The modern school system of education or the upbringing of a slave

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

"The idea of sending children to some kind of godly institution, where they will be taught by strangers according to programs drawn up by politicians and high-brow theorists, is in itself so absurd and divorced from the child's real needs, that one can only wonder how it managed to come true."

Stephen Harrison, Happy Child

"It is ridiculous and impossible to believe today that the word" school "itself comes from the ancient Greek root meaning leisure!"

Marina Kosmina, Education and Career magazine

It is unlikely that today anyone will argue that the current model of education is more like a conveyor belt for stamping cogs of an economic mechanism than a system that contributes to the development of a FREE personality. Well, in principle, this is understandable. The state does not need free individuals. But what are the parents thinking ?!

Apparently, the parents were so carried away by teaching children that they forgot that the very essence of a child's education is creating his happy life. After all, it is a happy life that we sincerely wish for both our children and ourselves.

Most of the parents I know, as well as the teachers, are terribly dissatisfied with the modern secondary school. But, nevertheless, no one is trying to change anything … In the end, the majority went through this system and consider it the only possible one.

Have they forgotten their own hatred of the dictatorship of the school? Let's open the encyclopedia: "Totalitarianism: one of the forms of the state (totalitarian state), characterized by its complete (total) control over all spheres of society, the actual elimination of constitutional rights and freedoms, repression against the opposition and dissidents." Don't you think this is about our school ?!

“Yes, that's right,” notes journalist Marina Kosmina, “the classroom education system, with all the attributes of its terror over personal freedom, is, first of all, in principle hostile to the child and necrophilic. And secondly, it is hopelessly outdated."

Everything that we are accustomed to consider the unshakable foundation, the essence of the school, the norm of its organization - this whole School Regime, which, we hope, disciplines them and teaches them to work (especially intellectual), to life in society with its need for daily work in general and on itself in particular, with its schedules, schedules, plans and deadlines, with the inevitability of obedience and a super-demand for diligence - and so, this entire school regime is actually just a punitive-compulsory system that does not allow the child to breathe freely, live and develop. That's why they hate her so amicably and consistently.

And in such conditions, no matter how sorry, the school teaches not so much mathematics and chemistry as it gives lessons in the ability to dodge, deceive, adapt to the pressure of force and power, lie, betray.

This is not a fantasy. This is reality…

So let's try to figure it out: a) what is more of a modern school - harm or benefit, and b) is a modern school really the only possible way for your child's education …

Development, creativity, self-confidence

Did you not notice that your children, before they went to school, simply sparkled with creative impulses, showed keen interest in everything and gushed with ideas and insights? Several years of school have passed and where did it all go?

I remember that Korney Chukovsky was the first to publish the book "From two to five", in which he published the statements of children of this age. After that, many books of this kind appeared. Children say amazing, paradoxical things. But why are there no books with the statements of children from 14 to 18 years old, why at this age teenagers (for the most part) speak only platitudes? Obviously, children under five are more creative than well-trained students.

As Stephen Harrison rightly notes, “existing pedagogical systems assume that a child's attention must be held. But is the child so imperfect? Doesn't it initially carry in itself curiosity, creativity, desire to communicate - all that for which the education system fights so hard? From the very beginning, don't children strive to learn how to do something, accumulate information and communicate much more effectively than adults?"

Why do we decide for the child what he needs to teach and how many hours a day? Why does a child not have the right to spontaneously build the trajectory of his education, making his way into the sea of information following his independent interest, or must he absorb the measure of the cultural experience of humanity measured by adults - passively, with resistance, superficially, with failures, but according to the plan?

When I sent my daughter to kindergarten, she went there for exactly a week, and then flatly refused. When asked why? the three-year-old man replied: "Everything is the same there" … Einstein would not have said more succinctly. And the garden is not a school yet!

A modern school is classes of 30 people, where children of the same age study according to the same curriculum with the same teaching speed … development by several orders of magnitude increases in all (!!!) ages communicating … In this respect, the yard, with its set of complex communication situations and child's choices, contributes much more to the development of your child than the school class. And in general, memorizing, acting according to a template is the lowest level of thinking skills, and the school, alas, does not offer anything else …

“Is a child engaged in mental work, who for ten years is weaned from creating, that is, to really think, and forced to engage only in memorizing and reproducing patterns? And in what society can a graduate really adapt? Is that at the university. I agree: the only vital task that yesterday's eleventh-grader is really able to solve is to enter a university, "notes the teacher of St. Petersburg University, author of the book" Introduction to the humanitarian examination of education ", Sergei Leonidovich Bratchenko.

Four questions about school:

• What happens to the child's self-confidence in school? With his ability to lean on himself? With his willingness to solve his problems from the standpoint of the author and master of his life? School - does it help every child to believe in themselves more, or vice versa?

• How does the child understand and feel himself? How does he know his strengths and weaknesses, his resources? Does school help him understand himself? Or is she giving him illusions? Or, on the contrary, does she generally turn him away from the desire to know himself?

• What makes the school with the child's ability to live among people - just as free, just as unique? What methods of resolving inevitable contradictions between people does the school show to children using the example of intraschool relations? Does the school develop the ability to understand others, to accept despite all differences, to empathize with them and to negotiate with them? Or does she know one principle: Get out of class?

• To what extent does the child develop a craving for building their own life? How much does he understand that life is the result of his efforts? How ready is he to cope with difficulties, how much courage he has? Does he understand life as work, as creativity, as a solution to life's problems? Or was he taught that the right life is direct, and difficulties are abnormal, is it someone's fault?

If the school can answer at least half of these questions positively, then with one hundred percent certainty it would be possible to say: it raises individuals.. Only … where are such schools … But that's not all …

Health problems

According to the collegium of the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation, about 70% of children enter school practically healthy, and only 10% of graduates graduate. And most of all diseases are found in high school students. Uncomfortable furniture spoils posture, dry food spoils the stomach, lack of light affects vision.. According to preliminary data, almost every fourth child sees poorly. Doctors attribute this to poor lighting in classrooms, and an excessive passion for television and computers. In addition, many children have problems with the musculoskeletal system and the gastrointestinal tract. Pediatricians say that the main cause of childhood gastritis and colitis is poor school nutrition. Thus, the doctors concluded that most of the illnesses occur in adolescents precisely during their studies.

Here are the top five most common school-related illnesses:

• diseases of the respiratory system, • myopia, • disorders associated with digestion, • diseases of the musculoskeletal system, • diseases of the circulatory system.

Musculoskeletal diseases - from improper posture, which schoolchildren change much less often than it is vital. And the furniture in our schools is not always comfortable.

“Most parents will not allow an eight-year-old to use an adult bat when playing cricket or an adult bicycle, but they don’t worry when their children sit unsupported for extended periods of time with twisted necks and strained wrists,” said Professor Peter Buckle of the Center. Robens Center for Health Economics.

As for the "breathing", then, alas, tuberculosis is still alive. At school, due to the large crowding of children in one room, a certain, often unfavorable, air-thermal environment develops during the day. Exit? Constantly ventilate and ventilate, which is not always done.

Eyes are the constant scourge of the school. According to statistics, every fifth child by the 11th grade is not all right with his eyesight. Everything affects this - the number and size of windows in the classroom, the spectrum and shade of fluorescent lamps, the color of the walls (they must be matte, pastel colors), the color of the curtains (necessarily light).

An interesting story with a "calvary", that is, a chalkboard. It should be green or brown, but never black. Eyes first of all deteriorate due to constant readaptation during the lesson: in notebooks and textbooks of students, the notes are in black and white, and on the blackboard - in white and black. So the best thing is generally newfangled white boards, on which they write with a marker.

What do we have? Load on the eyes + bad light + long sitting + not homemade food + stuffiness and heat - it turns out that school is the most harmful place in a child's life! (We are not yet talking about the intellectual load, exam stresses, showdowns with teachers and getting up in the winter at 8 a.m.)

So let's say we agree that school is bad. What are the options? And there are several options, from the mildest to the most cardinal:

• Transfer of the child to external studies;

• Transfer of the child to another type of school (lyceum, college, alternative schools);

• The transition of the child to home schooling without the need to pass exams and get a certificate, or, simply, life with parents.

An externship is the procedure for passing exams for courses of a complete secondary general education school for persons who have not studied in them (external students). That is, the child comes to school only to pass exams. How he worked and with whom - no one should care. The main thing is that you still have to pass the exams according to the same school curriculum. On this point, I will only add that if you decide to take an external study, then, according to Russian law, any general education school that has state accreditation is obliged to provide the opportunity to take the school program as an external student.

Alternative school

The main features of such schools that distinguish them from standard ones are:

• Students are respected here, not the system.

• Pupils have the opportunity to choose the way and pace of presentation of the material in the lesson.

• Flexible curriculum that changes depending on who is in the class.

• Students and teachers are responsible for the principles of teaching, not the system.

• In the groups they work with, teachers are given leeway.

• Outdated pedagogical guidelines are not prohibited. New ideas are welcome.

• Tests are constantly being changed and revised to match the level of skill and knowledge.

• Constantly changing teaching techniques are the norm throughout the history of the institution.

• It is possible that all this is controversial.

Unfortunately, in the post-Soviet space, even the very concept of an "alternative school" seems blasphemous to our certified teachers, and the examples of such schools can be counted on one hand:

• The Montessori school system, being a licensed school system that treats students as "independent learners", is nevertheless essentially a kindergarten system, since it only covers children up to six years old, so we can talk about the principles used in Montessori - pedagogy, but not about real-life schools …

• The Waldorf education system, also an "American" school, is the largest and fastest growing non-religious movement in the world, with 800 schools in more than 30 countries. At the initial stage, little attention is paid to academic subjects. The first class program provides for them to a minimum. Reading is not taught until the second grade, although children are introduced to letters (in grades 1 and 2). In secondary school (grades 1-8), students have a class teacher (primary) who teaches, supervises and looks after the children and stays with the class (ideal) for the entire eight years of school. It should be noted that as such textbooks do not exist in Waldorf schools: all children have a workbook, which becomes their workbook. Thus, they write their own textbooks, where they reflect their experience and what they have learned. The older grades use textbooks to complement their core lesson work. Unfortunately, Waldorf schools can be found only in a few large cities (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev) …

• School of Academician Shchetinin is a real community in the best context of this concept. It differs from other schools in that it is located in the forest, and, in fact, is a small state. Here you will also not find classes of the same age, textbooks and lessons … The school is built on five foundations: moral and spiritual development of each; striving for knowledge; labor, (more precisely, love for work in any form, for example, all the buildings of the school were built by the students themselves); the feeling of beauty, the assertion of beauty in everything; and, finally, the powerful physical fitness of everyone.

• The school-park founded by Miloslav Balobanov (Yekaterinburg) can be attributed to the finds of Russian teachers. There are three fundamental positions in the Park: refusal from compulsory studies, from the same age in education, and almost completely from grades. Ideally, no certificate or grades are needed. According to Miloslav Balaban, the best educational document for a child would be a portfolio with all the teachers' comments on his successes. Precisely about success! Judge by them, take them to work and to university. Students of the park school are not divided into classes, and each of them self-identifies in relation to each studio: either he is a permanent member (a member of the "team"), or a client, or a visitor (guest).

In addition, each teacher (head of the studio) has apprentices "grown by him" - students who actively help the teacher in working with other permanent members or clients. Any student of the park school can at any time change his status in relation to this studio - from a visitor to become a client, then a permanent member, then an apprentice (the latter, of course, by mutual agreement with the teacher); it is possible to change the status in the opposite direction.

Despite the many positive aspects of alternative schools, one cannot fail to notice that the basic principles of their educational system are very poorly combined with the normative field of mass education. Therefore, as long as the current System exists, alternative schools are unlikely to be able to survive in the form of an institution, but only in the form of a non-profit partnership uniting individual entrepreneurs engaged in self-employed pedagogical activity (Article 48 of the Education Law). This activity is not licensed and is not subject to numerous legal acts regulating the work of educational institutions. Which, in principle, cannot scare parents too much, since even now no alternative school issues state education documents …

Almost everyone understands that studying at school does not guarantee comprehensive education, that a diploma (of higher education) does not guarantee a high position and a large salary, that it is much more important to teach a child to find information when it is needed, and not to keep it in his head in large volumes. And many are ready for the sake of their child not being subjected to creative castration, and besides, they also learned to be independent, to send him to an alternative school … But …

Home schooling

But some parents go even further and, becoming heretics in the eyes of the educational system, completely take their children out of school, that is, transfer them to home schooling … frightened of paper-bureaucratic obstacles and furious persuasion of others, not to mention relatives … Indeed, how can you live in our world without school, master knowledge, learn to communicate with people, get a good prestigious job, make a career, earn decent money, to provide for their old age … and so on and so forth.

We will not remember that in tsarist times, home education was ubiquitous, we will not even remember that in Soviet times, quite famous personalities studied at home. We'll just think about what the average man is guided by when sending his beloved child to school? The basis of everything is concern for the future. FEAR before him. The future in the case of home education is very uncertain and does not fit the pattern: school - institute - work - retirement, where everything goes according to the once established scheme.

But are you sure the child is happy with this “established pattern”?

Try this experiment: take a piece of paper and write 100 of your friends on it. Then call them and find out what education they received, who is in their specialty, and then find out HOW long have they worked in this specialty. Ninety-five people will answer that not a day … Four more will say that the diploma was useful to them to understand how they made a mistake in choosing a profession and university … That is, 99 out of a hundred people admit that they were wasted 5-6 years of life. And, having got a job completely different from their diploma specialty, within two or three months of practice, they learned everything that they could be hammered into their heads at the institute for five years (well, in addition to the theory of Marxism-Leninism and the history of the CPSU, of course) …

The question is: why graduate from school?

Answer: to get a certificate!

Question: why get a passport?

Answer: to enter a university?

Question: why go to university?

Answer: to get a diploma!

And, finally, the question: why do we need a diploma if no one works in their specialty?

I agree, until recently, if you did not have a diploma, you simply could not get ANY job, except for a janitor, a lifter and a loader. There were two options: either to become a loader, or … an entrepreneur (which, according to the mistaken opinion of the majority, is not given to everyone). In business, a diploma is also not needed. Smart enough … Today, thank God, the range of opportunities for non-graduates has expanded: most commercial companies no longer require a diploma of education, but a resume and portfolio, that is, a list of your achievements. And if you YOURSELF have learned something and achieved something, then this is only a plus.

And what, tell me, can you learn if instead of what the child is interested in, he is forced to study integrals and benzene rings for six to eight hours at school, and then do his homework?

… Tell me, how long will it take you to teach a person on the street everything that you do at your job? Note, I did not ask how many years! Because I am sure that the matter will be in a few months.

Now let's get back to the question again: are you sure that the child is satisfied with this scheme? That he would prefer to spend 15 years on something that is not useful to him, studying what he likes right now, in order to become a specialist in this in a year or three?

And finally, let me quote the entrepreneur Yuri Moroz:

“So, write it down. The roots of a quadratic equation are b squared plus minus the Discriminant and divided by 4a. It is very important! Divided into 4a!

If your son or daughter comes home from school and asks, dad or mom, how to solve quadratic equations, and you don’t remember, doesn’t it mean that your child doesn’t need to study this topic at school now? You still have to study. It doesn't matter that later he will forget everything and never apply it in his life, but he will have to study …

… Wait, wait, I know what you want to tell me. What they say, mathematics is needed to be able to manage computers, here! Are you sure?! Have you visited the computer club for a long time? Come and listen to what the guys say there at the age of ten, or even younger. And what terms do they use. I assure you that these boys know a bunch of terms that the computer science teacher at school has never heard of. And as regards the real application of this knowledge, the teacher has fallen behind forever. Are you going to argue? And who knows better how to program your VCR, are you with a college degree, or your son with an incomplete high school?"