For many parents of schoolchildren, it is time to think about new school. Some children did not fit into the team, others need a deepening in some subjects. Still others have entered the phase of active preparation for the Unified State Examination (although, it would seem, much more actively!), and suitable teachers are needed.

In general, there can be many reasons for changing schools. But the expectations of parents are not always justified. Experts from the Higher School of Economics studied the experience of several thousand Russian schoolchildren and looked at the cases in which changing schools pays off.

BIG FROG EFFECT

The child will soon take exams and enter a university, which means that a stronger educational institution is needed! Parents think something like this - and they transfer their child to the 10th grade of a gymnasium or lyceum. And they are waiting that now the offspring will meet the exam fully armed. But the effect may be quite different.

In sociology, there is such a concept - the effect of the Big Frog in a small pond, - says the author of the study Yulia Kuzmina, a researcher at the International Laboratory for Educational Policy Analysis of the Institute of Education of the National Research University Higher School of Economics. - This effect shows that a child from a strong school evaluates his abilities lower than his peer from a weak one. Although in terms of ability they are equal!

A simple example. In an ordinary courtyard school, a seventh-grader Vasya is considered a gifted boy - during the control, he decides both his own version and his neighbor. But if Vasya transfers to a physics and mathematics lyceum, then he will be recorded as a laggard there - after all, he did not read the latest research of the Nobel laureate!

For such children, grades may worsen, because the teacher focuses not so much on the knowledge of the student, but on whether he is better or worse than the rest in the class, - Yulia Kuzmina continues. - All this greatly affects the student's self-esteem in a particular subject. And many other things depend on self-esteem, for example, the decision to enter a university and the choice of a future specialty.

So is it worth transferring a child to a strong class? Only if he is not too far behind future classmates. Then a good result of a neighbor on the desk will not drive into melancholy and self-flagellation, but will become an additional motivation.

But by itself, studying in a strong class does not increase the grade on the Unified State Examination. So, don't expect a three-year student to score 100 points in mathematics after two years in physics and mathematics.

THE ESCAPE FROM EXCESSIVE REQUIREMENTS

It would seem - well, a parent is not an enemy to his child in order to transfer him to a weaker school? But no! There are advantages to this decision as well. For example, this will help to slightly reduce the stress and study load on the child.

In a strong school, a child can make excessive demands on himself, which he cannot meet, - Yulia Kuzmina explains. - And this leads to disappointment and dissatisfaction. In a weaker school, such a student will feel much more confident.

There are also illegal bonuses. At a weaker school, it will be easier for a prepared student to receive a medal and a certificate with honors. And for this, by the way, you can get several bonus points for the Unified State Examination when entering a university.

Parents are discussing and this is the “plus”: they say, in a weaker school it may be easier to cheat on the Unified State Exam. It is on this that the entire USE-tourism in certain regions is built! Graduates are specially transferred to those schools where there is an agreement with the leadership, which can turn a blind eye to cheating and fraud with the Internet. But you shouldn't seriously count on it. AT last years Rosobrnadzor takes on a pencil all those who change schools in high school, monitors the change and checks their work with great care.

DO NOT CHANGE HORSES IN THE MIDDLE OF A QUARTER

There are other reasons for changing schools. And not always parents and children part with the former class on a positive note. It also happens that they just run away from school, losing their shift.

It happens that a student does not have a relationship with teachers or classmates, says family psychologist Mikhail Zotov. - Sometimes it has to be done even in elementary grade! And many parents think that running away from school will solve the problem and the child will start everything from scratch in a new place. Unfortunately, this is not the case - if the child does not learn to resolve conflicts, then everything can repeat itself in the new school. I had cases when the school was changed three or four times and the child was offended everywhere!

In order not to run away from mistakes, but to learn how to correct them, parents need to figure out what happened and why. To do this, you need to contact the teachers and the school psychologist. And, of course, you should not change horses in the middle of the quarter - if you can’t wait until the end of the school year, then wait at least for the end of the quarter.

It is necessary to obtain the consent of the child to be transferred to another school and explain to him why this is necessary, the psychologist continues. - If he is categorically against it, maybe you should listen to him? In this case, you need to say all the details - well, you stay, but promise to study well, despite this and that.

EXPERIENCED TIPS

How to change schools without too much stress for your child:

✓ Talk to your child - explain to him why you think he should change schools, give arguments.

✓ Collect information about the new educational institution - who is the director, what is the atmosphere like, where do graduates study.

✓ Get your child's consent! If he is categorically against - do not do it by force.

✓ Be aware of adaptation - this is a difficult moment. Active and sociable guys can get through it in a week, others will need months.

It is important that parents support their child - they are interested in how he is doing, be ready to help in a difficult situation, talk or give advice.

However, this should be done at any time - not only when changing schools.

The Higher School of Economics has prepared a program for the re-education of lagging behind schools. In an experimental mode, the technique is being tested in remote microdistricts of Moscow - Nekrasovka, Kapotnya and Maryino. Last year, a university-school cluster appeared here, which included 33 educational complexes created from 220 former schools and kindergartens. Why do children need to be taught in a new way? Why education should be paid and non-ubiquitous? These and other questions of Lenta.ru were answered by the project ideologist, Deputy Scientific Supervisor of the National Research University Higher School of Economics, Doctor economic sciences Lev Lyubimov.

Lenta.ru: When my daughter finished first grade, I asked: will you miss the teacher? “No,” the child replied in horror. - She treats us like dogs: "Sit down! Get up!"

Lyubimov: Interesting start. What you are talking about is called didactic learning. It has existed for a long time, since the end of the 19th century. And now most schools in Russia live the same way. This is a kind of oral transmission from the subject to the object.

That is, the student as a person, as a subject is not considered?

Of course not. The West has long understood that verbal retelling of a textbook is a source of danger. So you can't teach anything. Science does not develop in an evolutionary way, as before, but explosively. The main body of professional specific knowledge becomes obsolete in 4-5 years. And so the north of Europe, Canada, Australia, Singapore, South Korea moved to the fact that it is necessary to teach not so much and not only knowledge, but how to handle knowledge, apply it, search, select, extract and endow with one's own meanings. That is, to teach competence. China has already carried out this reform - it has replaced the didactic paradigm with an activity one and has become a world school leader. And we are already 50 years behind.

But the elementary school switched over to new educational standards four years ago. Officials promised that cramming would leave schools, all attention would be given to practice and the development of competencies. Is not it so?

An ordinary teacher does not know what and how to do with these standards. He can only verbally retell the textbook and command. And he feels discomfort, because he feels: the children do not perceive this.

We believe that if a law, a standard is adopted, orders are issued, then everything will be done by itself. No, it won't! We need to teach the school what to do and how to do it according to the new paradigm. We need big investments in teachers, directors, if you want - in the parent too.

The curve of development of a person's potential on the graph in the first ten years of his life goes exponentially. And then it slows down and by the age of 30 it almost evens out. The Russian school does not allow children to truly develop their potential. So we are churning out mass C grade students. And then a mass of uncompetitive adults grows out of them. Today we have a minimum of world-class professionals in almost every field. But crowds of dependents and quasi-entrepreneurs, whose goal is to grab someone else's business, "squeeze out" and take the currency abroad.

And you want to change the system in your university cluster? Where did they start?

From teachers. The first thing I tell them when we meet is that if you are still sure that you are the main source of knowledge for children, this is sad. If today a child this topic interesting, and you will broadcast our skinny textbook at the lesson, he will find interesting and necessary materials on the Internet at home, but at the same time he will lose interest in you. He will know more than you on this topic. The teacher today should become a subject expert. And that's what most people have problems with. If a person graduated from the Faculty of Physics of a classical university, they will write in his diploma: physicist, teacher of physics. And if you graduated from the Pedagogical University, the diploma will say "physics teacher". Do you understand the difference? In Finland, no one without a master's degree from a classical university will be admitted to school. Our task is to make physicists out of physics teachers.

Is not short story. To begin with, in the cluster, university professors conduct a professional development program with teachers. And they often stumble upon the fact that many do not understand them. After the seminars, professors give the task - to master a dozen professional books in a year. Then we will check if everyone understood.

Will you have an exam?

Yes, you will. The teacher must learn on his own. Self-learning throughout life is the most important commandment of the 21st century. The teacher must teach the child to learn independently. How will he do it without studying himself every day?

Are the teachers ready for this?

In any school, the entire teaching corps, according to my observations, is divided into three parts. The first is the knights of the school. For them, the main thing is children, they have a professional conscience and honor. The second is those who are accustomed to instructions, to orders. They will order - they will do it, they will not order - they will not do it. But in Moscow they value their own workplace and salary. That is, they are quite manageable and trainable. The third part - those who hold on to the workplace and the income that it brings. But they just don't want to change. We are trying to part with the third part in our cluster.

Have many been kicked out?

The dropout rate is about 20.

How do parents view the changes?

They are watching. But we are trying to actively involve them in the work. The role of parents today is one of the main failures of the kindergarten and school. Most consider educational establishments like a storage room. They taught that their job is to give birth to a child, feed and clothe, and everything else will be done for them.

In my opinion, now just parents understand that education is capital.

Alas, for too many of them, education is crusts, and not a system of knowledge in the head. We start working in kindergarten. Now one of the problems the child has is oral speech. About 25 years ago, the vocabulary of a first grader was 5-6 thousand words. Now it's good if 3 thousand. Why?

Probably, you will say about the dominance of computers, televisions.

Yes. Visualization, lack of texts on the air. Oral speech is formed in a child from the ether, from what he hears. He sees but does not hear. In twenty episodes of the magnificent cartoon "Well, you wait!" just two words. Tom and Jerry doesn't even have that. Therefore, we make a program with parents individual lessons. Kindergarten should provide them with a bank of names of text materials, audio books, text cartoons. And then sit down together and write down every month when and what will be read, watched at home and in the garden. Another failure of the kindergarten is the socialization of children. Do you know what it is?

Ability to behave in society?

When I ask this question in schools and kindergartens, they answer in much the same way. In fact, socialization is different at different levels. In kindergarten - this formation is pretty long list sustainable behavioral skills: to be the first to greet an adult, to give way to adults, and to boys also to give way to girls, to take care of what they gave you and what others have. This is where the sense of ownership begins.

I wrote such skills for a page and a half. Therefore, you need to sit down with your parents and say: now we are working on this, tomorrow - something else. In elementary school, we are rethinking the tasks of teaching reading and writing. Teaching reading means making a child dependent on books and texts for life. Not a day without a chapter! To teach writing means to form in a child a stable need for presentation in writing their thoughts, impressions, experiences. Not a day without a line! By the end of the beginning, the child should have a collection of his own written texts. Dynamically developing oral speech, infection with reading, writing is the basis of powerful intellectual development. And today there is nothing of this either in kindergartens or in schools. But then “on average” there will be 50 USE points!

It is in the Unified State Examination that many see the main evil. The main task of the teacher now is to train children for tests.

The exam is an unbearable torture for the teacher and director. They, yes they are - the entire population is not accustomed to an independent assessment of their work. The culture of independent evaluation is a very high culture. The planned economy killed her - no matter what they make, everything will be sold, everything will be distributed. USE is a small element of this high culture that needs to be revived. But it will work if the state exam is impartial. Last summer, only the lazy did not say that we finally had the first honest exam. Actually this is not true. Take a look at the rating system. Initially, the minimum result, giving the right to a certificate, in mathematics was set at 24 points. Then they looked at the results and reduced them to 21 points. Because otherwise 20 percent of graduates would be left without a certificate. This year we will reduce by another 5 points, next year - by ten? But the complexity of the current tasks for obtaining a triple and a certificate is at the level of two grades of elementary school. “Petya spent 7 rubles on apples, and then another 13 rubles on sweets. How much money did Petya spend in total? I don't think everyone needs to be certified. Passed the exam below 40 points - and this is the level of knowledge for the 5th grade - here's a certificate for you that you used your constitutional right to an equal opportunity to receive a complete secondary education. But the certificate did not earn.

Your cluster includes 220 former schools and kindergartens. It turned out to be a kind of educational monster. Such complexes are the trend of today. Everything individual is killed. Is it possible to bring up a competitive citizen in the “extras”?

The first and main source of human progress is diversity. Therefore, the creation of complexes is the right step. Where else can you get a variety of teaching teams, educational environments, organizational cultures, leadership styles and concepts, infrastructures, information and library resources? On the basis of this, synergy arises, which forms the environment for educating new people. Synergetics is a self-organizing development. And it is precisely the same third part of the teachers that I spoke about that complains about the reforms, and even incites parents to the reformers. It is they who write denunciations to Putin, Medvedev, the Pope. They have something to lose. average salary teachers in Moscow now - 70 thousand. The director has three times more. In recent years, more than 80 percent of the directors' corps has been replaced in Moscow during the organization of the complexes. The old leaders were distinguished by inertia, they could not withstand modern requirements. They no longer wanted to tear the finish line. But new ones aren't all good either. Many in two or three years will have to change again.

Is frequent change of leadership a blessing? Parents complain that today young, unknown young people are taking the place of experienced personnel. They suspect they are relatives.

In Moscow, a competitive multi-stage and open to observation selection system has been created, which has already begun to spread throughout the country. Relatives, if they have nothing in their heads, simply will not pass. All directors are certified. Reminds me of a driver's license test. Within 3-4 hours the candidate answers computer questions. In tests - five blocks of 100 questions. Those who passed the certification are discussed and can be approved at the district board of education management, and then at the city. Yesterday, for example, we listened to a 55-year-old very cheerful retired colonel with higher education who applied for the post of director. He was blocked by zeros. And before that he would have passed. On the final stage The governing board of the school is offered a choice of three candidates for the director. And parents choose.

Photo: Dmitry Lebedev / Kommersant

In most schools, the governing board is an absolutely pocket body. And it is not the board that controls the director, but exactly the opposite.

You can't make fun of everything. Everything started somewhere. The process has begun, it is running.

How do you feel about the fact that there are more and more paid services in schools? Education is being commercialized and becoming less accessible.

Correctly. That's the way it should be. A hundred years ago, a small percentage of the population received general education. It was difficult and not for everyone. To teach Vasily Vasilyevich Rozanov to teach literature at the gymnasium was costly. When the school became mass, the costs for it simply increased by an order of magnitude. And she began to put pressure on budgets. The growth rate of costs outpaced the growth rate of national income. So the quality suffered.

That is, in your opinion, quality education should become the privilege of the rich?

Now it is fashionable to complain that our people live in poverty. When I hear this, I immediately ask: "Show me who exactly is in need." Take our cluster. For example, a school in the very "aristocratic" district of Kapotnya, where, as I was told, the working class lives. We collect parents of tenth graders. All the free space around the school is lined with foreign cars. Dozens and dozens of pieces. Is it the working class or what? And you say there is no money. The parent will invest in his adult comforts and pleasures. And in a child, as he believes, let the state invest. Strange logic - like a stepmother and stepfather. You spend on your child first, and then go to the boutique for a shirt for ten thousand.

You assess well-being from the position of a Muscovite. They will immediately object to you: look what is happening in the provinces. How can Lomonosov get through there?

In some places there is no one to break through. I have a hut in the Novgorod village. Plot and two greenhouses. Every year I planted 6-7 beds of root crops and greens, a hundred square meters of potatoes, in the greenhouse - peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes. To the left and to the right of my house are weeds. Neighbors receive 8 thousand pensions. They are too lazy to dig up even one hundred square meters. Young guys live in the same village who will not work under any circumstances. The question is, how do they live? They take away 4,000 grandma's pension. And when she dies, they will go to steal. They are already a certain culture, a failure of the 90s.

Probably, this culture has developed precisely because of the inaccessibility of a normal school education in the village?

Basically, these are our historical sins, the Soviet legacy. The Bolsheviks destroyed many millions of the best competitive people. And over the past twenty years, our school has brilliantly brought up a whole generation of non-patriots - three-year-olds. Those who will look for where it is easier and cheaper to get a university diploma, and then hang out in some office or shopping plankton in an Oblomov robe. They just don't want to overdo it, just don't overdo it.

This can only be broken if we start forming competitive young cohorts through the new school. For 15-20 years, this can definitely be done. I probably won't live until then. But at least I'll sow the seeds here and there. This is not a utopia. In a cluster, this is a practical and thoughtful goal. Already implemented, albeit with great difficulty.

In Russia, the question arises quite regularly about the need for homework, as well as the allegedly excessive workload to which Russian schoolchildren are subjected. So, according to Borisa, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Education and Science, they take too much energy from modern students. They should be given more free time for outdoor activities, he explains.

“Schools all over the world are skipping homework, and there is nothing wrong with that.<...>Homework is an unnecessary thing today. We already force children to be at school or in some classes all the time, ”said Chernyshov.

As the deputy notes, due to the large teaching load, schoolchildren become indifferent to gaining knowledge.

“They don’t want to sit over textbooks, pore over some work or engage in activities that put another burden on their body. On the one hand, we need to make education interesting, and on the other hand, we need to give our children the opportunity to catch their breath so that they can find time to play football and spend time outdoors. It would be right,” Chernyshov believes.

The parliamentarian also noted that the additional burden in addition to school - doing homework, as well as attending developmental sections and circles - also negatively affects their health.

This is not the first time the issue of excessive workload to which Russian schoolchildren are allegedly subjected has been raised in our country.

For example, in 2013, teachers at a Moscow school, at a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, proposed to formalize the right of students to voluntarily do homework. Then he instructed the Acting Mayor of Moscow to prepare a draft of instructions on this initiative. True, then it was only about homework for high school students, who have practically no time left for it because of the intensive preparation for entering universities.

Only three months to live

For most school systems around the world, including Russia, homework is still the main form of consolidating the material covered.

At the same time, Russia is not the only country where schoolchildren's parents complain about exorbitant amounts of homework. For example, in Italy in 2016, a parent of students publicly criticized the education system, and many parents supported him.

Italian Marino Peiretti posted an open letter on the Internet, in which he explained why his son did not do his homework during the summer holidays.

“I want to bring to your attention that this year my son did not complete his summer homework.

We did a lot during this time: we rode a bike for a long time, went hiking, put our house in order, and did programming.

You have a whole nine months at your disposal to instill knowledge in my son and educate him, and I have only three months to teach him how to live, ”wrote the father of the child.

Those who read the letter were divided into two camps: some parents supported Peiretti, others accused him of undermining the authority of teachers in the eyes of his son. In the same year, the Spanish Confederation of Parents of Schoolchildren for the first time held a strike against homework: during the week, parents and schoolchildren did not complete the tasks that were given to them at home. By the way, a similar action was held in France in 2012.

According to international research (OECD), which regularly studies the effectiveness of school education around the world, in 2016 Russia ranked first in terms of homework. Russian schoolchildren spend more than 10 hours a week on assignments outside of school, the study said. The next places in the ranking were Italy, Ireland, Poland and Spain, where students spent an average of about 6-6.5 hours a week on homework.

True, not all countries participated in the study, so the results may not be entirely objective. So schoolchildren in South Korea, starting from high school, spend all their free time on education and preparation for entering prestigious universities. In addition to school, Korean children volunteer to attend numerous tutors, as well as complete additional assignments at home.

It's not the schools that have changed, it's the parents

Today, experts have not identified an unambiguous relationship between the level of knowledge and the volume of homework. Most of them agree that the main thing in this matter is not the number of lessons, but their quality and creativity.

People's teacher of Russia, director of the Tsaritsyno Education Center No. 548 in Moscow, Efim Rachevsky, believes that it is impossible to completely cancel homework at school. Our schools have the longest holidays in the world, lasting four months in total, he points out. In addition, in the classroom, children do not always have time to consolidate the material covered, the teacher believes. He cites English classes as an example.

“There are about 15 people in the group, the teacher has 40 minutes of the lesson at his disposal. And it turns out that on average, there are two minutes for one student. During this time, it is almost impossible to do anything. Therefore, homework, in this case, will be of a training nature. Especially if it's interesting.

For example, you might say to a child, "Go to the BBC website, find a movie about turtles, and try to do simultaneous translation." This assignment will give you more than 150 English lessons combined.”

He also notes that homework has another important function besides education. As Rachevsky said, a few years ago at his school, as an experiment, homework for primary school students was canceled for two weeks.

“Parents endured two days, three days. Then a friend of mine, a doctor of pedagogical sciences, called me, his grandson was then studying at our school. He says: “What are you doing, bastard? I used to come home and ask my grandson: “Did you do your homework? Not? Come on, sit down and do it." And I watch football. And now I ask him, and he answers me: “But they didn’t ask us. Grandpa, let's play chess." And maybe I want to watch football, ”complained the doctor of pedagogical sciences. That is, homework also performs the function of a kind of nanny, ”Rachevsky told Gazeta.Ru.

According to him, the most important task of homework is not to make children disgusted with learning. The ideal training option is when the teacher gives his students individual homework, so that outside of school each of the children consolidates the material that they learned the worst in the lesson.

However, admittedly, few Russian teachers use such an individual approach.

Unlike many other specialists, the teacher is sure that the version that modern schoolchildren are loaded with homework more than their predecessors is a myth.

The main difference of our time, he believes, is that the approach to children's education has changed on the part of the parents themselves, who today, more than ever, connect the well-being of their children with the quality of education they receive. Modern parents of schoolchildren really want to raise successful children, and now many associate success with higher education in the most prestigious universities, the expert believes.

“For example, in the 60s of the last century, about 25% of students went to high school and then entered institutes. And now everyone en masse enters higher educational institutions, ”explains the director of the school.

He also draws attention to the fact that there is no clause in the law on education obliging teachers to give homework to children, and therefore there is nothing to cancel at the legislative level. According to him, homework is a familiar technology of teaching at school, but it is not required by law.

At the same time, there are restrictions on the scope of tasks - sanitary rules and norms, the so-called SanPiNs. According to these recommendations, first graders should not have homework at all, students in grades 4 and 5 can spend no more than two hours a day doing homework, and high school students no more than three and a half hours a day.

Teachers don't like kids

Moscow schoolboy Bogdan (not his real name) is 11 years old, in fifth grade and plays hockey six times a week. Previously, he also attended a music school, but in the second half of the 4th grade he decided to take an academic leave there, because he did not have time to prepare for the numerous exams that all fourth-graders passed when moving to high school.

As Bogdan's parents told Gazeta.Ru, the boy has practically no free time between school, sports and homework. “He sleeps in our car mostly,” his father shared. “When I drive him home from work.”

Despite such a high workload, Bogdan looks like a quite happy and sociable child, and his parents believe that modern children need to be provided with a tight schedule.

“Otherwise, all his free time he will sit at home at the computer,” explains Bogdan’s mother. - As a child, we constantly walked with friends in the yards, we could not be driven home. And now modern schoolchildren don’t have such a habit, they don’t spend time outdoors at all.”

However, there is also an opposite opinion. Klara Mansurova, chairman of the Parental Care public movement, believes that modern schoolchildren are given too much homework in each subject, and as a result they spend as much time on textbooks at home as they do at school.

“I think that the homework should be reduced by 50%, but not cancelled. It is not always possible for a teacher to explain a topic in such an accessible way so that all children understand it. In order to completely cancel homework, you must first change teachers, ”Mansurova believes.

According to her, there are subjects for which you should not give homework at all - among them are computer science, social science, and chemistry. Being a candidate chemical sciences, Mansurova is sure that this science can be revealed in the classroom in such a way that the children themselves will become interested in it and want to look for additional information on the Internet, an encyclopedia or a textbook.

“Maybe not everyone needs homework, but only those who do not have time in the subject. The teacher needs to quietly approach such a student and advise what else to read and do,” she explains.

According to the expert, the worst thing in school is when a child is seen as a person who is obliged to obey the teacher and fulfill all his tasks. While the main task of the school is to help the student find his place in life and self-determination.

“Unfortunately, in our schools there is almost no love for children. After all, these 11 years that a child spends at school are the main ones in his life. The teacher should first of all help the child understand his destiny, answer the questions: “Who am I? Where am I from? Why am I?" Instead, every teacher believes that his subject is the main one.

It turns out that the unfortunate student practically does not have time to live due to too much workload, says Mansurova.

Unlike Rachevsky, she believes that modern children are much more loaded than Soviet schoolchildren. At the same time, Mansurova draws attention to the fact that this is also the fault of the parents themselves, who send their children to numerous extracurricular sections.

A child should have free time when he can think, Mansurova believes, but a modern student cannot afford such a luxury. Just because our children are small, we believe that we can force and humiliate them, and it's time to start treating children differently, Mansurova is sure.

Section 1 Starting over

1. Fill a portfolio with your expectations and worries. Walk around the class and read what the others have written in their portfolios. What did they record? Example: I expect to learn a lot of new English words. I'm worried about writing tests.

2. Read the reasons why students go to school. Now rank them in order of importance to you.
To get basic knowledge
To prepare for future work
To meet other young people
To train your memory
To learn what you'll never use
To find out what you're really interested in
To please your parents
To test your intelligence
To learn how to study
To have some fun
To learn discipline

3. Work in groups of four. Compare your rankings and say which are the most/least important reasons in your group. See "How to contribute to a group discussion of ideas" in "Learning strategies" (page 169)

4. Work in pairs. Discuss these questions.
1. Why do schoolchildren in our country change schools?
2. Have you ever changed schools? If yes, when and why?
3. How did you feel when you moved from elementary to high school?
4. How do you feel now after you moved to another school?

5. Read the excerpts from Wendy's diary. Are the following statements true?
Day 1
I just transferred from a private high school to a public high school. I quickly went from the oldest, most experienced student in the school to the youngest, newest. Many things are confusing for me, including the schedule. I got lost today trying to find an art class. Where is my math class? A few miles from here...

Day 2
So, it would be great to throw out those awful uniforms and put on jeans for a change, but there's something worse than that. It was hard to find friends quickly. I miss most of all my acquaintances - we were all so close. We were together for 9 years!

Day 3
I really miss my school. Even the food there was better. We had more variety and had amazing pizza every Friday!!! There were far fewer people in that school and not so many problem people. Here I feel terribly alone. Nobody pays attention to me. I am very sorry that I am here!

Day 4
Today was full of surprises. My subject of choice is team sports. I chose it because I expected that there would be a lot of girls there. Turns out I was EXTREMELY wrong. There were only five girls and about 30 boys! But it turned out well. I became friends with many of the boys in my group.

Two months later
I almost finished my semester of public school. Still very difficult. I'm getting 3's on my report card for the first time. But I like it here much more than in a private school. Public school does not mean that it is easier here. Homework is a little easier, but test papers definitely harder.

1 Wendy thinks that little has changed in her life.
2 She feels that it is difficult to find herself in a new place.
3 She has to wear a school uniform at the new school.
4 She feels good not knowing her new classmates.
5 She spent nine years at a previous school.
6 There are even more children in her new school.
7 Discipline is better at the new school.
8 She didn't expect to make friends in team sports.
9 She is used to getting better results at her previous school.
10 She is getting used to the new school.

6 Work in pairs. Read the dictionary definitions of words and phrases from the text and do the following tasks:
a) Translate the words and phrases into Russian. Is it easy to do? Why or why not?
b) Decide where Wendy is from; from UK or USA? how old is she? Explain why.
middle school ( high school) - 1 school in the UK for children aged 8 to 12 after they leave primary school. 2 school in the US for children aged 11 to 14 after they leave elementary school.
Public school - (public school) 1 in the UK is an expensive private school where students usually live and study. 2 In the US, a school that is controlled and paid for by government taxes.
Elective subject - the course of study that you chose instead of the one you should have taken.
Semester (semester) - one of two periods lasting about 18 weeks into which the academic year is divided in some countries, such as the United States.
Report card - (report card) a document written by a teacher containing information about the student's progress in school.
A, B, C - grades given for evaluating the student's work, its quality: excellent (A), good (B), or average (C).
Private school (private school) - a school that provides education for which the parents of children directly pay.
High school (high school) - 1 school in the UK for children aged 11 and 18.
2 in the US a school for children aged 14 to 18.

7 Fill in the verbal web using the words from task #6 and text #5. Use a workbook.

8 Work in pairs. Use words from the word web to compare Wendy's school to yours. Make 2-3 suggestions.
Example: At Wendy's school, they weren't required to wear a uniform, but we are.

9 Work in pairs. Tell each other about the best/worst thing that happened to you on your first day of school this year.

10 Listen to three teenagers talking about their experiences on their first day of school and decide which of the speakers:
1 didn't know anyone at school
2 mentioned some strict school rules
3 was nervous on the first day of school
4 liked the food at the new school
5 did not like the school uniform

Audio text:
Interlocutor 1
My new class is good because most of the people are the same as last year. On the first day we got the timetable and then went to classes like English, math and technology. I have made some new friends and I like it when there are many different people who you can talk to. I also have to wear a uniform now. If I don't wear it, I need to get a note from my parents or I'll be sent home to change. The best thing that happened on the first day was that I made some new friends, and the worst thing was that I went for some subjects that were new to me. This made me nervous.
Interlocutor 2
I like the new teacher because he doesn't give much homework. I was nervous about going to first grade because I didn't know what lessons to expect. I went to school with one of my old friends, but made a few new ones that I love very much. My best memory of the first day is of the PE class because we didn't work much. The worst thing is that I had to wear a shirt and tie because it made me feel like I was sweating. My school uniform is black and it gets hot sometimes.
Interlocutor 3
I think uniforms are acceptable, but I hate PE gym clothes because of the big long socks you have to wear knee length with shorts and the awful yellow jersey. I was really nervous on the first day because I had never been to this school before and had never met anyone who went there. I really think that the meals at my new school are better than at my old one. I have more choice, and I think it tastes better here. The best thing on the first day was the lesson French. I had never had it before and really liked it. The worst thing was that I was nervous most of the day and didn't know what to say or do. But I felt better as the day passed.

11 Listen again and make notes in the table. Use a workbook.

12 Work in pairs. Complete the sentences about yourself and share your ideas with your partner.

13 Use the words below to complete the sentences about Wendy. Use the rules in the "Grammar reference" if necessary.

14 Do the tasks below:
a) Ask your classmates and find out who:
1 Has his bag the longest.
2 Changed school most often.
3 I once learned another language.
4 Found new friends this year.
5 Recently read good books.
Example: How long have you had this bag?

b) Tell us what you learned about your classmates.

15 Read the rules, listen to the sentences and mark the strong and weak have. Then practice saying the following sentences.
Have strong if it stands alone without a main verb. He is weak in the matter.
Have is often abbreviated ("Ve") in text when followed by a main verb.
1 Have you just finished work?
2 They haven't lived here for years.
3 She worked at a bank for five years.
4 Would you like something to eat? - I just ate.
5 I have been working hard this week.
6 It has rained often this year.
7 We haven't seen her today.
8 They have seen this film six times.
9 This has happened several times already.
10 Do you have a spare pen? - I don't think there is.
11 We have eaten at this restaurant many times.
12 Did he just leave?
13 Someone ate my soup!
14 She studied Japanese, Russian and English.

Audio text:
Have you just finished work?
They have not lived here for many years.
She worked in a bank for five years.
Would you like something to eat? I just ate.
Have you been playing the piano since childhood?
I've been working hard this week.
There has been a lot of rain this year.
We haven't seen her today.
They have seen this film six times.
This has already happened several times.
Do you have an extra pen? - I don't think I have.
We have eaten at this restaurant many times.
Did he just leave?
Someone ate my soup!
She studied Japanese, Russian and English.

English original texts translated above:

Speaker 1
My new class is ail right because it still has most of the same people as last year. On my first day we got the timetable and then we went to our lessons like English, maths and technology. I have made some new friends and I like having different people to talk to. I also have to wear a uniform now. If I don "t wear it. I need to get a note from my parents or I might get sent home to change. The best thing about my first day was making some new friends and the worst thing was going into some lessons that were new to me.
Speaker 2
I like my new teacher because he doesn't give out a lot of homework. I felt nervous walking into my first class because I didn't know what lessons to expect. I went to school with one of my old friends but I made some new friends whom I like very much. My best memory of my first day was my PE lesson because we didn't do any work. The worst thing was having to wear a shirt and tie because they make you feel sweaty. My school uniform is all black so it gets very hot sometimes .
Speaker 3
I think my school uniform is all right but I hate the PE kit because of the big long socks that you have to wear up to your knees with the shorts and the ugly yellow top. I was feeling really nervous on my first day because I had never been to this school before and I had never met anyone who goes there. I do think that dinners at my new school are much better, though, than at my old one. I get more choices and I think they taste better. The best thing about my first day was having a French lesson. I have never had one before and I really enjoyed it. The worst thing was feeling so nervous most of the day and not knowing what to say or do. But I did feel better as the day went on.

Exercise 15
1. Have you just finished work?
2. They haven't lived here for years.
3. She's worked in the bank for five years.
4. Would you like something to eat? I "ve just eaten.
5. Have you played the piano since you were a child?
6. I "ve worked hard this week.
7. It has rained a lot this year.
8. We haven't seen her today.
9. They "ve seen that film six times.
10. It has happened several times already.
11. Have you got a spare pen? - I don't think I have.
12. We "ve eaten at that restaurant many times.
13. Has he just left?
14. Someone has eaten my soup!
15. She's studied Japanese. Russian and English.

Day 1
I "ve just moved from middle school to high school and from a private one to a public one. Overnight. I was transformed from the oldest, most experienced student in the school into the youngest, greenest newcomer. Lots of things ane confusing, like my schedule. I got lost today trying to find art class. And where is my maths class? Miles away from here...

Day2
So it's been great to lose that horrible uniform and wear jeans for a change, but there is much more to it than that. It's been hard to make friends thickly. What I miss most is knowing everyone - we were all so close. We had been together for 9 years!

Day3
I do miss my school a lot. Even the food was better. We had more variety, and there was that delicious pizza every Friday!!! There were fewer students in my previous school and not so many troublemakers. Here I feel terribly lonely. No one pays any attention to me. I wish I had stayed there!

Day 4
Today was full of surprises. My elective subject is team sports. I had chosen it because I had expected that there would be lots of other girls in it. I turned out to be VERY wrong. There were only five other girls and about 30 boys! Put this has actually turned out to be good. I "ve become friends with many of the boys from my class.

Middle school - 1 a school in the UK for children between the ages of 8 and 12, after they leave primary school. 2 a school in the US for children between the ages of 11 and 14, after they leave elementary school.
Public school -] BrF. an expensive private school where students usually live as well as study. 2 AwE a school that is controlled and paid for with government taxes.
Elective subject - a course of study that you choose to do, rather than one that you must do.
Semester - one of the two periods of about 18 weeks that the school year is divided into in some countries, for example, the US.
Report card - AmE a document written by a teacher giving details of a students progress in school.
A, B, C - marks given to assess a students work, indicating its quality: highest (A), good (B), or average (C).
Private school - a school providing education that the children's parents pay for directly.
High school - 1 in the UK, a school for children between the ages of 11 and 18. 2 in the US, a school for children between the ages of 14 and 18.

We wanted the best, but it turned out as always. These words are the best way to describe what is happening today in Russian education. Serious problems exist literally at every stage: in kindergartens, general education, correctional and music schools, institutes, universities and academies. At the same time, everyone is dissatisfied with the reform of the educational sphere: children and their parents, school teachers, university professors with academicians and employers of young professionals. To understand this problem, Reedus begins a series of articles on the educational field. Today we will talk about schools.

Learn, learn and learn

Modern students follow this Leninist testament much more than their parents did during their school years. The teaching load on children today is greater than ever. In early May, the story of asking too much at home thundered throughout the country. A criminal case was opened against her, but later the prosecutor's office Chelyabinsk region declared the decision unlawful and canceled the decision.

So far, this is the only such media scandal, but today's schoolchildren are forced to gnaw at the granite of science like damned. “School, tutors, homework, sleep. Yes, seven days a week. There is no time left for anything else,” says one of the graduates. Perhaps his words should be taken critically: most teenagers do not have a great love for learning, however given point This view is shared by many teachers. “Huge load. It needs to be drastically reduced. Children are essentially busy 7 days a week, given that many schools practice six days. In this case, they study from Monday to Saturday, and Sunday is almost completely occupied with preparations for Monday. No, there are, of course, those who both study and have time to go in for sports, but these are an absolute minority,” says Natalia Koneva, who has worked as a school English teacher for five years.

According to the regulations, students from grades 7 to 11 are not supposed to have more than 7 lessons per day. With a five-day education system in grades 10-11, the number of teaching hours is limited to 34 per week, with a six-day system - 37. This is already a lot, given homework, but in reality, these requirements are often not met: there are 8 lessons a day, and 41 lessons a week.

Screenshot of an electronic diary from one of the educational forums, where an eleventh grader proves his workload is above the norm

Most likely, no one would have talked about the increased workload on schoolchildren, if there was any sense in this. However, the results of the "training diet with a high content of the granite of science" are not encouraging. Two years ago, after passing the exam in Russian, a serious scandal erupted: many schoolchildren failed to overcome the minimum passing score.

"The results of a unified state exam in Russian this year are monstrous. The Ministry of Education was even forced to lower the score from 36 to 24 points, effectively legitimizing the fact that a deuce is a passing mark. Otherwise, a third of the country's graduates would not have received certificates. At the same time, as we know how, it was presented victoriously - they say, they learned to control so well that no one writes off. But you need to see the result behind this, ”Vladimir Tolstoy, adviser to the President of the Russian Federation, said in June 2014.

The result is deplorable. Most likely a failure USE results this year will not be, including thanks to the "legalized deuces." However, schools do not fulfill their main task: they teach how to effectively place "jackdaws", but do not provide knowledge. In order to give them to their children, parents are forced to seriously spend money on all kinds of tutors - and if a decade and a half ago this item of expenditure fell on graduation classes, today many send their offspring for paid knowledge already starting from 6-7 classes.

“With this education reform, I will always have a job”

Natalya Koneva, an English tutor, is sure of this. Tired of working at school, meaningless, in her own words, and merciless, she hit the private business. “If by the age of 18-19 they make the exam in English compulsory, then there will be work - from morning to night. Our whole system is built in such a way that parents from the fifth grade should send their children to tutors, the older - the more tutors. Already at 12 years old, children should decide what they will do for the rest of their lives,” she adds.

The increased burden falls not only on schoolchildren, but also on teachers. “To get a good salary, you have to live at school from morning to night. If a student does not go to school due to the fact that he lives in a dysfunctional family, or does not study well, then this is the problem of the teacher,” says Natalya Koneva. But it is not only a matter of direct educational and educational workload. The education reform added “paper work” to teachers.

“I was told, I didn’t know, by the way, that out of 100% of the reports that teachers and school employees write, only 30% are commissioned by the Ministry of Education, and 70% are generally outside organizations. This, of course, is a disgrace. It is necessary to prepare a real legislative restriction to these reports. A teacher should mind his own business, and if he writes reports, then, accordingly, this time is stolen from our children,” Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said.

It is worth noting that in that part of the work with documents that is done at the behest of the Ministry of Education, not everything is going smoothly. “Our work is constantly duplicated,” says Natalya Koneva. - Paper journal - electronic journal, paper diary - electronic diary, etc".

“When I came to school, we had just introduced an electronic journal, the first year. Nobody knew what to do with him. Set up courses. A computer science teacher came several times and told me how to fill it out. And then it turns out that the log can “fall”, the databases can completely disappear if you suddenly forgot to make a “backup”. Estimates disappear, here some extra field comes out, because the programmers are finalizing the magazine in the course of your work. They gave you an "alpha version", and enjoy. Only we all got used to it, the next year they took us and by order from above they said that everyone would now fill out this electronic journal: a different site, a different program, a different interface, other features. Have been using it for two years. Then - a new version… And you also need to keep a portfolio of children. And when do the lessons themselves? Prepare for them? When to deal with children?”, - asks rhetorical questions Sergei, former teacher of geography and French.

“Today it is customary to scold teachers for everything: they teach poorly, not like before. But today's teachers are the same people who worked in schools twenty years ago, he continues. “The problems are not in the teachers, the problems are in the system itself, in the approach to school education.”

“There are a lot of claims,” says Natalya Koneva. - For example, to textbooks. In my subject they are simply unacceptable. The first three years of study - the second, third, fourth grades - children learn a lot of things: absolutely unnecessary vocabulary, unnecessary grammar. Unnecessary, because it is not processed. Some kind of utopian textbook: you can learn from it only if there is one hundred percent attendance, and in the lessons there are only geniuses who grasp everything on the fly. In the fifth grade, failure begins: they begin to learn the alphabet again. This relaxation goes on for two years: 5-6 classes. And then the "bulk" begins again, increasing the volume of material. By the 11th grade, they should know a lot, but in fact they know little. No matter how hard you try, nothing will work. There are wonderful textbooks, but you can't use them, because you can only use those that have the stamp of the Ministry of Education. This is a very limited number of textbooks."

Similar claims are made against teaching aids on a variety of subjects. So, for example, the chairman of the Association of Teachers of History and Social Studies, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexander Chubaryan at the All-Russian Congress of History Teachers noted “problems with social science”: “I recently looked at social science textbooks. They are very abstract and difficult even for a history student, let alone for a schoolboy.”

“Leapfrog with textbooks and the difficulties associated with it in the form of a difference in programs have been going on since about 2003. Either one or the other. The main thing is stability, but there is no such thing in schools, we always have something new, - says Sergey. “The requirements for the USE change every year, and not only the requirements for the exam, but also its content change.”

This is what happened this year, 2016: the USE in mathematics was divided into two levels - basic and specialized. The results of the basic exam were announced today, the results of the profile exam will become public in a week. There are no official results yet. So far, the regions are only proud of the number of students who wrote the Unified State Examination in Russian and Mathematics with a hundred points. Probably, this year the case will do without major scandals, as in 2014.

The main task of the educational department is to provide the maximum number of schoolchildren with certificates of secondary education, and representatives of the Ministry of Education carefully monitor this in the first place. The consequences of this approach and education reform are already visible today: the first representatives of the USE generation graduated from universities and went to work.

“Two new teachers came to my school. They entered pedagogical universities with an average mark of the certificate "3". How will they teach history to children? As a head teacher, I see that so far they are an empty place, ”one of the head teachers said at the All-Russian Congress of History Teachers. Dmitry Livanov, for now, is focused on a single history textbook (of which there were actually three) and a mass one. “This cockroach needs to be put into mass production, as this technological innovation will not only be interesting, but also useful for children and adolescents,” he said in February. Things have not yet come to the fight against cockroaches in the heads of individual officials from education.

In our next materials, we will talk about the consequences of the merger of schools and inclusive education, kindergartens and music schools, the problems of Russian universities and fundamental science, corruption in the educational sphere, the dubious dissertation of Isaac Kalina and other interesting things from the world of science.