A lady with a task

The heroine of our time: a teacher from Siberia (this material was released for the first time in 2000)

So far, within the Garden Policy and journalists, they tell each other, bulging their eyes, how they walk with coals with bare legs (in fact, the warmth of ... o), in Russia quietly, quietly, daily, invisibly, millions of women almost despised for free brought up another generation for free.

This material was published in No. 3 (574) of January 24, 2000. We published it in an anniversary issue. You can buy it here

Introduction

The day before my arrival, colleague Vova was exposed by his wife as an insidious cheatist. He stood at the airport, fingering a shaggy hat in his hands, and said that it was impossible for me to live with his agreed two days. At least a week. He was tense and spoke bass. His beard resembled the flight of the French from the burned Moscow.

In a taxi, he said that, firstly, I would distract his wife from the wrong thoughts, because for a Siberian woman a guest reception is more important than his own life. And-like a control shot-I will pretend that I passionately want to write something like an essay about a Siberian teacher.

Only a strongly sick and old journalist or, on the contrary, a young stupid trainee, who needs to be sent somewhere except for coffee, can write an essay on the teacher. About 147 million more interesting topics were recorded in Russia. Even our red -faced taxi driver understood this: he was in the conversation, noting: “Guys, you better write that we are now waiting for further steps from Putin, otherwise there is no black passage from the market.” "Why are you going there?" - Vova asked gloomily. “There is cheaper because,” answered a rustic taxi driver, who does not understand that such powerful paradoxes roam in his gyrus that he would have been scratching her turnips between them and clapped himself through the frail Tutton thighs.

... It is already clear that I acted as a trainee. Because from conversations and going to Verina, the gymnasium crawled out like the Laokonov snakes, three hefty problems.

First. The consciousness of a Russian person resembles an apartment on the eve of the move. Everything is packed in a haste and mixed. In one of the boxes there is a collection of your personal teachers - fifty pieces. But to find them, lay them on the shelves - hands do not reach. You pull out at random a dusty sample and think it is for the standard. I did so. The first Akhedzhakovskaya teacher from “with a light steam” - a fool with a lane, now, obviously, a pensioner, who was trembling in love with Putin. My school Tomsk mathematician crawled out the next, the spirit of the late P. Korchagin once got into it, and she tempered us, snotty, steel. We were like Soviet steel calculators. All samples were alone, practically ash, they were jammed at work and supported the system. Question: What has changed? This is curious, given the mass of the profession.

The second problem. Here she is reality, around you. It seems to be caught and formulated: "Everything around is bad." Responsible political officers - Gaidar and Zyuganov - the quarterly apocalyptic forecasts are muttering, and all this as a result - nonsense of the dog. Not that. Inadequate. Here are terrible TV reports on the miners; But in Kuzbass you are surrounded by some wrong masses-healthy, good-natured, always slightly drinking men. If necessary, they, of course, will bring some dystrophy with a terrible personal history. But even this given, it seems, is getting fat when you turn away.

By the way, it is checked: life and mood are significantly improved if you do not include TV from a month. There are no words - it is abundant to Rus with their own. But there is something deep, reliable and optimistic in our lives.

Finally, the third problem. Isn't the Russian teacher the Russian teacher and has become the notorious ideal “Russian woman”?

Chapter 1.

Why husbands cheat on teachers, but not vice versa

Seven in the evening, the end of the second bottle. Vova told the story of his novel and was offended when I stated that nothing new, that everyone was there. Under 40, almost every Russian man falls into a trap. He finally begins to understand his own profession and enters into a strip of stability, similar to success. The usual wife rustles under the powerful side. But then there is an inaudible flight of butterflies near him. Well, it would be only his brother, so to speak, the serious almost forty-year-old bees and beetles-but the man not without confusion notes almost a doll, a light cabbage in something white. There she is sitting on a dandelion and looking at him with adoration. The man shakes his head and does not believe his already blind eyes. He feels himself with his hands and finds a lot of unnecessary, like a stomach, but does not find the right one. And a guess is piercing him - they love him! Finally!

... Further - trivial.

“Yes,” Vova agreed in the tone of an honest man, “of course, there are coincidences.” One “but”: I have not like everyone else. And more difficult.

And at that moment the furry pillow lying on the couch suddenly jumped up and ran into the corridor in the form of a cat. He struck the key in the door. Vova turned pale.

Vera says:

- In all countries, teachers get little. Work, in essence, missionary. In my opinion, this is a keyword to the profession. Because not a single plus in this work, if you figure it out.

Prestige. According to the theory of social stratification, the teacher is one of the highest layers of the intelligentsia. Complete theoretical nonsense. My class, having learned that I have two higher educations and a red diploma, was surprised: what am I doing at school? Even children already understand that a teacher is the lowest status in society. I am not interested in anyone as a representative of the profession.

Professor Bold. The communication area is narrow, very quickly occurs, if not regression, then conservation. The character changes beyond recognition. The officers have soldiers, we have a whole bouquet. Didacticism. Categorical. To chew everything, simplify, refuse shades and double -check - I understood or not. Landmark to mass. Carrying to averaged. Principal conformism. A sense of humor disappears. Plus "office" element: from year to year - neither sleep nor late; You rush early in the morning with a gallop, like a horse, and it is impossible for the makeup to spread-you run immediately into the classroom. Work mentally exhausting; In France, for teachers, annual leave is required after five years of work, and after seven people have no right to occupy public positions.

Career. Impossible. You are either a teacher or not a teacher. The head teacher, director, employee of the city is different: organizer, official. The head teacher is 10-16 hours at work daily, bustle, nerves, conflicts plus knowing fraud and dishonesty in relation to students. The head teacher is forced to sacrifice them.

Conflict. According to statistics, librarians are the most conflicting groups. Thank God, we are far away, although it is also not sugar. Actually, they always knew how to appreciate the hard workers and professionals at school. But very in moderation. Do not praise. Almost not praised, more precisely. But the main problem is the distribution of watches. Depending on the head teacher: it will give you a bet-18 hours, and live as you know (to at least get something, you need from 28 to 40 hours a week). And the schedule: one lesson in the morning, the other in the evening. There is no one to complain. The director does not contact the teachers. I spoke with the directors eight times in my whole life. You do not like the director in your youth; Inquiredness is especially striking: in conflict situations, everything descends on the brakes, there is neither fair retaliation, nor a well -deserved reward. Over the years, you understand that this is everyday wisdom. Otherwise, life would have turned into endless showdowns.

Salary. Everything is clear here. I will never forgive Yeltsin his “first presidential decree”. As a result, with him, the teachers are the latter who pay what can be called a salary.

Habitat, team. Purely female; Three men: director, mathematician, physical education - and they, in essence, outside the team. (By the way, there are almost no service novels in the teacher's environment, not because there are few men. Just not up to that.) The rest are women. Let's just say the average intelligence. Many of us are the children of teachers. Moreover, our mothers are almost all of the villages or small towns. For our mothers, teaching was the ultimate dream. In a word, teachers most often intellectuals in the second - and even Soviet - generation, and it is better not to talk about high culture. And now the new generation of teachers is again from the children of workers and small employees, because the status and payment of the profession are none.

Family. All day working with people, the head does not rest. In the evening you go around the shops, drag the bags home. I want to go to go and stupidly look at the point. And to be silent - she said eight hours in a row. But a common teacher's disease - there should be absolute purity in the house. Almost every evening is a vacuum cleaner. The husband walks from behind and shouts the wise thoughts that visited him in a day. It is offended that you admire too restraint. Take a rag, bending over, he falls silent. So, closer to night, he will have another reason to be offended. Before cooking, I turn on the TV, I am looking for a detective Potupei, but Vova indignantly hatches his eyes and says that Bergman's “seventh seal” will now be. ... You go to bed at two hours, your head thinks about work. Vova does not speak demonstratively: that is, they sniff, turning, coughing and clinging his feet, recalling his bitter insult.

Questions to the topic:

1. Why are there almost no teachers in the lists of a dating bureau?

2. When writers who are prone to cheap shock, finds a particularly lustful mood, they write about teachers. I don’t remember in whose play (Nepelov plays in the film), the teacher wants to rape students. Someone has a teacher earnings on an interdova, etc. Why?

(Increased complexity, for homework.)

1. Is it correct that, speaking of “with a light steam!”, You recall the teacher Akhedzhakova, but you can hardly think that the main character Nadia is also a teacher?

Chapter 2.

Secret Teacher's Life: Do not Stv with the People

Here it is, faith; As befits a Siberian teacher, all in the snow and with a bouquet of flowers. Smiles, greets, waves his hand from the hallway. But I see a wise look that a smile is only tired politeness. And this is the worst that a woman can offer us.

She enters the room, sits on the sofa next to Vova, but does not look at him. This is their first meeting after yesterday's dramatic confessions.

... I, by the way, immediately recognized Vera, more precisely, this type of woman - such, for example, almost all daughters of the officers. "Correct women." A fantastic cross between a lady and a Russian woman: a frozen elegant bottle of champagne, in which a scrap horse hid. Lomin, but warm, true and endlessly loving. They give birth to your children without hesitation. Sometimes they unload furniture. This is not to say that they are unusual or non -flowing, but you immediately feel: it does not shine here ...

... A minute later Vera breaks from the place. Wipes a puddle of vodka with ashes from the table, puts fifty plates. Sits. Talking. Laughs. But this is an autopilot: either a pause is out of place, then a phrase. But suddenly his eyes sparkled. And she ran away: "The kettle boiled ..."

Vera continues:

-But with all the "disadvantage", the humiliating of the profession, something strange and phenomenal happens.

For example, we have two wives of very wealthy businessmen - a mathematician and a German. At first, they took half -time, the work came mainly to the demonstration of new outfits. Now both - for two and a half bets, work until night.

... No, I’ll come from the other end.

I was arrogant to the teachers until I got into school after the university. Immediately: there are very few fools among teachers. Very!

In schools, a large fluidity is not accidental - many young people are out of the very first years. But those who remain, all the real ones, and even if they were stupid in the student, quickly grow up, the environment we have this - they tighten up to themselves (but not higher! General people will not be able to work - we need a talent to be averaged, there is a ceiling. By the way, I do not see anything bad - the ceiling is quite high). So those who stayed are the same, believe, clever and professionals. True, they are strikingly stupid as soon as they climb into their games - in politics, for example ...

The school is very dangerous. She draws into herself. Everything is fanatics here. You see, you will not force the hard worker to plow the second shift for free. And teachers do this several times a week. They sit in the evenings with lagging people or help prepare reports - a lot of things. Despite the fact that the administration - and this is fundamentally important - does not require students to have high academic performance.

Not only that. I do not know a single teacher who is limited to textbooks or old programs. Our German (the same) which first words said this fall in the teacher’s room, taking off the Carden cloak? "Oh, what kind of manuals I dug up and what special course was, you can’t imagine!" Over the years, this not only does not pass, but vice versa. Own indifference even scares.

... Moreover, such an atmosphere is everywhere, throughout the country. I went several times to the fees of teachers to Moscow. We must see how teachers grab each other's method of method. The main event from these trips is the conversation in the hotel. The head is around ...

Vovka unobtrusively interrogates: "Was there a lot of peasants there?" Fool, he does not understand at all what Russian teachers are.

I think that in the country this is the only layer that has worked all these years before the blue is completely independent of payment.

Vera continues:

- I taught for four years at the institute. So - it is very easy. In our gymnasium, special courses and professors and associate professors come to read. Children run away from them because they need to go to universities. There is little to be a good lecturer at school. It is necessary to prepare every lesson, each topic also from the perspective, how to drive into the heads. I don’t say that adult children study at the university, and the system there is simple: the test is not at the same time, but we are not very adults, and even maximalists, they will say about you in the first lesson: “She is a fool” - and that’s it ...

Questions to the topic:

1. “I bought the second in our dining room today. Suddenly I see - with the same money you could buy two large cheesecakes. But it's too late. I was upset. " Why did the heroine of the essay tell the author this story?

2. Why are the parking lots near universities, where, as you know, the salaries are not much more than the school, they are clogged with Fords, and school teachers prefer to ride buses?

(Increased complexity, for homework.)

1. Only the lazy did not urge to come up with a "nationwide idea." Doesn't it seem to you that Russian teachers secretly dug up something really like the “idea” from everyone? Did they penetrate it and use it alone?

Under the text
The vice-governor of the Lipetsk region of the Dorovskaya after the sentence, who ordered the murder of Igor Domnikov, remained at large-behind the expiration of the statute of limitations (15 years). But soon he went to the Supreme Court for reasons beyond his control.

And Igor has beautiful grandchildren. His mother, Rufina Semenovna, lives in Moscow and every year signs the editorial office for his son’s favorite magazine - “Science and Life”.