The first class in school - today and in the USSR: feel the difference (video)

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

In Soviet times, a first grader was allowed to load no more than 24 hours a week. 18 hours of them were devoted to the main subjects:

mathematics - 6 hours

reading - 6 hours

Russian language - 6 hours

The remaining 6 hours were spent on singing, drawing, natural history, labor and 2 hours on physical education.

The number of hours currently devoted to major subjects:

mathematics - 4 hours

reading - 4 hours

letter - 5 hours

As you can see, mathematics and reading suffered the most - they decreased by 1.5 times. In reality, it is even more, since first-graders used to have 35 school weeks, but now, due to the increase in the duration of all holidays, first-graders have only 33 study weeks. Thus, if earlier children in grade 1 had 210 hours of mathematics and the same amount of reading, now they devote only 132 hours to these disciplines.

But that's not all. According to modern federal state educational standards, in the first half of the year, first-graders have lessons not for 45 minutes, but for 35 minutes. In addition, homework is prohibited in the first half of the year.

Why don't parents notice how much the curriculum has shrunk? Why are many, on the contrary, outraged that children are overloaded in schools?

Firstly, in Soviet times, children studied 6 days a week: they started at 8 o'clock and finished by 12. Now all first graders have 5 days, so the reduction in working hours is not so striking.

Secondly, in order to imitate the intensified learning activity, children are flooded with voluntary-compulsory "out-of-class". If earlier on secondary subjects (singing, drawing, natural history, labor, physical education), as we indicated above, it took a total of 6 hours a week, now their range has expanded significantly and these unimportant subjects are given 18 hours a week.

My child starts school at 8 am, and finishes at 13-13: 30, that is, already now "studies" at school more than Soviet schoolchildren. In the second half of the year, when the lessons will be 45 minutes long, he will finish his lessons at 14-15 hours. The load, of course, is substantial. But what is the result?

And the result is this: if we take for comparison the textbook on arithmetic by A. S. Pchelko for 1959, then the modern program in mathematics for grade 1 ends on page 96 of this textbook. In total, this tutorial has 142 pages. Probably, modern students will make up for all this for that extra 4th year of study that they added to elementary school (before it was 3 years old). Well, just think, all our children were made repeaters! Sooner or later they graduate from school, is it worth it to be so upset?

But the situation with reading is much worse than with mathematics. In addition to shortening the hours in the school curriculum, children now do not read even after school. It was in the USSR that the parents did not know how to tear the child away from the book with some adventures.

Children read at night under a blanket with a flashlight - in general, they developed their reading fluency with fanatical persistence, and their parents were unhappy that they would not get their children in the morning. We would have their problems! Now, in order to induce the child's need for reading, he needs to take away

computer, tablet, TV, smartphone, phone, i.e. all-all electronic devices. Unfortunately, this is now impossible, since in 1990 we ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which protects the rights of children “to information and privacy” (Articles 13 and 16).

And children are taught to know and observe their rights in psychology lessons of that very "extracurricular activity" (according to a friend of my mother, in secondary school, for the sake of additional lessons in psychology, they often even cancel ordinary lessons).

If the gambling addiction has already formed, it is very difficult (almost impossible) to defeat it, so it would be better not to bring it up to this initially.

Until recently, we were surprised at the lack of education of adult foreigners, many of whom are able to read only syllables (and there are those who do not read at all, which is completely unthinkable for us). Now these rumors, incredible for us, are turning into our Russian reality.

And regarding the calligraphy, we suggest watching this short video:

You can also read about the meaning of calligraphy, excluded from the modern school curriculum, here.

Read also the foundational articles on the topic:

Modern illiteracy is a system error

80% of adults think like children