How many people live in Russia?

The recent interview of the Minister of Education and Science Dmitry Livanov with Vladimir Pozner left an indelible impression on my soul. First of all, the obvious discrepancy between what was said and reality.

I’m not talking about free education, this was discussed last time, I’m talking about the high quality of our education.

The first remark that immediately suggests itself concerns the very criteria for characterizing good and bad.

Good is determined not by the fact that we are better than our neighbors, but by the fact that in general, in itself, it is good - that is, it satisfies the needs of the individual and society, corresponds to the ideal standard that is set for it not so much by specific historical conditions, as much as the logic of the development of the individual and society in general, traditional, universal values ​​and ideas, if you like.

When I hear that we have a good education, I always think about what a nightmare education must be in other countries, since we have such a good education.

But, let me ask, what about the recent high places in the ratings?

There is no doubt that our positions in the recent rankings, in particular in PISA, are high.

But the question is, how much does this high place correspond to the real state of affairs?

Looking from the window at the frenzy with which our schoolchildren bully each other, knowing well the level of their knowledge, breadth of outlook, inability to read and explain what they read, lack of discussion skills, argumentation, and basic etiquette, you involuntarily doubt the adequacy of what the minister says.

I think that anyone who deals with the typical product of our schools knows well that it does not correspond to specific historical needs or to the ideal at all.

I see our youth every day, not only on TV. And I can’t say that she makes me happy. Moreover, I understand well that in front of me are the victims of our still quite decent, in the minister’s opinion, school.

A living example. An involuntary survey of students regarding the total population of the Russian Federation stunned me not only with ignorance of the exact figure (according to rumors, the census itself could not establish it), but with the extreme distance of the answers from the officially established level of 143 million people.

A figure close to it (130-140 million) was given to me by three or four people out of fifty. Mostly responses of 40-70 million prevailed. But there were answers of 10 million and even 1 million.

The figure of one million first upset me, and then inspired me to think philosophically.

Maybe this really is the case, maybe, thanks to our “good” Russian education, we are moving towards a textbook situation when “there are many people, but there is only one person”? And one million is the number of those who ultimately survive our “good” education as humans. This is a qualitative, not quantitative assessment of our people, our population.

Maybe, in fact, our education is good for the people, for the masses, for ratings and reporting, and we are in vain demanding that it still give us people?