Vasily Zharkov. Nation of C students

Nation of C students
Vasily Zharkov

Publication date: February 6, 2003

What is the average grade the average schoolchild and student receives? As the numbers show, more than half of students and graduates in Russia are inveterate C students. That is, they do their academic work (who doesn’t know, studying is, first of all, work) “satisfactorily” at best. Of course, the “troika epidemic” is just one of the most striking signs of the deep crisis of the existing education system. Of course, we are not talking about the “struggle for academic performance.” The social consequences of the problem are much more important: in the future they can turn out to be very disastrous. Moreover, a “C” specialist is not so bad. In the end, graduates really begin to learn a profession only when they come to work. The point is different: studying for C grades, like nothing else, contributes to the formation of a special psychology. A social type who not only works, but also lives on a three-minus basis.

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Bet on the "poor" and negative selection

One of the hallmarks of the Soviet regime's policies from the very beginning was the cultivation of weakness in its own subjects. Having made a “bet on the poor” in the countryside during the years of war communism, the Bolsheviks transferred this practice to other areas, testing the vicious method in economics, politics, culture, and science. All the “radical changes” and “great purges” actually had only one main result: the weak forced out the strong.

There are countless concrete examples in both real history and literature. Lysenko ate Vavilov, Voroshilov - Tukhachevsky, Domkom - Professor Preobrazhensky (obviously, in the end - they finished him off). Even in the party leadership, the most mediocre fosterling of Lenin was eventually promoted, who managed to “remove” the “permanent revolutionary” Trotsky and the “favorite of the party” Bukharin from the road. The fact that subsequent “leaders” had nothing to do with the color of the nation is known to any even more or less thinking citizen. The most talented, educated, professional in the best of times turned out to be not their lot, and in the worst of hard times - on the denunciation of weaker competitors they were sent to the rack of the Cheka-NKVD.

Negative selection - this term in relation to Russian history was first used by Professor A.Ya. Avrekh, describing the personnel situation in the environment of Nicholas II on the eve of the February Revolution . We will not judge the validity of his conclusions now, but in relation to subsequent events, alas, right up to the present day, this term is most suitable. Moreover, the selection of the worst possible continues. Including at the state level.

To be convinced of this, it is enough to analyze the actions of our public education officials. Of course, everything can again be attributed to stupidity. In the end, those who could not get a job anywhere else have been going to school for a long time , and those who were not able to get a job at school are in charge of education. But their activities cost the country too much.

"C" student as a goal of the educational system

Speaking at the last August teachers' council, the head of Moscow teachers, Lyubov Kezina, said that a modern school should be focused on C students. Not for excellent students, not for gifted children, and not even for average-4 students, but specifically for C students. Everything is in the best traditions - again betting on the poor. Fortunately , this human material has multiplied considerably over the years of the Soviet Union.

The main thesis of the troika lobby is that under-performing students should not be kicked out of school under any circumstances. They say that in Moscow now they would rather fire a school director than expel someone who is terrorizing the entire school... No, not a bad student, but a C student. The fact is that twos (not to mention one) in our five-point rating system exist purely nominally. Any scoundrel knows perfectly well: you can get as many bad grades as you like “in the journal” and even “for a quarter,” but the final annual grade of three is always for him. As a result, Cs in certificates are often nothing more than strained Ds, assigned according to the principle well known to any practicing teacher: “we write three, but two in our minds.”

After completing the school stage, the sluggish process of “study type” continues in vocational educational institutions. According to one of the authors of the educational reform, rector of the Higher School of Economics Ya.I. Kuzminov, institutions of secondary specialized education in our country have long served as “social septic tanks.” It is no coincidence that back in the Soviet years, the abbreviation PTU stood for “help a dumbass get a job.” Having passed puberty, the intellectual convoy migrates from the school desk to educational workshops. Things have come to the point that, in the conditions of the emerging rise in production in a number of industries, enterprise managers are afraid to hire pete workers, these “young cadres” are so antisocial.

“Where do we kick him out, he’ll go out onto the street,” is a favorite, time after time repeated argument of the defenders of the “weak link.” One might think that formal presence at a school (technical school, vocational school, provincial university) solves some educational problems. Being in school at public expense does not at all prevent you from simultaneously being a member of, say, a gang of skinheads or National Bolsheviks, terrorizing more prosperous peers and others.

No school will ever prevent such a public from carrying out a pogrom in the city center on a sunny Sunday afternoon “with the whole world” or beating to death a random passer-by who doesn’t look like us. After the fact, teachers will only have to throw up their hands and write a “characteristic” to the prosecutor’s office. In this regard, the Moscow Education Committee bears no less responsibility for the recent pogroms on Manezhnaya Square than the Moscow City Internal Affairs Directorate. If Bismarck’s teacher won the Franco-Prussian War, then what are modern Russian teachers doing together with public education officials?

Meanwhile, capable students are leaving school in droves (at least in Moscow and other large cities). Externships are becoming a craze among high school students with above-average intelligence levels. And they can be understood. University entrance exams are just around the corner. To enroll, you need to take private lessons from tutors, once again (taking into account the specifics of the educational institution) studying the same school disciplines. Since the school teacher, following the orders of his superiors, still messes with the weak, it is better for the strong to leave. For some reason, their loss from society does not bother any of our education officials.

Actually, there is nothing surprising in the current situation. The modest Soviet teacher always sympathized with the modest Soviet C student. An excellent student could be embarrassed by a question asked inappropriately. Even worse is to start an unnecessary argument, in response to indistinct muttering from the notes of the Short Course, to declare to the whole class that there is “more recent data” on the topic of the lesson, and what Mary Vanna is talking about was outdated twenty years ago. Our school has never welcomed such intellectual brawlers. The pursuit of knowledge has always meant the desire for success, individualism is a heresy that our way of life, in principle, did not allow.

A C student is another matter. He is, to use the poster's language, a socially close element. Well, he doesn’t want to know anything and he’s too lazy to work. But "a good man." What this means from the point of view of the Soviet mentality, only the Soviets know. It seems that we have traditionally considered “good” qualities to include reluctance to achieve anything for oneself - in other words, not caring, the main life principle of any dependent.

Regeneration of dependency

C grades, however, are convenient not only for teachers. Officials love them even more. After all, these are not only educational places for which additional budget funding can be obtained. This is a social base. The more dependents there are in a country, the better. For officials, of course.

For the first time, muttering in a whiny voice, “Well, give me a C, please,” the person signs his own sentence: “I’m a weakling. Have pity on me. Give me a benefit - in the form of a C. Tomorrow I’ll ask for the same unemployment benefit plus a discount on rent as poor".

Nothing educates a dependent like a C in the diary. It is no coincidence that some teachers consider it the most humiliating assessment. After all, this is a sentence: “you are mediocre.” At the very beginning of life. The deuce touches you, makes you fight, swim out. Three is more dangerous, it calms down. Everything seems to be fine, “satisfactory.” So it’s possible to live. The question is how to live...

Who votes for the government of officials in Moscow? First of all, those who are in this government are on benefits. The poor are grown-up C-grade students who have gotten rid of their petes. But they never learned to be independent, successful, the best. This gray mass needs much less than others. Freeze the housing and communal services reform, do not introduce time-based payments, pay benefits on time. I wish I could put all the “bourgeois” up against the wall, as before. Yes, you can't. There will be no one to take money from for benefits and other free benefits. Buying a beggar with a handout is easier than fulfilling the demands of a rich man.

“A nation of C-grade students” is a murderous derogation in its derogation. And yet, it is precisely this that best suits modern Russian society. And roads, and cars, and democracy, and respect for human rights - everything we undertake, at best, turns out “as always.” Just like I did on the history exam.