Andrey Borzenko. Regular school

Regular school
Conversation with the school director. Pirogov Mikhail Vasilievich Smola

Andrey Borzenko

Publication date: December 26, 2000

Society changes, and its demands on itself change. And first of all - to those who personify the process of change: to teachers and students. Therefore, the problem of education will always be acute, and especially in moments of social breakdown. The current one, in particular, is characterized by the fact that the state has ceased to list education problems as a priority. And society responded to this adequately: everywhere, and especially in financially more prosperous cities, private educational institutions began to appear, in which ideas about how to truly raise and educate children began to emerge. We are starting to talk about such schools.

Andrey Borzenko: When and how was your school created?

Mikhail Smola: It still seems to me that this is a case. It so happened that when my son reached six years old, I became concerned about finding a school. And I found it. At that time, cooperatives began to develop, it was under Gorbachev, I found a cooperative kindergarten, which had a preschool education group. I read about him in the appendix to "Evening Moscow". I called and they told me: “come.” We came, it was really a preschool group, and mainly teachers from school No. 57, from primary classes, worked there. And then I was surprised that there could be normal human relationships between teachers, students and parents.

This was in 1988. And in December of the same year, the Council of Ministers issued a resolution on the types of activities prohibited for cooperatives. This included, among other things, schools and kindergartens. I was dumbfounded. All these months I thought about what to do. Then various rich people and organizations began to appear, and I, like a blind kitten, poked into different offices, doors, suggested, said that it would be nice to do something like a cooperative, myself vaguely imagining what I wanted. By chance I walked into Serebryany Lane - at that time the Moscow Education Committee was located there. And, it would seem, again by chance, Lyubov Petrovna Kezina received.

Lyubov Petrovna received me, I explained to her that there is such an experience, that parents and children are very happy, that now we want to continue this, but we don’t know how. She was very happy and said: “Write programs, and I will find you a good head of RONO.” And then I called and found it, it was just the head of the Oktyabrsky District Regional Educational Institution. She said that he would find us a good school, a progressive-minded director, and we would open an experimental class there. Of course, we started writing programs.
The first teachers were also sent to us by Alexander Men , whom I had met shortly before. There was a lot of manilovism and fantasy in the programs that we compiled, but despite this, with the help of Kezina, we became an experimental class of the 583rd school. This was the beginning of our school, in 1989. The following year we managed to move to the current school building, on Babyegorodsky Lane. There were many difficulties associated with this. On September 8, 1990, I went to Novaya Derevnya to see Father Alexander and told him that nothing was working out for me, that I was in despair. Then Father Alexander gave me the most important parting word in my life. He said: “Misha, you know, despair is the most terrible sin. Let others despair, and we must slowly but surely move towards our goal.” These were his last words that I heard, not counting, perhaps, his words of farewell. And the next day we learned about the murder of Alexander's father ...

A.B.: Why is the school called Pirogovskaya?

M.S.: When I was going to create a school, I, despite the fact that I am a musician by training, understood that the school should have some kind of idea. I turned to Father Alexander with this question, and he immediately suggested that I read Pirogov . I bought a volume of Pirogov from some pedagogical series and that same evening I sat down to read this book. While reading, I discovered that he posed precisely those questions that are very relevant now. Pirogov's concept was based on the need to humanize education and to bring family and school closer together. That is, both the school and the family should deal with the issues of raising a child. Now I understand this especially clearly. Parents are mainly busy making money; they often do not have time for their own children. As for the humanitarization of education, now, much belatedly, even our Ministry of Education has begun to talk about this. Pirogov wrote that a strong humanitarian base is necessary for a person of any profession. Humanitarian knowledge not received in childhood is very difficult to obtain later. Knowledge can be gained in the field of technology, management, economics, law, and so on, but in order to pick up a book, there will be less and less time. Therefore, our program pays great attention to humanitarian subjects, and I also consider mathematics as such.

So, after reading Pirogov, I asked Father Alexander what to name our school. He suggested calling her Pirogovskaya. This is how the school got its name .

A.B.: What other principles did you adhere to when creating a new school?

M.S.: The school should be secular, but it should employ teachers for whom teaching work will be something akin to monastic work. Unfortunately, modern teachers are becoming more and more, wittingly or unwittingly, like “lesson teachers.” The Russian teacher who was engaged not only in teaching, but also in education, ceases to exist. I remember my conversation with a French mathematics teacher. I asked how close she took her student's problems to heart. She didn't understand what I meant. I explained that, for example, his work was not going well, he was preoccupied with something. She replied: “I’m not interested in that. I get paid to teach mathematics. Let the cool ladies, psychologists, and so on do it. If they pay me for this excessive attentiveness, then I will do it.” Unfortunately, now a similar situation exists in our schools.

A.B.: You said that the school is secular. But perhaps you still have some kind of religious education ?

M.S.: Is the Law of God needed in school? Our school has been blessed as a secular school . We must show children the world in all its breadth, and they will choose everything for themselves. Of course, I in no way deny Christian education, but, of course, it cannot be imposed.

A.B.: What were the main difficulties that you had to face during the existence of the Pirogov School?

M.S.: Now she is already 11 years old. There have been a lot of trials and a lot of errors over the years. At first, we decided that our children would be taught in the elementary grades by specialists, at least not lower than a candidate of science. But I came to my senses in time, and everything fell into place.

Another disease of our school was excessive “homeliness”. The students called me “Uncle Misha” or simply “Misha”. I was not offended, I thought that they were small and sooner or later they would learn to pronounce “Mikhail Vasilyevich,” which was completely unusual for me at that time. Later, our professionalism grew, and some of the teachers’ strictness and exactingness also grew. And the children, even not the oldest ones, recognized that a demanding teacher was better than an overly gentle one.

I was faced with the fact that the level of modern young teachers is often not high enough, because after graduating from university, many stop learning and progressing. But for a school like ours, where they try to give children good, solid knowledge, this is unacceptable. Fortunately, now we have almost no such teachers left.

A.B.: What, in your opinion, are the main problems of modern school in Russia?

M.S.: Before, the authorities turned a half-turn towards the school, but now they have turned away completely. Moscow is lucky, the education system has been preserved in Moscow , but already in the Moscow region there are not enough teachers, not even salaries are paid on time, but some benefits are lower than unemployment benefits. This is the main problem. Another problem is that now the principle “Man is a wolf to man” is already manifested in school. Very little attention is now paid to the problem of human upbringing. Once during a literature lesson, the teacher asked: “If you meet someone who is feeling bad, who is in trouble, could you help him, try to save him?” Answer: “What the hell? What will we get for this?”
An important problem is the isolation of parents from their own children. Capable children come to us; we do not have a blind admission; there are many more applicants than we can admit to school. And then someone drops from an “A” to a “D” and stops studying. My mother, who herself has a good higher education, comes and says: “Mikhail Vasilich, I understand that my busyness cannot serve as an excuse for me, but...” And the son turned into a slacker. Of course, mom is very busy, dad is very busy, everyone is very busy, respectable, business people. And the child suffers. We are trying to bring parents closer to the school and to the problems of their children. Not everyone meets halfway, some will put the child in school, and then the grass won’t grow.

A.B.: In many schools there is a division of classes into specializations, and there is a tendency towards the professionalization of education. Graduates of your school enter different universities from general education classes.

M.S.: Firstly, as I already said, we cannot be sure that a child who in the eighth grade wanted to become a mathematician will not want to become, for example, a historian in the eleventh. Secondly, by the eighth-ninth grades a group of students has formed that you don’t want to destroy. If we had a specialization, many children would leave. Thirdly, every year we create new special courses, from which students themselves choose those that interest them. And we are able to prepare children for admission to various universities thanks to the professionalism of our teachers.

A.B.: You often hear that in many private schools, children treat teachers without any respect, because they understand that they depend on their parents, who pay money and want their children to be happy with everything. Have you encountered such problems?

M.S.: I have heard about this more than once. I even know such a sad story, when students from one of the expensive schools beat up a teacher. The parents paid off and were very surprised later when the incident came up again: “We paid, right? Not enough, or what? We’ll pay again.”

Yes, there are schools where children are involved in personnel policy. It's very sad, it's ugly. This is the same case when parents are sure that money can buy everything: happiness, health, education, etc. Why don't we have this? Because we have the cheapest private school in Moscow, the concept of which is based on accessibility. Moreover, our payment is differentiated, we even have separate free places. In general, I believe that if a truly capable child appears, then let him study for free, but he will raise the intellectual bar and pull other children along with him.

However, some of the problems inherent in most private schools also affected us. However, in general, we are simply trying not to accept children whose parents may try to influence the school’s personnel policy, especially since parents sign an agreement that clearly defines the rights and responsibilities of both students, parents, and the school.

A.B.: How involved are students’ parents in the life of the school?

M.S.: As I already said, Pirogov wrote about the rapprochement of family and school. We try to constantly maintain contact with the parents of our students, conduct surveys, and encourage communication between parents and teachers in every possible way. In addition, there were cases when parents helped us in creating circles and sections, someone gave additional lectures. However, sometimes the wishes of parents, of course, are quite absurd, not without this.

A.B.: Do students themselves participate in making decisions and solving school problems?

M.S.: Last year we created a Self-Government Council, a prime minister and several ministers were elected to head various departments. However, the most serious children warned in advance that if this is done just for the sake of the jackdaw, formally, then there is no point in stirring up all this mess. I wanted real work to happen, sometimes it worked, sometimes not. Some administrative issues were sent to the Self-Government Council, and the children made well-informed decisions. But it has not yet been possible to create a regularly functioning self-government body.

But we have already had a self-government day twice, when students replaced the director and teachers. After this, many of them realized what responsibility lies with both teachers and students.

A.B.: Please tell us about the “extracurricular” life of the school.

M.S.: The most active parents, parents of elementary school students, created a choreographic studio in our school, in which many children from the lower grades study. There is a fine arts studio, sports sections, a choir studio, and an aircraft modeling club.

For several years in a row, our school has been holding a theater festival, in which students from grades 5-11 take part. Excursions, hikes, visits to museums, theaters, and trips to different cities are constantly organized. Our children visited Yaroslavl, Pskov, Rostov and many other cities.

A.B.: Is it true that in your school there is a class for children with disabilities?

M.S.: Yes, we have had this class for five or six years. Even when I was just planning to create a school, I thought about what could help our school find a “human face”. One day I was walking down the street and met a man in a wheelchair. And I remembered how as a child, especially in elementary school, I and my friends laughed at disabled people. This made me laugh. I firmly decided that disabled children would study at our school. When our material base became more or less bearable, I began to invite them. To my surprise, some of my colleagues decided that this was just my quirk. Gradually, several sick children appeared in our school, we began to look for specialists, and went through a certain period of formation. Now professionals work in the classroom for disabled children. I am very glad that we have such a class, because the presence of these children improves the climate in the school.

A.B.: What do you personally like and what don’t like about your school?

M.S.: I don’t like the fact that children - and not only children - are often characterized by indifference and, excuse me, indifference. I told the children: “You call yourselves friends, but friendship and love are, first of all, creative concepts. Friendship and love should bear fruit. Why do you, Petya, see that Vasya has problems with mathematics, but don’t help him? " - “Why? He doesn’t ask. It’s his problem.” This phrase, “it’s his problem,” especially when I hear it from teachers, drives me crazy. When a teacher refuses to help a student, saying: “It’s his problem,” I just go crazy. In this phrase, in the fact that it can and sometimes does sound, I see one of the main shortcomings of our school. And not only ours. This is scary.

What makes me happy? The children's sincere love for school is encouraging. Love for the school from parents and teachers, even security guards and cooks. I am glad that sometimes a child, when he comes to our school for the first time, even in the summer, when there are renovations and there are no children, says, for some unknown reason: “I want to stay in this school.”

We are often asked what is unusual about our school. I answer: “We have the most ordinary school” - “How?! And I heard that you have some kind of unusual, special school.” I just think it’s not normal when children don’t want to go to school, when children are bullied at school.

The school lives only thanks to the love and trust of children . This gives me strength to do school, despite the fact that I changed my profession as a musician to an unknown one.