Before you are the arguments of the famous Soviet, Georgian and Russian teacher and psychologist Shalva Amonashvili. The article is called "Tom Sawyer Against Standardization."
Happy reading!
“Education and the fate of the country are closely linked: what kind of education - this will be the near future.
Classical pedagogy - Ushinsky, Pestalozzi, Korczak, Makarenko, Comenius - cultivates spirituality in the creative interaction of an adult and a child.
And today, pedagogy is often authoritarian, compulsory, based on a carrot and a stick: a child behaves well - encouraged, bad - punished. Humane pedagogy looks for ways to reduce conflicts and increase joy. Less dullness, more success.
During their studies, we ask children tens of thousands of questions. The teacher told, asked the homework, and then asks how someone did it. For those who did not comply - sanctions. We talk about the personality, but we do not advance along the path of humane relations with the individual.
Friendship, mutual help, compassion, empathy are really what is missing. The family does not know how to do this, and the school is moving away from education. Learning is easier. The lesson is financed, progress is planned. And the one who passed the exam, is it worthy of owning the knowledge gained? Can you trust him with this knowledge? Is it not dangerous?
Mendeleev, a great chemist and teacher, has the following thought: "Giving modern knowledge to an unenlightened person is like giving a saber to a madman." Is this what we are doing? And then we see terrorism.
They introduced the Unified State Exam - a foreign body in our educational world, because it is a lack of trust in the school and the teacher. The USE interferes with the development of a worldview for a child: it is in those years when it is necessary to reflect on the world and their place in it that children are busy preparing for the USE. With what values and feelings does a young man finish school, it doesn't matter?
But the foundation is the teacher. Teaching, bringing up is an art, a subtle interaction between a small and an adult. Personality develops only personality. It seems that you can teach remotely, but you can develop morality only by being around. A robot will not be able to develop a personality, even if it acts very technologically, even if it smiles.
And today teachers often do not understand: what is happening? The ministry now allows variety, then unifies. It abolishes some programs, then introduces.
I conducted a seminar where the teachers asked me: which is better - a 5-point grading system or a 12-point one? I then said that for me any reform is measured by only one thing: is the child better? What good is it for him? Has he got 12 times better? Then maybe we shouldn't be stingy, let's evaluate how the Chinese are, according to a 100-point system?
Sukhomlinsky said: "Children should be led from joy to joy." The teacher wrote me an email: "What can I do so that the children do not interfere with me in the lesson?" Well: to threaten with a finger, to put a voice or to call the parents? Or to make the child happy from the lesson? This is, apparently, a teacher who was taught a C, he taught a C lesson and gave the child a C on it. Here is "Deuce again" for you.
The teacher has great power - maybe creative, maybe destructive. With what will the students of a C-grade teacher come to life?
A new "standard" has come to school, even if I don't like this word, but it just invites teachers to be creative. We must take advantage of this. And in teacher training programs, authoritarianism is reproduced. There is no word “love” in any textbook on pedagogy.
It turns out that the children were brought up authoritarianly at school, the university only reinforces it, and they return to school as teachers with the same moods. Young teachers are like old people. And then they write: "How to make sure that the child does not interfere in the lesson?" There are teachers from God. You can't spoil them. But there are one or two of them in every school, and sometimes there are not even at all. Will such a school be able to reveal the child to the depth of his inclinations?
A teacher standard has been created. In my opinion, creativity cannot be standardized, but since we are talking about standardizing teachers, let's talk about standardizing ministers, deputies and everyone else who is above us. It is very important for us how they will behave.
And the students just cannot be standardized and selected to school for some tests and interviews. But this happens, although schools are created for children, and the school must take any healthy child. We have no right to choose the most comfortable ones. This is a crime against childhood.
No special selections - whether to a lyceum or a gymnasium - can be held. School is a workshop for humanity. And we have a standardization factory for the exam. I love Tom Sawyer - non-standard, symbolizing childhood itself.
The school has no purpose today. In the Soviet school, she was: to educate the faithful builders of communism. Maybe it was a bad goal, and it didn't work out, but it was. And now? Is it somehow ridiculous to educate loyal Putinites, Zyuganovites, Zhirinovites? We should not condemn our children to serve any party: the party will change. But then why are we raising our children?
The classics offer humanity, nobility, generosity, not a collection of knowledge. In the meantime, we are simply deceiving the children that we are preparing them for life. We prepare them for the Unified State Exam.
And this is very far from life. "
Shalva Amonashvili
What do you think about upbringing and education in our time? Write about it in the comments.
