Oh the wonderful school years [Школьные годы чудесные]

JanB expresses my long-felt-but-inarticulated sentiments:

They’re [schools-ET] a kind of police state; a little society in which children are trapped. As such, they teach children appalling assumptions about what society is; regimentation, arbitrary rules, undemocratic, collectivist, and the “government” and “police” of the school (the teaching staff) have absolute power, and a child soon learns it is better to, for instance, suffer bullying than shop the bullies to the teachers. As in any totalitarian society, the populace learn not to involve themselves with power, and to keep their problems to themselves. Better to suffer the predations of your fellows, than of the state.

The school system I grew in is generally very different from  IanB’s, in organization, body of learning material and methods of teaching. The basic idea of schools, the purpose and the principles, though,  are the same as he formulates. In some aspects I can say my experience was similar to his – due to family circumstances I haven’t stayed in the same school from 1st grade to 10th, as it was typical for Soviet pupils*.  In the ten standard years of pre-college education I have changed schools 5 times, every time to one in a different geographical location.

So, by necessity, I needed to adapt quicker, to present myself and to establish my own niche more assertively, to sharpen my perception of fellow pupils, teachers and vector knot of forces  faster. Thinking of those years now I know  I have to thank my parents for providing rock-solid support wall for me to lean to. It wasn’t easy, not for me and not for them – they themselves had to do all the super-sonic adaptation I was doing, but on much bigger scale, and with much more punishing consequences for us all in case of a failure. Their stakes were bigger than mine, their time was needed for provision of our physical survival,  but I still had my mother’s assistance in humanities and my father’s – in math and physics, and both of theirs absolute confidence in my abilities, encouragment for learning – not for teacher’s-pet advancement. School curriculum was always treated at home as a starting point for my studies, curiosity and parsing of underlying principles rather than memorization by rote – highly praised.

The kaleidoscopic change in my school environment, however, had a side benefit of teaching me to rely on my own judgement, to think on my feet, to be observant and critical – all the skills and qualities that population of schools are not encouraged to have. I evolved a dissenter by envoronmentsl factors, so to speak.

…schools were never intended to effect intellectual development. The intention of mass schooling was always social engineering. The purpose was, and remains, to use schools to mould children into “good citizens”. What counts as a good citizen has varied over time; at one time it was to inculcate religious values, then later to make good little workers for industry, and patriots who’d march unquestioning into the machine guns of the Somme, now the good little citizen comes out with a head full of greenism and post-marxist social values. The idea of making people who can think for themselves- and of course you can’t create a free thinker, only destroy one- has always been low on the list of priorities. The existence of good teachers who have helped their students intellectually (and there are many teachers like that, let us be fair here) is more a bug than a feature, which particularly our current masters are doing everything they can to stamp out… though the process of weeding out the non-gramscians has been underway for a long time.

What he says is a 100 times more true – naturally, by definition – about Soviet school system, with it parallel and mandatory (if nominally voluntary)  organizations like Oktyabryata** , Pioneers** and Komsomol**, with communist ideology incorporated not only in these extra-curriculum activities, but into the way subject courses itself were taught. Since I was about 10 I learned to be careful if not distrustful of received packets of info, particularly in literature,  geography and history  – and I knew after few painful lessons to back up my disbelief with solid reading on the subject – more solid sometimes than the teacher’s.  Being prepared for debate was the only way to make the classes interesting. At one of the  P-T meetings  my Russian Literature and language teacher in senior classes had confessed to my mom, that my presence in class forced her to study for the lessons more than she did during her teacher’s college. “When I make notes for the upcoming lesson I can just see T raising her hand, here and there, and I’m trying to clear up the logic of the topic for myself first. “

..many people of a libertarian, or at least non-conformist, attitude, are people who never quite fell for the myth of schooling. People who were sceptical at the time, and who were self-educators who read books other than the ones set for them by their tutors. The schooling system is designed- intended- to stamp out dissent and inviduality, but however hard they try to do that some proportion of the victims will smell the rat, and not be completely beaten. The bad news is the system works, in that after a decade and a half or two decades of schooling, a sufficient majority of the students will have been indoctrinated such that they will keep the whole system- schooling and statism- running over the next generation…The schools foster the state; and that is why statists are so obsessed with schooling.

Still, despite all the similarities I’m not sure I can agree with JanB’ conclusions. Total elimination of school system seems to me a bit radical proposition. I can’t imagine I would be able to homeschool my son – my own knowledge would be sufficient, probably, only till 5th grade : so different are the vocabulary, curriculum and volume of what I could supply from the one he received in public NY school. Besides, teaching takes enormous time in course preparation as well as knowledge of pedagogy; it’s a separate profession for a reason, not only in terms of accumulated body of knowledge – in time invested into everyday practice, too. Not all families are financially able to free one parent to perform the functions of home educator ( in several subjects at once!). Also, it’s difficult to sustain learning impulse only on curiosity and thirst for science; competition plays a big role. Once my son entered H.S., an environment of higher academic level – 90% of his peers were as well prepared for classes as he was, his laziness that I used to reprimand him for before, gradually disappeared. Another thing: compared to previously homeschooled kids in his class he was more socially integrated, extraverted, attuned to nuances in power structures. Yes, these structures are often abhorrent, but they exist in a wider society. What good will it do to a child if in his primary activity, adoption of sciences, he’s used to function in isolation? I doubt participation in team sports and neighbors kids’ birthday parties will be enough for establishing adequate social confidence.

Informed opinions are welcome, as usual.

*”Pupils”better describes what we were; in SU the usage of “students” was reserved for undergraduate and graduate education. In my time the so called Middle School consisted of 10 grades, from 1st to 10th, and took 10 years to graduate, from 7yo to 17. Further education was voluntary, and graduates had a choice – to go to trade schools  (PTU) or 5-yr college, for undergraduate education.

**Oktyabryata – members of the Little Oktobrists organization (up to 9yo). Pioneers – members of All-Union Young Pioneer Organization(9-10 to 15-16yo). Komsomoltcy – members of COMmunist UNion od YOuth (КОМмунистический СОюз МОЛодёжи) (16-28 yo). See here for more information.