Alternative education: learning from Soviet textbooks published by the RVS

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

School. I don’t know how for anyone, but for me this word has something original and magical at the same time. Something that emanates from the words "mother", "father", "parents", "home". School is not just a place where people learn to write, read, and count. This is the place where they teach to learn about the world, where growing people acquire the foundations of knowledge, without which it is impossible to become a reasonable person in the full sense of the word. Perhaps this is why in the Russian language such a formation of personality is called the word "education", that is, school is the place where a person is formed.

Ever since antiquity, and perhaps even earlier, it has become clear that in addition to the basic skills and abilities necessary in everyday life, the child must acquire general knowledge that allows him to become a full-fledged member of society. Even then it became clear that it is difficult for parents to cope with the responsible task of educating and developing a person, for this a teacher is needed and not even one. So one of the most important institutions created by mankind is the general education school.

Reading about ancient, Greek, Roman schools, you feel that we are talking about about the same institution that you yourself attended as a child. And, probably, it will not be an exaggeration to say that the school is engaged in reproducing the people from year to year, that the history of modern man and the history of the general education school began at about the same time.

It would seem that the fact that education is necessary for every person is an elementary truth, but now it is not shared by everyone. Otherwise, education, along with, by the way, health care, would not be included in the category of "services" on a par with cafes and hairdressers, which, with all due respect to them, do not reach schools and hospitals in terms of public importance.

We have long seen that the school to which we are accustomed and which for the majority is still the norm is disappearing. Schoolchildren, starting with elementary grades, are now doing what is very remotely reminiscent of school. Children are busy with classes, they spend a lot of time on the task, but they receive little knowledge.

The programs are overloaded with topics and tasks that are inaccessible to the child due to his age restrictions. In order to provide knowledge at least to some extent, parents are forced to teach their children themselves, or even resort to the services of tutors. An elementary school tutor is an absurdity that is now becoming commonplace.

Why in the first grade such forms of educational activities as "portfolio", "abstract", "report"? That is, what the baby still cannot comprehend, let alone do on his own? As a result, abstracts and reports are written by dads and mothers, and the child gets the idea that learning is something that you cannot do, parents do it for you, and your job is only to bring the finished product to school.

Upbringing has practically disappeared from school, without which a full-fledged education is impossible. And in general, such training does little to instill a love of learning. More and more parents say that children do not want to go to such a school, it is alien to them.

As a result, we get generations of uneducated people with weak basic knowledge, who are unable and unwilling to learn. Complex humanitarian and technical knowledge is not available to uneducated people, it is difficult for them to reliably assess what is happening in the world around them. It is easier to deceive them, to separate them, it is easier to push them around, it is easier to profit from them. By depriving our children of a full-fledged education, their future is being robbed.

In such conditions, more and more people are inclined to out-of-school education for their children, the so-called. family education. In many cities of Russia there are already adherents of family education, who provide primary and secondary education to their children at home or in a community of like-minded people.

The approaches and views on family education are very different and, of course, reflect all the variety of ideological trends in which human minds are scattered today. There are adherents of extreme individualism who adhere to the view that "my child should not want to join the crowd and therefore should study at home alone." Many of them are focused on foreign methods, the so-called. homeschooling, that is, all the same home schooling, only "as in the civilized world."

There are monarchists who see Orthodox grammar schools as their ideal. And there are adherents of the Soviet teaching experience, organizing the teaching of children according to the methods and textbooks of the Soviet model.

I am a supporter of the latter approach, since the Soviet system has actually shown its effectiveness, bringing the USSR to the forefront in world education. I consider the transition to out-of-school education a compulsory measure. Again, in my opinion, school is not only a place where boys and girls learn general literacy and learn the basics of science. It is also a place of upbringing, the formation of a worldview, a place where children learn both the ability to learn and the ability to live in a team. The child, as he grows up, should come to understand the role of society in the life of people and his role in society.

Such an education is extremely difficult, if not impossible at all, to obtain outside the educational collective, class, school. With completely home, individual education, the child is cut off from the most important component of education - from communication with peers, that is, from what is called socialization. Homeschooling adherents often dismiss this, claiming that their child will learn communication skills either with their parents or in various circles. However, socialization is not only, and even not so much, "the ability to communicate." Socialization is the acquisition of the ability to put oneself in the place of another person, the understanding that a person lives among people and cannot live anywhere else. Moreover, without communication in society and in a collective of peers, it is impossible to learn to evaluate, and, therefore, to develop your own personality. Yes, many things cannot be done alone, it is impossible, ultimately, to become a human being alone.

Therefore, speaking about out-of-school education today, it is necessary, in my opinion, to talk about forms where children are taught in the classroom, and not individually. This can be, for example, a family class organized by mutual agreement within a group of parents who want to teach their children outside of school according to the Soviet education program.

A group of activists of the Parent All-Russian Resistance (RVS) is working on reprinting, taking into account modern requirements, elementary school textbooks of the Soviet era. A complete set of textbooks for the 1st grade has already been released, and some of the textbooks for the 2nd and 3rd grades are ready. It is in elementary school that, with proper training and upbringing, the first learning skills are formed in a child, a love of learning is instilled. And the time-tested Soviet textbooks and methodologies are aimed precisely at such an education.

Interestingly, the first example of teaching using these textbooks was some schools in Sevastopol, where in 2016 several classes of primary school, with parental consent, were completely transferred to training using Soviet textbooks published by the RVS.

The republished Soviet textbooks can be found on the RVS website. There is also a place where those wishing to transfer their children to out-of-school education using these textbooks can discuss specific issues, find teaching methods, and unite for joint activities.

Parents, mothers and fathers, grandparents who have children and grandchildren of preschool or primary school age! Who, besides us, will take care of their future? We will not allow fooling our children, turning them into illiterate urban savages!