Eleven years without the right to correspondence

As experience shows and sad statistics say, a third of children can barely master the Russian language program, despite the fact that it is their native language and the main subject at school. And, despite the fact that they additionally study with tutors. And almost no one except excellent students likes this subject.

The child loves to draw. He cannot remain silent, he is overwhelmed with feelings and words. Loves to play in the theater. Drawing, theater, music, sculpting are an opportunity to reveal yourself to another person. There is another need, passion. This is a letter. Provided that we are not talking about rewriting exercises or writing summaries. But you need to learn to express your feelings and thoughts coherently, and for this you first need to learn how to write correctly.

Don't write until you learn how. Be silent until you learn to speak. Stand until you can run. Don't breathe until...

This is how we learn Russian. Texts on free topics? We only have three (four, five, six) hours a week! We don't have time! We have a program. We are doing grammar. We have a grammar course...

Okay, then let’s admit that there is no Russian language course at school - there is a grammar course! We do not study our native language: we do not teach children to speak or write it. The Russian language of the school curriculum becomes the Latin of the classical gymnasium. Dead language. A child graduates from school without writing a single line of his own for any reason, which is why many adults cannot write even two lines.

Just one question: what is language for us: the ability to put commas or the expression of thoughts?

Why are commas needed if by the end of school a person will have nothing to say?

We don’t demand that a graduate sing like Pavarotti and paint like Marc Chagall. And yet, all the strength of the child and the adult is devoted to writing without errors. As a result, a significant portion of children barely complete the program with an honest “C.” Moreover, everyone, absolutely all children, want to write. They love to write. Some children write individual words, small stories, poems even before school. And then they become schoolchildren and no longer write anything except letters in copybooks.

School instills in a child distrust of his own word. And as an adult, he will be inclined to take the word for what is published in the newspaper, in the textbook, or said in the TV show. And experience the fear of writing.

It is difficult for such a person to think; all “thinking” for him is a selection of suitable words and sentences, verbal cliches from the normative language that his memory has preserved.

A person who is not accustomed to writing and thinking “on his own” is a convenient tool in the hands of managers and political strategists. “Totalitarianism begins in the nursery,” wrote Alexander Neill. And he grows and strengthens in school classes, especially in the Russian language classroom.

***
But there is a solution. This is Free Text:

News for parents, correspondence with friends from another class, from another school, from another country; stories, tales, novels, poems, texts for a newspaper on history and natural science, math problems, play scripts, questions for an intellectual tournament, a wall newspaper, impressions of a film, play, book... Maybe the teacher suggests a topic. Or maybe children.

This type of work makes it possible to consolidate knowledge of grammar without school fear and boredom. Free text brings up a free person.