​School, power, trauma

Actually, I was going to write a feminist article. But the further the sex scandal around the most famous Moscow school unfolds, the more it becomes clear that this is not a story about sex. And not about gender. And not even primarily about gender. This is a story about school. About power, about trauma.

About the trauma that almost everyone who spent the most vulnerable decade of their life bears within the framework set by the structure of the Soviet and post-Soviet school. And this is a story about the three main instruments of power in modern society, which, thank God, does not so often slide into physical assault: about secrecy, about social exclusion, and about what sociologists usually call the neutral term “social control”, and psychologists much more more adequate - “emotional abuse.” These are the instruments of power and suppression that Russian society is just beginning to learn to recognize and call by their proper names. And they are just beginning to learn to adequately resist. What is even more important is that, unlike direct force, these instruments are supported by silence, by lack of language, by faith in the naturalness and normality of any existing order of things.

The story at school No. 57 stirred up such a storm not only because we are talking about an institution that for many years was considered the best in the country, from which came a significant part of the core of the current “speaking” layer - those who control the minds and set the agenda. But also because school is a sore subject for many. Not the majority, probably, were subjected to sexual abuse in school in the narrow sense - such that the conversation directly turns to possible criminal charges. But they were publicly humiliated, publicly scolded, caustically ridiculed, unfairly punished, shamelessly manipulated and suppressed by authority at school - not 57th, but at almost any school, each with their own, more or less everyone was there. Plus, hazing is almost inevitable in forced, and even similar-age groups. That is, the girls are also, without fail, dirtyly fingered, not by teachers, but by classmates. Guys are almost inevitably beaten, and more than once too (not that girls were never beaten, and guys were never groped, of course). Plus the most severe hierarchy, in which the teacher is not at all the top, but an intermediate link: above him is the administration and numerous regulators with controllers on top. There is pressure on him too; and what is easier for an ordinary person without wings and a halo - to resist those who are stronger, or to transfer the pressure on the most defenseless, down? That's the same thing. Plus an indecent amount of power concentrated in the hands of people, again, without wings or halos: in the hands of the teacher is the distant future of the student, which can be ruined by a dozen bad marks, and at the same time his most everyday life, the smallest details of the routine - I don’t know how it was This is the case in No. 57, but in the “yard” schools, students still “ask to go to the toilet.” They don’t get up and quietly go out, but ask permission to satisfy a natural need.

For a prosperous person from an educated class, who escaped war, the army and prison and, fortunately, did not have a complete akhtung in his parental family, school is often simply the worst thing that has ever happened to him in his life. And, if a big misfortune does not happen to a person - family abuse, prison, mental illness - then he will never again experience such coercion, such petty lack of freedom, such shameless manipulations and unrequited insults as in school. Or, at least, it won’t be so many years in a row and so hopeless in terms of being able to escape.

School is traumatic. School is an environment permeated with violence, coercion, lack of freedom and manipulation. At best. At worst, sexual abuse and corruption are added here, but this is so, optional. How else? What is a school as an organization - a collection of people, roles and rules? You will gather children and adolescents of the same age into groups where they did not choose either comrades, or the content of the activity, or the schedule, and force them to stay in this randomly assembled group for years, spend more time with these people than with loved ones and other people. neither were friends outside of school. For the entire period of growing up, you will mix the sexually mature with very young children, the psychologically well with the traumatized, children from protective and accepting families with those who come to class every day from their personal hell. This is in a decent school. In the “yard” there are also hungry people with well-fed people, and city people with those who arrived from the village yesterday. You will require them to sit silently at their desks for 45 minutes, and all this time to do exactly what they are told, without distractions and smoke breaks, from here to now, instantly switching on command from one task to another: now we are quietly solving the problem, and don't whisper! - and a minute later we are already participating in the discussion, and more actively! The program of activities will be designed for the average student - that is, not existing in any instance in nature - student. You will place over them superiors whose amount of power over a student approaches more the rights of a jailer in relation to a prisoner than the powers of a boss in relation to an adult employee, and you will persistently and consistently instill in them such respect and reverence for these superiors as is impossible in any other world. prison, neither in the army, nor in the service. What you will succeed in this regard is the second question, but you will try and punish for deviations from the standard. You will evaluate literally each of their individual actions on a formal scale, subject the results of their work to checks several times a day (you will remember, remember your feelings when inspectors come to your office once a month), announce these assessments in the team and insist on the fact that these grades are in direct connection with the human quality of the student.

And all this - in a closed information and physical environment, to which even parents have extremely limited access and practically no people from the outside world can enter, except for inspection officials. And all of these are adults, endowed with special powers in relation to minors, inexperienced, rather powerless formally and defenseless due to age. (They will be inexperienced and immature, we note in parentheses, not only due to their age, but in particular because school takes up almost all the time, it cannot be avoided by law, child labor is prohibited, the involvement of “little children” in other forms of adult activities, except for the most useless ones, are also generally not encouraged, so they have neither time nor place to gain experience in the “adult” world). By default, by design, of course! - you'll end up with hell. In order for the environment, the forced collective, placed in such a framework, not to become hell, it takes a lot of effort, a lot of knowledge, and an incredible amount of goodwill on the part of adults in power. Sociologically speaking, a very strong culture is needed to resist such a structure. Or – or better yet, “and” – a very strong “agency”, the ability to act independently, against the collective, against the norm. Sometimes it works with culture. With agency, things are just starting to work out.

“Good” schools, to which caring parents strive to send their children, are good, in addition to the expanded program, because they try to resist the restrictions imposed by the structure as best they can. And they are already faced with their own limitations. “Good” children are selected at the entrance - and exclusion from the group of chosen ones begins to look almost like an existential threat. They establish horizontal, respectful, “comradely” relationships with students - and at every step they risk breaking the distance, invading other people’s boundaries, not with a stick, but with a carrot, not with force, but with affection. But with borders, for those who grew up in the USSR and a little later, it doesn’t matter for many, for the majority, to be honest. They gain authority among students and grow cults. They encourage free-thinking - and then break down when they sense a challenge to their own authority, because power corrupts not only the worst, but also the best, and there is too much power in the Russian school - again, by its very structure, not due to the malicious intent of the administration. They grow a sense of solidarity and school identity - and are faced with the temptation to silence their own, internal dissidents. They fence themselves off from the idiocy and meanness of external life - and build a system so closed that abuse simply suggests itself. They form a community of graduates and parents around themselves - and get a claque ready to throw shit at and gag everyone who “washes dirty linen in public,” which is why the dirty linen inevitably begins to accumulate. They are concerned about the quality of this community, which protects against attacks from outside - a very necessary precaution in modern Russia - and begin to make exceptions when accepting influential people for children, thereby significantly undermining the very school culture with which everything began so well. Plus, what else is there, mutual responsibility and honor of the team. 57th really wanted and tried to be a “good” school and had more resources for this than, probably, any other in Russia. But the structure turned out to be stronger, and the culture gradually adjusted, but those adults who were inside did not notice, blinked, did not stand up against it in time. Agency came from the outside: in the form of posts on Facebook from former, and now current, students who had washed their dirty laundry. The proportion of people who are able to recognize the unacceptable in the familiar and point a finger at it has grown so much over the past couple of decades that there were enough of them to hush up the scandal and it was not possible to sweep the garbage back under the carpet. And the depth of school trauma among the educated public turned out to be such that the topic became exciting for a huge number of people who were not directly related to this school.

It is impossible to justify what happened, but before we move on, let's acknowledge the efforts that would have been required - and required by others - to maintain a school environment intolerant of any abuse of power on the part of the teacher. After all, everything is absolutely opposed to this. A huge piece of formal power in one hand, multiplied by the highest moral status of the teacher; a crowd of inexperienced and dependent people - students - around; fear of exclusion, fear of becoming an outcast within the school; a closed system where even families remain outside the circle: how can you butt heads with the school if you have hostages inside? Teachers who, under these conditions, manage to remain decent people, create a psychologically safe climate in the classroom, and do not give in to ulcers or delusions of grandeur, not to mention worse, deserve incredible respect. But, frankly speaking, so that such a garden does not have one or two goats, or even whole herds of goats, this is rather an exception, contrary to all probabilities, than the rule. The exception is not accidental, but requires the strongest school culture (there is no need to talk about corporate culture: teachers as a corporation is a separate sad topic) and an unbending human core in all the adults involved. Readiness to both stand together and go against - at any moment. Yes, it happens, honor and praise to those who. No, this is not a healthy situation. One of the most important institutions of society, the place of socialization of almost all its members without exception, should not be designed in such a way that exceptional human qualities, coupled with resources available only to a select few, are required to withstand structural pressures.

Medicines for the structural ills of schools as an organization have long been known, they are used not without success and, although they are to a fair extent palliative in nature, they do a good job of protecting children in advanced countries - not the chosen and talented, but approximately all of them, although with the poor, of course, it turns out worse than with the rich - at least from the most terrible costs of the very idea of ​​\u200b\u200bcompulsory education in its current form. This is a rejection of the “classroom” structure in favor of choosing individual courses, when each student has his own educational trajectory. This not only gives the choice of a lesson program that is more appropriate to the child’s abilities and inclinations, but also frees him from the need to be locked in one closed group for years, under the leadership of one class teacher: each lesson has its own class composition. I didn’t get along with my subject teacher, my relationships with my fellow students didn’t work out—not a tragedy in life, but a nuisance for the next quarter. This is the participation of parents in the affairs of the school and the accountability of the school to the local community - not to officials, but to people whose children go, went or will go to this school.

Yes, in the Russian political environment this looks like a utopia, but who is stopping an individual school from voluntarily taking the first step in the right direction? This, instead of mossy life safety, lessons in psychology, sociology, the rudiments of law in high school, an open conversation about power, about suppression, about sexuality, about psychological violence, about bullying and exclusion, about the practices of solidarity and competent mutual support. These are protocols that are clear and accessible to the average mind: what to do in case of violations of a child’s rights; The 57th promises to develop such protocols and mechanisms, and if it succeeds in this work, this will be a huge contribution to improving the overall situation. It is inconvenient to even mention such ABCs - three main rules in the event of an unfolding scandal: do not lie; do not remain silent, explain yourself first, apologize on time; and propose measures to correct the situation, develop and present convincing guarantees of its non-repetition.

The 57th has already successfully failed the first two points. Let's all keep our fingers crossed for her so that things work out with the third one. A school that produced students who were able—the first in the country—to end a pattern of abuse and sexual predation in such a closed and protected institution deserves a second chance by any measure.