As a kid, I watched “A Tale of Lost Time”, a very harsh cartoon based on a fairy tale by Evgeny Schwartz. In it, four evil wizards decided to regain their youth. To do this, they collected the wasted time of a few young sloths and after a few spells turned them into old men and became children themselves. Realizing what was happening, Petya Zubov rushed home to seek help from his mother. But my mother didn’t realize that this hunchbacked, big bearded old man was her son. It is difficult for us to imagine our children and grandchildren in old age …
Fortunately, Petya found himself in a lodge where magicians shared their time and heard: “Unfortunately, that’s how things are in the world: A person can get rid of any misfortune. If the men we turned into old men meet tomorrow and come to us at exactly 12 o’clock at night and turn the clock back 77 times, then children will become children again and we will die. The men succeeded, although it was not easy for them. Self-organization, joint plan and joint actions. I remember thinking at the time that I would never find myself in this sad fairy tale. Decades passed, however, and it seems we found ourselves in it.
In 1922, in Paris, Albert Einstein argued with the famous philosopher Henri Bergson about time. Einstein believed that time is what the clock indicates and that they can travel differently at different points in space. Bergson associated time with events occurring in our world. Of course, the elders did not understand and did not persuade each other. But our social reality is closer to Bergson’s theory.
Gone are the days when we saw Russian education as the best in the world, and when we proudly repeated the words of US President John F. Kennedy after Yuri Gagarin’s flight: “The Soviets outdid us during school in space.” By the way, about space – in 2022 the United States had 2944 active satellites in orbit, of which 1815 were Starlink communications satellites, China had 499, Britain had 452, and Russia had 185.
Since 2011 we have doubled our number of satellites, China, the United States, the UK more than 7 times. Frankly, “space time” flows differently in our countries.
The era of experimentation, when we were actively discussing with ministers to “build a bridge across or across the river,” has passed. The bridge is built, the experiments are over, the results are in front of us. Our Children’s results are convincing, according to the International Program for Success in Education (PISA), which examines 15-year-old students’ ability to solve math problems, tackle physics and other natural sciences, and read comprehension in their mother tongue. Approximately 80 countries participated in this program in 2018. We are 30th in math, 33rd in science and 31st in reading! The leaders, of course, are China, Japan, South Korea – these are the countries where a scientific and technological breakthrough took place. Being determines education.
Time is running out – the period of the main state examination (OGE) and the unified state examination (USE) is coming. Instead of eight exams in the USSR for a qualification certificate that gives a worldview and an idea of reality, to pass this test you need to memorize a few topics and wave to the rest. Despite the fact that half of the students go to teachers (sometimes from the 1st grade), “education” begins at school and turns into “education”. Annoying in front of children. “And what, adults always play the fool too?” A schoolboy asked me recently. What should he answer? The Unified State Examination and the Unified State Examination made middle and high schools ugly. They urgently need to be canceled – the country’s education system is ruined! This obvious idea, which life confirms every day, has succeeded in bringing it to the attention of politicians. “Today’s education system has turned into a cancerous tumor. If earlier educational institutions were engaged in their main function – knowledge transfer, now they have turned into feudal lordships, fiefdoms aimed at earning money … Work went into education and it is not enough, ”explains Sergey Mironov, calling for making education free and increasing scholarships to living wages. . But the Ministry of National Education is silent.
I asked one of his officers about the transfer of this glorious ministry. “We are looking for our game,” came the reply. This is how football clubs’ coaches would respond by changing the layout of the game, changing the leading players and responding to the founders’ reproaches.
I am totally positive – the clock in this ministry is ticking, albeit slowly. Since the 1990s, my colleagues and I have been explaining the need to provide a unified educational space. Among other things, this means a program and a textbook for schools in the country and a book for private schools. This allows methodological work to be organized and all teachers to benefit from the experience of the best. Even this year, freshmen could study in one of 10 programs chosen by their mothers, teachers or principals. Someone recently told me, “Without Elkonin, the school is not breathing.” And oh miracle! Finally, a program called “School of Russia” was chosen, where first-year students will start studying from September 2023!
The clock is running! But sometimes not forward, but backward. It seems they have recently stigmatized Bolonization in the Duma, the division of higher education into undergraduate (not yet higher education) and graduate programs (people at most universities haven’t figured out what to teach here). They talked about the importance of the old model with specialization and postgraduate study, not as an element of the education system, but as independent scientific study time. And often the same people who praised bolonization would comment! And here are the new recommendations of the Ministry of Education – the same as before, only the words “bachelor” and “master” do not need to be said. As they used to say – “the same cabbage soup, but pour thinner”!
It is interesting to look at time from a quantitative perspective. For example, “economic time” can be evaluated by how many times the gross domestic product (GDP) has grown in 30 years. In the 2000s, our president undertook the task of doubling this figure. It grew 10% in our country, 2.5 times in the USA, and 35 times in China. Time is running out in this area, but not as fast as we would like… Although there are important shifts here too: The Gaidar Forum has been held at the Russian Academy of National Economy and Public Administration for 10 years. Frankly, he was named after the figure who ruined a great country’s economy so that current economists wouldn’t do it. There was no such forum this year. The clock is ticking, something is clear.
However, if the clock goes too fast, then there are problems. About five years ago, chats, forums, books about blockchain and cryptocurrencies were popular. At the time, I remember explaining that if this thing is secret as it should be, it’s ideal for the illegal arms, drugs, or pornography trade. If it is clear, then it is a record of expenses and income in the ledger. From the 15th century, the word “accountant” has been translated as “bookshelf”. Of course, my words were drowned in laudatory criticism until several countries banned the use of this magical technology …
I felt this immediately as soon as banks took up electronic security. The scammers started calling several times a week to tell me that there was a problem with my account, that I had to inform them or go to them, otherwise they would send a capture team. In fairness it must be said that with the start of the NWO these encroachments stopped. In front of me is a chart with official data on the dynamics and detection of computer crimes in Russia. The picture is impressive: 2016 – 65.9 thousand, 2017 – 90.6 thousand, 2018 – 174.7 thousand, 2019 – 294.4 thousand, 2020 – 510 thousand In other words, 8 times growth in 5 years, with a 25% gap. Can you imagine the scale of our data leaks?! Elvira Nabiullina is already talking about contributions that do not involve “electronicisation” in the Duma. The clock is running.
And here is a new wave – digital rubles, personal account, electronic agendas, pensions on cards.
Experts explain: “For example, if a certain amount is allocated to a certain person as a measure of social support, then it will only be possible to spend it for certain purposes, but this money cannot be paid to buy. premium products” … Simply put, these are cards for products, and electronics are nothing here. In other words, it has to create huge databases with detailed information about each person and the contents of their wallet. At the same time, we note that all this must be done in our country, which does not make its own computers! Will we be able to secure this information space from “non-partners” and our own criminals?! Judging by the confessions of Edward Snowden, who previously worked in a service that held more than 1 billion people under the hood, this was not so good before … It seems that we need to descend from heaven to earth and compare our clocks again.
The guys from “The Tale of Lost Time” did it all. Self-organization, a plan, and joint actions helped me come together, move the arrows back 77 times, and manage my time. Looks like it’s time for us to do the same.
The author expresses his personal opinion, which may not coincide with the editors’ position.