Correspondence mathematical school

Since the 1970s, an absentee school has been working in Moscow, in which high school students from different regions of the country have been studying mathematics, biology and some other correspondence subjects. They are sent by brief manuals and interesting tasks that they perform and send to Moscow, where they are checked by students of Moscow State University and other part -time employees. In the first four issues, the school graduated from 12 thousand students. In the fifth year of work (1969/1970 academic year), it included about 10 thousand students, and in the tenth year - 19 thousand.

One of those who stood at the origins of this school was Mikhail Borisovich Berkinblit, an employee of the Institute for Problems of Information RAS. In his memoirs, he talks about how it all began.

Recently, the 50th anniversary has been created since the creation of the All -Union correspondence mathematical school. This is a good reason to remember how it was created, and about those people who created it.

But I will start a little from afar to talk about how my family was related to the creation of a correspondence school.

How my wife and I met Israel Moiseevich Gelfand

The idea of ​​creating an absentee mathematical school belongs to outstanding mathematics and biologist, Israel Moiseevich Gelfandu. I'll tell you how we met him.

After graduating from the pedagogical institute, I worked at the 362nd school. He taught physics, astronomy, logic and psychology there (once there were such subjects at school). But in 1960, our school was suddenly made with a seven -year -old, and I had to leave it. I got a job at the Department of Psychology of the Institute that I myself graduated.

The changes in the work were extraordinary. At school, I had a large load (30–36 hours a week), and at the department I had to help the experiments of graduate students who set these experiments far from every day. Then, on my own initiative, I began to conduct classes with graduate students on the topic "Statistical methods for processing the results of experiments." These classes came not only by graduate students of the Department of Psychology, but also some graduate students from the Department of Physiology. Among them was Yuri Ilyich Arshavsky, who later became my friend and colleague. Yura invited Mark Lvovich Shik to the next lesson of his friend. And the next time, Yura and Mark invited me to a seminar, which was conducted by Israel Moiseevich Gelfand and Mikhail Lvovich Cetin (with the participation of Viktor Semenovich Gurfinkel). So I met Israel Moiseevich, which changed my life.

This seminar was unusual. Although it was a seminar in physiology, its participants were mathematicians, physicists, biologists and doctors. But the seminar (in which I very soon became the secretary) requires a separate story.

Here we need to make another digression. The described events took place in the 1960s, in the middle of the Khrushchev thaw. The end of the 1950s and early 1960s is a wonderful time. Hopes for a new life after the liberation from the oppression and hypnosis of the personality cult, from Solzhenitsyn’s first story “One Day of Ivan Denisovich”, the first songs of Okudzhava, for the public performance of which in some research institute, however, it was also necessary to ask the permission of the party committee, the trade union committee and other coma, the emergence of such theaters as “Contemporary” and the Taganka Theater, the violent debate about the development of society- The entire public climate was favorable for a variety of public undertakings. This atmosphere applied to the sphere of science. In the USSR, Cybernetics were suddenly allowed, which recently was a “corrupt girl of imperialism”, etc.

One of the ideas that appeared at that time in science was the idea of ​​developing interdisciplinary research. Israel Moiseevich and Misha Cetlin thought about the interaction of mathematics and biology. Israel Moiseevich was going to create a new scientific interdisciplinary laboratory, whose future employees he sought among the participants in the seminar.

And on March 3, 1961, Israel Moiseevich left several people after the end of the seminar and said that an order was signed on the organization at the Institute of Biophysics of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences of the theoretical department. There will be two laboratories in the department: biological and mathematical.

Someone said that it would be nice to note this event, but it is not clear where. At the Institute of Neurosurgery (where the seminar was held) is inconvenient. Then I offered to go to my house. We called my wife Lena, warned her and went. On the way, they bought bread, sausage and vodka. Viktor Semenovich asked one of the familiar doctors a bubble of alcohol, but he did not need it. If Lena and I later remembered, then we had I. M. Gelfand, M. L. Cetin, V. S. Gurfinkel, Mark Shik, Yura Arshavsky, Inna Keder, Vanya Rodionov, Seryozha Kovalev, Leva Chaykhayan and Igor Sergeyevich Balakhovsky.

So my wife - Elena Georgievna Glagoleva - met Israel Moiseevich.

Misha Ketlin suggested not to talk about science, but to read poetry and sing songs. He read poetry mainly himself and mainly Korzhavin. And many different songs sang. Mostly Okudzhava. But Viktor Semenovich sang “a beer” opened on Deribasovskaya, Seryozha, Leva and Vanya sang “lived, there were three thugs.” Still sang to the "brigantine." It turned out not a very standard celebration of the creation of the department.

But some scientific conversations still arose. They spoke mainly about biology. Only Israel Moiseevich and Elena spoke on a completely different topic. Israel Moiseevich asked her where she was working. She said that at the moment she was working at the Department of Higher Mathematics at the Moscow Aviatechnological Institute, and before that she worked for a long time in the Laboratory of Mathematics NIISIMO APN (NIISIMO is the Research Institute for the Contents and Methods of Education of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences). Israel Moiseevich said that this is very interesting, since he just thinks about teaching mathematics at school and even teaches mathematics in one Moscow school. It was the famous "second school". Israel Moiseevich said that he really likes this school, that he really likes her teachers (and not only in mathematics, but also in literature) and students, as well as director Vladimir Fedorovich Ovchinnikov. Elena and Israel Moiseevich agreed that she would go to school at his lectures, as well as to the seminars that the students of Moscow State University was conducted.

Thus began the preparation of materials for the correspondence school, although it was officially opened only three years later.

Creating a ZMSh

This is how Israel Moiseevich himself spoke about the emergence of an absentee school at a meeting with teachers who participated in her work.

“I wanted to explain why I was engaged in a correspondence school. The impetus was my conversation in 1963 with my great friend Ivan Georgievich Petrovsky, rector of Moscow State University. Ivan Georgievich persuaded me to join Andrei Nikolayevich Kolmogorov, who then organized a boarding school for nonresident schoolchildren at Moscow State University.

The idea of ​​helping the children who are capable and interested in mathematics from different ends of our country was close to me. Nevertheless, after thinking, I refused to work at the boarding school, but in return I suggested that Ivan Georgievich organize an absentee mathematical school with his help.

... I suggested that Ivan Georgievich organize an absentee mathematical school with his help to give the children from different ends of our country, living in places where there are no qualified people, to rise to a high level. This idea is especially close to me, since I myself in those years when I developed as a mathematician, I spent in a deaf province where, except for two or three books and a good attitude of teachers, had no other support. I could only get the only books in mathematics from my teacher, to whom I still feel obligated. I understand how difficult it is to work in those conditions and how much we lose because of this truly talented people we need our country so now. It seems to me that this need for people capable and practical people is so great that a boarding school cannot satisfy it. A hundred schoolchildren can be accepted into the boarding school, and at least an order of magnitude more in the correspondence school. ”

Ivan Georgievich liked the idea of ​​the correspondence school, and he promised to help in her organization.

Kolmogorova boarding school began working in 1963, and the correspondence school was a year later. Her organization demanded to solve many diverse, often unexpected problems.

For example, when the order to create a school has already appeared, it was necessary to open her account with a bank, but they did not open it until the bank was shown in the bank. And in the workshop where they made seals, they did not want to make a seal until they were told by the organization’s bank account through which their work is paid. This problem was solved by Elena Georgievna and Polina Iosifovna Masarskaya (she was a teacher of mathematics “Second School”, then for many years the head teacher at the ZMSh).

Another problem was more complicated. Israel Moiseevich proposed to become the director of the correspondence school Vladimir Fedorovich Ovchinnikov - the director of the second school, and he agreed. But here it turned out that it was impossible to be the director of two schools at once, it is prohibited by law. Only the Prime Minister A. N. Kosygin was able to solve this problem. He issued an order that, in order of exception, Vladimir Fedorovich could become part -time as the director of the correspondence school. So then, when the “second school” was defeated by political and ideological reasons, and Vladimir Fedorovich was fired from there, he did not have to look for a new place of work.

Ivan Georgievich gave Elena Georgievna Stavka at the department of mathematical analysis of Mehmat, and she moved in January 1964 from Mati to Moscow State University. There, her main business was the work on organizing the ZMSh.

The beginning of the real creation of a correspondence school was laid in November 1963, when he met in the office of the rector of Petrovsky Moscow State University, Deputy Minister of Education of the RSFSR M.P. Kashin and corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences I. M. Gelfand. In this conversation, during which the decision was made on the organization of the ZMS, there were also those who became the direct executors of this project: the dean of the Mechanical and Mathematics faculty of Moscow State University Professor N.V. Efimov and a member of the party bureau N. Kh. Rozov.

Nikolai Khristovich Rozov was the co -author of the first two brochures about the correspondence school.

The Scientific Council of the School, headed by I.M. Gelfand, was created. The council included professor A. A. Kirillov (deputy chairman), Deputy Minister of Education of the RSFSR M.P. Kashin, Professor E. B. Pykinin, N.V. Efimov (Dean of the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics), B. V. Shabad, as well as B. R. Weinberg and others. The Secretary of the Council was E. G. Glagolev - assistant to I. M. Gelfand for correspondence schools.

A task was prepared, which was supposed to be completed by schoolchildren who wanted to enter the correspondence school at Moscow State University. At first they wanted to print him in Komsomolskaya Pravda, but M.P. Kashin opposed this. He said: "And what will we do if 10 thousand works from all over the Union come?" At his proposal, the first set was decided not in the whole republic, but in the regions: Vladimir, Kalinin, Kaluga, Moscow, Ryazan, Tambov, Smolensk, Tula, Yaroslavl and Bryanskaya. The introductory task was sent to the editorial office of regional newspapers.

In addition, at the end of February 1964, M.P. Kashin convened a meeting of deputy heads of Oblono (regional departments of public education) on the organization of the correspondence mathematical school. The representative of each block of these regions was awarded packages with the texts of test work and appeals to the eighth -graders about the organization of the correspondence mathematical school.

It was decided not to accept schoolchildren from Moscow, Leningrad and other large cities in a correspondence school, and schoolchildren from villages and small remote villages and cities had an advantage of admission.

The idea of ​​organizing an absentee school met local support. Regional newspapers talked in detail about the correspondence school and advised readers to invite their children to enter it. In some areas, programs about the correspondence school on radio and on television were organized.

The organizers were very afraid that, despite all the efforts who wanted to study in the new school, there would be too few. But these fears were in vain. More than 5,500 competitive work came to the school, and about 500 more work came a little later than the appointed deadline.

To verify the entrance work, brigades from the best students of the faculty were organized. The first organizer and head of the student team of the ZMSh on Mehmat was B. R. Weinberg.

The school did not have premises, and the work of the dean was partially occupied, which went into his office barrel and joked that the faculty was turning into a branch of the correspondence school.

Students of Mehmat at that time did a lot of work with schoolchildren. They conducted mugs in mathematics for schoolchildren, organized mathematical olympiads of different levels, from school to university. Many students worked in mathematical schools that arose then. I have already said that in the second school, after the lectures of Israel Moiseevich, a seminar was held to solve the tasks that the students led.

So there were enough people who wanted to check the introductory task, and then the notebooks of the students received enough: in the best years, there were 300-400 inspectors in the correspondence school.

Pupils of the Second School also took an active part in the first reception. They, like students, did everything: from transporting bags with letters and branding envelopes to checking work, which was entrusted to several students.

At the end of April 1964, it became clear that the reception was a success, and the school actually already exists. In May 1964, the Decree of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR officially issued the creation of the RZSh - the Russian correspondence mathematical school at the Moscow State University and the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR.

Among the 1429 students of the first reception were 813 schoolchildren (57%) from villages, workers' villages and small cities (with a population of less than 30 thousand people), 310 schoolchildren from cities with a population of 30 thousand to 100 thousand inhabitants, the remaining 306 accepted schoolchildren from regional centers. Then they accepted several more schoolchildren, so there were 1442 people in the first reception.

ZMSh - RZSH - VSMSh

They learned about the correspondence school not only in the areas from where it was decided to conduct a set. The university was literally littered with letters with requests to report the conditions for entering the school and send the text of the entrance assignment. Work was obtained not only from different places of the RSFSR, but from all over the Soviet Union. The texts of the introductory assignment were sent to everyone who sent their letters not too late. However, we promised to accept students from other areas only if there are free places in the school. The fact is that the number of places was limited by the number of students who were ready and able to check the work of schoolchildren. At first there were about 150 such students. Even if each student gives 10 students, the school could accept no more than 1,500 schoolchildren.

However, at the very beginning of the organization of the correspondence school, a new undertaking arose, which opened up new opportunities before the correspondence school to increase the number of schoolchildren covered by it.

The Ivanovo Pedagogical Institute was always advanced in the development of new forms of work with schoolchildren in mathematics, in particular, the head of the Department of S.V. Smirnov organized the first youthful mathematical school in our country. At his proposal, the institute organized a branch of the correspondence mathematical school. This branch worked on the same manuals and tasks as the ZMSh, but the work was carried out by the students of the institute. In the first year, 96 schoolchildren from the Ivanovo region studied at this branch. So the way to make the correspondence school truly mass was planned.

The emergence of branches scattered in different cities of the Union led to the fact that the RZMSh in 1972 was transformed into the inspection of the All -Union Correspondence Mathematical School.

It seems that already in the second year of the ZMSH work, another new form of work arose - the “collective student”, which, like branches, significantly increased the coverage of schoolchildren. The collective student of the ZMSh is a school mathematical circle working under the program and tasks of the ZMSH under the direct leadership of the mathematics teacher. The leader of such a circle systematically receives literature from the ZMSH under its program, control tasks and methodological instructions. The tasks should be worked out in the classroom, then each of his member performs the test, which is checked by the teacher, the leader of the group. After that, the circle draws up a general “collective” work (each member of the circle, on the instructions of the leader, writes in a common notebook a solution to one or two tasks from the test work). This collective work is sent to the ZMSh and is checked by a teacher attached to the mug, who will review it in detail. Such classes last two years.

Already in the 1965/1966 academic year, about 300 collective students were engaged in the ZMSh. Эта форма работы имела особое значение, так как она позволяла не только увеличить количество охваченных ЗМШ школьников, но и повысить уровень школьных учителей математики.

Мы уже говорили о бессменном директоре Заочной школы Владимире Фёдоровиче Овчинникове. Нельзя не упомянуть также многолетнего заместителя Владимира Федоровича — Евгения Михайловича Раббота, замечательного учителя.

Пособия и книги

Одной из самых важных задач в начальный период работы школы была подготовка пособий и заданий, специально написанных для целей Заочного обучения.

Первым таким пособием стала книжка «Метод координат» (авторы — И. М. Гельфанд, Е. Г. Глаголева, А. А. Кириллов). Она открыла специально для ЗМШ созданную серию: «Библиотечка физико-математической школы». Написали ее единым духом, за два месяца, и издали «молнией» в издательстве «Наука», где тогда заведовал редакцией В. И. Битюцков. Каких усилий это стоило работникам издательства — трудно даже передать. Битюцков пообещал очень быстро издать книгу при одном условии: корректуру Гельфанду не показывать!

Тогда же была подготовлена и вторая книжка серии — «Функции и графики» (авторы — И. М. Гельфанд, Е. Г. Глаголева, Э. Э. Шноль). Однако было ясно, что в первый год работы не удастся все задания довести до такого уровня. Пришлось срочно готовить задания-листовки, которые в самые короткие сроки печатало издательство МГУ.

Книги «Метод координат» и «Функции и графики» многократно переиздавались и были переведены на разные языки (на немецкий, дважды на английский, на испанский, на арабский, два года тому назад на японский и на многие другие). В подготовке новых пособий для школьников большую роль играли молодые математики Коля Васильев (он умер молодым от опухоли мозга), Витя Гутенмахер (сейчас живет в Бостоне) и Андрей Тоом (сейчас живет в Бразилии).

В 1966 году в Москве проходил Международный математический конгресс; 15-я секция этого конгресса была посвящена истории и вопросам преподавания. Там Елена Георгиевна делала доклад про Заочную школу от своего имени и от имени Израиля Моисеевича.

В 1967 году был первый выпуск Заочной школы.

Из школьников этого выпуска свидетельства об окончании школы получили более 600 человек. Большинство из них поступило в разные вузы, в том числе 87 человек на механико-математический факультет МГУ (это четвертая часть всех иногородних студентов первого курса). Более 60 человек поступили в другие университеты, 24 человека — в МВТУ им. Баумана, 16 человек — в Московский физико-технический институт, и т. д.

Problems

Казалось, всё в Заочной школе было хорошо. Все работали с энтузиазмом. Появилось много интересных новых пособий. На пятом году работы (1969/1970 учебный год) школы в ней учились около 10 тыс. человек, из них 2500 индивидуальных учеников в самой ЗМШ и столько же в филиалах, и еще в группах «Коллективный ученик» занималось около 5 тыс. школьников. В школе было 400 проверяющих студентов и 9 штатных сотрудников. В частности, в ЗМШ появился специальный сотрудник, который отвечал за взаимодействие с филиалами. Много лет таким сотрудником была Нина Юрьевна Вайсман.

Но как раз в это время у Заочной школы возник конфликт с парткомом мехмата. Если в начальный период работы школы мехмат ее с энтузиазмом поддерживал, то через несколько лет у партийной организации мехмата возникли к школе разнообразные претензии. Главная из них состояла в том, что мехмат требовал проводить прием по социальному признаку. Партком мехмата требовал, чтобы большинство принятых учащихся составляли дети рабочих и колхозников независимо от того, как они выполнят вступительную работу. А сотрудники Заочной школы утверждали, что дети учителя, продавца или инженера ничем не хуже детей слесаря или колхозника. Договориться по этому поводу не удавалось. ЗМШ обвиняли в отсутствии классового подхода. Впрочем, некоторые сотрудники мехмата хотели бы взять под контроль и другие стороны работы ЗМШ.

На мехмате сменился декан (место Н. В. Ефимова занял П. М. Огибалов) и деканат тоже стремился взять ЗМШ под свой контроль. Например, в решениях деканата выдвигались требования, чтобы в научный совет ЗМШ входили сотрудники мехмата и люди, которых рекомендует мехмат, чтобы в приемную комиссию входили представители мехмата и в частности его парткома, и т. д.

Деканат пытался превратить ЗМШ в некое подобие курсов для подготовки к поступлению на мехмат детей рабочих и колхозников. Он, например, принял решение, что на летние очные занятия могут приглашаться только дети рабочих и колхозников, и т. д.

Иван Георгиевич Петровский не мог защитить ЗМШ от парторганизации, которая имела в то время огромную силу. Да и с новым деканатом у него были непростые отношения.

Тут надо вернуться к началу моего рассказа. Как я уже писал, некоторое время я работал на кафедре психологии Педагогического института. Там я познакомился с преподавателем кафедры Артуром Владимировичем Петровским. Он предложил мне принять участие в написании книжки по психологии воображения. Мы написали эту книжку, она называлась «Фантазия и реальность», и за это время подружились. Мы с женой часто бывали дома у Артура Владимировича. И вот, когда мы к очередной раз пришли к нему в гости и рассказали про проблемы Заочной школы, он выдвинул неожиданную идею. А что если сделать Заочную школу экспериментальной школой АПН (Академии педагогических наук)?

В тот момент Артур Владимирович работал заведующим кафедрой психологии в пединституте и имел хорошие связи в АПН. В дальнейшем он стал президентом РАО (Российской академии образования).

Эту идею удалось реализовать, и Заочная школа стала экспериментальной школой при Академии педагогических наук СССР, ее сотрудники стали числиться в штате этой академии и финансирование тоже стало идти через АПН. Мехмат потерял возможность давить на Заочную школу, и она еще лет десять проработала спокойно.

Не только математика

Через десять лет после начала работы Заочной школы я позавидовал математикам и пришел к Израилю Моисеевичу с предложением организовать при ВЗМШ экспериментальное биологическое отделение. Идея о связи математики и биологии по-прежнему была актуальной. Израиль Моисеевич в 1966 году организовал в МГУ новую лабораторию — лабораторию математических методов в биологии. Кстати, туда перешла работать и Елена Георгиевна. Она шутила: «Мы с Израилем Моисеевичем как Ниро Вульф и Арчи Гудвин (герои детективных романов Рекса Стаута). Он, конечно, гениальный Ниро Вульф, а я — Арчи Гудвин. Но у Израиля Моисевича есть одно существенное отличие от Ниро Вульфа. Тот был лентяй, и его надо было заставлять работать, а Израиль Моисеевич и сам всё время работает, и вдохновляет других».

Экспериментальное биологическое отделение было создано и это имело неожиданные и серьезные последствия. В Заочной школе появился ряд новых направлений, например, филологическое. Если в начале ее работы аббревиатура ВЗМШ расшифровывалась как «Всесоюзная Заочная математическая школа», то потом она стала расшифровываться как «Всесоюзная (потом Всероссийская) заочная многопредметная школа».

Еще несколько слов о Колмогоровском интернате. Интернат успешно развивался и в какой-то момент (позднее, чем ВЗМШ) тоже стал многопредметным. В нем возникли и биологические классы. (В них, кстати, читает лекции наш сын Серёжа Глаголев.) Кроме того, в интернате возникла своя Заочная школа. Так что ВЗМШ и интернат остаются близкими родственниками. Кстати, мне рассказывали, что теперешний директор интерната, Кирилл Владимирович Семёнов, в студенческие годы активно проверял работы учеников Заочной школы.

При написании этих воспоминаний я опирался не только на собственную память, но и на материалы, которые собирала моя жена Елена Георгиевна Глаголева (она умерла 20 июля 2015 года), так что она по праву должна считаться соавтором этого текста.

Приношу глубокую благодарность Надежде Сергеевне Глаголевой за помощь в подготовке текста и рисунков.