"Our plan - by strikes to achieve the abolition of the exam"

Schoolboy from St. Petersburg - about an attempt to create a union of students

The activist of the Interregional Trade Union of Education Workers Andrei Demidov wrote on Facebook on December 3 that a tenth grader from St. Petersburg tried to create a student’s trade union in his gymnasium. The administration, having learned about this, began to threaten him with an exception to school and reprisal by law enforcement agencies. The name of the student is Leonid Shaidurov. "Medusa" talked with him and found out why he decided to create a trade union and what he would achieve.

Leonid Shaidurov

I am studying in the tenth grade of gymnasium No. 622. This fall, I read a lot about how student trade unions are arranged in the USA, how they are fighting for their rights. For example, they achieved that students allow students to eat almost free in canteens, and teachers and university administration became easier to relate to their appearance.

I was very inspired and the idea came to me to create a trade union at such a social institute as a school. Since mid -autumn, I began to agitate children from my school to unite and become members of our trade union. I told them about the American experience what the structure of the trade union is in our organization, about the methods of trade union struggle and what can be achieved, and how to incorrectly engage in agreement on the administration. After a month of informal meetings, communication, my stories to the guys, the participants of the trade union, it was not five, but 170. We decided that we need to fight radical measures, but with a cold head.

My associates and I have identified the minimum program for ourselves. First of all, we decided to achieve three points. First of all, we want to get rid of violations of the regulations for testing knowledge: in our opinion, there may be up to three tests per day, no more. Secondly, we would like the teachers to be easier to belong to our appearance and would not interfere with self-expression through hair color or jewelry. At the same time, we are not against the school uniform, which is regulated by us in the gymnasium, but we want teachers, in turn, do not reach the point of absurdity and do not prohibit us everything in the world, which simply seems subjective to them ugly. Thirdly, we wanted to abolish the advice of elders, which is in our and some other schools. Because the advice of elders consists of quiet, calm girls and boys, whom the school administration chooses. Schoolchildren have many problems, but the advice of the elders is not engaged in their solution. Once I came to their meeting, they decided how we would celebrate the New Year, and ignored the problems I voiced. I think the advice of the elders has outlined himself and no longer satisfies our needs. It is necessary to abandon it and build this system at school on the self -government of students.

In general, our maximum plan is through strikes to achieve the abolition of the exam. We want to translate this issue to the strike level within our school.

On November 14, we decided to hold an informal meeting all together with my associates and met on a football field near the school. In total, there were 25 people - a narrow circle of people on whom I could rely. The director of the gymnasium saw us from the window of his office. The next day, she called me, she said that she was sure that it was a “protest rally”, she began to intimidate the psychiatric hospital, the prosecutor’s office, and said that I was “a underouder”. After that, she began to call me to her office almost every day and intimidated.

However, she did not know who exactly in the gymnasium were my supporters. Therefore, she called at random of high school students of our school and told them to stay away from me, because I was an extremist. She endlessly threatened me with an exception to the school, the prosecutor's office, but she didn’t call any reason, why should I deal with me. But she often said that she was afraid that she would be fired.

It seems to me that it is important to attract teachers in our movement, to explain everything to them because they are not used to or are weaned to fight. From the outside it seems that teachers perceive the trade union simply as an organization that gives them free tickets to the circus and gifts for the New Year.

I don’t know what it will result in, but now I’m sure that even if I am expelled from the gymnasium, I will continue my struggle to create a school union. In the future, I will be either a teacher of history and social studies, or an engineer-technologist in the food industry.

The reception of the director of the gymnasium No. 622 said that the director refused to comment on the situation, but they assured that they were not going to exclude Shaidurov. The press service of the administration of the Vyborg district on the day of publication of this material was not available for comments.

Irina Kravtsova talked with Leonid Shaidurov