Our education system is based solely on "must". The wishes and interests of the child are not taken into account. Even he does not need chemistry, and he wants to work as a salesman, he still has to learn the periodic table. And vice versa. If you want to become a doctor from childhood and want to study anatomy more deeply, it will not work. This is not included in the plan of the teacher.

• It's more like jail time

There is such a note on the Internet, where the school is compared very convincingly with a prison. It is impossible to get out of it ahead of time, in it you are absolutely not free and dependent on the teacher. You have to do what is required of you, and therefore there is no motivation - you do all this just to do it. You are not a person, you are just one of the crowd. Etc.

• Time extension.

It seems that in order for parents to work longer, all the information was stretched out for years. Although much could be learned several times faster. So some children finish school as an external student. And those who study at home, sometimes spend only one month a year preparing for exams a year. So why do the same thing every day? I remember how frankly I was bored in class. When the topic was not just passed over, but chewed three hundred times from different sides, as if there was nothing more to talk about.

Some people get bored and some don't understand. I would love to not sit for half an hour during the lesson, waiting for everyone to complete the control, but would do some additional, more difficult tasks. And it would be great if the children themselves could decide what they want to learn.

• Its backwardness and obscurity

I remember that at our school computer science was taught on such huge computers, on which there was no visual system, only complex sets of commands to call different functions. Moreover, Windows already existed - for several years. And our school computers were fifty years old, if not more. It is even difficult to call them computers - huge calculators. And it's not just in terms of technology.

You will not learn any new discoveries at school. They will tell you there about what is written in the textbook, even if recently someone was able to refute it.

• Create unified employees

Who are the schools preparing? Well, let's be honest. Those who can sit in one place, not stick out, do routine work for many years. That is, convenient employees who will be easy to manage in the future - with a ruble and a whip. Any creativity at school is usually not welcome, as well as entrepreneurship. I remember how we once sold ice cream at school - and got a "cap" for it. Like, there is nothing to engage in nonsense. Do I want my children to be like this? No.

• There is no most important - moral - base.

Even vice versa. During these ten years, the child every day looks at how it is not necessary to live, but absorbs it as the norm. To survive in a team, he often has to go against his conscience - to deceive.

He sees unhappy teachers working for pennies and hating their job. Or at least women who work very hard, but can afford little. Most of these teachers - from my memory - are single and raise their children on their own, being under great stress. At the same time, men are burned in every possible way, even in the classroom. I remember one teacher at my school hated men so much that when she called the boys to the blackboard, she tortured them for a very long time and then gave them out: “Well, what can I take from you, you're a boy! Sit down, three." And the girls were graded just like that, out of female solidarity.

There are catastrophically few male teachers, a maximum of a physical education teacher and a physicist. And even those are usually suppressed in the team by a female director or a female head teacher. The perfect picture for adulthood? Everyone lives like this, it's the norm!

Nothing is said about God. Or it is said so instructively that everything closes in the child in this direction. For example, they have now introduced the "Fundamentals of Orthodoxy" - but again, it is obligatory for everyone, in an edifying manner, even try to refuse. And they are often taught in such a way that they discourage the desire to go deeper.

Children absorb everything like sponges. Education is from the word "image"! What image do they have before their eyes at school?

• Tough social conditions and "baiting" white crows

Who determines the rules in the children's team? Usually the one who is bolder, bolder, stronger and more charismatic. At the same time, such a person is not necessarily smart, far from always possessing moral purity. And the rules are the same.

In my class, the rules were set by the boys, who already drank vodka and smoked in the fifth grade. We considered normal those who know how to speak obscenities, who are already in the seventh grade kissing someone, and so on. The rest were considered. The girls were less tortured, but they were constantly and maliciously joked about. Boys who grew up in intelligent families were subjected to checks and thrashings. Constantly. It was in the order of things and did not surprise anyone.

An ordinary-looking girl was enthusiastically called “fat” by the whole class, they always laughed at the boy, who reacted very slowly to everything, considering both “stupid” and “brake”, they put a mouse in someone’s bag, poured it on someone water at recess, someone was dipped head into the toilet. And I went to a good school, in a good neighborhood!

Anyone who stood out was always going through some serious bullying. A girl who dressed modestly and did not date boys was persecuted and referred to exclusively as an "old maid". The boys were simply beaten, their money was taken from them. Even more often, this was done with those who were younger by a couple of years.

How much mental strength must be spent on digesting all this muck! How many years then you need to bring all this out of your soul! It would seem that strangers to you, but every day they rock your boat, not wanting to leave you alone. And you can't get away from it.

There is another option - which I chose, abandoning myself and my values. Becoming the same as everyone else. Doing what you don't want to do. Imitating completely different things and it is not clear why. But is it much better than the first one? Returning to yourself is no easier than getting rid of the nasty things that have been thrown into your soul, even more difficult. A lot of things become habitual and seem to be the norm.

• Kills motivation and curiosity

At school, the only motivation is the grade - good or bad. Out of fear of the deuce, you try to do better. Dreaming about the five, you correct all the mistakes. To do something well just like that, to study something deeper just like that - no one will. What for?

The school kills in the child his natural curiosity with its forcible hammering. Because do not ask unnecessary questions - what if the teacher himself does not know the answer? And in general, do not interfere with everyone else, you never know what is interesting to you. At home, no one wants to answer your questions either. There is no time or energy to read extra books - as long as you read what is “needed”. And that's it. No curiosity, only commitment and cramming what is not interesting.

• School increases pride especially in girls, especially in relation to boys

For girls, this system of education is easier. They switch faster, it’s easier for them to cram without understanding anything. Therefore, they are often more successful in school. Almost all students are girls. In my school, there was only one boy among a dozen girls among the gold medalists. Only one.

And in such an environment, pride grows stronger in girls. Like, look how good I am! How smart I am, and you are all stupid! And, of course, it is the boys who seem especially stupid. They learn differently, and this form does not suit them at all.

Then such a girl treats all men in a similar way - as stupid, slow, stupid. Although they are not, their brains just work differently, they may be harnessed for a long time, but then they won’t stop! Boys are able to go deeper, explore from all sides, and not just jump on top.

But the girl does not understand this, her pride simply grows. Does it help her in family life? Absolutely not.

What do children do at school for 5-6 hours? They sit in one place. A few breaks where you can run, but often even that is not possible. A couple of times a week they have physical education - and that's it. What is the active lifestyle here? We grow up like this - and continue to sit on the priest evenly. And where to put all the internal energy and strength? And where to draw detente, inspiration.

• Criticism and a blow to self-esteem

The system, when you are asked publicly at the blackboard, and then given an assessment, can inflict many wounds on the child. Because some are afraid to answer at the blackboard, someone forgets everything from excitement, someone needs time to turn on. All children are different. A public poll is only suitable for some. For the rest, it can bring unnecessary stress, worries, including about the public grading by the teacher.

• No connection with nature

There is no nature in the school. Children all day in stone walls. And urban children study nature in theory, although it would be possible to go outside and study it in practice - in the forest, in the park, in the garden. Even living corners in schools are usually not very lively.

• The school buries the talents of the child.

It doesn't matter what you love. At school, even your very favorite can be so diligently thrust into you that it will cause rejection. For example, I loved mathematics at school, while I had a teacher who herself loved it very much. And then - already another teacher - successfully "buried" all this interest. Then try to dig it all out (and now many people are puzzled by this - the search for their talents already killed by someone or something).

• The school deprives parents and children of communication.

Everything now comes down to “did you do your homework?”, “passed the exam?”. And there is no more time and energy. Even on weekends. Yes, and there is nothing to talk about. Parents are busy with their lives, children with theirs - and there are fewer and fewer points of contact every year.

Whatever the cucumber is - large or small, dense or not very dense, when it gets into the brine with other cucumbers, it becomes the same as the others.

It can be a little more salty or a little less. But he definitely won't be able to stay the way he was before. This is how our environment affects us. Who we are next to, so we become. Whether we like it or not.

Therefore, the environment should be chosen very carefully, especially for children, who absorb everything like sponges. And what kind of children does he come across at school? Random, not selected by anyone, suitable only for age and area of ​​​​residence. What values ​​do they have, what families, what plans? What do we know about this, taking the child to school?

• School teaches one thing, but life requires another.

The school taught me personally that it is dangerous to be open and sincere. That's how I become weak and vulnerable. And while I lived like this, my life was gray and quite difficult. At the same time, it was from the time I started learning to be sincere and open with the world that everything began to change. This is how that site appeared, and books, and travel. Sincerity is now very little, openness too.

We all crawled into our little dark burrows and stew ourselves there. Therefore, few people are interested in us, and few people are interested in us. But if you nevertheless crawl out of your hole and open up to the world and people, you can learn and understand so much!

And yes, people are hungry for sincere soulful communication. Everyone secretly wants to open the doors of the tight cage around his heart. But it's so scary! That's why people who do it are so admired. They are drawn to them, they want to communicate with them.

I can list for a long time what else I don’t like about modern school education, what is unacceptable for me and why I don’t want to place children in such an environment. But there is no point in simply complaining; therefore, we need to share our positive experience, how we solve this issue. We are family schooled at home.

Of course, we did not come to this immediately. Since the eldest son has some peculiarities in terms of speech, at one time this made me reconsider my attitude towards school. If he were originally an ordinary child, I probably would not have turned on my head and sent him to the most prestigious school. And I wouldn't even think about it.

I know many special children whose children go to mainstream schools. This is their harsh school of life, where it is very difficult for them. And mothers fight for it, fight. And I used to want that too. And now I understand that sending a child with special needs to a regular school is harmful for the child himself. What will it give him besides stress and bullying by classmates? Maybe mom needs it more to prove to everyone that her child is the same as everyone else - and in some ways even better?

At the same time, I see how many opportunities Danka has in a calm, homely atmosphere, where it is easy for him to be himself. He paints all day. From morning to evening. Every time he draws better and better, he does not need to be forced to do it, he tries, experiments himself. Through drawing, he learned to write. Myself. And read. Also myself. And he is interested. It does not need to be forced or stimulated.

Perhaps someday we will attach ourselves somewhere, pass some exams - if he wants to. It doesn't matter to me. In addition, an artist can earn a living no less than a manager. If his talent is not strangled by anyone. Maybe someday he will want to go to school - and I will not interfere. Neither him nor his brothers. But for now, we are educated at home.

After the first publication of the "Collegium of Chief Editors of Russia" on the topic of renovation, the editors of "World of News" received a lot of feedback about the importance and necessity of this joint project of the Union of Journalists of the Russian Federation and our newspaper.

Chief editors from other regions of Russia have begun to join the initiative, and we are pleased that we are receiving the approval of the professional community.

WHILE THE LIGHT IS BURNING?

We all came out of September 1 - the beautiful and memorable Day of Knowledge for many generations. On the eve of the next holiday, we asked our experts important questions about the quality and problems of education in the country.

We remind you that the goal of the project "Board of Chief Editors of Russia" is not just to discuss the problem on the pages of the newspaper. We, as an association of experts with great informational and organizational strength and capabilities, want to achieve the formation of a consolidated public opinion on complex and important issues.

WHAT'S IN THE TEACHER'S POCKET?

Preparing our material, we could not do without official figures. It is sad that every fifth teacher in the country (22%, according to the Levada Center) is dissatisfied with his job. First of all, because of the salary (dissatisfied - more than 65%).

According to our experts, in the Smolensk region the average salary of teachers in 2016 amounted to 23,482 rubles, and it coincides with the average for the region.

In Voronezh, according to data for May, the average salary of school teachers in the region was 25,161 rubles, which is 7.5% higher than the average monthly income in the region.

“Following the results of the first half of the year, teachers in the Kemerovo region received a salary of 32,907 rubles. The average salary in Kuzbass is 35,077 rubles,” journalists from Kuzbass write to us.

Colleagues from Ryazan believe that "... in the region, salaries in education are about 8 percent higher than the average regional level." It is reported from Perm that “... on average, teachers in the region earn 25,000 rubles a month. Teachers in rural schools receive about 15,000 rubles. Young professionals - in general, about 10 thousand.

Of course, it is difficult to establish an accurate picture of teachers' incomes in Russia. But one thing is clear: formally, salaries have gone up everywhere, of course. However, given the sharp rise in the cost of products and services, everything looks rather dull.

“There is a very wide range of salaries for teachers: from 15 to 28 thousand. On average, respectively, it turns out to be around 20 thousand,” colleagues from the Volgograd region write to us.

With such income, a sincere desire to teach children can probably only be found among rare ascetics.

REDUCE FOR QUALITY?

Quite a few polemical copies have been broken in recent years around the question: is it worth cutting down ungraded schools in small villages? We looked at the official data.

Number of schools in Russia:

1991 - 69,700

2000 - 68,100

2015 - 44,100

Source: Rosstat.

At the same time, 150,000 more first-graders will go to schools in 2017 than last year. And there aren't enough places.

“There is an old proverb: “The school has died - the village has died,” recalls Alexander Belyavtsev, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Coast" (Voronezh).

“From time to time, pockets of “social tension” flare up, caused precisely by the liquidation of rural schools. This summer it was in the Kirzhachsky, Kameshkovsky and Murom regions, ”writes us editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Call" Nikolay Livshits from Vladimir.

“Of course, the closed school calls into question the prospects of the village. But economically it profitable, and the level of education is getting higher. Transport is being organized to deliver children to schools, ”says Valery Kachin, editor-in-chief of the regional newspaper "Kuzbass".

BUT editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Ryazanskiye Vedomosti" Galina Zaitseva answered that this problem “... is not significant for our region - it was solved much earlier, 10-15 years ago. But more often they closed the school where there were almost no students left and their number was not expected to grow. Today, schools are being built in the region, both in the regional center and in the countryside.”

NOT THE USE ONE?

The country's education system has been "plowed up" for a long time with the help of the Unified State Examination, and the debate on the topic "better - it got worse" does not subside.

“The one who is successful will not criticize the exam, and the other camp is able to talk for a long time about stress, a broken psyche and disturbed family microclimate,” notes Konstantin Karapetyan, editor-in-chief of the Volzhskaya Pravda newspaper (Volgograd region).

“Before, the teacher was in many ways the mentor of the student. With the introduction of the Unified State Examination, the school returned to the times of the bursa, where dogmatism sometimes prevails over common sense. But this is not the fault, but the misfortune of the school, through which the armored train of the Unified State Examination walked very powerfully. As for educational standards, I don’t see any reason to talk about them, because, in my opinion, real life and the requirements that are laid down in them are in parallel planes,” he skeptically assesses the state of affairs Igor Krasnovsky, editor-in-chief of Smolenskaya Gazeta.

Nikolai Livshits writes about "the dictatorship of fragmentary knowledge, clip-likeness because of the Unified State Examination." And here is what our expert from Kemerovo, Valery Kachin, thinks:

“In the opinion of a student of the Soviet period, education, to put it mildly, has not improved. And the exam does not contribute to this. All kinds of reforms have not led to an increase in the quality of knowledge.”

This opinion, with reservations, is shared by Galina Zaitseva: “The systematic nature of obtaining knowledge that the Soviet school had was lost. Today they are trying to return something from the previous experience, including the relationship between the process of education and upbringing. But while the teacher will be a "paper soldier", mired in the reports and certificates that are required of him, it is difficult to talk about cardinal changes. The good thing is that there has been a departure from the test "guessing" at the exams.

A colleague from Dagestan.

“... The reformers take into account the previous invaluable experience, the methods of the Soviet school, and today they are confidently competing with European ones ... Today, our republic is one of the successful regions in passing the Unified State Examination, and there is no need to be ashamed of the results, even if not very high ones” , - reflects.

Your view of the problem Natalia Kopylova, editor-in-chief of the Zvezda newspaper (Perm Territory): “I think that modern education is simply rebuilt for this new computerized generation. And, in my opinion, successfully rebuilt. My youngest daughter is 15 years old, so I speak firsthand. Test tasks for this generation are the most convenient form for taking exams. They think like this technically, point by point. And I think that in vain they scold the exam in vain. It shows the real level of knowledge of the student. You can’t get a good number of points on it by poking.”

CONCLUSION

In mid-summer, Minister of Education and Science Olga Vasilyeva announced another large-scale reform of school education in the country - the transfer of schools from municipal authorities to regional ones.

She complained that “... now schools are out of state guardianship and care... It is hard to imagine that 44,000 schools are in no way subordinate to the Ministry of Education and Science. They are also not subject to the region.” The vertical of education as a vertical of power? Oh well...

There are, of course, sane reforms. We recently decided to reduce excessive reporting, when educational organizations receive up to 20 requests per month, which require the collection and analysis of information. So not all is lost...

Prepared Evgeny Malyakin.

TASS/M. Metzel

The aim of the project "Board of Chief Editors of Russia" is not just to identify and discuss the problem on the pages of the newspaper - the task is much broader.

We, as an association of experts with great informational, intellectual and organizational strength and capabilities, want to achieve the formation of a consolidated public opinion on complex and important issues. Today on the agenda is the quality of education in the country, schools and teachers.

On the eve of the next Day of Knowledge, our project decided to ask its experts important questions about the quality and problems of education in Russia.

Galina Zaitseva, editor-in-chief of the Ryazanskiye Vedomosti newspaper, Ryazan

Have the standards of education improved enough and what about the USE? To what extent are the latest modern pedagogical methods, scientific and technical achievements introduced into schools and universities?

Has our education improved? This question cannot be answered unambiguously. In some ways, yes, it has become better: both the teacher and the student today have more opportunities in obtaining information, versatile knowledge. However, the systematic acquisition of knowledge that the Soviet school had was lost, for which it received recognition not only in our country.

Today they are trying to return something from the previous experience, including the interconnection between the process of education and upbringing. But while the teacher will be a "paper soldier", mired in the reports and certificates that are required of him, it is difficult to talk about cardinal changes.

The exam is also undergoing changes. And this form has its advantages. But the form of the exam does not have a significant impact on the quality of knowledge received by the student. The good thing is that there has been a departure from the test "guessing" in the exams. As for educational standards, they should probably be clearer and more uniform.

Increasing the income of teachers is real. If we take the statistics, this year (for half a year) in the region, salaries in education are about 8 percent higher than the average regional level of salaries.

But this is the average temperature. The salary of a teacher depends on many components: checking notebooks, class management, seniority, student achievements and their own victories, grade, additional rates, etc. And here the question arises: how to attract young teachers to the school, who need to collect all these components for more than one year “by grain”? The regions are trying to find their own answers to it, but again, the budgetary possibilities of, say, Moscow and Ryazan are incomparable.

Although, if a teacher in the capital receives an order of magnitude more than in Ryazan, this does not mean at all that he works with more efficiency than his Ryazan counterpart. And this “problem” cannot be solved independently by the regional authorities: the help of the Center is needed.

Today it is not essential for our region - it was solved much earlier, 10-15 years ago. But more often they closed the school where there were almost no students left and their number was not expected to grow. Today, schools are being built in the region - both in the regional center and in the countryside.

Konstantin Karapetyan, editor-in-chief of the city socio-political newspaper "Volzhskaya Pravda", Volgograd region

I would like to note that you captured too large a time range ... In the sense that it seems not entirely appropriate to “search for the truth” in comparing the two educational systems - Soviet and Russian. But, yes... You're right. Almost 30.

More precisely, 26 years, as Russian education is looking for its face. And if you form a personal (subjective!) position, start from its first steps, that is, the beginning of the 90s, and fix an intermediate finish now, then definitely: it has changed! Of course, for the better.

It's another matter that you ask a question to a "graduate" of a Soviet school, who in the evenings (to put it mildly!) gets annoyed while doing homework with his sixth-grader daughter. He gets annoyed with himself - for intemperance, with his daughter - for apathy, but with the compilers of the school curriculum (sorry!) and persons admitted to the formation of standards - for bullying ...

Actually, this is my answer to the question about educational standards (they are positioned as intuitive, but in reality they lack depth ... Moreover, the approach taken as a basis in many textbooks in the form of an easy dialogue format with students often looks like stupid, inappropriate, and even harmful) and whether the overall quality of knowledge of graduates has improved.

Well, in particular, the Unified State Examination ... I do not work in the education system, that is, I do not professionally analyze the data, so that later, here, I can argue objectively. And even more so to give an expert opinion ...

From the side (journalist), a strong impression is created “what, yes, I improved!”. But here we must understand that our perception of the topic is influenced by the first echelon of contacts and sources of information - these are specialists in the education system who, being in their right mind, of course, will not express their personal opinion on standards, the Unified State Examination and so on. “Corporate ethics” (and the fear that this will be interpreted as amateur performance) will not allow them.

Nevertheless, I must say that there is a second echelon of contacts and sources in journalism... These are parents and graduates themselves. And here their position is not unambiguous. Someone who is successful will not criticize the exam, and the “other camp” is able to talk for a long time about stress, a broken psyche and a disturbed family microclimate. Their opinion matters. This is the opinion of people directly involved in the topic ...

Does the increase in the income of teachers to the average (or higher) for the region, declared by the May 2012 Presidential Decrees, coincide with reality? What are the average incomes of teachers in the schools of the region today and is it possible to increase them by using only the regional budget? Do you expect anything from the federal center?

Yes. Teachers (and, in general, in the education system) have increased their incomes. Like doctors (and in the healthcare system), like the police, like the army ... But to a greater extent, I must admit that these are not conclusions that remain to be drawn after doing a lot of "research" work on duty. These are stereotypes. Hopefully not false.

I repeat, I cite my personal feelings based on professional interaction with the field of education, in this case, with teachers. It is rare when there is an informational reason to ask them directly about salaries... As a rule, more general topics in the field of education become the reason for a conversation in order to prepare material...

How much salary? There is a very wide range: from 15 to 28 thousand rubles ... On average, respectively, it turns out in the region of 20. This figure is drawn by the regional budget, but I think it will not be able to do more ...

There are no such problems in our region. If such a process occurs, it does not receive wide publicity. Not because something is hushed up, but because the topic has no resonant potential. That is, there is a merger, as they say, by mutual agreement.

In other words, there is an understanding in society that the word optimization in relation to the field of education does not always mean the need for savings, which is achieved in an unweighted staff reduction. In our case, we are really talking about optimization (rational use of resources) in the most direct sense of the word.

Alexander Belyavtsev, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Bereg", Voronezh

But I do not agree with those who believe that over the past 30 years, school education in the country has drastically deteriorated. It just became different.

Yes, it is possible that the level of knowledge in “exact” disciplines has decreased. But modern humanities will give odds to Soviet schoolchildren: the study of literature, history, foreign languages ​​has reached a completely different level.

The advent of the Internet provides unique opportunities for self-education. For example, today, in order to communicate with a native speaker of a foreign language, it is not necessary to go abroad - two or three clicks and hone your communication skills even with a Japanese, even with a representative of the Navajo Indian tribe.

Regarding the Unified State Examination: the introduction of the unified state exam system has made life difficult for everyone - schoolchildren, teachers, and parents. And did it have a positive effect? I doubt. As a result, we observe an obsession with formalistics, standardization of thinking, and, in general, a “squeezing” of a schoolchild into the narrow framework of factology and a lack of freedom of expression.

It remains to add that today a colossal, sometimes excessive burden has been placed on the schoolchild. In order to conscientiously perform all homework, the child has to study at home for five to six hours. In fact, the modern education system steals childhood from a schoolchild.

Has the task of achieving decent wages for teachers, set by the head of state back in 2012, been fulfilled in the regions of the Russian Federation?

The incomes of teachers in the Voronezh region are commensurate with the average salary in the region and in some periods even exceed it. According to May data, the average salary of school teachers in the Voronezh region was 25,161 rubles, which is 7.5% higher than the average monthly income in the region. Of course, the income of each particular teacher depends on the workload.

Does the closure, merger, and optimization of rural schools in the regions of the Russian Federation lead to a lot of problems, and will any modern “Lomonosov” now be able to get from Kholmogor to St. Petersburg?

Yes, there is an old saying - "the school died - the village died." But when choosing where to study for a child - in a wrecked school with stove heating and three teachers, or in a modern educational center with a swimming pool, a fitness center and a full staff of qualified teachers, I will, of course, prefer the latter. Under the only condition: the availability of free transport for schoolchildren from remote villages.

Burliyat Tokbolatova, editor-in-chief of Dagestanskaya Pravda

Have the standards of education improved enough and what about the USE? To what extent are the latest modern pedagogical methods, scientific and technical achievements introduced into schools and universities?

What to hide, with memories of classical Soviet education, sometimes the heart aches. And melancholy overcomes not only with memories of a modest school uniform, but also understandable, by no means alternative textbooks, written in a clear, understandable and, most importantly, accessible form of presentation for a schoolchild.

Yes, we were proud of Soviet education. But other times have come. And the open world demanded from us new quality standards, new knowledge, new approaches to the education system itself.

Much had to be changed in the minds of the modern student. And today, the technological world is changing so rapidly that knowledge becomes obsolete, and the teacher becomes more of a student's partner than a teacher in the usual way. This largely changes the usual ideas, and this has its advantages. That is, a modern school allows you to gain knowledge that is in demand in a globalizing world.

Is it bad or good? Much that happens in the school of the new century is in demand by the existing political and economic realities, which require completely new standards for the quality of knowledge, and indeed life itself. The schoolboy in the former habitual representation looks like a boring anachronism. A modern teenager is no longer a student memorizing a lesson mechanically. A completely independent person, who knows exactly the scope of his forces. That is, the new educational standards give him the opportunity to decide already at the school stage in choosing a profession. And he is free in his will.

There is confidence that, despite the completely different guidelines for education, the very scheme of education reform, the reformers take into account the previous invaluable experience, the methods of the Soviet school, and today they are confidently competing with European ones, keeping the old innovations at the modern level.

Each of us, Dagestanis, remembers how the exam was taken in the republic. The falsification of knowledge has acquired such an impressive scale that it was time to sound the alarm. And it was oh so difficult to destroy the already established stereotypes.

However, sometimes our memory fails us, Dagestanis. And they, perhaps, are not always ready to remember how their children received false certificates, and the rectors of Moscow universities, where graduates with almost zero knowledge directed their ambitious eyes, expelled "southern excellent students" after the results of the first session.

This is due to the fact that today our republic is among the successful regions in passing the Unified State Examination, and there is no need to be ashamed of the results, even if not very high ones. But we have to remind ourselves of this, because others take it for granted. But what efforts did it cost the authorities not only to break the prevailing ideas, but also to change the psychology, the attitude of both parents and students to the procedure for passing the exam. Many then did not believe in a miracle, but it happened. And it is impossible to ignore this. So the republican August meetings from year to year acquire a new character of sound. These are no longer victorious reports, but a serious conversation about the future of the Dagestan school, the quality of knowledge and what needs to be done.

Natalia Kopylova, editor-in-chief of the Zvezda newspaper, Perm Territory

Has school education changed for the better in the last 20-30 years? In your opinion, did the USE improve the quality of knowledge of graduates? What is missing in the new educational standards?

Education has changed, but I belong to that group of people who do not beat in hysterics, do not ring all the bells with cries that the youth has degraded, and modern education just contributes to this.

I think modern education is just being rebuilt for this new computerized generation. And, in my opinion, successfully rebuilt. My youngest daughter is 15 years old, so I speak not by hearsay, but from experience.

Test tasks for this generation are the most convenient form for passing exams. They think like this technically, point by point. And I think that in vain they scold the exam in vain. It shows the real level of knowledge of the student. It is impossible to score a good number of points on it by the “poke” method, as they say.

It is necessary to know the subject so thoroughly from the same literature in order to answer the questions of the exam. And the questions are very specific - without knowing the text, you are unlikely to “surface”.

By standards, I don’t know, I didn’t deal with this topic deeply.

Has the task of achieving decent wages for teachers, set by the head of state back in 2012, been fulfilled in the regions of the Russian Federation?

Probably the average salary and the same. But this is average, however, many teachers complain about low earnings. Although in our region, teachers in popular schools and gymnasiums receive 30,000 - 50,000 (despite the fact that the average salary in the region is 29,000).

Based on statistical data, we can say that, on average, teachers in the region have 25,000 rubles a month. But this is the "average temperature in the hospital." Teachers of rural schools receive about 15,000 rubles. Young specialists in general are about 10,000.

Does the closure, merger, and optimization of rural schools in the regions of the Russian Federation lead to a lot of problems, and will any modern “Lomonosov” now be able to get from Kholmogor to St. Petersburg?

Passions associated with the merger of rural schools in the Perm Territory have already subsided. Every school in the village already has a bus, children are taken from remote villages. And everyone is already used to it.

Another good innovation appeared a few years ago - the "mobile teacher". The teacher is given a car, and he conducts classes during the day at several schools in a particular rural area. This solves the problem of shortage of personnel. And children receive knowledge in all subjects.

And earlier it happened that in the schools of the villages there were no half of the subjects - there was no one to teach foreign languages, chemistry, biology (it used to be that agronomists taught). Now everything is more or less. Now there are still problems with the Internet and computerization in very remote schools (there are not many of them), computers are of the old generation, but they still exist.

Per capita funding worries teachers - there are few children in rural schools. That is why funding is scarce. But strong agricultural enterprises help (if there are any nearby), they buy sports equipment, furniture, etc. Well, those schools that do not have such support, of course, suffer.

Valery Kachin, editor-in-chief of the regional newspaper "Kuzbass", Kemerovo

Has school education changed for the better in the last 20-30 years? In your opinion, did the USE improve the quality of knowledge of graduates? What is missing in the new educational standards?

In the opinion of a student of the Soviet period, education, to put it mildly, has not improved. Including the exam does not contribute to this. All kinds of reforms have not led to an increase in the quality of knowledge. Perhaps, professional orientation in the senior classes should also be strengthened.

Does the increase in the income of teachers to the average (or higher) in the region, declared by the May 2012 Presidential Decrees, coincide with reality? What are the average incomes of teachers in the schools of the region today and is it possible to increase them by using only the regional budget?

Decrees of the President set the vector of movement, which, in general, is maintained. According to the results of six months of this year, the salary of teachers in the Kemerovo region was 32,907 rubles. The average monthly wage in Kuzbass for the same period amounted to 35,077 rubles.

Within the framework of his competence, he is not ready to assess the possibilities of the regional budget, as well as the powers of the federal Center.

How serious is the problem of the reduction (merger) of rural schools and the resulting social and other problems in the countryside and town in your region? What is the solution to this problem.

Of course, the closed school calls into question the prospects of this village. But it is economically profitable, and the level of education is getting higher. Transportation is organized to deliver children to schools.

Nikolay Livshits, editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Prizyv", Vladimir region

Have the standards of education improved enough and what about the USE? To what extent are the latest modern pedagogical methods, scientific and technical achievements introduced into schools and universities?

A priori, the standards of education could not change for the better, given the processes that were taking place at that time in Soviet and Russian society.

Change of values ​​in the 1990s, when the prestige of education fell sharply, as did respect for the profession of a teacher, when professionals in many industries became unclaimed (and this also indirectly detracted from the prestige of education), when material considerations became dominant - it was difficult to expect the flourishing of the sphere of education .

In the 2000s, the situation began to change for the better, but new systemic changes - the introduction of the Unified State Examination and other "digitization" of knowledge - brought their own negative. Even such a positive moment of the Unified State Examination as the graduates having a wide choice for entering universities cannot outweigh the obvious disadvantages in the form of replacing complex knowledge in subjects with “test” ones - clips. And, by the way, this dictatorship of fragmentary knowledge is facilitated not only by the USE, but also by the dominance of “testing” in school subjects in general.

I once tried to pass tests in my son's literature workbook - this is the 6th grade. A familiar work, familiar characters... But I couldn't answer many questions: what color was the hero's jacket, what word did he use in a particular dialogue.

After all, I remember the spirit, essence, style of the work, and not the nuances, details, which are still of secondary importance. And in the tests, it was the details that replaced the essence. And, on the other hand, attempts to introduce a conditional "complexity" into a number of academic subjects also perplex me personally.

When, for example, in "Social Science" one after another there are paragraphs about history, geography, nature, wildlife, the population of a particular region - this, in my opinion, also gives rise to clip art: what does a child study - history, geography, biology, etc.?

Has the task of achieving decent wages for teachers, set by the head of state back in 2012, been fulfilled in the regions of the Russian Federation?

In the Vladimir region officially - yes. Another thing is that the figures are “average for the hospital”, but there are nuances in specifics.

According to the results of the first half of 2017, the average salary of general education teachers amounted to 30.7 thousand rubles, and in preschool institutions - 24.3 thousand rubles. This is government data. According to Vladimirstat, over the same period, the average accrued wages in the Vladimir region rose to 26,895 rubles.

But if we look at the statistics for the city of Vladimir (and this is one of the most well-to-do municipal formations in the region), then here, according to the mayor’s office, the average salary for school teachers was 24.3 thousand rubles a month, for kindergarten teachers - 22 thousand rubles, for teachers additional education - 23.7 thousand. To be honest, the amounts indicated in the report of the municipality seem to me closer to reality.

How serious is the problem of the reduction (merger) of rural schools and the resulting social and other problems in the countryside and town in your region? What is the solution to this problem.

The main shaft of reductions (mergers) of low-budget schools has already passed in the 2000s. Now this process is also observed, but not on the same scale as before.

From time to time pockets of "social tension" flare up, caused precisely by the liquidation - let's call a spade a spade - rural schools. Literally this summer it was in the Kirzhachsky, Kameshkovsky and Murom regions of the Vladimir region.

What are the ways to solve the problem? In my opinion, the main criterion in such a situation should be the compliance of the school with the modern level of education. If it is possible to introduce modern communication systems, computerization, etc. there. Now, first of all, the financial issue is taken into account: how expensive is the school, how much does it cost to train one student ...

But a school is not a commercial enterprise for which profitability and profit are important. It provides profit, but of a different kind - in the form of literate people, future professionals, it qualitatively forms the people. And this is the most important thing.

Igor Krasnovsky, Editor-in-Chief, Smolenskaya Gazeta, Smolensk

Has school education changed for the better in the last 20-30 years? In your opinion, did the USE improve the quality of knowledge of graduates? What is missing in the new educational standards?

Probably, I will not be original, but, in my opinion, school education has changed not for the better.

Before, after all, the teacher was in many ways the mentor of the student. Today, with the introduction of the Unified State Examination, the school has returned to the times of the bursa, where dogmatism sometimes prevails over common sense. But this is not the fault, but the misfortune of the school, through which the USE armored train passed very powerfully.

As for educational standards, I see no reason to talk about them, because, in my opinion, real life and the requirements that are laid down in them are in parallel planes.

Has the task of achieving decent wages for teachers, set by the head of state back in 2012, been fulfilled in the regions of the Russian Federation?

In the Smolensk region, the increase in teachers' salaries in 2016 compared to 2012 amounted to:

• for employees of preschool educational organizations - 189.8%;

• for employees of educational institutions of general education - 157.6%;

• for employees of additional education of children - 183.8%;

• for teachers and masters of industrial training of educational institutions of primary and secondary vocational education - 152.4%;

• teachers of higher professional education - 165.9%;

• for teachers providing social services to orphans - 174.3%.

The May Decrees of the President, of course, the regional authorities are trying to fulfill as much as possible, because for it, as well as for the leadership of all regions, they are like the sword of Damocles. The average salary of teachers in 2016 is 23,482 rubles (the average for the region is 23,543 rubles).

In 2017, according to the adopted "road map" for the implementation of the May Decrees, the planned average salary of teachers should increase to 23,785 rubles and will already exceed the average salary in the region.

But! Compared to Moscow, which is only 400 kilometers from Smolensk and where the average salary of teachers is about 57,000 rubles, the difference is huge. The result is an outflow of personnel, especially young ones, to the capital.

Raising the salaries of state employees only at the expense of the regional budget in a subsidized region is impossible, this is an obvious fact. And - not only for the Smolensk region.

Why? Because “the constant growth of the debt burden of the regions over the past 10 years is primarily due to the fact that since 2004 the proportion of distribution of tax revenues between regional budgets and the federal center has been fundamentally revised, in which the largest proportion of tax revenues was sent to the federal budget.

The idea of ​​the new proportion was to equalize all regions of the country in the rights to use the natural rent, since until that moment the regions of oil and gas production received much more taxes than the regions that did not have large enterprises or minerals on their territory ...

In addition, the obligation of regional authorities by law to direct attracted debt resources, including financing the social sphere, and not infrastructure or industrial projects, has an additional negative impact on the level and dynamics of public debt - social payments are not investments and cannot serve as a basis for the formation payment fund for public debt.

The main factors in the growth of the budget deficit of the regions will be the need to increase budget spending on the development of the social sphere and support of the economy, as the deadlines for achieving many of the target indicators of the "May Decrees" are approaching, as well as the impossibility of increasing tax revenues of the budget against the backdrop of a decrease or stagnation in most sectors of the Russian economy .

In 2017, the situation with budget deficits may improve, but the public debt will continue to grow, albeit at a more relaxed pace.” (Conclusions of RIA Rating experts)

This is in the oil and gas regions and in the capitals, as they say, if it gets dark in one pocket, then the dawn breaks in the other. In our long-suffering Non-Chernozem region, from time immemorial, everything, unfortunately, was different, according to the principle - money is not chips, you can’t raise it on the floor.

They had to earn and have to sweat and blood. And, as you know, you can’t buy anything on the budget fig from reformers like Mr. Kudrin, during whose tenure as Minister of Finance the above-mentioned proportion of the distribution of tax revenues between regional budgets and the federal center was launched. Here also it is necessary to get into debts to raise salaries to state employees.

How serious is the problem of the reduction (merger) of rural schools and the resulting social and other problems in the countryside and town in your region? What is the solution to this problem.

This problem is very serious. One of the ways to solve it was found by the teachers of the Smolensk hinterland.

Back in 2006, in the village of Shapy, Demidov District, the question of closing the school came up. There were 6 students left (despite the fact that 200 inhabitants were registered in the settlement). The liquidation of the educational institution was only a matter of time. In order not to lose their jobs and hope for the revival of their native village, the teachers decided to take a desperate step - they took foster children into their families. At first it was five children from the boarding school.

Today, 90% of the children of this educational institution are adopted, taken for foster care by local residents. Moreover, as the children grow older, foster parents continue this charitable mission and take more and more new pupils from boarding schools into their families. At the end of May this year, 37 children studied at the Shapovskaya school, 32 of them were adopted.

The case, of course, is both unprecedented and unique. And in the Smolensk region, and in other regions, several teachers tried to repeat this experience. But the uniqueness of Shapov's story is that here the charitable mission was supported not only by the teachers, but also by the majority of the villagers.

I understand that it is hardly possible to recommend this wonderful experience to everyone. But to think about the fact that the future of small rural schools depends not only on the decisions of the authorities, but also on the civil and human position of the teachers of these schools and the inhabitants of the hinterland, you must agree, it is probably worth it.

CONS OF EDUCATION

Although modern education provides versatile knowledge in various subjects, it still focuses primarily on general average standards, and not on the development of a particular child. The school does not always pay attention to the talents of the student, his abilities and inclinations. Many teachers consider their subject to be the main one, which interferes with the orientation of the child. From this, some subjects are given to schoolchildren quite hard. And all because during the school hour the teacher does not have time to convey to the children everything that is connected with the new topic. Therefore, students learn a lot on their own. But this independence is not possible for all students. Agree, if a student is at school until two o'clock, then in a section or in a circle, then when he comes home at six o'clock in the evening (or even later), study "does not come to his mind." And there are so many things to ask! And abstracts, and poems, and essays ...

Sometimes you think: do they really want to raise geeks from our children from the first grade, capable of assimilating new materials on the fly and in large volumes ?! On weekdays, when you come home from work, you immediately start teaching lessons with your child, it happens that you stay up until night. In the end, no housework. On weekends - the same picture: as we start to teach in the morning, so the whole day goes by. And when do children have a rest (and parents too)? After all, I want to take a walk on the street, and chat with friends, and watch TV. But children sorely lack time for this - lessons, lessons, lessons ... And schoolchildren grow up, literally loaded with endless solutions to tasks, not looking around, not seeing anything around them, forgetting about simple joys. In addition, most of what children learn and learn in school will not be useful to many of them in life. And so all eleven years. And then both parents and children are waiting for the exam. Everyone here is already dissatisfied, since training is replaced by training and coaching (what if someone does not pass the exam, this is a stain on the school and teachers!).

The disadvantage is that the coveted "gold" medal does not give the graduate any privileges when entering higher educational institutions. Previously, I remember that we, the owners of medals, had only to successfully pass an interview in order to be enrolled in a university. Now the medalists do not have any advantages and benefits upon admission, they have been equalized with everyone else. Then why, one wonders, strain for eleven years, if you will still be “like everyone else”? That is why modern schoolchildren do not have a special craving for learning.

But not everything is so bad in modern education, there are also positive aspects. For example, the volume of school knowledge is quite diverse, which gives the graduate a relatively broad outlook. The child learns to work, build relationships and communicate in a team. The necessary communication skills are developed. Thus, it is embedded in the social system. In the process of learning, the child learns to communicate with people of his own and the other sex. School graduates have the opportunity to continue their education and get a good job in the future.

Besides, big role plays learning from elementary grades of foreign language and computer. It is simply necessary for children to “swim” freely in the sea of ​​modern technologies. An interactive whiteboard, computers, video and audio equipment are a great help in learning new material in a lesson, this was not the case in our time. For example, we studied a foreign language only from a textbook, however, sometimes the teacher let us listen to how another language sounds in the record on the record.

A big plus of modern education is the introduction of new methods of control over grades, for example, a single school journal or an electronic diary. Using an electronic diary, it becomes possible to control the student not only by the teacher, but also by the parents. Thanks to this innovation, we, parents, can at any time find out about the homework and progress of our child. Now he is unlikely to be able to say that there was no homework assignment. In addition, such a diary made it easier for the teacher to disseminate the necessary information. This applies to both school grades and parent-teacher meetings. It is enough to make a newsletter and warn about the date and time of the class meeting. In addition, we, parents, will be able to make our own adjustments to the topics of the meeting, put forward proposals and discuss exciting topics.

It is clear that modern education is a rather complex system aimed at the comprehensive development and education of the child. Maybe this is good: the student will learn to live in our diverse world with its frantic pace of life. But the main thing is that our children would not break under the “burden” of this all-round development. We parents can't take it anymore.

Soviet education in certain circles is considered to be the best in the world. In the same circles, it is customary to consider the current generation as lost - they say, these young "victims of the Unified State Examination" cannot stand any comparison with us, the technical intellectuals who went through the crucible of Soviet schools ...

Of course, the truth lies far away from these stereotypes. A certificate of graduation from a Soviet school, if it is a sign of the quality of education, is only in the Soviet sense. Indeed, some people who studied in the USSR amaze us with the depth of their knowledge, but at the same time, many others no less amaze us with the depth of their ignorance. Not knowing Latin letters, not being able to add simple fractions, not physically understanding the simplest written texts - alas, for Soviet citizens this was a variant of the norm.

At the same time, Soviet schools also had undeniable advantages - for example, teachers then had the opportunity to freely give deuces and leave “not pulling” students for the second year. This whip created the mood necessary for study, which is so lacking now in many modern schools and universities.

Let's get right to the point of the post. A long overdue article on the pros and cons of Soviet education was created on the Patriot's Handbook by the efforts of a team of authors. I am publishing this article here and I ask you to join the discussion - and, if necessary, even supplement and correct the article directly on the Directory, since this is a wiki project that is available for editing to everyone:

This article examines the Soviet education system in terms of its advantages and disadvantages. The Soviet system followed the task of educating and shaping a personality worthy of realizing for future generations the main national idea of ​​the Soviet Union - a bright communist future. This task was subordinated not only to the teaching of knowledge about nature, society and the state, but the education of patriotism, internationalism and morality.

== Pros (+) ==

Mass character. In Soviet times, for the first time in the history of Russia, almost universal literacy was achieved, close to 100%.

Of course, even in the era of the late USSR, many people of the older generation had only 3-4 grades of education behind them, because far from everyone was able to complete a full course of schooling due to the war, mass migrations, and the need to go to work early. However, virtually all citizens learned to read and write.
For mass education, one must also thank the tsarist government, which in the 20 pre-revolutionary years practically doubled the level of literacy in the country - by 1917, almost half of the population was literate. The Bolsheviks, as a result, received a huge number of literate and trained teachers, and they only had to double the proportion of literate people in the country for the second time, which they did.

Wide access to education for national and linguistic minorities. During the process of so-called indigenization, the Bolsheviks in the 1920s and 1930s. for the first time introduced education in the languages ​​of many small peoples of Russia (often creating and introducing alphabets and writing for these languages ​​along the way). Representatives of the outlying peoples got the opportunity to become literate, first in their native language, and then in Russian, which accelerated the elimination of illiteracy.

On the other hand, this very indigenization, which was partially curtailed in the late 1930s, managed to make a significant contribution to the future collapse of the USSR along national borders.

High availability for the majority of the population (universal free secondary education, very common higher education). In tsarist Russia, education was associated with class restrictions, although as its availability grew, these restrictions weakened and blurred, and by 1917, with money or special talents, representatives of any class could receive a good education. With the coming to power of the Bolsheviks, class restrictions were finally lifted. Primary and then secondary education became universal, and the number of students in higher educational institutions increased many times over.

High motivation of students, respect of society for education. Young people in the USSR really wanted to study very much. Under Soviet conditions, when the right to private property was severely limited and entrepreneurial activity was practically suppressed (especially after the closure of artels under Khrushchev), getting an education was the main way to advance in life and start making good money. There were few alternatives: far from everyone had enough health for Stakhanov’s manual labor, and for a successful party or military career it was also necessary to improve their level of education (illiterate proletarians were recruited without looking back only in the first decade after the revolution).

Respect for the work of the teacher and teacher. At least until the 1960s and 1970s, while illiteracy was being eliminated in the USSR and the system of universal secondary education was being established, the teaching profession remained one of the most respected and in demand in society. Comparatively literate and capable people became teachers, moreover, they were motivated by the idea of ​​bringing enlightenment to the masses. In addition, it was a real alternative to hard work on a collective farm or in production. A similar situation was in higher education, where, in addition, during the time of Stalin there were very good salaries (already under Khrushchev, however, the salaries of the intelligentsia were reduced to the level of workers and even lower). Songs were written about the school, films were made, many of which were included in the golden fund of national culture.

Relatively high level of initial training of those who entered higher educational institutions. The number of students in the RSFSR at the end of the Soviet era was at least two times lower than in modern Russia, and the proportion of young people in the population was higher. Accordingly, with a similar population in the RSFSR and in the modern Russian Federation, the competition for each place in Soviet universities was twice as high as in modern Russian ones, and as a result, the contingent was recruited there with a better and more capable one. It is with this circumstance that, first of all, the complaints of modern teachers about a sharp drop in the level of preparation of applicants and students are connected.

Very high quality technical education. Soviet physics, astronomy, geography, geology, applied technical disciplines and, of course, mathematics, were without a doubt at the highest world level. The huge number of outstanding discoveries and technical inventions of the Soviet era speaks for itself, and the list of world-famous Soviet scientists and inventors looks very impressive. However, even here we must say special thanks to pre-revolutionary Russian science and higher education, which served as a solid foundation for all these achievements. But one cannot but admit that the Soviet Union succeeded - even despite the mass emigration of Russian scientists after the revolution - to fully revive, continue and develop at the highest level the domestic tradition in the field of technical thought, natural and exact sciences.

Satisfaction of the state's colossal demand for new personnel in the face of a sharp increase in industry, the army and science (thanks to large-scale state planning). In the course of mass industrialization in the USSR, several new branches of industry were created and the scale of production in all branches was significantly increased many times and dozens of times. Such impressive growth required the training of many specialists capable of working with the most modern technology. In addition, it was necessary to make up for significant losses of personnel as a result of revolutionary emigration, civil war, repressions and the Great Patriotic War. The Soviet education system successfully coped with the training of many millions of specialists in hundreds of specialties - thanks to this, the most important state tasks related to the country's survival were solved.

Relatively high scholarships. The average scholarship in the late USSR was 40 rubles, while the salary of an engineer was 130-150 rubles. That is, scholarships reached about 30% of salaries, which is much higher than in the case of modern scholarships, which are large enough only for honors students, graduate students and doctoral students.

Developed and free extracurricular education. In the USSR, there were thousands of palaces and houses of pioneers, stations for young technicians, young tourists and young naturalists, and many other circles. Unlike most of today's circles, sections and electives, Soviet extracurricular education was free.

The world's best sports education system. From the very beginning, the Soviet Union paid great attention to the development of physical culture and sports. If in the Russian Empire sports education was only in its infancy, then in the Soviet Union it reached the forefront in the world. The success of the Soviet sports system is clearly visible in the results at the Olympics: the Soviet team has consistently won first or second place in every Olympics since 1952, when the USSR began to participate in the international Olympic movement.

== Cons (−) ==

Low quality of liberal arts education due to ideological restrictions and clichés. Almost all humanitarian and social disciplines in schools and universities of the USSR were loaded to one degree or another with Marxism-Leninism, and during Stalin's lifetime - also with Stalinism. The concept of teaching the history of Russia and even the history of the ancient world was based on the “Short Course in the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks”, according to which the entire world history was presented as a process of maturing the prerequisites for the 1917 revolution and the future building of a communist society. In the teaching of economics and politics, the main place was occupied by Marxist political economy, in the teaching of philosophy - by dialectical materialism. These directions in themselves are worthy of attention, however, they were declared the only true and correct ones, and all the others were declared either their predecessors or false directions. As a result, huge layers of humanitarian knowledge either completely fell out of the Soviet education system, or were presented in a dosed and exclusively critical way, as “bourgeois science”. Party history, political economy and diamat were compulsory subjects in Soviet universities, and in the late Soviet period they were among the least loved by students (as a rule, they were far from the main specialty, divorced from reality and at the same time relatively difficult, so their study is mainly came down to memorizing formulaic phrases and ideological formulations).

Blackening of history and distortion of moral guidelines. In the USSR, school and university teaching of history was characterized by denigration of the tsarist period in the history of the country, and in the early Soviet period this denigration was much more ambitious than the post-perestroika denigration of Soviet history. Many pre-revolutionary statesmen were declared "servants of tsarism", their names were deleted from history books or mentioned in a strictly negative context. Conversely, outright robbers, like Stenka Razin, were declared "people's heroes", and terrorists, like the murderers of Alexander II, were called "freedom fighters" and "advanced people." In the Soviet concept of world history, a lot of attention was paid to all kinds of oppression of slaves and peasants, all kinds of uprisings and rebellions (of course, these are also important topics, but by no means less important than the history of technology and military affairs, geopolitical and dynastic history, etc.) . The concept of "class struggle" was implanted, according to which representatives of the "exploiting classes" were to be persecuted or even destroyed. From 1917 to 1934 history was not taught in universities at all, all historical departments were closed, traditional patriotism was condemned as “great power” and “chauvinism”, and instead “proletarian internationalism” was implanted. Then Stalin abruptly changed course towards the revival of patriotism and returned history to universities, however, the negative consequences of post-revolutionary denial and distortion of historical memory are still felt: many historical heroes were forgotten, for several generations of people the perception of history was sharply torn into periods before the revolution and after, many good traditions have been lost.

The negative impact of ideology and political struggle on academic staff and individual disciplines. As a result of the revolution and civil war in 1918-1924. about 2 million people were forced to emigrate from the RSFSR (the so-called white emigration), and most of the emigrants were representatives of the most educated segments of the population, including an extremely large number of scientists, engineers and teachers who emigrated. According to some estimates, about three-quarters of Russian scientists and engineers died or emigrated during that period. However, already before the First World War, Russia ranked first in Europe in terms of the number of students in universities, so there were a lot of specialists trained in tsarist times in the country (although, for the most part, quite young specialists). Thanks to this, the acute shortage of teaching staff that arose in the USSR was successfully filled in most industries by the end of the 1920s (partly due to an increase in the load on the remaining teachers, but mainly due to the enhanced training of new ones). Subsequently, however, the Soviet scientific and teaching staff were seriously weakened during the repressions and ideological campaigns carried out by the Soviet authorities. The persecution of genetics is widely known, due to which Russia, which at the beginning of the 20th century was one of the world leaders in biological science, by the end of the 20th century moved into the category of lagging behind. Due to the introduction of ideological struggle into science, many outstanding scientists of the humanities and social areas suffered (historians, philosophers and economists of a non-Marxist persuasion; linguists who participated in discussions on Marrism, as well as Slavists; Byzantologists and theologians; Orientalists - many of them were shot on false charges spying on Japan or other countries because of their professional connections), but representatives of the natural and exact sciences also suffered (the case of the mathematician Luzin, the Pulkovo case of astronomers, the Krasnoyarsk case of geologists). As a result of these events, entire scientific schools were lost or suppressed, and in many areas there was a noticeable lag behind world science. The culture of scientific discussion was excessively ideologized and politicized, which, of course, had a negative impact on education.

Restrictions on access to higher education for certain groups of the population. In fact, the opportunities to receive higher education in the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s were almost non-existent. the so-called dispossessed were deprived, including private merchants, entrepreneurs (using hired labor), representatives of the clergy, and former policemen. Children from families of nobles, merchants, clergy often faced obstacles when trying to get a higher education in the pre-war period. In the union republics of the USSR, representatives of the titular nationalities received preferences for admission to universities. In the post-war period, the percentage rate for admission to the most prestigious universities was tacitly introduced in relation to Jews.

Restrictions on familiarization with foreign scientific literature, restrictions on international communication between scientists. If in the 1920s pre-revolutionary practice continued in Soviet science, involving very long business trips and internships for scientists and the best students, constant participation in international conferences, free correspondence and unlimited flow of foreign scientific literature, then in the 1930s. the situation began to change for the worse. Especially in the period after 1937 and before the war, having foreign connections became simply dangerous for the lives and careers of scientists, since so many were then arrested on trumped-up charges of espionage. In the late 1940s in the course of the ideological campaign to combat cosmopolitanism, it came to the point that references to the works of foreign authors began to be regarded as a manifestation of "groveling before the West", and many were forced to necessarily accompany such references with criticism and stereotyped condemnation of "bourgeois science". The desire to publish in foreign journals was also condemned, and, most unpleasantly, almost half of the world's leading scientific journals, including publications like Science and Nature, were removed from the public domain and sent to special safekeeping. This “turned out to be in the hands of the most mediocre and unprincipled scientists”, for whom “mass separation from foreign literature made it easier to use it for covert plagiarism and pass it off as original research.” As a result, in the middle of the 20th century, Soviet science, and after it education, in conditions of limited external relations, they began to fall out of the global process and "stew in their own juice": it became much more difficult to distinguish world-class scientists from compilers, plagiarists and pseudoscientists, many achievements of Western science remained unknown or little known in the USSR. » Soviet science has been corrected only partially, as a result, there is still a problem of low citation of Russian scientists abroad and insufficient familiarity with advanced foreign research.

Relatively low quality of teaching foreign languages. If in the West in the post-war period the practice of attracting foreigners - native speakers to teaching, as well as the practice of large-scale student exchange, in which students could live in another country for several months and learn the spoken language in the best possible way, was established, then the Soviet Union lagged far behind in the teaching of foreign languages ​​from -for the closed borders and the almost complete absence of emigration from the West to the USSR. Also, for censorship reasons, the flow of foreign literature, films, and recordings of songs to the Soviet Union was limited, which did not at all contribute to the study of foreign languages. Compared to the USSR, in modern Russia there are much more opportunities for learning languages.

Ideological censorship, autarky and stagnation in art education in the late USSR. Russia at the beginning of the 20th century and the early USSR were among the world leaders and trendsetters in the field of artistic culture. Avant-garde painting, constructivism, futurism, Russian ballet, the Stanislavsky system, the art of film editing - this and much more aroused admiration from the whole world. However, by the end of the 1930s. the variety of styles and trends was replaced by the dominance of socialist realism imposed from above - in itself it was a very worthy and interesting style, but the problem was the artificial suppression of alternatives. Reliance on their own traditions was proclaimed, while attempts at new experiments began in many cases to be condemned (“Muddle instead of music”), and borrowings from Western cultural techniques were subjected to restrictions and persecution, as in the case of jazz, and then rock music. Indeed, experiments and borrowings were not successful in all cases, but the scale of condemnation and restrictions were so inadequate that this led to the discouragement of innovation in art and the gradual loss of world cultural leadership by the Soviet Union, as well as the emergence of an "underground culture" in the USSR.

Degradation of education in the field of architecture, design, urban planning. During the period of Khrushchev's "fight against architectural excesses" the entire system of architectural education, design and construction was seriously affected. In 1956, the Academy of Architecture of the USSR was reorganized and renamed the Academy of Construction and Architecture of the USSR, and in 1963 it was completely closed (until 1989). As a result, the era of the late USSR became a time of decline in design and a growing crisis in the field of architecture and the urban environment. The architectural tradition was interrupted and was replaced by the soulless construction of microdistricts inconvenient for life; instead of a “bright future”, a “gray present” was built in the USSR.

Cancellation of teaching of fundamental classical disciplines. In the Soviet Union, such an important subject as logic was excluded from the school curriculum (it was studied in pre-revolutionary gymnasiums). Logic was returned to the program and a textbook was released only in 1947, but in 1955 it was removed again, and, with the exception of physics and mathematics lyceums and other elite schools, logic is still not taught to schoolchildren in Russia. Meanwhile, logic is one of the foundations of the scientific method and one of the most important subjects that gives skills to distinguish between truth and falsehood, to conduct discussions and resist manipulation. Another important difference between the Soviet school curriculum and the pre-revolutionary gymnasium was the abolition of the teaching of Latin and Greek. Knowledge of these ancient languages ​​may seem useless only at first glance, because almost all modern scientific terminology, medical and biological nomenclature, and mathematical notation are built on them; in addition, the study of these languages ​​is a good gymnastics for the mind and helps to develop the skills of discussion. Several generations of prominent Russian scientists and writers who worked before the revolution and in the first decades of the USSR were brought up in the tradition of classical education, which included the study of logic, Latin and Greek, and the almost complete rejection of all this hardly had a positive effect on education in the USSR and Russia.

Problems with the education of moral values, partial loss of the educational role of education. The best Soviet teachers have always insisted that the goal of education is not only the transfer of knowledge and skills, but also the upbringing of a moral, cultured person. In many respects, this task was successfully solved in the early USSR - then it was possible to solve the problem of mass child homelessness and juvenile delinquency that developed after the civil war; managed to raise the cultural level of significant masses of the population. However, in some respects, Soviet education not only failed to educate morality, but in some ways even exacerbated the problem. Many educational institutions of pre-revolutionary Russia, including church education and the institutes of noble maidens, directly set themselves the main task of educating a moral person and preparing him either for the role of a spouse in the family, or for the role of "brother" or "sister" in the community of believers. Under Soviet rule, all such institutions were closed, specialized analogues were not created for them, the education of morality was entrusted to an ordinary mass school, separating it from religion, which was replaced by propaganda of atheism. The moral goal of Soviet education was no longer the education of a worthy member of the family and community, as it was before, but the education of a member of the working collective. For the accelerated development of industry and science, perhaps this was not bad. However, such an approach could hardly solve the problems of a high level of abortions (for the first time in the world legalized in the USSR), a high level of divorces and a general degradation of family values, a sharp transition to few children, growing mass alcoholism and extremely low life expectancy for men in the late USSR by world standards.

Almost complete elimination of home education. Many outstanding figures of Russian history and culture received home education instead of school, which proves that such education can be very effective. Of course, this form of education is not available to everyone, but either to relatively wealthy people who can hire teachers, or simply to intelligent and educated people who can devote a lot of time to their children and personally go through the school curriculum with them. However, after the revolution, home education in the USSR was by no means encouraged (largely for ideological reasons). The system of external studies in the USSR was introduced in 1935, but for a long time it was designed almost exclusively for adults, and a full-fledged opportunity for external education for schoolchildren was introduced only in 1985-1991.

Non-alternative co-education for boys and girls. One of the dubious Soviet innovations in education was the compulsory joint education of boys and girls instead of pre-revolutionary separate education. At that time, this step was justified by the struggle for women's rights, the lack of staff and facilities for the organization of separate schools, as well as the widespread practice of co-education in some of the leading countries of the world, including the United States. However, the latest research in the same US shows that separate education improves student outcomes by 10-20%. Everything is quite simple: in joint schools, boys and girls are distracted by each other, there are noticeably more conflicts and incidents; boys, up to the last grades of school, lag behind girls of the same age in learning, since the male body develops more slowly. On the contrary, with separate education, it becomes possible to better take into account the behavioral and cognitive characteristics of different sexes to improve performance, self-esteem of adolescents is more dependent on academic performance, and not on some other things. Interestingly, in 1943, separate education for boys and girls was introduced in the cities, which, after the death of Stalin, was again eliminated in 1954.

The system of orphanages in the late USSR. While in Western countries in the middle of the 20th century they began to massively close orphanages and place orphans in families (this process was generally completed by 1980), in the USSR the system of orphanages was not only preserved, but even degraded. compared to pre-war times. Indeed, during the struggle against homelessness in the 1920s, according to the ideas of Makarenko and other teachers, labor became the main element in the re-education of former homeless children, while the pupils of labor communes were given the opportunity to self-government, in order to develop skills of independence and socialization. This technique gave excellent results, especially considering that before the revolution, civil war and famine, most homeless children still had some experience of family life. However, later, due to the prohibition of child labor, this system was abandoned in the USSR. By 1990, there were 564 orphanages in the USSR, the level of socialization of orphanage residents was low, and many former orphanage residents fell into the ranks of criminals and outcasts. In the 1990s the number of orphanages in Russia almost tripled, but in the second half of the 2000s, the process of their liquidation began, and in the 2010s. it is close to completion.

Degradation of the system of secondary vocational education in the late USSR. Although in the USSR they extolled the worker in every way and promoted working professions, by the 1970s. The system of secondary vocational education in the country began to clearly degrade. “If you study poorly at school, you will go to a vocational school!” (vocational technical school) - something like this parents said to negligent schoolchildren. In vocational schools they took poor and triple students who did not enter universities, forcibly placed juvenile criminals there, and all this against the background of a comparative surplus of specialist workers and poor development of the service sector due to the lack of developed entrepreneurship (that is, alternatives in employment, as now, then there were no It was). Cultural and educational work in vocational schools turned out to be poorly organized, students "vocational schools" began to be associated with hooliganism, drunkenness and a general low level of development. The negative image of vocational education in working specialties persists in Russia to this day, although qualified turners, locksmiths, millers, plumbers are now among the highly paid professions, whose representatives are in short supply.

Insufficient education of critical thinking among citizens, excessive unification and paternalism. Education, as well as the media and Soviet culture in general, instilled in citizens faith in a powerful and wise party that leads everyone, cannot lie or make major mistakes. Of course, faith in the strength of one's people and state is an important and necessary thing, but in order to support this faith, one cannot go too far, systematically hush up the truth and severely suppress alternative opinions. As a result, when during the years of perestroika and glasnost, these very alternative opinions were given freedom, when previously hushed up facts about the history and modern problems of the country began to massively emerge, huge masses of citizens felt deceived, lost confidence in the state and in everything that they were taught in school in many humanities. Finally, citizens were unable to resist outright lies, myths and media manipulation, which ultimately led to the collapse of the USSR and the deep degradation of society and the economy in the 1990s. Alas, the Soviet educational and social system failed to bring up a sufficient level of caution, critical thinking, tolerance for alternative opinions, and a culture of discussion. Also, the education of the late Soviet model did not help to instill in citizens sufficient independence, the desire to personally solve their problems, and not wait until the state or someone else does it for you. All this had to be learned from the bitter post-Soviet experience.

== Conclusions (−) ==

In assessing the Soviet education system, it is difficult to come to a single and exhaustive conclusion due to its inconsistency.

Positive points:

The final eradication of illiteracy and the provision of universal secondary education
- World leadership in the field of higher technical education, in natural and exact sciences.
- The key role of education in ensuring industrialization, victory in the Great Patriotic War and scientific and technological achievements in the post-war period.
- High prestige and respect for the teaching profession, a high level of motivation of teachers and students.
- High level of development of sports education, wide promotion of sports activities.
- The emphasis on technical education made it possible to solve the most important tasks for the Soviet state.

Negative points:

Lagging behind the West in the field of liberal arts education due to the negative influence of ideology and the foreign policy situation. The teaching of history, economics and foreign languages ​​was particularly hard hit.
- Excessive unification and centralization of school and, to a lesser extent, university education, coupled with its small contacts with the outside world. This led to the loss of many successful pre-revolutionary practices and to a growing lag behind foreign science in a number of areas.
- Direct guilt in the degradation of family values ​​and the general decline in morals in the late USSR, which led to negative trends in the development of demography and social relations.
- Insufficient education of critical thinking among citizens, which led to the inability of society to effectively resist manipulation during the information war.
- Art education suffered from censorship and high ideological content, as well as from obstacles to mastering foreign techniques; one of the most important consequences of this is the decline of design, architecture and urban planning in the late USSR.
- That is, in its humanitarian aspect, the Soviet education system ultimately not only failed to solve the key tasks of preserving and strengthening the state, but also became one of the factors in the moral, demographic and social decline of the country. Which, however, does not negate the impressive achievements of the USSR in the field of the humanities and arts.

PS. By the way, about logic. A textbook of logic, as well as other entertaining materials on the art of civilized discussion, can be found here.

The modern school system is not scolded only by the lazy. It has its pluses and, of course, minuses (as in any other system). Definitely, the modern system of school education needs to be improved. A person who graduated from a Soviet high school had versatile knowledge of a fairly wide range. However, it was believed that the Soviet school produced literate people who were poorly adapted to real life. Much has changed in the school system since then. It is believed that the current school programs allow graduates to better adapt to reality. Oh, is it? Let's try to figure it out.

About cons

The undoubted disadvantages of modern education include, in fact, the fact that, having moved away from Soviet education, it did not come too close to education oriented towards the Western system of values. Could this happen and will it happen? And if it happens, will it correspond to the realities of life? The modern school system can definitely be called transitional. Schools are underfunded, especially schools in small towns, towns and rural areas. The system of school fees "flourishes" everywhere. School requisitions are not directly related to education, but the fact itself leads to certain thoughts. Also USE. Both teachers and students are dissatisfied. Training is replaced by training and coaching. USE tests are not well thought out. Forms of delivery are not suitable for all children (maybe it is necessary to develop alternative ones?). In school education, the possibilities for an individual approach are minimal. The school does not pay too much attention to the child's talents and / or his abilities and inclinations. Many teachers position their subject as the main one, which interferes with the orientation of the child. The grading system is very imperfect. Often, both the student and the teacher work for assessment and for assessment. The approach is averaged, because it is necessary to teach everyone. The teacher physically cannot interview everyone and give him enough time. Students are overwhelmed with classes, they get a lot of things that they will never need in the future. Social relations in the classroom are imperfect, "good" students are in conflict with "bad" students and vice versa.

About the pros

The amount of school knowledge is quite diverse, which gives the graduate a relatively broad outlook. The child learns to work, build relationships and communicate in a team. The necessary communication skills are developed. Thus, it is embedded in the social system. In the process of learning, the child learns to communicate with people of his own and the other sex. Stake graduates have the opportunity to continue their education and get good jobs in the future.

What to do?

Some especially advanced parents are increasingly abandoning schooling altogether (or abandoning it at some stage) in favor of homeschooling. This is motivated by the fact that the school environment is harmful to the child, because it forms a pathological personality, accustoms to an unworthy system of relationships, thoughtless herd behavior, teaches to humiliate the weak, lie, be rude, dangerous with the spread of drugs and the possibility of promiscuity. Alas, there is a considerable amount of truth in such statements. The amount and quality of knowledge acquired in the modern school is highly questioned by many people. Paid education in universities and the mass USE make school education not very necessary, in fact. But is it worth completely depriving a child of the opportunity to study in a comprehensive school? Undoubtedly, there are children who are more suitable for special schools, home individual education and / or external study. There are children who are meaningless to teach in a comprehensive school after a certain age. Such high school students skip classes or simply attend them, at best, depicting active furniture, at worst, interfering with the rest of the students. Troika will still be “drawn”. It is undoubtedly more useful for such students to be taught specific professions in the system of vocational secondary education.

And soon they will introduce 12-year education ...