The fate of Russia belongs to the inventors. How to discern the child's abilities?

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

To the question: "Can you teach to invent?" - I categorically answer: "No." An inventor must be born. And then the pedagogical problem arises - how to identify those who can invent?

THE ROLE OF THE FAMILY

… Once a young engineer came to my group, but already a candidate for master of chess. I formulated a relatively simple research task for him: to assemble a primitive radio engineering circuit and measure the parameters of the material created in our laboratory using a well-known technique. The result, however, did not follow either after a month or two. I give another task, easier - again the same effect … Six months later I had to fire him. I know that in the new place, connected with technology, there was no sense in it either.

Choosing a future specialty for a child and setting it up for it is often a headache for parents, especially if they become interested in this only when the child finishes school. I remember a conversation with the Uzbek farmer Akhmet-aka, the father of 7 children, among whom two sons are candidates, one is a doctor of sciences, the fourth is a great master of peasant business, and the daughters, all in a father, are now wise khanum in their families. “One must live righteously so that children perceive such a life as natural,” said Akhmet-aka, “to be a friend to children, and if any of them has something of their own, then only the immoral must be restrained.”

But how often parents break the child's personality with their understanding of happiness! In our school years, our company of future physicists included a charming Tatar girl, Rosa Gabitova, who, in spite of us, was fond of botany. She was able to grow tomatoes with huge fruits in the harsh conditions of Bashkiria. Parents forced her to go to college as a foreign language teacher. She was able to escape only by marrying a graduate of an agricultural institute, the same enthusiastic Michurinist.

Symphony to the inventor

One more example. At the Fryazino cemetery, there is a monument with an engraved musical phrase from Chopin. Here rests one of our electronics designers. As a child, he showed an interest in music, but in a peculiar way - why this violin sounds better than another. And mom and dad tortured the boy to vomit to study violin, pushed him into a music school, dreaming of his artistic career. But the son went to the Kiev Polytechnic to understand the intricacies of hesitation. Found myself in ultra-high frequency.

I would venture to refer to my own parenting practice. I tried to give the child complete independence, but … under strict control. And he never gave ready-made recipes and answers. Push to a decision, please, "provoke" interest - yes! But do not replace the child. I really wanted my daughter to become a humanities student, but she showed analytical skills, she graduated from the correspondence school of Physics and Technology, then the Faculty of Computational Mathematics of Moscow State University, defended her dissertation. But, on the contrary, I wanted to see my son as a physicist-researcher, but he was drawn to living activity, constructions; now he is a student of a civil engineering institute.

I managed not only to keep abreast of the problems of my children, but, as it were, to be among their friends. And to protect from bad and primitive acquaintances, fiercely competing with such a switch of the child's attention to higher interests. I consider Western pedagogy, giving the child the opportunity to stuff himself big shots, vicious.

The apple never falls far from the tree. Famous dynasties are not only kings and politicians, but also artists, artists, military men, engineers. Somehow they do not spread about inventive. But my techie interlocutors trace heredity in ancestors and descendants. Let me turn to my family again - my grandfather A. E. Kiselev had a two-year education, but he erected huts without the use of nails (you need to keep the drawing in your head with all dimensions and tolerances!), My father is a staff officer, I am a physicist, daughter is a mathematician, grandson at the age of 16 shows remarkable ability to program. There is a straight line.

Honored Inventor of Russia V. S. Salukvadze with his granddaughter Vika

Or, I got into a conversation with the granddaughter of the famous inventor V. S. Salukvadze. She has not yet invented technical devices (yet!), But admitted that communication with Viktor Samsonovich predetermined her admission to Phystech. By the way, Salukvadze told me that, noticing the granddaughter's desire to see what was inside the doll, he did not scold, but helped break the toy, showing the girl how the hinges moved. Here not only genes worked, but also an intelligent, careful attitude to the interest in technical creativity that arises at an early age.

IDENTIFICATION

How to discern the student's ability? Familiar teachers in Fryazino amicably affirm that creative children can be seen right away, even in the lower grades. “Their eyes shine when solving non-standard problems,” once remarked a young teacher from school No. 2 I. N. Antonova, by the way, a graduate student of the Pedagogical University, whose eyes also shine when she talks about her talented students of physics and mathematics. class.

Another sign of a future creative worker is that he is necessarily "why". “Tortures me with questions,” complains Yu. N. Lobov, the head of the aircraft modeling circle at the Center for Children's Creativity in Fryazino. Hence the need to attract highly educated specialists to work with such children. This prompted the enthusiastic teachers and graduate students of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology to conduct classes at the correspondence school of physics and technology in Dolgoprudny. And the guys' questions are sometimes at a very professional level. I got acquainted with the reports presented at the All-Russian conference of schoolchildren at Phystech last year. You know, some admired and even caused bewilderment - why such a schoolboy needs an institute? The report can be reissued into a candidate's and successfully defended.

But it is clear, just "why" is not a creative person yet. A future technician first of all needs a logic of thinking based on both fantasy and prohibitions dictated, for example, by knowledge of the law of conservation of energy. For a novice inventor, there is not a field of “why?” Questions, but a chain of them leading to the solution of a global problem.

The third sign of identifying future inventors in Russia relates to the field of psychology and morality. Experienced teachers have noticed that a fidget, a mischievous person is far from proof of a lack of technical ability. But from an evil, downtrodden, cowardly, petty scoundrel, only a big scoundrel grows, and it does not matter - a physicist or a lyricist. This can be at first and an excellent student.

In the fifth grade (Baku, 1947), we were taught botany by an elderly teacher, both of her sons died at the front. One day my classmate, taking advantage of her half-blindness, put a sharp thorn on her chair. I still have a cry in my ears: "For what ?!" This "inventor" later did not become famous either in technique or in lyrics.

TEACHERS AND TEACHERS

Russia has always been famous not only for talented inventors, but also for deep pedagogical thought based on the humanistic values and traditions of our people. One has only to recall the teachings of Prince Vladimir Monomakh to his descendants, the instructions to Peter the Great for the noble ignoramuses, the fundamental ideas of KD Ushinsky on "pedagogical anthropology", the work of A. S. Makarenko (upbringing by labor), V. A. Sukhomlinsky (moral categories of personality) etc.

To these sources my interlocutors constantly came - teachers, interrupted by a beggarly salary, but carrying their moral cross in the world of disintegration and debauchery, ascetics, enthusiasts. Among them there were no leaders of modern pedagogical thought in Russia, who differ only in their hatred of our past and therefore persistently push us to the Western path with his 12-year education, by the way, not always free, with bachelor-masters, sexual orientation and other "freedoms." I do not consider it expedient to enter into an argument with them, especially on the pages of the IR. The well-fed does not understand the hungry.

It is the hungry schoolteachers of Russia who identify and nurture (in the brotherly Ukrainian language there is a more accurate word "kokhayut") our technical future. So what are their demands on themselves and on pedagogy?

Natural reaction to a beautiful solution

You cannot practice the same program for different regions and different children, like-mindedness was eaten to its fullest in Soviet times. But it is absolutely impossible to let the collection of knowledge take its course in different schools, as it is done in American ones. That is why the United States is forced to buy other people's brains. A certain minimum of compulsory knowledge must be given to a student. A Russian scientist and inventor who does not know Pushkin, the multiplication table and Ohm's law, based only on a computer and the Internet, if he can achieve anything, then only at a primitive level.

It's funny, but if the thesis about the mandatory minimum does not raise doubts among teachers, some inventors sometimes disagree with it, they say, an excess of knowledge restrains the flight of imagination. The first issues of our magazine of 1929 were devoted to the struggle for knowledge, where, contrary to the moods of other inventors, outstanding scientists - L. K. Martens, A. N. Krylov, G. M. Krzhizhanovsky …

But instilling a minimum of knowledge in a talent is a necessary, albeit insufficient, condition. Talent is individual, and therefore approaches must be individual.

I myself try to treat my non-standard students individually. However, in order to gain the trust of a young talent, a teacher needs to thoroughly, deeply know his subject. Otherwise, it is impossible to captivate the student with the beauty of science, the romance of the creation of technology. Unfortunately, this is not available to everyone. The director of one of the Fryazino schools, I. P. Rudamenko, succeeds - he is a candidate of technical sciences. Academician ND Devyatkov, professor VS Lukoshkov, designer of electronic devices Hero of Socialist Labor LA Paryshkuro stood at the origins of the physics and mathematics class at school № 1 Fryazino. Now the mayor of the city of science, Doctor of Technical Sciences V. P. Savchenko is attentive to schools (IR, 96, 11). The Lyceum for gifted children in Dubna was organized by the outstanding scientist Ya. A. Smorodinsky; the leading specialists of the Institute of Nuclear Research do not consider it shameful to give lectures to these children. The Honored Inventor of the RSFSR V. S. Salukvadze has repeatedly addressed Moscow schoolchildren. This is done not only in Moscow, not only in Fryazino, not only in Dubna.

But one wonders how many harmful "innovations" are being brought down on the younger generation. Parents of students and Fryazin teachers indignantly rejected the instruction of the high pedagogical authorities and sexually anxious ladies from the State Duma to include in the curriculum lessons of debauchery and invention in the use of rubber products. Children thus “disadvantaged” in 1998 gave 48 medalists for 450 graduates of 11th grade, and last year - 53 medalists for 427 graduates.

UPBRINGING

Teachers educating future creators of new technology follow the most important commandment of doctors - do no harm. Young talent in technology is no less fragile than in art. How many inventors came to creativity late because of the negligent attitude of school teachers in physics and chemistry towards them! I even heard such exotic explanations for the dislike for the school physics course: the teacher came to lessons in torn tights or the teacher spoke disrespectfully of the student's father, a drunkard.

Yuri Nikolaevich Lobov and the future general designer

The analogy of a teacher of technical disciplines with a sports coach is quite appropriate - not to expose the student to unbearable loads, to go from simple to complex. A teacher-historian by education, an aircraft modeller by vocation Yu. N. Lobov formulated an algorithm for educating talented technicians: first, do as I do, learn the craft; then - come up with an element yourself, work with the book, find the necessary information in the reference book, and finally - draw up a technical task yourself, a plan for its implementation, carry out your plan … At the last stage, there is a need for an assistant. I am convinced that we cannot do without educating collectivism. Let's look back at sports: the national hockey school has always been famous not only for the presence of the Bobrovs, Kharlamovs and Yakushevs in it, but also for the ability to play as a team. Interestingly, the throw of a defender under a flying puck with the risk of injury deserves praise, and when scoring a puck, both the goal-scorer and the one who was not greedy, but made a pass to a friend in a better position, is rewarded. In technology, it is similar: there are brave pioneers, and selfless employees, and those who make the last ditch. And just like in sports, but psychologically, the distribution of rewards and fame is much more complicated.

It is extremely important to build confidence in the future inventor. It will allow you not to be cowardly in making a decision. I believe that it will be useful for a novice techie to burn himself by lighting a match, he should be hit with an electric current once or twice, but let the "set of negative experience" be under the strict gaze of the teacher.

The student must be conveyed that self-confidence is not arrogance, sticking your fingers into an outlet is fraught with danger. He must learn the difference between a Russian engineer and an American one: if the former follows the principle of "try on seven times, cut once," then the second one is "cut and try". Here the work of the mind and the speed of obtaining the result are clearly opposed.

Candidate of Sciences A. B. Kiselev and post-graduate student I. N. Antonova

Let us note one more difference between domestic and Western inventors: we maintain competitiveness, they have competition. The beauty and individuality of talents are manifested in competition, hence the friendship of inventors is not uncommon, while competition gives rise to cruelty and selfishness.

Modern science and technology alone does not happen at all, so either invent it yourself, try it, but on trifles, or become a wolf, robbing the weak in market conditions, or have friends, associates, associates.

Thus, in technical creativity, the moral factor is largely decisive in identifying an invention, in the development of talent, in the fate of the inventor, and in the fate of Russia.