Aliens in the audience

On the eve of September 1, we turned to our regular authors with a request to share our thoughts and feelings about the upcoming educational year.

Anna Muradova, Ph.D. Filol. sciences, Art. scientific. sore. Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences:

The new academic year comes, and it is time for any teacher to think about how to build another course of lectures so that they are perceived by twenty -year -old students. I began to teach in 1996, when I myself was a senior student, and I did not have such a problem at that time - we and I were the same age, on the same wave. Now every year I am convinced that in the format in which the “old -regime” teachers in the last millennium were given lectures, it is simply pointless to read.

A full audience of aliens will sit in front of me. Exactly as strange as my second-year daughter. And these aliens gave birth and raised such. The result was interesting. I will share observations.

Now it is customary to say that the new generation is brought up by smartphones and therefore, de different from us so much. But in the same way, something unknown has entered into the life of our parents that changed their perception and made it dissimilar to previous generations - television. And before that there was a telephone and a telegraph ... So there is no need to dump everything on modern means of communication. We raised these children.

And what happened? Completely different people with completely different values ​​than ours. They need a completely different from life. I do not pretend to be a deep analysis, these are just the impressions of the teacher and mother.

They do not want to grow up and do not understand why this is needed. It is at a dead end. In 18-19 we tried to grow up as quickly as possible. In junior courses, part -time jobs were already found. The senior courses were employed and had experience. They married twenty, gave birth at twenty and small.

Our forty -year -old parents were mostly at a loss when perestroika struck, and many were sitting without salaries. In addition, the generation, born in difficult forties, was not distinguished by adulthood or enterprise. I was lucky, I did not contain my parents at the age of 18-20, and many kept. One way or another, most of us in childhood are used to being psychological parents to their mothers and fathers. And this habit of patronizing and patronizing, relying only on itself, affected the upbringing of our children.

The current 18–20-year-olds are children of successful parents. When you try to speak with them as with adults, more or less on equal terms, are offended. They are small, and we are big. Well, yes, it was this thought that we, accustomed to pull a lot of things at once, have been inspired for a long time since childhood. And they really liked such a childhood, so why get out of it? Moreover, the current forty -year -olds are quite young and energetic, it was they who occupied more or less decent niches in the labor market and are not ready to free up space for young people. Where to strive for young people? To compete with dad-mother?

And they do not want to compete at all. It is important for them not to be able to do something, but to be cute. They now often began to write about this on the Web - when “made with your own hands and with love” is more important than “done well”. Well, yes, we always praised them for clumsy plasticine crafts, because they are cute children and nipples. In adulthood, this does not work, but they do not seek there! In adult life, we are, and we will always praise them and be touched.

They love cats and behave like cats. The cat can accidentally break his favorite vase and even intentionally put down in slippers, but he is all excusable, he is dear! Well, they are cute, which means that they can be hacking, squinting and even fucking someone on trifles. I do not see the logical connection between the grace and the right to make innocent dirty tricks, but, apparently, it is.

We forgave them a lot from the fact that our parents did not forgive us.

They have a different attitude to study and knowledge. Here there really is the influence of the Internet. Because many students, as I understand it, are sure that the information on the Internet is self -proclaiming. When I say that the task of the researcher is to obtain and systematize knowledge, others are sincerely surprised: why gain knowledge, on the Internet for a long time everything is! The fact that the information on the Internet was placed by people who got it from somewhere do not occur to it.

Regarding the systematization of knowledge - generally trouble. The current students know much more than in their years, but not everyone knows how to build causal relationships. Moreover, the very need to somehow logically link the facts is sometimes incomprehensible to them. For what? The information is full, it is constantly sprinkled from somewhere. I liked it - reposted. Forgot - googled. When you try to argue with them and ask to argue the position, they are surprised: why?

The angry students resorted to many colleagues with the words: “What the topic of the course you gave me, there are no ready -made work on this topic on the Internet!” And these are beautiful, smart students, not any baldbes. When they try to explain to them that they must obtain information and systematize themselves ... see above.

They like everything pretty and comfortable. Coffee in a cardboard cup, a table lamp with soft light. They are kind and non -conflict. They really do not understand what we, old peppers, want from them. They hide in the handmade-spokes and go to like cats. And I want them, like babies, to smack them in the crown. But we must give them lectures ...

Lyubov Borusyak, sociologist, associate professor of the Faculty of Communications, Media and Design of the Higher School of Sciences:

Before the start of the school year, I am always a little worried. Each new course is slightly different from the previous ones; Some more interesting and bright, others less. But on any stream there are many wonderful students. I have no doubt that such will be among my new students, and therefore a good day for me is a good day - it is very interesting to work.

In different universities, I have been teaching for 15 years, in the tower the tenth year of my work begins. Teachers of the best universities are in a winning position, since the best graduates of schools come to us. Moreover, the passing score is increasing every year, although it was very high five years ago. It seems to me that the country is growing not just the value of education, but the value of quality education.

Guys who received very high points (270–290 out of 300), but not passing the competition to our budget, are increasingly not going to universities with lower passage points, but conclude an agreement on training. Their parents are ready to pay, believing that investments in a serious education of their children will pay off. During a set of applicants, I called our new students and their parents and did not hear such an explanation for the decision to study for money, but still in the tower.

Have students have changed over the years that I have been working at this university? I repeat, these are very strong graduates of schools. I do not notice fundamental changes; I do not see that they have changed their motivation or level of preparation. Most come from gymnasiums and lyceums, and from various cities of Russia. Moreover, more and more often they say that they like the university more than the school where they studied. They perceive the tower as a space of freedom, where they respect their opinion, where they do not feel violence. But the school (and these are the so -called strong schools) remember many of them as a place of constant pressure, where there is the only correct opinion - the opinion of teachers, and all other opinions are wrong.

When engaged in the sociology of youth reading, I spend a focus group with my students. Most of them, recalling literature lessons, say that they demanded those answers that the teacher considered it true, and their own opinion not only had no value, but the desire to express it in every possible way suppressed.

Perhaps the desire for freedom, for respect from teachers and teachers, for freedom and respect for a person, personality in general is a clear trend, and increasing from year to year. They react very sharply to injustice, lawlessness, meaningless prohibitions. What else I like is the more and more student desire to participate in volunteer projects, including charitable ones, -it is important and interesting.

If we talk about problems, then they are also, but they are not new. I can’t say that they were not before. Young people, from an early age, accustomed to receiving information on the Internet, often do not know how to separate serious information from random, which has no value, including scientific. The most powerful students, perhaps, stand out with this skill. Hence the second problem: understanding of authorship is more and more lost; The information seems anonymous, and therefore belonging to everything. It takes a lot of time to teach students to give links to all used literature. The second problem is a weak knowledge of history, and this is also a problem related to the school. A sense of historicism is formed in very, very few.

But how they favorably differ from past generations is that they know a foreign language well, often not one. They have no problems with literacy in their native language, although writing long analytical texts often causes difficulties. If we compare our students 10 years ago and modern, then there are no big differences, which is generally pleasing to me-these are good students in both the academic and human terms.