Who benefits from a single textbook?

The reason for writing this text was an article by one of the members of the Public Council under the Ministry of Education and Science, who spoke on the side of Minister Olga Vasilyeva in favor of a single textbook. The author wrote him a personal letter - the addressee thanked him and again publish anything like that did not . And since he changed his position, his last name is not mentioned.

The words “single educational space” can be filled with content in very different ways; now they are nothing more than a beautiful figure of speech that is repeated like a mantra. Now, if everywhere, including the Altai Mountains, there is good Internet with a good database on education and decent teachers who will show children the beauty and benefits of their subjects, then this will be a single educational space, plus the opportunity to get to special educational centers throughout the country.

A single textbook is not a single space, and it will do more harm than good. The thesis that it is more convenient to move from school to school with a single textbook is weak, since this is a factor of third order of importance compared to the level of teachers and the quality of the material. Cramming from one textbook or another does not matter. But for normal, hardworking students, understanding the missed material is not a problem. I changed five schools, studied even in Moldova, but I don’t remember the difficulties with changing textbooks.

The main problem with a single textbook is that there will be no competition, and the Prosveshcheniye publishing house will choose the most convenient and far from the best authors, make their textbook the only one, and itself become a monopolist. And all development will cease. The line of textbooks by Heidman, Peterson and other decent authors has already been excluded from the list of textbooks recommended by the Ministry of Education and Science. For Prosveshcheniye, the slogan of a single educational space is just an excuse to capture the market. In addition, I cannot imagine a textbook that is suitable for lyceums, regular schools and schools for children with developmental delays.

In Russian conditions, a single textbook is a scam for officials: you can organize the educational process to the limit, give everyone uniform lesson plans and turn the lesson into a technological process, where a step to the right or left is a violation. The best way to both teach and pass the subject is to memorize the methodological development for each topic. The standard is that the slightest deviation is considered a defect in the work. Much better were the words “minimum” or “core”, which showed that there are no limits to perfection, and “standard” is one size fits all.

The current Minister of Education and Science is a pure functionary, moreover, with a strange attraction to Orthodoxy and Stalinism, mixed with state patriotism. In her understanding, patriotism is commitment to the existing government and hatred of everyone who criticizes this government and its deeds. Today, any critic is a fifth column, an extremist and an enemy of Russia, which is “desperately fighting in the ring of enemies.” Now we just need to rally more closely around the vertical of power and its secretary general, that is, the president. By the way, Olga Vasilyeva has said more than once that the vertical in education needs to be strengthened.

In the understanding of the current government, a single educational space will allow better control of educational organizations, but not in order to improve education, but in order to keep everyone in line. Plus the enrichment of education monopolists who will take over the textbook market. And for us - stagnation, i.e. “stability”. Yes, many incompetent textbooks have proliferated, but this is precisely because there is no control from below - these textbooks are pushed by monopolists. When I worked on the textbook expert council, one day all three reviewers gave a negative review, but soon the textbook was published with the stamp “recommended.”

Arseny Kuzmichev