Dmitry Samoilov School equation On the development of creative abilities of children and adolescents 04/08/2023, 08:25

I’m looking at the school. School in the broadest sense. And the school in mind as Iosif Alexandrovich Brodsky writes that “Classical style will win as a school,” and an ordinary school outside the window. It’s where children aged six to 17 go every day at eight o’clock in the morning. I look at the school, its outlines blurred. This may be a school built in the 70s in areas that were then newly named – Perovo, Novogireevo, Medvedkovo, Sviblovo. You know, these are schools with three or four floors. All concrete painted slabs, all very recognizable. They have such a layout in the form of a wide letter P, and in the middle there is a gym. There are also schools that are more complex, designed in the 80s. These sometimes look like a whole block. It is also low, but wide in area. There may be schools built in the fifties – brick, five stories. I’m not familiar with the new ones, I picture them badly. Overall, I think the image is clear. We’re talking about what school is in general, how it looks in our minds, in our memory.

I came across a rather unexpected phenomenon the other day. My son has been carrying a ukulele to school since the beginning of the year. He somehow mastered the chords, learned songs, played in the school corridor at recess. Classmates, high school students, girls, and even teachers – the same teachers over fifty and the best teachers in general, with an irresistible desire to direct each student a set of necessary knowledge – treated this hobby with interest and grace.

Suddenly, the classroom teacher wrote in the school chat: “We have a school, we do not have a creative circle. The administration had questions: Why does a child come to school with a guitar?

I have questions to answer. I haven’t asked those mysterious administration officials yet, but I think I will.

If a school is not, cannot and does not want to be a creative environment, then why is such a school needed? Isn’t school to develop talents? Mathematical, literary, musical, artistic?

I am ready to agree that the school should teach what the child cannot master on his own. Relatively speaking, forcing him to read the Belkin Tales of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin and explain to him what is important and good in it. Because he will read all the chapters of Harry Potter on his own and without outside help. But do we really have to and can we agree with the statement “School is not a creative environment”?

The word “school” itself comes from a Greek term meaning leisure and study. Since taking the integral is neither easier nor more difficult than a small person’s desire to play the guitar, if not creativity in a broad sense, what else should there be practice?

I was passing another school two days ago – again relatively typical. I saw how the area in front of the entrance was turned into a ceremony area. The students stood in the parade ground and in front of them a man with a megaphone stood and chanted patriotic slogans that the students had to repeat. Scream together.

There was nothing wrong with the slogans – we should all be patriots of our country. This is normal and necessary. I support the daily raising of the national flag and lessons in what could be called political knowledge. I believe that the history textbook should be the same for all curricula and be complementary to homeland. In addition, it should give the basic guidelines that the young student will perceive his country as the best, first, main, native. He will also explore internet encyclopedias, a variety of resources, an endless array of competent bloggers, books on alternative history, and much more. Having a knowledge base, he will figure out how to work with knowledge, discard the unnecessary, leave the necessary, make a choice.

But can’t school be less one-sided? Can it give a wider view? It doesn’t have to be a very creative environment, but instead it can give potential for the creative circle to flourish.

To be honest, he not only can, but should. Can the hoisting of the national flag be combined with the opportunity for children to play the ukulele? Let it be during the hoisting of the flag, and of course not during classes, but during breaks, for classmates, for those who are interested in it. Someone is playing chess, someone is playing the drums. How else to allow potential to flourish if you are not going to succumb to the freedom of creativity? A child cannot solve a problem with trigonometric equations if he does not have the opportunity to occupy his mind with something abstract and valuable to his heart. And if it is, it won’t make any sense in the long run.

The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.