace that is on your face and bring it to the mirror. You will be horrified - this is what your child and loved ones see every time. Relax the muscles of your face, try to smile a little - it's like a shot of vitamins.

It is our biological origin that makes us make faces: an animal frightens another animal. But are we human? When you approach a buffet in Turkey, your survival instinct whispers to you "Eat it all!" Most people handle this story, right? We say to ourselves: "Calm down, the food will be tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, everything is in order." The impulse "devour your neighbor" is stopped in the same way: "It's okay, now I will drink water, breathe and calm down."