Myth: The Soviet education system was ideal
This myth is actively replicated by communists and people simply ardently nostalgic for the USSR. In fact, Soviet education was comparatively strong in the fields of science, mathematics and engineering, and sports. However, in most other areas it was comparatively weak, both compared to Western counterparts of the era and compared to modern education:
History, economics, philosophy and other humanities disciplines in the USSR were extremely ideological, their teaching was based on the deeply outdated Marxist paradigm of the 19th century, while the latest foreign achievements in these areas were largely ignored - or presented exclusively in a negative way, as "bourgeois science". In general, students of Soviet schools and universities formed a rather simplified and distorted humanitarian picture of the world.
Foreign languages in Soviet schools were taught on average at a very low level. Unlike Western countries, in the USSR there was practically no opportunity to invite native-speaking teachers, and at the same time access to foreign literature, films and songs in the original language was difficult. There was almost no exchange of students, which made it possible to seriously improve the level of language proficiency while living abroad.
In art education, architecture and design in the late USSR, a rather sad situation developed, which is clearly evident from the deterioration of the architectural appearance of Soviet cities in the 1960s - 1980s, as well as from the massive desire of Soviet citizens to buy foreign things - high-quality and beautifully made.
If it seems to someone that all these humanitarian areas are not important, then it is worth noting that it was precisely because of underestimation, because of the insufficient or incorrect development of these areas, that the Soviet Union ultimately collapsed so easily.
Myth: problems in the education system began during the era of perestroika and the collapse of the USSR
In reality, there have always been certain problems in the Soviet education system, and the main crisis phenomena that modern Russia had to deal with began to grow in the late USSR and were noticeable already in the 1970s and 1980s.
Until the 1960s Soviet education faced a key task: to train as many workers, engineers and scientists as possible in order to meet the country's needs for specialists and labor during rapid industrialization, as well as to compensate for the colossal losses of educated people and skilled workers caused by the civil war, white emigration, The Great Patriotic War, as well as repressions. Moreover, workers and specialists needed to be prepared with a large reserve in case of a new war and new human losses (in the same way, duplicate enterprises and production sites were built in the USSR in case of war). In the then conditions of a serious shortage of personnel, any graduates of universities and vocational schools were very quickly “ripped off”, getting jobs at various great construction sites, new factories, and design bureaus. Many people were lucky and found interesting and important jobs and could make a good career. At the same time, the quality of education was not critically important: everyone was in demand, and they often had to complete their studies directly at work.
Around the 1960s. the situation has changed. The rate of urbanization and industrial growth in the country has sharply decreased, industry and science have had time to fill up with personnel, and their overproduction in the conditions of a long period of peace has lost its meaning. At the same time, the number of vocational schools, universities and students had grown sharply by that time, but if previously they were in great demand, now the state could no longer provide everyone with the same attractive jobs as before. New industries were created in insufficient quantities, in the old ones key positions were firmly occupied, and the old people of Brezhnev’s times were by no means in a hurry to give up their places to the youth.
Actually, it was then, in the last decades of the USSR, that problems in education began to grow, which can be summarized approximately as follows:
A sharp increase in the number of universities and vocational schools, which resulted in a drop in the average level of students and a drop in the state’s ability to provide good jobs for everyone (the obvious solution would be to develop the service sector, allow entrepreneurship to create new jobs, develop self-employment opportunities - but due to its specifics, the Soviet state could not or did not want to take such steps).
The decline in the social role of teachers and lecturers, the decline in salaries in the field of education in the late USSR (if in 1940 the salary in the Soviet education system was 97% of the industry average, then in 1960 - 79%, and in 1985 - only 63%).
The growing lag behind the West in a number of disciplines, caused by closed borders and ideological intervention of the state in science.
These problems were inherited by modern Russia; they were partially solved, and partially worsened.
Myth: Soviet education was better at educating people
From the point of view of those nostalgic for the USSR, Soviet education educated Man and the Creator, while modern Russian education educates philistines, consumers and businessmen (it is not entirely clear why the latter are denied the right to be both people and creators).
But were people really raised that well in the USSR?
Soviet education raised entire generations of alcoholics - from the 1960s to the 1980s. Alcohol consumption in the country more than tripled, as a result of which, since 1964, life expectancy for men in the RSFSR stopped growing (unlike Western countries), and alcohol mortality and alcohol crime increased sharply.
Soviet education produced a society of people who, since the late 1960s. stopped reproducing itself - the number of children per woman fell to less than 2.1, resulting in the number of subsequent generations being smaller than those of previous ones. Moreover, the number of abortions in the USSR exceeded the number of children born and was estimated at about 4-5 million per year. The number of divorces in the USSR was also colossal, and remains so in Russia to this day.
Soviet education raised a generation of people who destroyed the USSR and relatively easily abandoned much of what they had previously been taught.
Soviet education produced people who massively joined the ranks of organized crime in the 1980s and 1990s. (and in many ways, even earlier).
Soviet education raised people who easily believed many charlatans during perestroika and the 1990s: they joined religious sects and neo-fascist organizations, took their last money into financial pyramids, enthusiastically read and listened to various freaks and pseudoscientists, etc.
All this indicates that with the upbringing of a person in the USSR, to put it mildly, not everything was ideal.
Of course, this is not only about the education system, but also about other aspects of the social situation. However, Soviet education was unable to reverse this situation and largely contributed to its formation:
— critical thinking was not sufficiently cultivated;
— initiative was not sufficiently encouraged;
— paternalism and excessive reliance on authorities were actively fostered;
— there was no adequate education in the field of family and marriage;
— ideological frameworks narrowed the view of the world;
— many negative social phenomena were kept silent, instead of being studied and combated.
Myth: Capitalism is the main cause of problems in education
From the point of view of communist-minded critics, the main cause of problems in education is capitalism. We are talking not only about the commercialization of education and the general approach to human upbringing, but also about the capitalist structure of society and the economy in general, which are supposedly in deep crisis, and the crisis in education is just one of the manifestations of this.
The capitalist crisis of society and education can be thought of as global or primarily as domestic—Russia, allegedly surrounded by enemies and ruined by capitalists, can no longer afford capitalism and capitalist education.
From the point of view of Marxists, the main types of crisis associated with capitalism are a crisis of overproduction and a crisis associated with a lack of resources. The first is caused by the excessive production of goods that consumers cannot or do not want to consume, and the second is caused by a lack of resources to produce and maintain the achieved standard of living in an ever-expanding capitalist economy (resources include land and labor). Both types of crises force capitalists to reduce consumption among the country's population and at the same time start wars - for new markets or for new resources. Now the West is in a state of double crisis, and therefore Russia is in danger - partly because they want to profit from its resources, and partly because it itself has adopted capitalism instead of socialism.
The global crisis is indeed taking place, but all these constructions linking it with the opposition of capitalism and socialism, as well as with the problems of education, are rather shaky and dubious.
Firstly, crises of overproduction and lack of resources also occur under socialism - for example, the same overproduction of workers and engineers in the late USSR, or the crisis of the lack of good teachers in foreign languages (more famous examples are the overproduction of tanks and children's shoes in the late USSR ).
Secondly, in the current global crisis, Russia has a very high chance of surviving, both thanks to the Soviet military heritage (strong army and military-industrial complex), and thanks to the tsarist legacy in the form of a vast territory with rich resources.
Thirdly, the way out of the crisis is not necessarily associated with war - the development of technology can help to develop new resources or create new markets. And here both the West and Russia have good chances.
It is also worth remembering the obvious fact: the Western education system (of which the Russian system is an offshoot, followed by the Soviet system) was created precisely under the conditions of capitalism in the modern era. As for the Soviet system, it is a direct continuation of the education system in the late Russian Empire, which was created under capitalist conditions. At the same time, although the education system covered only a part of society by 1917, it quickly grew in scale, and already in the middle of the 19th century Russia had excellent higher and engineering education by world standards, and in the early 1910s. Russia has become the European leader in the number of engineering graduates.
Thus, there is no reason to oppose capitalism and quality education. As for attempts to explain the degradation of education not just by capitalism, but by capitalism in a crisis stage, then, as already mentioned, crises also occur under socialist conditions.
Myth: Russian education has changed dramatically compared to Soviet education
From the point of view of critics, the educational reforms have incredibly changed the educational system in Russia and led to its degradation, and only a few last vestiges of Soviet education still survive and keep everything afloat.
But has modern Russian education really moved so far from Soviet education? In fact, for the most part, Soviet education in Russia has been preserved:
In Russia, the same class-lesson system operates as in the USSR (originally borrowed from German schools of the 18th-19th centuries).
The specialization of schools is maintained.
The division of education into primary, complete and incomplete secondary, secondary specialized and higher education is maintained (at the same time, higher education was largely transferred from a 5-year course to a bachelor's + master's degree system - 4 + 2 years, but by and large this changed little ).
Almost all the same subjects are taught, only a few new ones have been added (at the same time, in some humanitarian subjects the programs have been greatly changed - but, as a rule, for the better).
There remains a strong tradition in the teaching of mathematics and science (compared to most other countries).
In general, the same assessment system and the same system of work for teachers have been preserved, although reporting and bureaucracy have noticeably increased (introduced to improve control and monitoring, but in many ways it turned out to be unnecessary and burdensome, for which it is rightly criticized).
The accessibility of education has been preserved and even increased, and although about a third of students are now paid, a significant part of out-of-school education has also become paid. However, there is nothing new in this compared to the Soviet era: paid education for students and high school students was in effect in the USSR in 1940-1956.
Most of the school buildings remained the same (and the renovations clearly did not worsen them).
Most of today's Russian teachers were trained in the USSR or in the 1990s, before reforms in education.
The Unified State Exam was introduced, which is the most noticeable difference between the Russian system and the Soviet one, but it is worth emphasizing once again that this is not some kind of teaching method, but simply a more objective method of testing knowledge.
Of course, in Russia, various experimental schools have appeared in noticeable numbers, in which the organization and teaching methods differ significantly from Soviet models. However, in most cases we are dealing with slightly modified and modernized Soviet-style schools. The same is true for universities, if we exclude the frankly profane “diploma-building” institutions (which began to be actively closed in 2012).
Thus, in general, Russian education continues to follow Soviet models, and those people who criticize Russian education are essentially criticizing the Soviet system and the results of its work.
Myth: returning to the Soviet education system will solve all problems
First, as shown above, Soviet education had many problems and weaknesses.
Secondly, as shown above, Russian education as a whole has not moved that far from Soviet education.
Thirdly, the key modern problems of Russian education began in the USSR, and no solutions to these problems were found there.
Fourthly, a number of modern problems are associated with the development of information technologies, which were simply absent at this level in the USSR, and Soviet experience will not help here.
Fifthly, if we talk about the most successful period of Soviet education (1920s - 1950s), then society has changed significantly since then, and in our time we have to solve many different problems. In any case, it is now impossible to reproduce the socio-demographic conditions in which Soviet successes became possible.
Sixth, education reforms do carry a certain risk, but maintaining the situation and abandoning reforms is a sure path to defeat. There are problems and they need to be solved.
Finally, objective data show that the problems of modern Russian education are largely exaggerated and, with varying degrees of success, are gradually being resolved.
Myth one: Soviet education was the best in the world. When we talk about Soviet education, we imagine something monolithic, static, unchanged throughout its entire length. In fact, this was not the case. Soviet education, like any social system, of course changed and was subject to certain dynamics, that is, the logic of this education changed, the goals and objectives that it faced changed. And when we generally say the word “best,” it is very loaded with emotional evaluation. What does “best” mean, compared to what is best, where are the criteria, where are the assessments, why do we think so?
In fact, if we look at Soviet education from the early 1920s, when the Bolsheviks finally came to power, until the collapse of the Soviet Union, we see that it changed significantly. For example, in the 1920s, the main goal of Soviet education was the elimination of illiteracy. The majority of the population - almost 80%, and not only among the peasant population, but also some people in the cities, practically could not, or did not know how to read and write at all. Accordingly, it was necessary to teach them this. Special schools were created for adult citizens from 16 to 50 years old, special courses were created for the younger generations, and there was a completely understandable task - the elimination of illiteracy.
If we take the later era of the 1930s-1940s, then of course the most important task there was to create personnel for accelerated naturalization, to prepare specific technical personnel who would ensure accelerated modernization of industry. And this task is also understandable. School courses were built accordingly, technical schools and colleges were built accordingly, and so on. And Soviet education also coped with this task, courses were prepared and, as you and I know, Stalin’s industrialization was carried out in the shortest possible time.
If we take the post-war era of the 1950-1960s, then the most important task for Soviet education is to provide, again, scientific and technical personnel for a big breakthrough in space, in the military-industrial sphere, and again, Soviet education coped with this task, we We remember the words of John Kennedy that we lost the space race to the Russians at school. That is, in principle, it coped with the tasks that faced Soviet education. But you and I can already see that it was heterogeneous and these tasks changed.
However, we are talking mainly about physics and mathematics education, that is, Soviet education was aimed at specific main tasks. All other spheres, and primarily the humanitarian sphere, were accordingly in a completely different state; there were virtually no foreign languages, and at the level at which they were taught, those people who were lucky enough to escape abroad were told that few people understood them. Moreover, humanitarian knowledge itself was blinkered by ideological clichés. And in general, this area has been mothballed and its development has been called into question.
Why was there mainly a focus on mathematics, physics and exact sciences? There were both objective and subjective reasons. The objective reasons were that it was necessary to train personnel, as I already said, for the military-industrial complex; engineers were needed, engineers qualified first of all. Not just a person who could work at a machine, but a person who would understand how it all works. And the subjective reasons were that since the humanitarian sphere was completely ideologized and there was nowhere for scientific thought, as such, to develop in the humanitarian sphere, everything was prohibited. Therefore, the person who wanted to engage in science with relative freedom could afford to do this in the field of mathematics, in the field of physics - in the field of exact sciences. And it is characteristic that future philosophers of logic came mainly from Soviet mathematical schools. And if we take the humanitarian sphere, a classic example is with our philosopher Alexei Fedorovich Losev, who was forbidden to engage in philosophy, and under the guise of philosophy he studied aesthetics, although he practically did the same thing.
For the exact sciences, physics and mathematics, Soviet education was indeed very good. But the fact is that when in 1943 Soviet troops began to push the Germans to the borders of the Soviet Union and new cities and villages were liberated, the question arose of who would restore it all. Of course, the choice was made in favor of high school students and future students of technical vocational schools. But it turned out that the literacy level of these people was at the lowest level; they could not even enter a technical school as a first-year student, such was the low level of education.
Subsequently, a gradual increase in the educational level began to occur. First, a compulsory seven-year plan, then, from 1958, an eight-year plan, from 1964, a ten-year plan, and from 1984, an eleven-year plan. What this led to - it led to the fact that those poor students who previously could go to work, or say, to a factory, or to a factory school, get some kind of education there, without interrupting practice and become a good worker, or they could simply leave to work immediately without improving their educational level, now they are forced to stay in school. And those who could not be sent to vocational schools were forced to stay at school and teachers had to do something about it. Moreover, since all this was done spontaneously and our educational level increased quickly, that is, yesterday, a very large number of teachers did not have time to master this increased level, that is, take advanced training courses, understand what is required of them.
And therefore, a very ugly situation turned out - what we call culling, when most of the students could not go anywhere and the formalization of education, when the teacher pretended that he was teaching, the children pretended that they were studying in order to survive to the end of school, draw threes and release them in peace into a big life. And the result was a situation of segregation, when on average 20-30% of school graduates entered universities in the 1960-1970s. The remaining 70-80% were rejected, they did not go anywhere, they went to production, but the 20% who entered received a good academic education at school, they could get it and wanted it. They then received a very good education in universities and then made glory for Soviet science, primarily fundamental physico-mathematical science. They will then launch rockets into space and so on. But the remaining 80% were left behind and not taken into account, and the literacy rate among them was very low. That is, they knew how to read, write, count, and in general, after that they immediately went into production.
Soviet schoolchildren for the most part had a fairly good set of fragmentary knowledge in subjects, but, firstly, they did not know how to apply this knowledge in life, and secondly, they had no idea how to transfer knowledge from one subject area to another. A classic example with mathematics and physics - any physics teacher knew that if physics fails, most likely it is necessary to look for problems in mathematics. But this was more problematic for other subjects, such as chemistry and biology, or history and literature. And most importantly, when they talk about the best educational system in the Soviet Union, they forget that practically no one copied this system. We now know the best educational systems in the world - in Finland, in Singapore, people from all over the world flock there. This system is in demand, it is bought for a lot of money. No one bought the Soviet system, and even for free, by and large, no one needed it. A diploma from a graduate of an average Soviet university was not valued anywhere in Europe or the world. Now I’m not talking about those bright minds who went abroad and then received good money, first of all - these are, again, physicists and mathematicians, someone could even become a Nobel laureate. But the question is how much the education system itself has invested in these people, how much is from the system and how much is the result from them, from these outstanding people.
How well schoolchildren were taught during the Soviet era and whether we should emulate the Soviet school today, Alexey Lyubzhin, an employee of the department of rare books and manuscripts of the Scientific Library of Moscow State University, a historian of Russian education, and the head of the humanities master's program at Dmitry Pozharsky University, told Lenta.ru (known in LiveJournal as philtrius ).“Lenta.ru”: Is it true that Soviet education was the best, like everything in the USSR?
Lyubzhin: I didn't notice that. If the opinion about the superiority of Soviet education were even close to reality, it is logical to assume that Western countries would have to organize educational reform following the example of the USSR. But none of the European states - neither France, nor England, nor Italy - ever thought of borrowing Soviet models. Because they didn't value them highly.What about Finland? They say that at one time she borrowed her techniques from us. At the same time, it is believed that today this country has no equal in terms of school education.
I cannot agree that Finland is beyond competition. This is due to the peculiarities of local education, which is designed not for high results of individual individuals, but to raise the average level of education of each citizen. They really succeed. First of all, Finland is a small country. That is, everything is easier to organize there. And secondly, very good people become teachers there. So the Finns manage to attract students through strong teachers, and not at all through a good program. But at the same time, higher education there is seriously sagging.
Many believe that the structure of Soviet education has its roots in the educational system of Tsarist Russia. How much did we take from there?
Exactly the opposite - Soviet education is the complete opposite of imperial education. Before the revolution, there were many types of schools in Russia: classical gymnasium, real school, cadet corps, theological seminary, commercial schools, etc. Almost everyone who strived for it could study. There was “our own” school for all abilities. After 1917, instead of educational diversity, a single type of schools began to be introduced.
Back in 1870, in the book of the Russian historian Afanasy Prokopievich Shchapov, “Social and pedagogical conditions for the mental development of the Russian people,” the idea was expressed that the school should be the same for everyone and that it should be based on the natural sciences. Which is what the Bolsheviks accomplished. General education has begun.
This is bad?
It was the primary school where basic literacy was taught that fit well into the concept of universal education. It was organized at the USSR level. Everything that came next was already fiction. The high school program offered everyone the same set of subjects, regardless of the abilities or interests of the children. For gifted children, the bar was too low, they were not interested, school only interfered with them. And the lagging behind, on the contrary, could not cope with the load. In terms of the quality of training, a graduate of a Soviet secondary school was equal to a graduate of the Imperial Higher Primary School. Before the revolution, there were such schools in Russia. Education in them was based on primary school (from 4 to 6 years, depending on the school) and lasted four years. But this was considered a primitive level of education. And a diploma from a higher primary school did not give access to universities.
St. Petersburg, 1911. Students of the 3rd gymnasium in military affairs classes. Photo: RIA Novosti
Was your knowledge level insufficient?
The main skills of a graduate of a pre-revolutionary higher primary school: reading, writing, counting. In addition, the guys could pick up the rudiments of various sciences - physics, geography... There were no foreign languages there, because the compilers of the programs understood that it would be fiction.
The preparation of a graduate of a Soviet school was approximately the same. The Soviet high school student knew writing, counting, and fragmentary information on other subjects. But this knowledge filled his head like an attic. And in principle, a person interested in the subject could independently assimilate this information in a day or two. Although foreign languages were taught, the graduates practically did not know them. One of the eternal sorrows of the Soviet school is that students did not know how to apply the knowledge acquired within the framework of one discipline to another.
How then did it happen that the “attic” Soviet people invented the space rocket and carried out developments in the nuclear industry?
All developments that glorified the Soviet Union belonged to scientists with that pre-revolutionary education. Neither Kurchatov nor Korolev ever studied in a Soviet school. And their peers also never studied in a Soviet school or studied under professors who received a pre-revolutionary education. When the inertia weakened, the safety margin was exhausted, and everything fell apart. There were no own resources in our education system then, and there are none today.
You said that the main achievement of the Soviet school was the beginning. But many say that mathematical education was decently organized in the USSR. This is wrong?
This is true. Mathematics was the only subject in schools in the Soviet Union that met the requirements of the Imperial Secondary School.
Why her?
The state had a need to make weapons. Besides, mathematics was like an outlet. It was carried out by people who were opposed to other scientific fields because of ideology. Only mathematics and physics could hide from Marxism-Leninism. Therefore, it turned out that the country’s intellectual potential gradually artificially shifted towards technical sciences. The humanities were not valued at all in Soviet times. As a result, the Soviet Union collapsed due to the inability to work with humanitarian technologies, explain something to the population, and negotiate. We can still see how monstrously low the level of humanitarian discussion is in the country.
1954 At the chemistry exam in the 10th grade of secondary school No. 312 in Moscow.
Photo: Mikhail Ozersky / RIA Novosti
Can we say that imperial pre-revolutionary education complied with international standards?
We have been integrated into the global education system. Graduates of the Sophia Fischer gymnasium (the founder of a private women's classical gymnasium) were accepted into any German university without exams. We had a lot of students who studied in Switzerland and Germany. At the same time, they were far from the wealthiest, sometimes on the contrary. This is also a factor of national wealth. If we take the lower strata of the population, the standard of living in Imperial Russia was slightly superior to English, slightly inferior to American and was on par with European ones. Average salaries are lower, but life here was cheaper.
Today?
In terms of education and knowledge, Russians are uncompetitive in the world. But there was also a “lag” during the USSR. Historian Sergei Vladimirovich Volkov notes that, unlike other countries, the Soviet elite had the worst education among the intelligentsia. She was inferior not only to academic circles, but also to any where higher education was needed. Unlike the West, where countries were run by graduates of the best universities. And after the collapse of the USSR, the model of Soviet universal education ceased to make sense. If a student is not interested because the subjects were taught superficially and for show, some kind of social pressure is needed so that the children still learn. In early Soviet times, the very situation in the country forced a person to become a loyal member of society. And then the pressure eased. The scale of demands crept down. In order not to deal with repeat students, teachers had to do pure drawing of grades, and the children could quite easily not learn anything. That is, education does not guarantee a career. In other countries this is practically not the case.
As the mother of a fourth-grader, I have the feeling that today, compared to the Soviet period, they don’t teach at all at school. The child comes home after school and the “second shift” begins. We don’t just do homework, but study the material that we are supposed to learn in class. Friends have the same picture. Has the program really become that complicated?
The school simply switched from normal education to controlled education. In the 1990s, this was a forced step on the part of the teaching community. Then the teachers were left in complete poverty. And the “not teach, but ask” method became the only way for them to guarantee income. For tutoring services, their student was sent to a colleague. And he accordingly did the same. But when teaching salaries in Moscow increased, teachers were no longer able and did not want to get rid of this technique. Apparently, it will no longer be possible to return them to the previous principles of education.
From my nephew’s experience, I see that they don’t teach him anything at school and they didn’t teach him anything, but they carefully ask him about everything. Tutoring is common in schools from the fifth grade, which was not the case in Soviet schools. Therefore, when they check a school and say: the results are good, you can’t really believe it. In our country, in principle, it is no longer possible to separate school and tutoring work.
Late 1990s. Students of a Moscow school Photo: Valery Shustov / RIA Novosti
Since the collapse of the USSR, Russia has undergone reforms to improve education almost every year. Have there really been no positive changes?
Spears broke around important issues, but of a secondary order. The knowledge testing system is very important. But much more important is the program and set of subjects to study. And now we are thinking about how tougher exams can improve learning. No way. As a result, the complex Unified State Exam has only two options: either we must lower the bar so that almost everyone can get a certificate. Or the exam will simply turn into a sham. That is, we are again returning to the concept of universal education - so that exclusively everyone can receive a secondary education. Is it really necessary for everyone? Approximately 40 percent of the population can complete secondary education in full. The reference point for me is the imperial school. If we want to cover everyone with “knowledge,” the level of learning will naturally be low.
Why then in the world is the need for universal secondary education not only not questioned, but even a new trend has appeared - universal higher education for everyone?
This is already the cost of democracy. If we call simple things higher education, why not? You can call a janitor a cleaning manager, or make him an operator of a super-complex broom on wheels. But most likely it won’t make a difference whether he studies for about five years or immediately starts learning to operate the broom’s remote control on the spot. Formally, the Institute of Asian and African Countries and the Uryupinsk Steel University give the same rights. Both provide certificates of higher education. But in reality, some jobs will hire one graduate, but not another.
What should parents do if they want to educate their child normally? Where to go, what school to look for?
You need to understand that now there is no segregation of schools by program. Segregation exists based on whether the school has a swimming pool or a horse. We have 100 best schools, which are always at the top in educational rankings. Today they are replacing the missing secondary education system, as they are proving their superiority at the Olympiads. But you need to understand that studying there is not easy. They just don’t take everyone there. I don’t think that anything can be done with the current educational system in Russia. Today Russian education is a patient in need of a very difficult operation. But in fact, his condition is so fatal that he simply cannot tolerate any intervention.
It is impossible to talk about any merits of the Soviet education system without understanding how, when and where it came from. The basic principles of education for the near future were formulated back in 1903. At the Second Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, it was stated that education should be universal and free for all children under 16 years of age, regardless of gender. In addition, class and national schools should be eliminated, and the school should be separated from the church. 9, 1917 is the day of the establishment of the State Education Commission, which was supposed to develop and control the entire system of education and culture of the vast country of the Soviets. The regulation “On the Unified Labor School of the RSFSR,” dated October 1918, provided for compulsory school attendance by all citizens of the country between the ages of 8 and 50 who did not yet know how to read and write. The only thing that could be chosen was to learn to read and write (Russian or native).
At that time, most of the working population was illiterate. The country of the Soviets was considered far behind Europe, where general education for all was introduced almost 100 years earlier. Lenin believed that the ability to read and write could give every person an impetus to “improving his economy and his state.”
By 1920, more than 3 million people had learned to read and write. The same year's census showed that more than 40 percent of the population over 8 years of age could read and write.
The 1920 census was incomplete. It was not carried out in Belarus, Crimea, Transcaucasia, the North Caucasus, Podolsk and Volyn provinces, and a number of localities in Ukraine.
Radical changes awaited the education system in 1918-1920. The school was separated from the church, and the church from the state. The teaching of any religious doctrine was prohibited, boys and girls now studied together, and now there was no need to pay anything for lessons. At the same time, they began to create a system of preschool education, and revised the rules for admission to higher educational institutions.
In 1927, the average education time for people over 9 years of age was just over a year; in 1977, it was almost 8 full years.
By the 1930s, illiteracy as a phenomenon had been defeated. The education system was organized as follows. Almost immediately after the birth of a child, he could be sent to a nursery, then to a kindergarten. Moreover, there were both day care and 24-hour kindergartens. After 4 years of primary school education, the child became a secondary school student. Upon completion, he could obtain a profession at a school or technical school, or continue his studies in the senior classes of a basic school.
The desire to educate trustworthy members of Soviet society and competent specialists (especially engineering and technical specialists) made the Soviet education system the best in the world. It underwent total reform during the liberal reforms in the 1990s.
One of the most significant advantages of the Soviet school system was its accessibility. This right was constitutionally enshrined (Article 45 of the 1977 USSR Constitution).
The main difference between the Soviet education system and the American or British was the unity and consistency of all levels of education. A clear vertical stage (primary, secondary school, university, doctoral studies) made it possible to accurately plan the vector of one’s education. Uniform programs and requirements were developed for each level. When parents moved or changed schools for any other reason, there was no need to re-study the material or try to understand the system adopted in the new educational institution. The maximum trouble that a transfer to another school could cause was the need to repeat or catch up on 3-4 topics in each discipline. Textbooks were issued in the school library and were available to absolutely everyone.
Soviet school teachers provided basic knowledge in their subjects. And they were quite enough for a school graduate to independently (without tutors or bribes) enter a higher educational institution. Nevertheless, Soviet education was considered fundamental. The general educational level implied a broad outlook. There was not a single person in the USSR who had not read Pushkin or did not know Vasnetsov.
Now in Russian schools, exams may even be mandatory for students (depending on the internal policy of the school and the decision of the pedagogical council). In Soviet schools, children took final exams after 8 and after. There was no talk of any testing. The method of monitoring knowledge both in lessons and during exams was clear and transparent.
Every student who decided to continue his studies at a university was guaranteed to receive a job upon graduation. Firstly, the number of places in universities and institutes was limited by social order, and secondly, after graduation, mandatory distribution was carried out. Often young specialists were sent to virgin lands, to all-Union construction sites. However, you only had to work there for a few years (this is how the state compensated for training costs). Then the opportunity arose to return to their hometown or stay where they were assigned.
It is a mistake to believe that in a Soviet school all students had the same level of knowledge. Of course, the general program must be mastered by everyone. But if a teenager is interested in a particular subject, then he was given every opportunity for additional study. Schools had math clubs, literature clubs, and so on. In addition, there were specialized classes and specialized schools, where children had the opportunity to study certain subjects in depth. Parents were especially proud of their children studying in a math school or a school with a language focus.
On April 18, the early exam period ended. Experts state that there are no fundamental violations. But will established control over tests affect the knowledge of schoolchildren, which was not subject to doubt in Soviet times? Let's try to figure out this problem.Russian self-knowledge
Article No. 7 of the “Law on Education” prescribes the introduction of Federal State Standards, according to which the current education system abandons the traditional format of education “in the form of knowledge, skills and abilities.” Now the so-called universal learning activities (UALs) are taken as a basis, which are understood as “general educational skills”, “general methods of activity”, “supra-subject actions” and so on. If you try to understand these phraseological units, their meaning boils down to the fact that the specifics of knowledge give way to cognition and self-development.
Instead of forcing students to cram and meticulously test their knowledge, the teacher encourages children to figure out topics on their own. In the end, federal state standards are loyal to negative results, in other words, to twos. In particular, the standards say that “failure to achieve these requirements by a graduate cannot serve as an obstacle to his transfer to the next level of education.” By the way, in the USSR poor students were kept for the second year.
Teenagers in Italian
The compilers of the new Russian education system, according to many experts, copied the format of most Western schools, the main postulate of which is: “if you want to learn, study.” Meanwhile, teachers are sounding the alarm about the lack of high school students' sense of responsibility, which was typical of Soviet graduates.
Many young people who graduate from modern schools exhibit the psychology of teenagers. Associate Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics Ekaterina Hakim noted that two-thirds of young girls in Europe categorically do not want to work, setting a successful marriage as the main goal of their lives. In Russia there are already half of them.
How the “self-cognitive” educational system adopted in the West influences adult life can be observed in EU countries. According to statistics, 80% of thirty-year-old Poles, Italians and Greeks live with their mothers and fathers, and in England, half of all young people regularly demand money from their parents for living expenses. Advisor to the director of the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies, Igor Beloborodov, speaks about this problem: “Widespread post-adolescence is not a personal choice of Italians or Japanese, it is a deep deformation, the crisis is already in an advanced stage.”
Calligraphy: punishment or necessity?
The Western approach fundamentally contradicts Russian ethnopedagogy. For example, penmanship required children to persevere and concentrate. Calligraphy was the only subject inherited by the Soviet educational system from the Tsarist primary school. “In the memoirs of those who remembered pre-reform penmanship lessons (before 1969), the latter are very often depicted as punishment and a curse for a small person,” explains philologist, leading researcher at the Institute of Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences Konstantin Bogdanov. - Marshall McLuhan (an outstanding theorist of the 20th century in the field of culture and communications), and after them other specialists in the field of media anthropology and theory of mass communications wrote a lot about the dependence of the meaning of information on the nature of its media transmission.
The educational role of penmanship seems to be more significant than just the role of the initial stage in mastering the alphabet, writing and literacy.”
“The degree of generational continuity among children of pre-revolutionary and Soviet times in this regard is higher than among children who went through Soviet school and those who are studying at school now,” states Konstantin Bogdanov. “In the latter case, the boundary between generations lies where, figuratively speaking, the ink blots end.” The school traditions of the Russian and then Soviet schools are completely ousted from the current way of life and replaced by the standards of Western entertainment culture.
This concerns, first of all, the oblivion of the moral code of a young man that took place in the USSR. This is especially evident now – in the era of the Internet. Despite all the technical advantages, the lack of self-censorship on the World Wide Web leads to the degradation of children's personality. “Uncontrolled Internet cripples a child’s soul,” teachers are sure, “schoolgirls organize selfie sessions, trying to shock the public. Boys become aggressive and cynical. They flaunt cruelty." According to the general opinion of educators, children suffer from Internet addiction. Such teenagers will never exchange social networks and computer games for textbooks.
Horizon
The lack of requirements for system knowledge immediately led to a reduction in subjects. As a result, everything that contributed to the development of one’s horizons in Soviet times was removed. Children, for example, are not taught astronomy, citing the fact that in America this subject is not included in the school curriculum, “but the GDP is several times greater than ours.” In addition, drawing has been removed from Russian schools, as they now design using CAD (computer-aided design). Meanwhile, according to many mathematicians, it is drawing that develops geometric and spatial thinking.
Sport
Everyone knows that Soviet schoolchildren and schoolgirls went in for sports on a large scale. For example, but according to the GTO standards, in order to receive the silver “Brave and Dexterous” badge, students (boys) of grades 1-4 had to run 60 meters in 10.8 seconds, and a thousand meters in 5 minutes, and, of course, stretch on a high bar - 3 times.
Tenth-graders were presented with demands that most young men today cannot meet. To again receive “silver” in the third age level “Strength and Courage”, it was necessary to run three thousand meters in thirteen and a half minutes, and swim a “fifty-meter race” in fifty seconds. In addition, it was necessary to do nine pull-ups on the bar. Other tasks were also set: to throw a grenade weighing 700 g at 32 m (for young men); perform a shooting exercise from a small-caliber rifle (distance 25 m, 5 shots) with the result: from a rifle of the TOZ-8 type - 30 points, from a rifle of the TOZ-12 type - 33 points. According to statistics, there were more than 58 million people in the USSR in 1972-1975. passed the GTO standards, including the majority of schoolchildren.
The current GTO standards are clearly inferior to the Soviet ones. For example, a 17-year-old boy needs to run three kilometers in 14 minutes and 40 seconds to get silver, and just swim the fifty-meter race.
Unified State Exam and gold medal
The Soviet school gold medal was highly valued. “After the 10th grade, we passed 8 (!) compulsory exams (algebra test, oral geometry, essay, oral literature, physics, chemistry, history, foreign language), recalls Anna Ostrovskaya, a medalist at school No. 51 in Minsk (graduated in 1986). ). - Moreover, the written works of the medalists - composition and algebra - were checked by several commissions, both school and district. I remember we waited a very long time for this confirmation of grades. By the way, my classmate, an excellent student, was not given a medal in the end, but he entered the Moscow Medical Institute without it.”
According to the rules available at that time, medalists entered universities, having advantages over other applicants. They only had to pass a specialized exam. Gold medals became “thieves” already during the period of perestroika, with the advent of the first cooperatives, recalls history teacher Maria Isaeva, but I want to note that if university teachers had doubts about the medalist, serious checks and the strictest conclusions followed. When the feedback stopped working, then the school “gold” turned out to be fake.” As for the Unified State Exam, the entire history of this state exam is riddled with scandals and dramas, including those related to schoolchildren’s suicides. At the same time, university teachers have repeatedly expressed doubts about the reliability of these tests.
“Of course, the current school education system needs reform,” says professor and science theorist Sergei Georgievich Kara-Murza. – Unfortunately, we do not see world-class scientific discoveries made by graduates of Russian schools, although a lot of time has passed since 1992, which is reasonable to take as a starting point. We have to admit a sharp deterioration in the quality of knowledge of modern children.”
“SP”: - What is the reason for this state of affairs?
Here it is logical to recall the background in order to assess the level of the problem. Before the Great Bourgeois Revolution, there were religious schools in France, the graduates of which, receiving a holistic view of the world, became individuals in the high sense of the word. The method of teaching had a university basis. After the bourgeois revolution, some children began to be taught according to the same university system, but on a scientific picture of the world. As a result, graduates of these elite lyceums had a systematic view of the order of things. The bulk of them studied at the school of the so-called second corridor, receiving a mosaic view of the world. The same problem became acute in Russia in the last third of the 19th century, when mass schools appeared. Our Russian intelligentsia, brought up on classical literature, rejected the division into “two corridors” - the elite and the masses.
The best minds in Russia believed that the school should reproduce a people united by a common culture. The intensity of passions around this problem can be judged by the participation of the tsar and military ministers in this discussion. After the October Revolution in 1918, the first All-Russian Congress of Teachers was convened, which decided that the school should be unified and comprehensive, of a university type. Now the unified approach to university-type education has been lost. This is, of course, a huge minus.
“SP”: - Was the Soviet Union the first country to introduce this system?
Yes, our country was the first to begin teaching children according to a single standard, without dividing children into the elite and the masses. Moreover, many specific points appeared. For example, children were not expelled for poor studies, but were placed under the patronage of excellent students, who gave them additional tutoring. I went through all this, and I will say this: by helping a friend, you begin to truly understand the subject. Most of our leading scientists and designers also went through the system of mutual assistance to their lagging schoolmates. I had to think about how to explain it to the poor student so that he would understand. Here it is also wise to remember penmanship. It turns out that the human brain has a special feedback connection with the fingertips. It is noted that in the process of penmanship, the mechanism of thinking develops. The Chinese have not abolished this subject, although their hieroglyphs are more complex than our Cyrillic alphabet. In general, the Soviet school had many positive features, which together educated the individual.
“SP”: - What about the Internet?
The Internet is a given of our time, and to deny it or, moreover, to prohibit it is stupidity. At the same time, it is necessary to develop effective mechanisms that would neutralize the negative impacts of the World Wide Web on children. This is a very difficult job that definitely needs to be done.
“SP”: - How do you see the future of our school?
I am sure that sooner or later the state will return to the positive experience of the Soviet school, which, in fact, we are seeing in some places. We simply have no other way, otherwise Russia will not survive in this brutally competitive world.
Alexander Sitnikov