Schools want to return to labor education. How, to what extent and why is not yet clear. Of course it is not clear to those related to the modern school. The initiators of the bill seem to have an extremely vague idea of the current school. As about the school of the past. Otherwise, our deputies interested in young people would know that even in the Soviet Union the experience of combining work and education was sometimes evaluated extremely ambiguously.
Why did such ideas arise, and what is actually proposed? The bill has not yet been submitted to the Duma, but there has been a lot of noise and the authorities have had to at least comment on something. These comments are more than weird. They say the law is necessary because “you can no longer even ask a schoolboy to erase the board without asking mom or dad.” At the same time, they want to specify in the law the possibility of participating in business with the consent of the parents. And in addition – with the consent of the students. I think this is some kind of nonsense.
I am a teacher and a classroom teacher. When the class was handed over to me, in the folder with the personal files was a wad of papers that the parents had consented to for socially useful work. Frankly, on this basis, I can ask my students to leave the blackboard with absolute impunity. However, I believe that with such a request, even without documents, I can quite calmly appeal to young people. Teens can accept or reject. It has always seemed to me that this is not a matter of bureaucracy but of human relations. So why do we need a law? Presumably the truth is that they don’t plan to limit themselves to a single board. I think MPs want to revive the glorious tradition of floor washing in offices.
Remember this fun? That’s free fitness: three buckets in two sets. The absence of mats allowed the shoulder girdle, back and abdominal muscles to work. But there were rags. Oh, what a wonderful rag! It was as if at a glance it had been split into atoms. This gray, rotting matter was scary to touch, but apparently gloves were believed to be for the weak and therefore simply didn’t exist. The acrobatics was demonstrated by the person who managed to cope with all this household without staining the school uniform. Of course, wiping the floors with pleated trousers and dresses with white cuffs is a different style of course. Well, who wouldn’t want this beautiful tradition to be revived?
What about dining room duties? Why don’t you return them too? Schoolchildren will be happy to leave the lesson five minutes before the bell rings to set the tables. As a bonus, you can spit on Ivanova’s or Sidorov’s plate. Not to dream. Or bite into someone’s chop – that’s funny.
They nod to historical experience. Workers’ schools, commune schools, self-service in education, collective farms on vacation, subbotniks and things like that. Meanwhile, historical experience is also quite contradictory. Starting with the workers’ schools that began to open soon after the revolution. Obviously, there were a lot of crackling slogans and speculations at that time, they say that we do not make a garden out of necessity, but we train a new person, we work for, not to eat between classes. uplifts the spirit.
The truth was far more significant: the revolution, the First World War, and the civil war brought hundreds of thousands of homeless children and young delinquents to the streets. They needed to be given shelter, food and education. As usual, there was no money. The new people of the future had no choice but to make a living of their own.
In 1918-1920, a nationwide network of congregational schools developed. The most famous were the Makarenko colony, ShKID Soroka-Rosinsky and Krasnye Zori Ionin. And if anyone thinks that the path of the pioneers is cloudless, then in vain. There was a lot of criticism, direct attacks, obstacles. Moreover, if Soroka-Rosinsky was torn because he revived the bursa, because he devoted a lot of time to history and languages and studied little, if Makarenko took it because the work in his colony was filled with strict discipline, for example, in the barracks, then Ionin already said that because the work of his students was even more extreme. it was torn apart, they said it emitted a kind of “barn”.
It looks like schizophrenia but you have to understand that everyone is shattered at different times. The ShKID Republic was taken up in 1925, when the country did not yet need the overeducated. A barrel rolled in Krasnye Zori in the mid-thirties when they began to predict at the top that success in industrialization and collectivization could not be achieved with sweat and blood alone. Ionin actually understood this himself and paid no less attention to education, moreover, it was comprehensive, natural and humane, and working in his commune was very fruitful, but nobody wanted to understand what was what, they thought it was a workers’ school. surpassed himself.
So much so that in 1937, labor classes were completely abolished in schools, and biology, chemistry and physics classes were increased instead. Yes, in 1937. It’s hard to believe, but it’s a fact. But later the decision was rescinded and the labor lessons returned. And with them and labor training. Under Khrushchev, they even took it with new enthusiasm. And soon the usefulness of labor in schools began to be questioned again. The controls on how self-service is organized in the education system revealed a dire picture. It turned out that the study undermined the health of schoolchildren: the number of children with infectious diseases and worms increased sharply. Because no one really cared about creating working conditions. No gloves, no normal equipment. Kids get dirty water pretty well all over the school. The important thing is that everything is at work.
And now it means that they tell us how wonderful the revival of ancient traditions is. They say that if the children themselves shake rags and choppers, they will stop throwing garbage, begin to appreciate the work of technical staff, and in general will become more responsive and kinder. But you know, I want to start with role models. I want our officials to be kinder and more sensitive, to set salary limits for government employees. I want them to finally learn to appreciate work. After all, the fact is that in schools there are not only teachers, but also cleaners. No one wants to work on the salary given in schools. Increasing the value of labor by making it free is original, of course, but still strange to say the least.
Or is it just about wiping the board? But there is no problem here. I try to remember if my students have turned down my polite requests for some help. Almost six years with nothing to remember. No. There was a figure. She refused to clean up the mess she had created. Will job training help him? Something tells me that such comrades are not suitable for retraining. And if a law is passed that obliges schoolchildren to work, then others will work for such characters.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.