"The teacher turns into a bureaucrat"

Alexander Kovaldzhi, Deputy Director for Science of the Lyceum "Second School": "A teacher turns into a bureaucrat"

The authors of the draft Law on Education decided that all schools can and should be equally good, which means, in their opinion, that lyceums and gymnasiums should be liquidated. To do this, they want to unite schools and create educational complexes, and train teachers to work with all students: with the especially gifted, and with the middle peasants, and with the disabled, and with difficult children. But this is a utopia. We are in dire need of good teachers who can provide an individual approach to each student, and with the adoption of the new law, they will not appear anywhere. Talented youth do not become teachers: the prestige of the profession is low, the workload is enormous. There is an illusion that if all teachers take advanced training courses and are given advanced methods, then they will perfectly teach any children: from difficult to gifted. This is a purely mechanistic approach that likens children to blanks, teachers to a turner, and the educational process to a conveyor belt.

The bill reduces education to a service, which is also a fundamental mistake. Moreover, it turns the teacher into a bureaucrat. To get a decent salary, he will have to fix in detail who, where and what he taught.

Only the educational minimum will remain free for children, which is clearly insufficient to continue their education at a university. It will be more profitable for teachers and the school to prepare applicants on a paid basis.

In order to increase the average salary of a teacher, schools are cutting part-time workers, part-time workers, hourly workers, psychologists, and speech therapists. So, increase the burden on the rest. Wear and tear does not improve the quality of teaching.

A very controversial thing is the enlargement of schools. Leapfrog with the teaching staff will affect the students. When merging and enlarging, such a thing as a class will be lost - children will constantly change the group in which they study. For strong schools, this is a big loss, because capable children learn from each other no less than from teachers.

It is noticeable that the purpose of this law is, under the guise of increasing social justice, to reduce spending on education. Obviously, the reduction of the gap between strong and weak schools will occur not due to the growth of the weak, but due to the decline of the strong. Most of all, alas, gifted, talented children who want and love to learn will suffer. In an ordinary school, they will very quickly reach the “ceiling”, an ordinary teacher will not be able to give them much, and in the classroom they seem to be white crows.