Goodbye, Pushkin!

Literature, Russian language and mathematics want to make optional items

Passion for the standard. The scandal associated with the reform of teaching in high school of the school reached the very top. On February 2, Prime Minister Putin intervened: “You know how I love sports and physical education, but if your experts decided to make physical education the only mandatory subject at school, it seems to me that they have overdid it.” How it all ends is not clear. The New Times understood why the officials considered it necessary to refuse to teach literature at the school according to the new state educational standard, Russian language, literature, history and mathematics are excluded from among the obligatory subjects in grades 10-11. The Ministry of Education with the support of United Russia decided that the most important items for schoolchildren are physical education, OBZh and the Russian in the world that has not yet been developed.

* * The remaining objects, but no more than seven, schoolchildren can choose themselves, in six educational areas. The first is Russian language and literature or native language and literature. The second is a foreign language. The third is mathematics and computer science. The fourth is social sciences: history, social studies, geography, economics, law. Fifth - natural science: chemistry, physics, biology and ecology. The sixth is art. From each area you can choose one or two items. It would seem that the innovation will allow unloading high school students, who today can hardly cope with the school curriculum, and new standards can only be welcomed. However, the teachers began to anxiety. Why? Opponents of the new standard are not concerned about the very change in the school curriculum, but a set of items that are recognized as mandatory.

After the Manezhnaya “to make the Russian language and literature by optional objects, they seriously spoke after the events on Manezhnaya Square in December last year,” said Marina Barabanova, a methodologist in the Russian language of the Northern District of Moscow, the Russian language teacher and literature. - The task is set like this: children should not be much taught as hard to educate. But no documents are spelled out in any documents that teaching the Russian language, literature and mathematics goes into the background. This is only conversations. ”

The literature teacher from the Vorobyovy Mountain Lyceum Evgeny Ablyuk believes that this is not conversations, but a serious threat that even schoolchildren felt. “In the lesson in the eighth grade, the children asked me:“ What will happen to the education? ”, And one of the students herself replied:“ Besides OBZh, we will not teach anything. ” Most teachers, according to teacher Ablyuk, are convinced: the Ministry of Defense is interested in teaching OBZh, which wants to be able to employ retirers. And another obligatory subject - “Russia in the world” - they say that they ordered in the government, almost Putin himself.

The rescue of literature is a teacher of the Russian language and literature Tatyana Fedorova from the Moscow Health School of the Moscow Education Center No. 1071, a teacher of the year-2003, teaches its subject for about 20 years.

“The authority of Russian literature has catastrophically fell. At first, an oral final examination exam was canceled, then we canceled the essay, now we are burying literature as an obligatory subject, ”said Tatyana Fedorova in an interview with The New Times. - I have 56 students in high school. Of these, two or three people who must take the exam in literature. I talked about new standards and offered to choose objects. Of the 56 people, only two chose literature. Everyone else approached me with an apology: “We love you very much and love your subject, but if you need to choose seven disciplines that we need for admission to the university, then we cannot choose literature.”

Officials from the Ministry of Education object to critics: they do not understand us de. No one is going to cancel literature in high school. You just need to correctly indicate the priorities. According to the director of the Institute for the Development of the Education of the State University of Education Irina Abankina, first of all, it is necessary to take care of the health of children, which is impossible without physical education, and "the demand for knowledge in the field of OBZh once again demonstrated recent events at Domodedovo Airport." One of the developers of the standard Alexander Kondakov

* CEO of Education Publishing House, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Education. means another priority: "The main thing is the education of an educated, socially responsible, healthy and successful citizen of Russia." Kondakov’s point of view is divided in United Russia, where he was forced to turn to support after criticism from teachers and even the Public Chamber. And the party’s thought does not disperse with the case: at a meeting in the state-patriotic club “United Russia” on December 15, 2010, the participants joyfully noted that in some schools they had already begun to introduce bets of the deputy director for the educational part and counselors.

Opponents of the standard are confident that in addition to ideology, money is worth money. The expenditures of the budget for the wages of teachers will be reduced: the state is ready to pay only the teaching of mandatory subjects plus the disciplines that most students will choose. All "optional" subjects will have to pay for the students themselves. The budget will not pay for the watch of a geographer or writer if one or two people are selected.

Physical education and the basics of life safety (OBZh) according to the new educational standard will become obligatory subjects for high school students, and humanitarian disciplines will go into the category of an elective without poetry Marina Barabanov notes that today the teaching of literature at the school is experiencing a crisis. In her opinion, this is due to the fact that the salary of the teacher and his career depends on the results that the students will show in the exam in the Russian language. Therefore, teachers give more time to teaching Russian. “As an expert of the exam in literature, I read the works of high school students entering those universities where literature is needed. The level of training of students causes a stressful state. Graduates of schools do not know how to express their thought, they do not have enough words to tie them into a single holistic text. We have been talking about this for four years, but no one has heard us. ”

Tatyana Fedorova at the first stage of the development of standards participated in their examination. She believes that the Russian language had to be made by the fifth mandatory subject: then schoolchildren would have the opportunity to choose literature. But Fedorova explained that the budget was allocated only for four compulsory subjects, and the schoolchildren will choose the Russian language: you need to hand over the exam.

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Opponents of the standard are sure that money is worth the innovation. Labor costs of teachers will be reduced

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“Why do we make an obligatory unknown subject“ Russia in the world ”? - asks Fedorov. - This course will not be able to replace the study of Russian literature. In the 9th grade, we will dwell on Gogol. High school students will not have an idea of ​​either Dostoevsky, or the “war and peace” of Tolstoy, nor about Saltykov-Shchedrin, nor about Tyutchev, Chekhov, poets of the Silver Age. They will probably be able to engage in literature on a paid basis. But it is unlikely that parents who spend money on tutors in the 10-11th grades and prepare for paid higher education will agree to pay for the lessons of literature at school. ”

The exes of the performer on January 28 in the living magazine published an open letter to President Medvedev, Prime Minister Putin, chairman of the State Duma Gryzlov and Minister of Education and Science Fursenko. In a week, the letter collected more than 15 thousand signatures - these are academics, writers, and teachers, and just parents. The authors asked to impose a veto on the "radical redevelopment of the school curriculum." Commentators in the blogosphere recalled that even in fascist Germany there was a more meaningful obligatory program: in addition to physical education, biology and national history, schoolchildren were still taught by the German language.

The letter caused an unexpected resonance. According to The New Times, education officials accused the initiators of the letter of trying to create a protest community on the Internet. But their bosses were still forced to explain themselves: the Minister of Education Fursenko said that he would approve the standard only after his serious discussion. On February 2, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin also included at the government meeting: “You know how I love sports and physical education, but your experts ... overdid it. For lawyers, this is called the "Excess Contractor" ... It is impossible to rush with fundamental changes, you need to prepare. " But Russian teachers do not believe in words: at one time, teachers also promised to take into account their opinion when switching to the exam.

The secret course behind all these discussions remained unclear, which is a new obligatory patriotic subject of Russia in the world. The Enlightenment publishing house The New Times categorically refused to name the authors of the “secret” course, which at a meeting of the United Russia party of the Party of the Party of Patriotism, capable of preventing pogroms similar to the fact that they were on semolina. The director of the Enlightenment publishing house Alexander Kondakov in the extensive text sent to the New Times, “Why is the course incomprehensible to the general public, with an incomprehensible name”: “Russia in the world is the final school citizen -forming course ... You need to try to give a picture of external and internal challenges facing the country and ways of deciding them. We must teach a graduate of the Russian school to look at the surrounding world through the eyes of a resident of Russia, through the prism of its national interests. ” A lot of words and no specifics.

It seems that we are once again inventing a patriotic bicycle. Not any country in the world has such training courses. And we will have. But the works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, by which in the world they are judged by Russia, will become optional for our high school students.