Current universities - a conveyor of future puppets

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

Social parasites, having seized power in Russia, took up the reform (destruction) of education and were very successful in this. Without correcting this situation, we will completely turn into office plankton, unable to resist …

A few days ago, two news collided: one from the big world, the other from the small, everyday one. Portal "Utro.ru" reported:

"According to the data of the Accounts Chamber, in 2015 alone, the share of unemployed specialists with higher education increased by 19.6%."

And from the small world was this. Joiners (not just a couple of friends, but a company with a website, charter and seal) brought after a long gimmick a bookcase of the simplest style I ordered. They began to assemble - and it turned out that the vertical wall was 20 cm shorter than the required one and for some reason was cut down at some inexplicable angle. Now senseless boards lie in my basement and are waiting for the director, who, in the most flattering terms, promised to come, figure everything out and take immediate and effective measures, but, alas, his car broke down. He will come now only on Sunday.

What do these stories have in common?

Everything is common.

They are about clumsy people. About systemic ineptitude. About ineptitude as a social phenomenon, and not about the personal club-handedness of Vasya or Petya. They are about the fact that the professional level, the skill of our people is at a regrettably low level with a downward trend. Today it is a rare success to find not something cool, but at least some specialist in any business. I speak like an employer. Recently, the headmaster said the same thing: finding a decent, effective teacher is a problem of problems. I am sure that the very unemployed with diplomas, whose number has increased by almost 20%, as reported by Utro.ru, do not know how to do anything. Neither head nor hands - nothing and nothing. Well, perhaps writing a resume - we have learned this over the years of progress and market reforms. Because if they knew at least something, they would have been cut off with their hands. And they - alas … In universities they study "a look and something", which is not applicable to anything. After all, most of them get the professions of lawyers, economists, political scientists, financiers, translators, journalists and other experts in toy specialties in home-made universities.

There are exactly two results of this five-year sitting: 1) a persistent habit of idleness and 2) the conviction that simple work is not for me. Modern higher education forms crowds of idle, worthless people who, moreover, gnaw at claims to the world and life: after all, I am an international economics manager (a specialist in comparative linguistics and intercultural communication), and I have to roll boxes in a warehouse. (By the way, this is a combustible mixture of all kinds of protest movements, like the Maidan jumpers and white ribbons).

Very often, such a person with disgust is taken to some kind of physical work, such as making a rack for me. He most often does not respect her, even despises her (because he does not know how), feels underestimated and unhappy.

The only thing it is good for is sitting in an office surrounded by three Ks: coffee, air conditioner, keyboard. But for this, no special education is needed: schools - behind the eyes and ears. Where did I get this from? And you see who is the diploma worker of some office. Work nearby: lawyers, economists, financiers (these are the most, because they are released in every gateway), psychologists, philologists, culturologists, and so on, little things - all kinds of ecologists. And they are all doing the same thing. This, in my opinion, proves more clearly than anything else: no education is needed there.

As a result, the quality of people's labor is steadily declining.

What needs to be done to fix the matter? It seems to me that we need not reform, but simply radically change our education system.

Secondary specialized education should become a social norm.

We must fully understand: for the overwhelming majority of works performed in society, no higher wisdom is required. Requires a solid secondary specialized education.

It is necessary to refresh in the minds of the difference between secondary specialized education and higher education of the corresponding profile. That is, what is the difference between a paramedic and a doctor, a technician from an engineer. Back in Soviet times, the technical school turned into a sump for unsuccessful schoolchildren. (This was even more true for vocational schools). In fact, a technician is an expert on a certain branch of technology and technology, he is a fully-fledged specialist, in fact, production should be based on him. What distinguishes him from a specialist with a higher education? The fact that he is not aimed at creating a new one, he uses what is already available, acts according to ready-made developments. That is why he does not need a particularly deep penetration into theory, understanding of the deep mechanisms of phenomena, etc. For the overwhelming majority of people, such penetration is not available, and for the vast majority of jobs, fortunately, it is not necessary. Higher education - by design - should be aimed at creating a new one, and secondary education - at using the finished one. But the use is sensible and qualified.

This is a technician. And then there is a skilled worker. This is also a specialist in his field, but working, again by design, with his hands. Directly creating a thing. The line between them is unstable. Usually at this place they remember a CNC machine or something like that. Yes, a shaky line, I agree. By the way, it is very difficult to compare how many people in which country have what education, because, for example, in Finland a nurse or a kindergarten teacher is considered a person with a higher education, and in Germany it is a working profession. Of course, it can be difficult to draw a line, but the core of the phenomenon can still be distinguished. We need a huge number of people with smart hands. It is important to identify, even in secondary school, people whose hands are smarter than their heads, and to direct them along the right path.

Choosing the right path in life is generally a great blessing and achievement - both for the worker himself and for everyone around him. Unfortunately, today our everyday handicrafts are done staggeringly poorly and askew. With tremendous progress in everything, with new materials and tools, construction, for example, is being carried out at a disgusting, shameful level. Finding a decent plumber, electrician is a rare happiness, they are cherished, reverently passed on to each other. Decent hairdressers are worth their weight in gold. There are no tailors at all. It is believed that they are not in demand, but this is not so, they simply do not know how and do not dare to try to learn. This situation is understandable. These works are carried out by people who somehow self-taught "got sick" (Pelevin's word). So it is necessary not to dream about nano- and non-Manilov, but to start teaching skilled workers.

That is what happens. There are eight classes - a comprehensive school. Then - three or four years - basic vocational education. As a result, a person begins to work not at the age of 23, moreover, without being able to do anything, as is happening now, but at the age of 18-20, already being able to do something. Then, having worked and feeling the inadequacy of his education, the young man can go on to study further: to courses, or even to a university.

There are a lot of different things wrapped around this problem. The issue of education is very psychologically painful: mothers, even quite balanced and reasonable in everyday life, turn into violent madmen before our very eyes, as soon as it comes to the admission of children not only to a university, but even to the first grade of some special school. My notes, wherever they are published, receive the most readers' responses (more often abusive ones) when it comes to education. Which, of course, is not surprising: any conversation about education feels like a discussion of the future of children. And our Russian parents are trying very hard to organize and secure the future of their children, even without being able to create their own bearable present.

Therefore, a lot of prejudices have formed around the topic of education. The most important: the higher education a person has, the better he works at any job. This is fundamentally wrong. For a good job, you need a person who knows how to do THIS, and not someone who studied calculus or the theory of state and law.

You can often come across the following thought: "a helluva lot of literate" we teach better, he is more successful at mastering new things. Also wrong. For almost twenty years I have been teaching myself in the trade specialty. And I noticed: the best students are people with secondary specialized education or simply with a school education. These write down what I say and, most importantly, try to put it into practice. People with higher education (unfortunately they overwhelm my audience) are less receptive. They rarely take notes: it seems to them that they already understand everything. As a result, they show the worst results - both in training and in work. The real misfortune is people with advanced degrees and university professors (I also came across such). They are focused strictly on the acquisition of knowledge. Listening to me, they often say: “I know that, this is you about… something from political economy, management theory, or even commercial psychology follows. But that's not what I teach: I teach how to make money. And this does not require knowledge, but skills and abilities. This is what highly educated people simply do not perceive. They are used to sucking in any theoretical rubbish, and then giving it out on demand. They do not even try to apply it to business. But it is for this that the money is paid, and not for the retelling of textbooks.

So a high level of education is far from such an indisputable benefit, as is often believed. For some it is necessary and beneficial, but for something it is harmful and inappropriate. Knowledge is both strength and weakness, depending on the circumstances. By the way, in the 19th century this was understood by the so-called reactionaries, who did not consider teaching peasants to read and write such an indisputable blessing.

A common prejudice: now is the time for automated production, and therefore you don't need to do anything with your hands. This is all gross exaggeration. The well-known historian Andrei Fursov, originally an expert on the East, gives such instructive figures: in China, about half of all manufactured products are made on the basis of manual labor, and in India - about 60%. Some time ago, one of the leaders of NPO Energia, which does not by any means purses and brooms, but, after all, spacecraft, pulled out a skilled milling machine operator from his pension for some special work. Many things are made to order, in such small quantities that there is no reason to automate them, so manual skills will never be superfluous.

So what kind of education do we need? This is how I see it.

The first eight grades all study together and the same thing. Everyone gets basic knowledge - Russian, mathematics, science, history, labor. No specialization, no special lyceums-gymnasiums - everyone teaches the same thing. It is important! For those who wish - hobby groups, but the school itself does not need any specialization. As a result, the student must learn to read with understanding, write without mistakes, must love reading, learn to be proud of his country and the deeds of his ancestors. Must get basic knowledge of mathematics and science.

Then everyone leaves the school. Everything! So that no one was offended.

And everyone goes to receive secondary specialized education. In essence - in a vocational school or a technical school. At the same time, I believe that it is necessary to abolish the terms: primary, incomplete secondary, complete secondary, specialized secondary, higher education. There should be no such terms: they have too many unwanted connotations stuck on them. All these subdivisions are outdated, there is no need to drag them into the future.

Higher education today is some kind of absurd fetish that has long lost touch with reality: it is better that it not exist. Higher education is now something of a microscopic kind, the size of a pinhead of a ridiculous nobility - a sign of nobility. Therefore, you just need to come up with new words - for example, general education school. These are compulsory 8 classes. Then - professional education. This is the old vocational school or technical school. After that, there may be one more educational institution of a higher level. In some specialties it may be, and in some it may not be. As a result of this approach, everyone has their own special education. The theoretical physicist has her own, longer, the hairdresser (now renamed "stylist") has her own. But both of them are professionals, specialists. There is no longer the concept of "higher education" - which means that there is no feeling of inferiority due to its absence. People can calmly focus on getting a profession, and not a penny status. Now many, especially girls, go to universities so as not to be "worse than people." It is impossible to stand out for the better with higher education today, but not having it is a minus, it is a shame.

Why did Soviet students not particularly strive for vocational schools and technical schools, but strive for universities? Here, it seems to me, a big mistake was made. In vocational schools and technical schools in Soviet times, they were kicked out. Here was a class where everyone studied together, some were better, some were worse. And we must expel the worst from this class. And the best ones will stay. What is the natural reaction of schoolchildren and their parents? There are two of them. 1) A firm conviction that a technical school-vocational school is a crap, a doggie that we don't need. Even if initially a person was focused on not God knows what kind of education, he still does not want to be rubbish that gets rid of. And he does not want to go where they are EXCESSED. 2) The desire at all costs to remain among those who in this situation are recognized as the best, of higher quality and, so to speak, "pedigree". This desire is also reinforced by natural human conservatism - the desire to continue doing what he did before. It is inherent not in everyone, but in many. If not for children, then for parents. I am sure: if everyone left the 8th grade, and the 9th grade would simply not be available, and at the same time there would be no concept of higher education, but there would be just a special one - very many would willingly go to vocational schools. And to a technical school - for a sweet soul.

Actually, many educational institutions that are now considered higher and very prestigious, in fact, are technical schools. I once studied in foreign language. Maurice Thorez: a typical technical school. Students should be admitted there after the 8th grade and trained as teachers of a foreign language and translators. Everything would have worked out with exactly the same success. Before the revolution (1917), foreign languages were taught by governesses with a diploma as a home teacher. It was received by girls who graduated from the so-called 8th pedagogical class of a female gymnasium or simply passed exams for the title of home teacher at the school district. And everything worked out great. Nobody considered this governess education higher. It is curious that in my youth there were still pre-revolutionary grandmothers who were surprised to see my granddaughter's diploma in foreign languages, which read: "specialty - foreign languages." “What is this specialty? - the old women were perplexed. "Languages - they are languages, and nothing else."

The division of education into higher and secondary education leads to ridiculous stories. In the 90s, the daughter of friends studied at a college under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the old way, it was called the courses for typists-stenographers of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then he was promoted to college, but still it remained a secondary specialized institution. And not to have the highest, of course, is a shame. Well, they came up with: at the college they established a purely formal education in some home-made university, as a result of which the girl, along with a college diploma, received a higher education and became "no worse than people."If the concept of higher education did not exist in nature, everything would be in order, and there would be no need to fuss in vain.

People would calmly go to special educational institutions and receive specialties.

At this point, they always ask the question: where will the creators of science and technology come from, who will move forward this and that, lay new routes, discover, invent, change our views on the nature of the Universe and penetrate the secrets of the macro- and microcosm, as expressed in my childhood favorite almanac of the Soviet children “I want to know everything!”? Where will they come from - these eggheads, if, as the obscurantist author suggests, they all go to vocational schools?

I imagine it this way. Engineers would come from those who first became technicians or skilled workers. For the training of theoretical mathematicians, it would be useful to have several institutions where especially gifted people would enter - as before in good mothers schools, where children from all over the country gathered. Studying there should be so difficult that it should be more expensive for yourself to meddle there for the sake of pull or for the sake of prestige. In general, it must be remembered that education of the higher type, standing at the level of the maximum achievements of science of its time and aimed at creating a new one, is able to receive, according to an optimistic estimate, ten percent of the population. For the rest, this is not available and is not required. Anyone can get better at steering a car, but rare ones can become Frmula-1 racers; and it is not required.

If we want to start overcoming our semi-colonial vegetation and become a truly advanced country, we need to start with education. And he, education, needs not cosmetic and nostalgic (in the style of "back to the USSR"), but essential transformations. The education that we have now breeds systemic ineptitude. The system is set up to do just that.