The main thing is to say “no”

Grigory Kolyutsky is one of those teachers who signed an appeal to their colleagues - election commission workers. The appeal says that any teacher who is pressured and forced to participate in falsifications can talk about it, and they will definitely get help.

The idea to publish such an appeal arose because it is very offensive to hear “What kind of teachers are they if they are involved in election fraud?” I know many colleagues who did not do this.

We do know that we can help any teacher who is being bullied. We have mechanisms, and in fact, maintaining a job when you refuse to engage in falsification is not so difficult. There was a story in a Moscow school, where my colleague, a molecular biologist, worked on the election commission. As soon as the director mentioned that she needed to do something illegal, he was immediately put in his place. Of course, the teacher is built into the educational system and is very dependent, but as soon as you position yourself in a certain way, they stop touching you. The director of any school clearly knows who he can approach and put pressure on, and from whom he will receive a categorical “no.” You just need to let the person know that he is not alone, that they will help him.

In addition, schools are different. In the one where I once studied, the director had a principled position on this issue: no deception. There are teachers who will never get involved in politics, but are proud that they will not resort to meanness under any circumstances. Therefore, the question here is largely how the teacher will position himself.

For me and other people who drafted and signed this appeal, the main thing is to let my colleagues know that there are those who care about what is happening, and together we are truly strong.

It is clear that there are teachers who are ready not only to falsify, but also to carry out propaganda among students, but how many there are in comparison with their colleagues who do not do this is unknown. We should not forget that our concept of school is blurred. It automatically includes the so-called centers of additional education. It happens, of course, that these centers actually teach, but often they are just dummies. According to the papers, there are several hundred schoolchildren there, but in reality there are about twenty. And the majority of employees are officials who sit on teaching positions and falsify all document flow. Therefore, of course, if the election commission is formed from such “teachers,” then it is clear what can be expected.

It often happens that people are simply intimidated, they do what their superiors tell them out of fear. At the same time, no one understands whether the bosses really have real levers of pressure, or whether they “take advantage” of their employees. There are many known cases when the teacher said “no, period,” and they left him behind. And if they really want to expel a teacher, then this can happen at any time; participation in the election commission is one of the many situations when this can be done.