“Beautiful numbers, the sad essence”: to educate not people, but consumers
12/01/2019
Interview with a school teacher about industry issues
From the 90s to the present, the quality of education continues to deteriorate. This happens not only in connection with the restoration of the capitalist system in our country, the entry into force of all kinds of educational "reforms" aimed at destroying Soviet education standards, but also due to a drop in the standard of living of education workers (teachers, teachers, teachers).
Market relations affected the salary, free time and the amount of teacher’s work not in the best way. The general bureaucratization of schools is also affecting - more and more often teachers, in addition to educational functions, also perform purely administrative (for example, filling out journals, keeping records).
Many specialists lost their jobs in the “saints” of the 90s, the majority still find it difficult to find work in their specialty, and politicians, instead of solving the problems of education, offer teachers to “go into business”.
Correspondents of ROT FRONT talked with a worker in the field of education to look at the problems of this area from the inside.
- Why did you become a teacher? After all, those in power directly tell your colleagues: “If you want to earn money, go to business.” Or did the choice of profession come from the humanistic desire to teach the younger generation?
- I went to teachers 20 years ago, when everything was still a little different. We learned from the remnants of the Soviet system. We were lucky to learn from teachers of Soviet hardening and Soviet wonderful textbooks. We were lucky, we got an extensive practice. And the phrase "want to make money - go to business" has not yet existed. Although, of course, the goals and values of young people were no longer Soviet, the benefits of the profession and the desire to get comfortable in life for many were fundamental in determining the path of life. But not for everyone and not for me. I belonged to the category of youth formed by the Soviet system, goals and values were different than getting a lot of money. The prestige of the profession did not interest me.
But I did not go to teachers because of some lofty goals and ideals. At the age of 17, there was still no certainty with the profession, I just did not want to take physics and mathematics when I entered, I wanted to study in my city. Mom advised me to go to teacher training college (in the past, teacher training school, teacher training school), and I went there. What I do not regret at all: there was a wonderful teaching and student team, an atmosphere of indifference and collectivism nurtured a love of work, hard work and responsibility. And there was a good, largely Soviet still, school. A lot of practice - starting with the first year of study, one week in our week was devoted to practice in primary and secondary schools. From the first year we conducted classes every week, classroom hours, lessons, watched and analyzed the lessons of experienced teachers and our classmates. They read and studied Makarenko. Very fond of studying; Institute, which was very easy to enter after a technical school, graduated with honors. Probably, all this later sent to pedagogy.
So there weren’t any initial callings or a call from the heart, but the spirit brought up and formed by the college to educate and educate the younger generation appeared as a result of studying in it.
- How does the salary of a teacher differ in the capital and regions? How many bets do you need to work to survive?
- Honestly, I did not compare. There are no examples of metropolitan areas to compare. After all, numbers on the Internet are far from always real data - beautiful numbers, a sad point. Rumor has it that salaries in Moscow are much higher. My salary is about 18-20 thousand rubles. This is pretty good for our city and region when working on one bet. I work at stake, I have enough for a living. But in fact, I carry out the work that several specialists must do. So, at my stake, as a narrow specialist working with difficult children, I am supposed to work with 12 students. I have 65 of them. This is an individual diagnosis of each, a mountain of documents, again, for each, work with notebooks of each student.
There must be 12, there is 65 ... Is this a bet? This is a huge overload and chronic work at night. And specifically, I have lessons on the bet. How is that? It’s just that children are united in groups not only for 3-5 people, as it should ideally be, but for 6, and 8, and even 10-11! Of course, the effectiveness of such work is noticeably lower. But, it would seem, what to complain about? After all, there are no more than 20 lessons. However, everything is not so simple: after all, each of 65 needs to be examined twice a year individually (if with 12 children, this is 24 hours of work at the beginning and at the end of the year, not including paper , then from the 65th - this is 130 hours of work at the beginning and from the end of the school year), write, count, fill out a whole mountain of papers for each of them. At 12 to write or at 65? There is a difference, isn't it?
And besides these guys during the school year we have to work with others. The leadership of our school understands this, so the salary is slightly higher than it could be, due to incentive and some other allowances. The director says bluntly: "4 specialists of each profile should work for us, but I managed to knock one out with difficulty and blood . "
I know that in some schools they get 12 thousand per bet. Many teachers are forced to live and work for one and a half. Moreover, often one and a half bets are loaded as two, or even two and a half, while the salary when working for one and a half bets is no longer one and a half times, but only 3 thousand rubles. But often all teachers work for one and a half (in fact, often for two) rates even not because they want to earn more, but simply they are not offered other options.
The teacher shortage is catastrophic. However, the policy is such that it is not necessary to take “extra” teachers, it is necessary to “load” the existing ones. So it turns out that one teacher does not conduct 20 lessons per week, as expected, but all 30, or even 40. But when he checks the notebooks, prepares for lessons, writes mountains of papers? Indeed, all this requires more time than the actual conduct of the lessons. In the evenings and nights. When does he deal with classroom issues? Add this time to hours of lessons.
The load is inconceivable, in fact. And such a load is far from always obtained because of the desire to earn more and is not always voluntary. A few examples. Some time ago I worked in a kindergarten. The nanny who worked in my group had a higher pedagogical education, according to which she could work as a music director. But she was not hired for this position, because she was not ready to work at once on two bets, only one. And such an employee is not needed now. We need someone who will plow two in fact, one and a half - according to the documents. How it is paid, I spoke above. At the same time, there was no music worker in the garden. Who performed its functions? And already overworked, working in two shifts, educators.
The second example is today's. At school (as in all schools) there are fewer teachers than necessary. Suddenly, the subject teacher of one of the main subjects fell seriously ill. A meeting of primary school teachers is being convened, and the school’s administration is tearfully asking teachers to take the lead in the 6th grade! In the 6th! Primary school teachers! And there’s nobody else to ship. No one agrees. People talk about overload and that they do not know enough about the subject. The head teachers, whose situation is also hopeless, in general, say a brilliant thing: "No one will leave this room until there are those who will conduct the subject in 6 classes."
The main subject, many hours. As a result, three teachers are forced. One of them immediately writes a letter of resignation. The rest will plow. Another example is a kindergarten colleague recently told. The working week began to make 53 hours. This is only work with children! Nobody takes into account nightly paper work. And her state of health does not allow her. She stated this to the management, to which she received an answer that such employees are not needed. I myself was in a similar situation when I wanted to go on a bet, but I was told that they did not need such teachers. You can argue, you can sue, but if there is no support from the masses, then you are powerless in this struggle.
And people agree because there is something to eat and something to feed the children.
So work at two bets is not so often a voluntary choice because of the desire to earn more.
- What bureaucratic obstacles does a modern teacher meet in his everyday work?
- There are a lot of papers. Every year more and more unnecessary reports become. In addition, there are paper and electronic magazines. Teachers are required to participate in the work of various Internet platforms, in useless contests. It is reporting and other documentation that more and more comes first, to the detriment of working with children. It is this work that is checked by different checking structures, clinging to each comma. And more and more reports are coming down, all new and new scribble.
- Since we are talking about papers. Do education workers often have to purchase consumables at their own expense? Print reporting and methodological documentation? Is this a rule, or rather an exception?
- This rule is. We print out all the documentation at our own expense. The second option is at the expense of the parents, when they bring paper for the printer, buy ink or ink cartridges for the printer in the classroom. I am a specialist, therefore I have neither my class, nor a printer, except for a home one. Accordingly, I buy all the paper and all cartridges myself, at my own expense. The amount of papers is huge now. So, in September, it takes me about two or three packs of paper and a couple of cartridges for a laser printer. My colleague, who does not have a printer at home, has to constantly look for where to print, often this is the expensive printing parlor.
Primary school teachers and kindergarten teachers have to print a lot. These are various documentation and handouts. When I had to work in these positions, I did everything with my money. Taking money from parents is an extremely unpleasant task for any teacher, it’s easier to pay out of pocket. And all the benefits that my colleagues and I use are acquired by us independently. You can not do this. But how then do you do your job? For me personally, this is impossible. I had to work in several educational institutions, such a situation was everywhere. I must say that schools and kindergartens do not allocate money for this. After all, institutions are autonomous, which means they must provide for themselves. School money is sorely lacking even for textbooks, what can we say about the reporting and methodological documentation of teachers.
With textbooks, in general, everything is interesting. Once every few years, the ministry announces that the textbooks on which the schools have just worked are now declared unfit, and it is necessary to acquire others (of course, strictly defined and strictly defined publishing houses). And the schools are spinning as best they can - they are looking around the city and on the Internet, suddenly someone resells something from their hands; they hand over waste paper to use the proceeds to buy textbooks (this is enough for a very small amount); looking for sponsors; and "bow to the feet of the parents." The situation is absurd and catastrophic.
- By the way, how can you currently characterize the attitude of parents to teachers and to the education system as a whole? How are consumer “notes” heard?
- Yes, the attitude of parents is mainly consumer. A different attitude is, rather, an exception to the rule. Well, what is the attitude of the parents, this is the case with children. The same attitude of parents and students to the teacher and to study is one of the significant reasons for teachers to leave education.
- As in other significant areas, youth plays an important role in education. What is the level of knowledge of young specialists who have just graduated from institutes? What is their attitude to the profession, are they very disappointed with the current education system in the country?
- I would not give a low assessment of the level of their education. Although I do not know how competent I am in this. There are very good young teachers. But now it’s much harder for young people, it’s more difficult for them to start than earlier than in Soviet times.
Then they taught specific work technologies, provided the pedagogical process with the necessary textbooks, manuals, manuals. There was a respectful attitude of parents and children. And there were no such overloads that did not leave time for the beginning teacher to learn how to work efficiently. A lot of useless paperwork, no less useless participation in competitions, the need for pseudo-educational, and sometimes anti-educational activities, ugly programs and textbooks, and most importantly - consumer, extremely disrespectful attitude of parents, and after them children, all of which pushes young people out of school .
- We started a conversation about the fact that you studied the profession from teachers of the Soviet school, according to Soviet textbooks. Why do you think the Russian state is destroying the Soviet education system, although even Western countries recognized it as the best in the world?
- Because capitalism. In the West, education is not so good. There is a rigid division of schools and other educational institutions depending on the material well-being of the student’s family: whoever has the money learns; whoever does not have one does not study.
- Did the education system degrade with the introduction of the exam? This exam is also part of Western standards of study.
- It’s hard for me to judge this, since I have never worked with this. Of course, you have to spend part of the training time on dragging children for the exam. Moreover, the core tasks of the exam go beyond the school curriculum, which is fundamentally wrong. How can I check the level of knowledge for a high school course by issuing assignments from a university program? Absurd. I had to take the OGE in the 9th grade. This is an abnormal stressful situation for students and educators.
My opinion is this: the USE is not a cause, but an element of the degradation of education, one of the ways to destroy education, along with specialized training, optimization, the dominance of papers, the creation of a certain attitude towards education and school in society.
- One of the pillars on which the Western education system stands is specialization. A situation where parents, together with students, and sometimes from the first grade, choose subjects that they think will be most useful, for example, for entering a university. There is a division of disciplines into “necessary” and “unnecessary”. In this regard, I would like to know how often situations happen when students do not pay due attention to subjects that, in their opinion, are not required for subsequent admission to universities?
- Situations are different. There are guys who are serious and interested in studying. Most are configured differently. The attitude is consumer and, at the same time, not serious. There is no serious attitude even to those items that must be taken. Many do not do homework, do not do tasks in the classroom. It seems that they expect that the teacher will do everything for them, this is his responsibility, and the student’s efforts are not required. There are cases when children choose an object for passing at random, completely unprepared and poorly knowing even the elementary. There are times when students threaten teachers: “If I do not pass the exam, we will complain about you” or “If I do not pass the exam, I will commit suicide”. I have witnessed such situations. Partly, the attitude of children towards learning can be understood - indeed, because they will continue to study and go where they need to, the one whose parents arrange it and provide it. A place in the sun depends more on the financial investments of the parents than on the efforts of the child. And the guys see one goal - to get comfortable and richer in life, they don’t know other goals.
From the editors.
Many activists and socio-political figures consider the problem of degradation of education in isolation from the existing economic system, they say that specific political figures are to blame, but you just need to carry out the necessary reform - to abolish the exam or even return the Soviet education system, as the problem will be solved by itself. At the same time, they forget that the state of education is a reflection of the state of industry. The Russian Federation "honorably" takes the place allocated to it by the countries of the First World on the periphery of the capitalist system. The remnants of the factories built by Soviet citizens continue to ruin the "effective owners." And the country of peripheral capitalism cannot afford industry. The sale of our resources with you is the source of enrichment for large domestic capitalists.
“The drawback of the Soviet education system was an attempt to create a Human Creator, and now our task is to grow a qualified consumer,” as former education minister Andrei Aleksandrovich Fursenko stated .
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