[Тютчев]

Why chop the cherry orchard

Andrew Chernakov

This is the third day of the online community was much discussion of an open letter to members of the public by federal authorities with harsh criticism of the new educational standards for high school. Izvestia journalist Andrew Chernakov spoke with the author of the letter, chief editor of "Literature", a teacher of Russian language and literature at the Moscow Center for Education N 57 Sergei Volkov.

News: Were you expecting that your letter in the first two days to sign a 12 thousand people, among them Natalia Solzhenitsyn, Boris Strugatsky, Dmitry Bykov, Sergey Gandlevsky, Lyudmila Saraskina, Marietta Chudakova, Tatyana Tolstoy, Sergey Lukyanenko, Sergei Shargunov and other famous people throughout the country?

Sergei Volkov: To be honest, no. Generally, in such a broad response, I did not expect. The more that was published in late November, a draft standard for high school once the big rush is not called: whether people did not get a grasp of the text, or preparing for New Year holidays prevented. But in January, has already begun a full discussion. About the standard of spoken and the "First Channel", and online communities. Actually, with this and for the appearance of my letter. Several people close to me from the sphere of education, living in different cities (in the Grand and Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Perm, and others), was asked about my attitude to this document. To answer this question, we had to get deeper into this standard. And on page 56, I discovered that the state offers a new set of mandatory items, and everything else "puts" in the choice of subject. And the conditions of this choice are that the student now can not choose, for example, literature - a subject which I think is important for any person 15-16 years of age because, from my point of view, without reading the books written by great writers can not properly establish the identity of .

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Formulating these promises in the letter I sent to those colleagues who asked me a question about the standard. But what happened next, I can not explain. Once in the internet, email, as you said, two days gained almost 12,000 signatures, and that their spread, we had to open a separate website alterfgos.ru. Particularly shocking that in addition to those already mentioned writers and public figures joined us a couple of hundred doctors from various fields - biologists, chemists, physicians, philologists and historians. There are academics, including from the waste - of the Russian Academy of Education. That is the body which, in theory, should be the cradle of this standard. For example, many signatures sent Psychological Institute of radioactive waste. But signed, and many ordinary people - workers, taxi drivers, nurses. In addition, their names put teachers, librarians, economists, entrepreneurs ...

and: What specifically serve these people?

Wolf: all write about one thing - that they do not want their children to reduce items and lower brackets. The latter, perhaps, was not included in the plans of developers, but the fact remains, and page 56 speaks for itself. The main requirement is stated in the letter is as follows. We believe that there are four items on which the state has no right to refuse, if it wants the school formed a citizen of the state itself. What are these things? This is the official language, history, literature and mathematics. Russia in the world (a phrase now in vogue, because it is so will be called a new compulsory subject, which still nobody really knows) - it's not only weapons, oil, vodka and other cliches. Better and more powerful than all Russia in the world is our great Russian literature. A mathematician is needed primarily because it is a universal language to comprehend all the other sciences. And these four items removed from the total binding list!

We understand that the standard is needed, it is an important document - the kind of education the constitution. But we ask to stop and reflect before, relatively speaking, to cut the cherry orchard. Holding an ax in his hands, is once again ponder whether to redraw the school curriculum, which developed over decades if not centuries, such as radical way? And redraw the quiet, fast, trying not to attract attention to it. And this human reaction to this simple requirement me terribly impressed. I thought, well, we will collect no a hundred signatures, well, send this letter, well, it will be somewhere to lie ... However, soon after the letter appeared on the Internet, but it happened on the night of Friday, I was literally cutting short the phone. And when I learned that Education Minister Andrei Fursenko said he did not intend to approve the standard before it seriously discussed by all concerned parties, I realized that we did the right thing. True, since then my life turned into hell, because I was not prepared to handle so many signatures, I have in my life and other concerns ... But nothing helped.

and: The main idea of the new standard - Special Education in High School and the release of high school students, like their counterparts in some Western countries, from excess of knowledge that they are unlikely to be useful in life. How do you feel about that?

Wolf: Profiling in high school - is inevitable. It is, indeed, for many years now being tested in our country and there to prepare a new standard. Targeted to a specific college guys always chose the objects for themselves, they will sit at the institute, and the rest, to use their language, "killed" or studied in smaller amounts. It was in Soviet times. But now this practice decided to formalize in law to allow these kids to realize their right to the highest level. This in itself is ok, but everything depends on the particular. We ask the question: why the choice should be organized so that items are divided into groups, and the group can take only one? The child must make a choice and decide on the profile at the end of ninth grade to begin learning under the scheme from September 1, when he was tenth. And if he was wrong? After all, these are children, they are all in 14-15 years. And if a child at the time did not know what to choose, but in the tenth grade, realized that he chose not then what am I to do? This rigidity of the profile selection will ruin the child. He can not with this profile, "get off" and the horror lies in the fact that the remaining items, which in this profile is not included, it has been found only in truncated form. In the Soviet school we were taught subjects in a deep enough level, and the child understand, for example, that physics is he does not particularly needed, but on the contrary biology, studied the biology of the same, deep level. Now, if I understood the physics I do not care what other subjects I have already selected the integrated, ie, general education, a level which introduced the standard for the first time. Prior to that, the school had two levels - base and profile. And now introduced a third. I asked my students: how do you think is entered level - "superprofilny" or "nedobazovy? Of course, "nedobazovy, smiling," they said. That is introduced yet another level through the floor, and it is proposed to study science, language arts, mathematics and computer science.

But the new standard is hidden another collision. If you look at the number of hours that should be distributed on seven subjects, the profile of this talk is impossible. Can not object to which the student is given two or three hours a week, called the core. This is the basic level. And in fact after a certain number of years of what used to be mandatory for all facilities, now will be given only to those who will be called professionals. In the Soviet school all had to write an essay on the literature of a few pages. We resisted, screamed, written off, more agile, we have helped, but the strap was exposed. And assume that is the norm. And if you nedoprygival, then at least know what nedotyagivaesh. And now? Now the CSE on the Russian language 150 words, and an exam in ninth grade - 50 words. That's the kind now strap, but now it is not up to doprygivayut! There was a general lowering of levels. What previously was charged with the responsibility of every educated man - to write five or six pages, now becomes a lot do not even profile, and some superprofilnogo level. And so it happens to all disciplines. And I do not understand why this should be beneficial to our country.

Natalia Solzhenitsyn said clearly: because children are taught in America. But in the United States firmly know what to buy is always on the side of the right people, including in Russia. And we have the opportunity to buy-side professionals, and their children nedouchivat in anticipation of the arrival of foreigners? Not sure. So from this point of view, the new standard in this form can not be taken.

http://www.izvestia.ru/education1/article3151080/