“We don’t fulfill parental orders at all”: what will be taught at the New School. Where and what do Moscow billionaires teach their children Kirill Medvedev director of a new school biography

Forbes Life took a look at the schools created with the support of members of the Forbes list.

School “Letovo” by Vadim Moshkovich

Reputation future school(opening scheduled for September 1, 2018) is ahead of reality. Three years before the start of construction, Vadim Moshkovich (graduate of the 57th Moscow mathematics school) and school director Mikhail Mokrinsky (former director of Lyceum 1535 on Sports, the best school in Moscow and Russia) made dozens of trips to personally study the systems general education in Europe, America and Asia. The school's program is divided into eight subject areas, with great attention paid to interdisciplinary connections. IN educational process built-in different types experience: creativity, scientific, research, project activities. Educational model combines the systematicity and integrity of the program with the choice of an individual development trajectory for the student.

Education will begin in “Letov” from the 7th grade. Recruitment is on a competitive basis: you need to have high grades in Russian, foreign languages and mathematics, achievements outside of school and take a test from a school psychologist that reveals the characteristics of motivation. The consonance of the goals and values ​​of the family and the school is also important. The families of students enrolled in the school undergo scoring, for which Sberbank is responsible. School fees are calculated based on scoring results. Talented but poor people can count on 100% coverage of their educational expenses with a scholarship. They will speak with students in “Letov” using “you”.

“I am confident that our project will change attitudes towards non-state education. Non-state education and how it was originally founded is a niche story. Motivated students were more likely to choose public schools. We hope that Letovo will be perceived not as a non-state organization, but as independent school with its target audience,” says director Mikhail Mokrinsky.

The cost of training is 1.1 million per year. Excluding scholarships

Oleg Deripaska and MES

The Moscow School of Economics was founded in 1993 by employees of the capital's Department of Education Yuri Shamilov, Olga Snyatkova and Valery Svetlichny with the support of a group of businessmen led by Yuri Milyukov, at that time the president of the Moscow Commodity Exchange. Over time, the project was supported by entrepreneur Oleg Deripaska and former president Svyaz-Bank Alla Aleshkina. Today, the central building of the school and kindergarten is located in the Krasnaya Presnya area, the branch is in Odintsovo. “The idea is to create a school using the best pedagogical experience of Russian and foreign schools. This is how the first International Baccalaureate school in Russia was born. MES graduates, of whom there are already more than 750 people, form a community of successful businessmen in Russia,” says the director of the Moscow economic school Natalia Kadzhaya. “Our students, and we call all children this way, starting from the age of three, have the opportunity to receive two diplomas: a Russian Federation certificate of complete secondary education and a certificate of the IB diploma program,” noted Ilya Gegeshidze, deputy director of the Moscow School of Economics.

Tuition fee - 1 million per year

Nikita Mishin's new school

On September 1st of this year it opened in Moscow New school, created by the Dar charity foundation of entrepreneur Nikita Mishin. “If a society wants to be successful, it must care about education. As a humanist with a diploma in teaching philosophy, the topics of pedagogy have always been close to me. In my circle it was often discussed what a truly good modern school, how much it can and should take from the classical tradition. It took us thirteen years to open our own school,” Nikita Mishin told Forbes Life. The building on Mosfilmovskaya Street was designed specifically for a school for 600 students. “When selecting a team of teachers, we looked for interesting and original professionals in their field, as well as motivated young specialists. Our teachers are not indifferent; working at school is not just a job for them, but a matter of life,” says school director Kirill Medvedev. The Department of Literature was headed by Sergei Volkov, a former teacher of Russian language and literature at School No. 57, one of the best Russian literature teachers.

Tuition fee - 400,000 rubles per year

First Moscow Gymnasium Elena Baturina

The first Moscow gymnasium was founded in 2002 by Elena Baturina on the basis of a Soviet pioneer camp near the village of Nikolina Gora. 5 years later, the deal with Baturina was made by the former vice-president of Norilsk Nickel, Anatoly Avdeev. " Soviet school distinguished by patriotism, quality of knowledge, high level disciplines. These three things are of particular importance to us. We create an alternative foreign education so that the child does not leave, but studies in his native country, at least until he reaches 21 years old,” Avdeev is sure. He believes that a citizen can only be raised through the joint efforts of family and school. “If parents have not created conditions in the family for a normal upbringing, then the child, no matter how the school deals with him, will not become a citizen with high moral and ethical qualities.” Therefore, Avdeev personally meets with all parents of applicants to study at the gymnasium.

Tuition fee - 1.7 million rubles per year, entrance fee - 1.5 million rubles

Pavlovsk gymnasium of Sergei Bachin

The gymnasium, designed for 880 students, opened in New Riga in September 2009. On ten hectares there are kindergarten, school, sports and cultural-administrative complexes. The idea of ​​creation belongs to the general director of the Rosa Khutor resort Sergei Bachin and his former partners. “I was brought up by the Soviet education system, I think it was one of the best in the world. At the same time, when I lived and worked in the States, I saw their best private schools and very decent public educational institutions. I had the opportunity to compare the two systems. When he returned to his homeland with his children in 1998, he was faced with the collapse of the education system: complete neglect and lack of discipline reigned in schools. None of the educational institutions of that time even remotely resembled the ideal model that seemed to me. The condition of the school reflected general situation collapse of the system. It was painful to watch everything that was strong collapse Soviet Union: heavy engineering, rocket science... Research in the field has stopped basic sciences. It was then that the understanding came that the time had come for my essential choice of how to live on. The realization has also come that you can change anything in the world around you only by personal example. In general, the same approach applies to raising children. I proceed from the fact that we are not temporary workers on this earth. And my mission, no matter how pretentious it may sound, is the revival of the country through education and raising children. “I want to live in my homeland, raise my children here, and for my children and grandchildren and grandchildren’s grandchildren to live here,” Sergei Bachin told Forbes Life about his decision to build a school: In preparation for the construction of the school, I studied literature on architecture and the history of education. After all, buildings are built to last 100 years, and educational program becomes obsolete every 10 years. Thus, a large educational complex was created with the most modern infrastructure at that time and technical equipment: rarely does anyone think that for an active thought process Children need oxygen-saturated air and a certain temperature regime. During construction, we not only complied with SanPin requirements, we deliberately exceeded them by applying the standards for class A office premises,” notes the entrepreneur.

Now Sergei Bachin heads the Board of Trustees of the gymnasium. The council meets once a month; in addition, Bachin is in constant interaction with the director of the gymnasium, Olga Ragozhina.

Sergei Bachin is convinced that the future elite should be educated on Russian soil. “I am sure that a child’s socialization should take place in his native country, next to his parents. But what happens here is that they send a child abroad to study and think that they have fulfilled their duty. And when the child returns home, there is an abyss between him and his parents.

The task of our gymnasium is to raise and educate the future elite of the country, patriots of their Fatherland, who know and understand the history of our Motherland, share its spiritual values, and form the correct social guidelines. Belonging to the elite is conditioned by excellent education, sociocultural level, moral and ethical values ​​and, of course, responsibility for oneself, for society, for the country.

I believe that I am solving a task on a national scale - educating the future Russian elite, the children of today's political and economic establishment, who will rule Russia in 5-10 years. And we are raising the future elite on Russian soil, so that children absorb the best Russian traditions and spiritual values. I will emphasize, and this is my tough position, we do not train personnel for “abroad”, which is why we are not supporters of the International Baccalaureate system, and this is our fundamental difference from other private schools that prepare children for admission to Western universities and colleges . We aim our high school students to enter the most prestigious Russian higher education institutions.”

Tuition cost - 1.5 million rubles per year

Kirill Medvedev

Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, one of the methodologists of the “Teacher for Russia” program, director of the “New School”

Sergey Volkov

teacher of Russian language and literature at school No. 57 (1992–2015), associate professor of the Faculty of Philology at the Higher School of Economics (2011–2015), head of the literature department of the “New School”

Yulia Veshnikova

Graduate Faculty of Philology Moscow State University, director of the Dar Foundation, founder of the New School

- What principles were you guided by when creating the “New School”?

Medvedev: Any school is looking for an answer to the question of what it should be modern education. In private schools, a common theme is closedness: we just want to work in the paradigm of openness, we try to attract professionals who are interesting to us. In this sense, the “New School” is a sociocultural project that includes both the school itself and the educational center.

Veshnikova: At school, we strive to turn almost everything into the educational process. What is called “Education-360”, when the child is constantly in the process of learning. Unfortunately, primary school often makes sure that the child asks as few questions as possible. And only when they grow up do people understand what is right asked question- this is an 80 percent solution to the problem. So we encourage children to learn to ask questions.

Your school welcomes future students from the threshold with an unusual space. What kind of interaction do you expect with him?

-Medvedev: We are building a school - an environment for the development of the entire community - children, parents, teachers. The corridor, for example, not only performs a transport function, but is also a place where a child could interact with school, study, and communicate. We deliberately did not add a lot of color, because we believe that it should come along with the children, who will rethink and refine it. It’s the same with cabinets: they are designed in such a way that you can move furniture in them quite freely. As you can see, the topic of choice and awareness is very important for us: children must appropriate the space and decide for themselves what will be there. We have a nice fantasy - to put electronic music next to the cabinet musical instruments with headphones so children can play without disturbing anyone.

Same thing with the center additional education, working in the afternoon. At this time, completely different people, including adults, will come here, and for them this space should also be unusual, conducive to activities.

The summer reading list for students of the New School is quite extensive and differs from the programs of leading humanitarian schools in Moscow. Will this be a purely proprietary course with a specific trajectory and aimed at a specific result?

Chemistry laboratory

© New school

- On what basis was the corps of teachers recruited?

Volkov: I recruited wordsmiths. I needed people who know the subject, who are adequate, who are interested in life, who are ready to listen and hear others, enter into dialogue with the student, and who themselves want to learn. They took them like that.

Medvedev: Interesting and original people are important to us, but the most important thing is that they are professionals. An essential factor is the value system: a person should care, because working at school is, of course, a matter of life. It is important to be able to negotiate and check expectations with colleagues and fellow students. We have an emphasis on the tradition of strong schools, but at the same time we expect flexibility from teachers, the ability to understand the world and respond adequately to it.

Veshnikova: Teamwork is expected at school, but the team consists of teaching stars. People must be able to listen to each other and - despite the fact that they are masters of their craft - change their minds if someone's arguments convince them. But this should not be confused with betrayal of principles. Quicker we're talking about about readiness to reconsider professional approaches. Unfortunately, star teachers are characterized by some inertia, but we tried to gather those who give themselves the trouble to think and try something new. And our director gives us the opportunity to work in a team without an authoritarian regime. In my opinion, this distinguishes us favorably from most very good schools, in which a vertical power structure is built and all decisions depend on one person. And if this person - the star - leaves the project, then after a couple of years the school is closed. It was important for us to build a systemic thing that will live for centuries, like Cambridge: there it is not the name of the director that is important, but a set of principles that work for the overall brand. I hope that Kirill Vladimirovich will have the courage to deal with this, because everyone has the temptation to take everything into their own hands.

Medvedev: I have been in the school and university environment for a long time and I know how difficult it is to build a horizontal structure when teachers or department heads get together and really decide something. But at the same time, incorporating horizontal elements has a big payoff for everyone. Therefore, we try to stick to this regime as long as possible. Of course, there are times when the situation does not work out general decision, and here you have to turn on the classic vertical mechanisms.

Veshnikova: Yes, of course, in the course of the daily (but I won’t say routine!) work of the “New School”, the administration, teachers, and children will search for, develop, intelligently borrow and implement a variety of pedagogical and organizational approaches and solutions. But the main principles on which the New School is based will be preserved precisely as a system of values, as a base, as a foundation. Therefore, the fund, having prepared, organized, fully financed and launched our project, will not abandon it after the start academic year. And it's not just about material support, about the funding that the school will require for a long time - we are creating a board of trustees and supervisory boards of the “New School”, which, without interfering on a daily basis with the work itself educational institution, will closely observe life and trends and protect the very values ​​​​that I spoke about above.

Kitchen laboratory

© New school

Aren't you afraid that, after graduating from the New School, a person will get lost in a world of low educational requirements?

Veshnikova: Not at all. If a person has collected a certain number of necessary cognitive tools, he will find a resource for himself. He will be able to understand whether he is there and whether he has enough opportunities - and if not, then how they can be obtained. We want to create an atmosphere of good restlessness at school, so that a person does not stop, but has the habit of constant self-development.

Medvedev: This makes it easier to prepare for uncertainty. After all, no one really understands what to expect, what will happen in our lives in five years, and how to move towards it. Everyone understands that changes are happening, and it is important to learn how to somehow cope with this - both as a child and as an adult. And not in ten years, but right now. This is a story about choice, and at school we will strive to develop and train the ability to choose. It is very difficult for adults to provide a child with a lot of choice, but we still think it is important to update this topic.

© New school

Today, in addition to specialized humanitarian (and not necessarily humanities) education in schools, there are many open lectures and seminars, many of which have been successfully institutionalized. Does the New School approach differ from the usual formats, in which the figures of the bearer of knowledge are still given priority over those for whom this knowledge is intended?

Medvedev: Good question. Our original goal was not to be different. We didn’t think about the question “What would you like to give up in a public school?” Rather, it is important for us to take something from there. But at the same time we made a choice in favor individual trajectories learning that involves different opportunities for the child to manage his time. In high schools, which we have not yet launched, even individual schedules and individual curriculum. In general, this is a vector where you can move and build your program in relation to it. This is not a humanitarian or mathematical profile - it is a personal profile of the student, which implies personal interests, capabilities and aspirations.
Well, the position of the “talking head” should a priori be lowered. "Talking head" involves the simple transfer of knowledge. It seems to us that this should not be the case - even in cases where expert opinion is extremely important. There is the experience of colleagues from Yerevan, where no more than 15 minutes per lesson are allocated for teacher speech. We are like that special rules were not introduced, but we still sought to engage the subject-subject form of interaction. This is, of course, difficult, but we are planning a route in this direction. Additional education also plays an important role here, where completely different, unfamiliar people come to the children, with whom they need to somehow interact. This is a story about emotional intelligence, which is often talked about now.

Volkov: Will there be elements of lectures in our lessons? Yes, they will. Does this mean that we have usurped the right to knowledge and are broadcasting from above? Not at all. The lecture can and should take place in a constant dialogue. In a normal lesson there is always a lot of talking, arguing, and discussion. We don’t have a situation where I know the truth and lead the children to it: we all don’t know and are looking for the truth. I’m just a little more mature and have trained more in this matter, that’s all my difference. And so we walk together - and each in our own direction. The beauty of literature is that each person can give his own answer to the same question. If in math problem the answer in the class must coincide (which does not negate the different solutions), then the coincidence of answers is more likely a minus than a plus.

Dining room

© New school

- Will communication with senior officials be established? educational institutions(inviting teachers, courses, using methods) and if so, with which ones?

Medvedev: Interaction should be born naturally, and this is usually the way from below. We first establish communication and then institutionalize it. The only question is specific tasks. Of course, we are located next door to Moscow State University and we have many contacts at the teaching level: for example, our head of the biological and chemical department closely interacts with the Faculty of Biology and the Botanical Garden. In the mathematical direction there is also a connection with the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics. In the same Moscow State University there are laboratories for which it may be important to reach out to specific children and offer them something.

Volkov: I myself also work at the National Research University Higher School of Economics and the Moscow Art Theater School, so there are already two universities. But seriously - we are building open education, which will be connected by many threads with the world in general and with higher education in particular. Well, it’s worth saying that the founder, and his director, and the director of the school, and, for example, I are graduates of Moscow State University: some of us studied together, walked on the same floors, absorbed the same university air. The school itself partly grew out of it.

- What is the profile of a student entering the “New School”? What are the expectations for them?

Medvedev: In short, it was important for us that the children already had some kind of subject-cultural base. When a child enters grades 5–8, he already has a certain level. Our task is to determine this level and attitude to learning, so we had subject entrance examinations(Russian language, mathematics, elements of the English language). And then it depends on age: in primary schoolchildren we looked for curiosity and interest in learning. At the final stage, an interview took place with the child and parents: we wanted to find out whether we and the parents were close in our expectations and to what extent these expectations included the position of the child himself.

Medvedev: We don’t want to take a model where the mark comes with emotional assessment and, as often happens, the element psychological pressure. In the assessment system, we strive to shift the emphasis from assigning points to providing feedback, which the child, parent, and teacher must learn to work with. We can say that this is a super task for us.

He continues his research in the field of pedagogical innovation. The object of attention of the winter session was the school, which is called “New”; an excursion to it allowed the participants to personally assess the degree of novelty.

The Moscow New School in its ideological embodiment has existed since 2005, but it acquired walls only recently. The Dar Foundation, managed by Yulia Veshnikova, spent 12 long years searching for a building, forming a team of like-minded people and understanding the concept of an approach to education.

On September 1, 2017, the process of learning and settling in at the New School began, since attending lessons and receiving necessary knowledge for life should not go against life itself, full and rich. Teachers at the New School believe that childhood does not end at the threshold of school, and academic results are the fruits of a keen interest in knowledge, rather than effective cramming. More and more often in pedagogical circles the common idea is heard that children are, first of all, people, not students. This “human” approach to education is based on the idea of ​​free choice and taking into account the characteristics and interests of children. So at the New School, the implementation of the child’s skills and abilities and learning to harmoniously interact with the world are of paramount importance. However, first things first...

Coffee and croissants with the friendly director of the New School, Kirill Medvedev

“There must be some kind of “safe” place for teachers at school,” says director Kirill Medvedev. At the New School, such a place is a cafe for adults. It was there, in complete “safety,” that the first part of the meeting of the School of Teachers and Directors took place. The New School team, from the director to the curators, is very young (if not in age, then in soul). Surprisingly, we managed to gather professionals who absolutely do not know how to boast about this and are passionate about the idea of ​​educating thinking people ready to make decisions and take responsibility for them.

Children and parents are selected to suit themselves: it’s a common cause. Therefore, an interview with parents is a mandatory stage of admission to school, says Sergei Plakhotnikov, head of an elementary school ( note: on his bright red sweatshirt there is the inscription “Open notebooks, shut mouths” - one of the most common phrases secondary school, now consigned to history).

demonstrates to participants Winter session carpentry device

Mathematics, Russian and English languages, of course, no one has canceled either, but it is more important to check whether all three partners are suitable for each other: student-teacher-parents - no one here is going to play “tug of war” here. Even in the short history of the school, there was a precedent when parents, amazed by the lack of diaries, grades and comments in red pen, were so confused that they took the completely happy girl to a structure that was more understandable to them (nothing is known about her further fate, but, we think, more and more less good). And the school reserves the right to refuse admission without explanation, which, frankly, only doubles the demand.

By the way, about the economy: one month of a child’s education at the New School will cost parents 40 thousand rubles. True, this amount includes meals in the school restaurant (the creators insist on this name, it must be admitted, not without reason), as well as a package of additional education courses. However, the New School is still not a story of making money, because the conditions created there for students, equipment, and maintenance of the building are much more expensive. For example: one room for the so-called “3D physical education”, which has everything from a climbing wall to a slide, cost, according to rough estimates, 1 million 800 thousand. rubles Children at school have access to pottery and cooking, carpentry and a 3D printer, and even a huge aquarium with a couple of friendly green geckos, whose name was chosen by open competition. And the theater hall of the New School could be the envy of some Moscow chamber theaters.

The New School's theater hall can host real plays and school assemblies.

Much attention is paid to sports and technology at the school. There are seven sports teachers (including rhythmic gymnastics and wrestling) and four technology teachers who work with the children. There is no grade system: the New School tries to stimulate motivation for learning by other means. There are no calls from or to class. They are replaced by philosophical remarks a la “Nine-thirty-nine, but did you manage to do everything?”...

They also try to avoid homework - there is already a lot of work in class. It is customary for children to do so-called “visiting” (walking around classes and getting to know other parallels); some classes are even held in mixed groups. The first school assembly took place in early December. For high school students, a student served as a “pass” to the assembly junior school, whom you definitely had to meet and make friends with. The selection process at the meeting of generations was based on personal sympathies and similarities. But “no one left offended.”

Once a month, children visit a museum, having previously chosen it. School assemblies are held weekly. Parents are involved in physical education classes (“exercises with parents”), as well as joint evenings, often with a guitar, games, and creative improvisation.

New School Gymnasium

In the basic school, tutors and mediators (special people called upon to resolve emerging conflicts) work with students. Tutors serve as a kind of “structuring mirror” for a teenager: they record his goals, aspirations, changes in interests, but do not put pressure, do not call him to responsibility and do not reproach him. Over three months, more than one hundred and thirty training seminars were held for teachers and tutors.

The system of additional education is also widely developed. IN present moment About four hundred and eighty children are enrolled in the program. The main directions are sports, music, art and technology. There are robotics classes that are extremely popular, no doubt - computer classes. They prefer ethnic drums and electric guitar to piano lessons. Both boys and girls attend cooking classes.

Director for the Development of Additional Education at the New School, Yana Kudryavtseva, talks about the specifics of her field

The new school, in a sense, “trolls” the prohibitions adopted in the old school: in the corridors and reading room you can find an electronic piano and a drum set with inviting inscriptions “You can play!” (fortunately, in modern world headphones are widely used).

At The New School you are allowed to write on the walls!

While children everywhere are prohibited from drawing on walls, here they even create special walls for writing and drawing. So what?! After all, this is self-expression!

Moreover, according to the teaching staff and administration of the New School: “A school is not only walls!” And even, it would be more accurate to say, first of all, not them.

Photo by Nikolay Seredina

Interesting topic professional development teacher and leader?

Why do modern children need to go to school? What can teachers give them that parents, books and the Internet cannot? Anna Nemzer discussed this important topic with experts in the field of education:

Irina Bogantseva, director of the private school “European Gymnasium”;

Kirill Medvedev, mathematics teacher, head of the Creative Laboratory of the Second School Lyceum;

Konstantin Levushkin, teacher at the Letovo school, methodologist at the Arzamas Academy and the Teacher for Russia program;

Dima Zitser, teacher, director of the Institute of Non-Formal Education INO.

Photo: Pavel Lisitsyn/RIA Novosti

Nemzer: Firstly, I congratulate you all on today, except, perhaps, Igor Moiseevich, but I also congratulate you, just in case. I want to say that, of course, the topic I took was completely immense. Actually, this is a reason for several round tables or dissertation. I'll choose three or four discussion points, but other than that, I'd like to try to focus us on this tunnel of conversation - so that today we talk about the interests of the student. It is clear that the teacher and the director have their own interests, but I think that each of those present in their work proceeds primarily from the interests of the student. Through this I would like to build our conversation.

For myself, I conventionally designated the first part as “Parent and Child.” The first question I would like to ask is Igor Moiseevich. Homeschooling ideologists are against the separation of parent and child. They say that school is an institution that provides for this separation, but in principle it is not very natural and organic. Where can you find a parent who will be ready to give up their own interests and, possibly, work and devote all their time to teaching their child?

Chapkovsky: There are quite a significant number of such parents, and it is growing. When we started (and we started in 1986, in a different country and different conditions), there were only a few. People then kept themselves very reserved, they tried not to show that they were such smart people; according to Soviet legislation, they could be deprived parental rights.

In 1992, the law allowed family education. That’s what they called it, education in the family, not external education or something like that. For quite a long time people actually did not react to this. Only in the last two years can we say that family education has become social phenomenon. Kommersant published information that 15% of people support this cause (this does not mean that they chose this form). These percentages are a consequence of other statistics recognized by the Department of Education. The level of education in the secondary school system is falling, and the school threatens the health of the child - this is also known.

Parents who are involved in correcting the system say: “I need to educate my child.” I can tell you where these parents are. There is a simple parental question: “We want our child to have a happy childhood, to be healthy and that education does not encroach on either his happiness or his health.”

Since many people have already gone this way and received successful results, the number of people is growing, plus the system itself is pushing this towards this by the circumstances that I told you about.

Nemzer: It's clear.

I'll ask one more question. Until what point do you think a joint parent-child project should last? Should this ideally continue until university? How do you see this picture?

Chapkovsky: No. The point is that a person becomes an adult. As he grows up, the rights that were formally legally represented by his parents are physically transferred to that child. Eat developmental psychology, which captures different moments. At some point, ordinary boys begin to value their independence. If you don't take it into account, then nothing will work out.

I’ll tell you from practice, looking ahead a little, that family education there is a specific goal. It’s called simply: teaching a child to independently acquire knowledge. This usually happens after passing through the preliminary stages, which I will not go into, by the seventh or eighth grade. Sometimes it never happens, so you have to babysit this child until university. But there are such numbers. How to achieve them, teach a child to learn independently - this happens in many families.

Nemzer: The average temperature in the hospital is by the seventh grade...

Chapkovsky: By the seventh, more often girls, by the eighth, boys. They learn to teach themselves.

Nemzer: Okay, we'll get back to this conversation. Then I ask the representatives a question different schools. Indeed, school involves the separation of parent and child. When we say: “I do homework with my child until late in the evening,” as a rule, this is perceived as a deviation from the norm. When we say: “My child does everything himself, I don’t take any part in this at all, he is absolutely independent,” this seems to be the norm, this is good.

Does the school require any parental participation, is it necessary and to what extent? Irina Vladimirovna, maybe you can start?

Bogantseva: Our very conversation and the people who have gathered here indicate that the school as an institution is experiencing a crisis. People see different ways way out of this crisis. Exactly in your words, Igor Moiseevich, I thought 24 years ago, when I already had ten years of experience as a teacher at school, then worked at the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences.

I had a third child, it was a girl (the first two were boys). I felt especially sorry for her somehow. Such a little girl. Moreover, every time you learn to be a mother more and more. I saw the wrong way out crisis situation which you propose. I thought that I would make a kindergarten for this wonderful girl, a very small one, just so that the girl would have more friends. A very intimate place.

This thread stretched further. It turned out that a very good kindergarten cannot be made very small. All the best I had to surround her with: the best specialists, conditions - require financial investments. I’m not even close to an oligarch, I didn’t have any special money, which means I had to earn these investments without leaving the machine.

This is another way out of this crisis. Of course, when we say that the level of education is falling, this, comrades, is the average temperature in the hospital. There is no level of education. There is a second school, there will probably be another excellent school, there is a “European Gymnasium”, there are some schools of a completely different level not mentioned here. We add it all up and divide it, this will be the level of education. This does not exist in nature.

Nemzer: We can’t talk about the average temperature in the hospital right now. I have a very specific question.

Bogantseva: As for parents, of course, parents have very little experience of participation. Parent participation, in my opinion, should not consist of doing homework with the child. For example, in first grade there should not be any homework. And then the child should more or less be able to do it himself.

However, the parent is not excluded. For example, one day a student’s father came to the graduation party. I saw him for the first time. The graduation party was interesting and beautifully organized. He said: “What a good school it turns out to be!” He found this out at graduation. And who didn’t let him go on a hike with us, go to Bashkiria, Great Britain, Italy on an art excursion? Who didn’t let him come, like his Chinese mother did, and give us a tea ceremony? That dad probably also knew something of his own. By the way, he was a fairly famous film director. There was an unplowed field for activity here, no one would have stopped him, but somehow it never occurred to him. Although we encourage parents to participate precisely in this way, to contribute to our common life.

Nemzer: That is, it is still more likely that parents are not incorporated into the educational process itself.

Bogantseva: Why? This can also be an educational process. For example, we have a parent who is a notary. I taught social studies last year and invited her to the topic “Notary”.

Nemzer: Wonderful.

Kirill, maybe you can tell me how, from your point of view, a parent should fit into the educational process?

Medvedev: A few words about public schools. I would say there are two aspects in the relationship between the school and parents that can be called bad. The first point is if the school closes completely and protects itself from parents. Full of examples, this is very bad. Another option is if parents withdraw themselves from any interaction with the school and reflection.

If we are talking about family education, obviously they should be much more immersed in the child’s fate. When a child is sent to a public school, this does not mean that he was admitted there. In our community we have the jargon “safe school”: I passed the child, now I’m free, I can go to work.

Bogantseva: In relation to a private school, this is an even more common position among parents. I handed it in, paid the money, what do you want from me now? Of course, it is sad when a parent takes such a position, but this is not because the school is pushing him out, but because that is how he is built, poor fellow. He himself is missing something from life in this way.

Nemzer: Kostya, you are still building a school of the future, if you call a spade a spade. There is no school, it should start in 2018. How do you imagine this process, how is it written down for you?

Levushkin: I’m not a director, I should have called Mikhail Gennadievich in this regard. I can only discuss this issue from the position of a boarding school teacher.

Nemzer: Wonderful!

Levushkin: Speaking from a teacher's perspective, my personal experience In terms of interaction with parents, he was quite negative.

Nemzer: Your parents are disturbing you.

Levushkin: Not for me. It's hard for me to interfere. I have a feeling that they disturbed the child a little. IN high school A disaster begins, because parents realize their interests and desires through the child, through clubs.

Nemzer: Can you give an example of how this was expressed?

Levushkin: There are plenty of these examples, from choosing a faculty and university to choosing clubs and a set of exams. Let me give you one example. The girl came to England to study the language. The first lesson was even more or less cheerful, then she burst into tears. They ask her what happened, and she says: “You know, my mother insisted that I learn six languages ​​in this camp.” On the sixth or even the third it broke.

When my parents quite often tried to interfere with my work, like “Give them more,” “Go through this with them,” I had to cut it off very harshly. I personally did not have a resource to work with parents, although there should be one.

Chapkovsky: I would like to say that in 1990, when I had already accumulated some experience, I published an article in the Kuranty newspaper entitled “The system cannot be corrected, it is hostile to the child.” Even these arguments from teachers in relation to parents are condescending. I don’t want to offend any of you, but these speeches are even illegal. The law provided for what we call in everyday life “parents are the main people for a child.” The law formulated this very clearly: parents, legal representatives, have a priority right over all other persons, including teachers, in the field of upbringing and education.

I thought to myself: if I were a director, a person with preferential rights in relation to his child comes to me, and I begin to explain to him: “You’re doing it wrong, you’re stopping me from studying.” Herself school system I saw it as a system where parents are deprived of their parental rights. They are somehow displaced. From good teachers you can hear: “The parent interfered with the child’s teaching.”

I believe that this is a huge distortion, which, of course, comes from how the class-lesson system was born. I can say in a nutshell: it was born as a request from industrial society. Illiterate parents could not educate their children, society took over their education. It is clear that for illiterate parents you were the priests of science. It was simply impossible to say anything bad about a teacher until the age of 50. Then they started to sort it out somehow, when the system was corrected. In short, I can say this about it.

Bogantseva: About the pre-emptive right. A very real little example. Dad sent the boy to our school and then wanted to talk to me about this. He says: “I gave Sashka away, you keep him stricter. If necessary, then spank. I give you this right.” He has a pre-emptive right, he delegates it to me.

I tell him: “You know, you and I entered into a six-page agreement in small print regarding your child. There is not a single point that I will flog him.” He says: “Look, I was flogged, and now I’m a businessman who can pay you, I’m cool.” I sit and think: “If you had not been flogged, maybe you would not have been an average businessman, but would have become the president of the country with your abilities, which were hammered into you, blocked?”

I don’t tell him this, I just answer: “You know, we probably won’t be able to cooperate. Our pedagogical concept does not provide for your pedagogical measures.” He went to some other place to exercise his preemptive right, but we did not join this right.

Chapkovsky: This is fine.

Bogantseva: So there are different rights, you know? Many parents treat their child as if it were their property. But this is not so. They did not bring a child into the world in order to do whatever they wanted with him and out of him.

Chapkovsky: If we criticize the school, I will tell you a lot. You begin to criticize your parents. Parents are different.

Bogantseva: And schools are different. We will come to this and stop.

Nemzer: We really do not set out to reach an agreement; moreover, I do not believe that we will come to any common answer. I think we can all agree that spanking is wrong.

Bogantseva: Why do we need to negotiate? Look, we present four different education options. Each of them has the right to exist. There is no need to prove: “I am so wonderful, everything is right with me, and let the rest not exist.”

Chapkovsky: That's not what this is about. If we talk about the interests of the child, as the question was posed, no one has yet been invented for them better than parents, that’s all.

Bogantseva: Parents are different.

Chapkovsky: No. What does different mean? As soon as the rights of parents are encroached upon, the collapse of the family and the state begins. Parents have a limitation; it is regulated by criminal law. Until then, there is no one better than parents, no matter what they are, for a child.

Bogantseva: It's your point of view, you can have it.

Nemzer: Dear friends, we have all spoken on this issue. I think we will move on to the next topic, which is much more difficult and complex. I would like to bypass it, but, unfortunately, I won’t be able to. One way or another, in a modern school the child is truly separated from his parents. One way or another, a modern school is an institution of hierarchy and power. Even with the most democratically minded directors and teachers, it is still a kind of pyramid, at the head of which is the director. Next come the teachers, and at the bottom of the pyramid are the children.

There is a problem of violence at school. I absolutely do not want to discuss specific cases now, talk about bullying, horizontal bullying of students by students, or cases of violation of pedagogical ethics. There are a million of these cases, we will drown in them.

We would like to understand one thing. Unfortunately, the school structure is truly hierarchical and not democratic in its structure. The student is somehow defenseless. If you don’t give students complete guarantees of safety, then how can you create in them a feeling of protection, a feeling that they can come and talk about their problems?

Kirill, let's start.

Medvedev: Because I am a representative of a public school, which is seen as a prototype of a terrible hierarchical pyramid that devours children at the lower level. IN good schools the design is multi-dimensional and multi-layered, with different things happening on different layers. In some situations there is no hierarchy.

I think my colleagues in the school sector will agree that when they talk about a good school, they always talk about a good atmosphere, acceptance, mutual assistance, and so on. It is formed very subtly: for example, how a teacher addresses schoolchildren. He can call them friends, colleagues, he can really think so, and not do it for show.

At our school, for example, it is customary to communicate with children informally, go on hikes, and organize camps. In our school they don’t leave and talk, and this is actually the security system of this whole complex system. There is some form of self-government, a child’s request that teachers work with. Where the school is sensitive, it tries to build protective barriers and work with the parent to ensure that the problem is not overlooked. It happens that parents do not see something that they see within the school walls, and vice versa. In this sense, the school has the opportunity not to create a factory with levels of color hierarchy of pants.

Nemzer: I didn't even mean what you're talking about. Anyway, one way or another there are lessons, schedules, grades. It is clear that in good schools a lot of effort is spent to create a friendly atmosphere, informal relationships, outings, and so on. But this structure is still quite difficult to escape.

Boarding school. The parent is separated from the child quite thoroughly. How to ensure the protection of a child, how to create a feeling of safety for him, Kostya?

Levushkin: Are we talking about protection and safety or about the freedom of the child? I understand a little more about the second than about the first.

Nemzer: It seems to me that these are quite closely related things. A free child feels free, among other things, to pay attention to his problems and not be constrained.

Levushkin: I will once again skip the topic of boarding school, because it has not yet been created, what can I say about it? Dima Zitser will tell you a great story about this if he joins.

If we talk about class boundaries, then these boundaries exist, of course. It is not possible to destroy them at school now. But you can blur them as much as possible. For me, the ideal student is the one who, in a year or six months, will begin to ask uncomfortable questions and do something like this: at the beginning of the lesson, the topic, question and method of solving it are announced. The child says: “It seems to me that this method is not very successful. I’m in a bad mood, especially after math, so let’s restructure your lesson.” The teacher must be prepared for this.

I’m not lying, this is an ideal, this year I will implement this model, abandoning the lesson system and conducting project cycles for at least three to five lessons, where children are free, work at their own pace and decide, unfortunately, in given corridors, but those tasks that seem important to them.

Bogantseva: You talked about hierarchy and school as evil from the point of view of hierarchy. In fact, when a child enters first grade today, he already knows everything about hierarchy and power, because no one has and will never have the kind of power that parents have. What power is, he knows, feels and will continue to feel. And we settled down only somewhere on the side, although we settled down, yes. You could say they've been added.

Indeed, I agree with you that the child should feel protected. If this is an elementary school, then we rely on the teacher to be the one who is this protection, including the space between the children, which protects them a little from each other, sees them well and knows, loves and understands. It’s simpler here, because the children are small, they are not yet adolescence, when natural aggression is more developed in them.

When is this high school, from the fifth grade (just in the fourth they already enter adolescence)... At our school we have a very important tool for protecting children - school rules, which have existed for about 15 years. They were developed by children, they change a little almost every year, because the real situation changes, through discussion at the school parliament. We have a body that is elected every year.

There was a case when one girl seriously violated discipline at school. The girl had recently come to school and probably didn’t know our rules very well yet. She was in ninth grade. I was literally faced with the question that I should expel this girl from school. Many people demanded this.

Nemzer: Teachers, your colleagues?

Bogantseva: And the students. They look at everything much more strictly than teachers.

And I didn't want to do it. I thought: “She just arrived, she hasn’t gotten used to it yet, you never know.” I come to the library and say: “Give me the school rules, I’ll see what I should do in exactly this case, how I should act.” And the librarian says: “There is no copy, this girl took it.” She decided to study what would happen to her for what she did.

You see, we both came to the same point. At this point we have not the arbitrariness of the director: I like or don’t like this student, I will do this to him. There is some legislation, I want to act in accordance with it. And she knows that they will do this to her. This, in my opinion, is protection. This is called democracy, which is the worst form of government, apart from all the others, as Churchill said.

Nemzer: Dima, we discussed a number of issues. Tell me, how do you think it is right to provide protection at school, how to provide some kind of immunity outside of school, and what do you think about all of the above?

Zitser: Let's figure out who and from whom we want to provide protection.

Nemzer: There is a problem that I mentioned earlier. Eat different options violence at school, problems can arise in a variety of ways: horizontal, vertical, and so on. How to make sure that a child feels safe at school, knows where to go with his troubles, and so that the school hierarchy does not put pressure on him at this moment, so that he is free?

Zitser: To answer this question, I suggest you return to the topic of today's program. If I remember correctly, it sounds like “Why is school needed?” It seems to me that the conversation is always about why adults need school. Why do children need school? For me, the answer is quite obvious: a person will be protected the moment he finds himself in a place about which he understands very well what he is doing there, why he came there, why he chose it, what brought him there, and so on.

If we remain in the paradigm that adult uncles and aunties will decide for creatures who do not understand very well, why they need school, how to organize their life, everyday life, and so on, it seems to me that a person can never be protected. This structure will not allow a person to be protected. He will always be in danger. I believe you understand why.

Adults are different. We've already talked about parents. And parents, and teachers, and random adults we meet. If we, as teachers, are ready to say that we will decide for him, what kind of protection can we talk about? Does that really happen?

Nemzer: Dima, I'm in highest degree I welcome the transfer of all initiative to the child.

Zitser: And who said that the whole initiative?

Nemzer: Looking reality in the eye: first class, the man is seven years old. I fully admit that there are situations when a child goes to school for the first time on September 1, returns home, says: “I don’t want to anymore,” and the parent says: “Okay, as you say, so it will be.” But such cases are few. Still, it is quite difficult to cross out the parental paternalistic model. What to do in this situation?

Zitser: What does “parental paternalistic model” mean? One of the interlocutors said that a parent is the most main man for a child. Of course, this is true up to a certain age, certainly up to the age of seven. The parent falls into multi-vector influence. He is influenced by school, our program, articles, radio, and so on. The parent, in a certain sense, finds himself in a field of hysteria or, in any case, serious pressure. At this moment the parent should help.

I do not subscribe to the idea of ​​a paternalistic parenting approach. It seems to me that everything is much more complicated and simpler. A parent is a person who loves him, often undividedly. The child definitely loves him completely. The parent must be on his side. I'll give you a simple example. How is the parent meeting organized in first grade? Adult men and women gather and, wrinkling their brows, discuss how to organize the life of a seven-year-old creature. I don't find another noun because there isn't one.

What will change, for example, dear friends, if the parent meeting is organized as follows: we will have the seven-year-old person you mentioned, mom or dad, teacher, and they will all discuss how his life is organized? Wouldn't we be able to say more? Wouldn't a person feel protected at this moment? At this moment, won’t the teacher understand that he is doing a really good and very important thing, because this is the very help and support of the individual? Wouldn’t the parent feel calmer at this moment when he said: “Here he is, my beloved person, here is the teacher who is important in his life, here I am. We talk together. It's called dialogue." Like this, for example.

You will tell me: “There is inertia, a certain model, in which we drag ourselves and our own children.” Let's change it. No person will ban this form parent meeting, which I'm talking about. Schools are appearing where this model is being implemented.

Chapkovsky: First of all, your way of asking the question misses one obvious point. The hierarchical family model has been tested by human history and has led to the development of society. You are missing one very important thing when you discuss the hierarchical school model. At that very bottom there is a community that does not exist anywhere in life. It's called same-age. From the point of view of any psychologist, it objectively gives rise to aggression.

Zitser: If adults decide that people of the same age will be confined to the same circle, change this.

Chapkovsky: Same-age communication is an objective environment for the emergence of aggression, because every person wants to be an individual. You haven't answered the question of why bullying exists. This is a phenomenon that has its own basis. One of its roots is peer-to-peer communication, which does not exist anywhere else in life except in the conscript army.

You start talking about special schools, but how are schools built? According to the territorial principle. Neighbors do not choose each other, the teacher does not choose his class. This is some mechanical system. Bullying and hating are not a feature of our system alone. This is a worldwide phenomenon. A same-age group that does not exist in life turns out to prepare for life. There are no such groups, she doesn’t cook.

Nemzer: Dima, will you tell us anything about this?

Zitser: I don't quite understand what the question is. The description I just heard fits a prison, an army. If it's obvious, let's change this system. I categorically disagree with my colleague that only such schools exist. World system education is changing very much. This is a completely different topic, but what has happened over the last 12 years, for example, in education in the UK, is a revolution. Perhaps it hasn’t reached us or we don’t want to see it.

I'm not saying that you should do it just like in the UK...

Chapkovsky: What, they stopped flogging there?

Zitser: To present this system as a given... First it turns out that we, the adult world, organized it this way and provoked bullying - I agree that this is why it happens or this is one of the reasons - and then throw up our hands and say: “Friends, look, they are bullying, let’s intervene again,” it seems to me that this is simply dishonest on the part of the adult world in relation to the children’s world.

If we understand what the reason is, then the power is on our side. This is not a joke, not a mistake, this is how the world works. In this sense, we can help them and ourselves, by the way.