Forbes Life took a look at schools created with the support of Forbes list members.

School "Letovo" Vadim Moshkovich

The reputation of the future school (the opening is scheduled for September 1, 2018) is ahead of reality. Three years before the start of construction, Vadim Moshkovich (graduate of the 57th Moscow School of Mathematics) and school director Mikhail Mokrinsky (former director of Lyceum 1535 on Sportivnaya, the best school in Moscow and Russia) made dozens of trips to personally study the systems of general education in Europe, America and Asia. The school program is divided into eight subject areas, great attention is given to interdisciplinary connections. Built into the educational process different types experience: creativity, scientific, research, project activities. educational model combines the consistency and integrity of the program with the choice of an individual trajectory of the student's development.

Training will begin at Letovo from the 7th grade. Recruitment is on a competitive basis: you need to have high marks in Russian, foreign languages and mathematics, achievements outside of school and pass a test from a school psychologist, revealing the characteristics of motivation. The consonance of the goals and values ​​of the family and the school is also important. Families of students enrolled in the school are scoring, for which Sberbank is responsible. School fees are calculated based on scoring results. Talented but poor can count on 100% coverage of study costs with a scholarship. To talk with students in "Letov" will be on "you".

“I am sure that our project will change the attitude towards non-state education. Non-state education and how it was originally laid down is a niche story. Motivated children were more likely to choose public schools. We hope that Letovo will be perceived not as a non-state school, but as an independent school with its own target audience,” says director Mikhail Mokrinsky.

The cost of education is 1.1 million per year. Excluding scholarships

Oleg Deripaska and MES

The Moscow School of Economics was founded in 1993 by employees of the Moscow Department of Education Yuri Shamilov, Olga Snyatkova and Valery Svetlichny with the support of a group of businessmen led by Yuri Milyukov, at that time the president of the Moscow Commodity Exchange. Over time, the project was supported by businessman Oleg Deripaska and former president of Svyaz-bank Alla Aleshkina. Today the central building of the school and kindergarten is located in the Krasnaya Presnya region, the branch is in Odintsovo. “The idea is to create a school using the best pedagogical experience of Russian and foreign schools. This is how the first International Baccalaureate school in Russia was born. MES graduates, of which there are already more than 750 people, make up the community of successful Russian businessmen,” says the director of the Moscow economic school Natalia Kajaya. “Our students, and we call all children that way, starting from the age of three, have the opportunity to receive two diplomas: a certificate of the Russian Federation on complete secondary education and a certificate of the IB diploma program,” said Ilya Gegeshidze, Deputy Director of the IES.

Tuition - 1 million per year

New school of Nikita Mishin

On September 1 of this year, the New School opened in Moscow, created by the charitable foundation "Dar" of entrepreneur Nikita Mishin. “If a society wants to be successful, it must take care of education. As a humanities student with a degree in teaching philosophy, the topics of pedagogy have always been close to me. In my circle it was often discussed what a really good woman should be. modern school how much it can and should take from the classical tradition. It took us thirteen years to open our school,” Nikita Mishin told Forbes Life. The building on Mosfilmovskaya Street was designed specifically for a school for 600 students. “When choosing a team of teachers, we were looking for interesting and original professionals in their field, as well as motivated young professionals. Our teachers are not indifferent, working at school is not just a job for them, but a matter of life,” says the director of the school, Kirill Medvedev. The Department of Literature was headed by Sergey Volkov, former teacher Russian language and literature of the 57th school, one of the best Russian language teachers.

The cost of training is 400,000 rubles per year

First Moscow Gymnasium of Elena Baturina

The First Moscow Gymnasium was founded in 2002 by Elena Baturina on the basis of a Soviet pioneer camp near the village of Nikolina Gora. After 5 years, the deal with Baturina was made by the former vice president of Norilsk Nickel, Anatoly Avdeev. “The Soviet school was distinguished by patriotism, the quality of knowledge, high level disciplines. These three things are of particular importance to us. We are creating an alternative to foreign education so that the child does not leave, but studies in his native country, at least until he reaches the age of 21,” Avdeev is sure. He believes that a citizen can only be brought up by the joint efforts of the family and the school. “If parents have not created conditions in the family for normal upbringing, then the child, no matter how the school deals with it, will not become a citizen with high moral and ethical qualities.” Therefore, Avdeev personally meets with all the parents of applicants for study at the gymnasium.

Tuition fee - 1.7 million rubles per year, entrance fee - 1.5 million rubles

Pavlovsk Gymnasium Sergei Bachin

The gymnasium, designed for 880 students, was opened in New Riga in September 2009. Ten hectares are kindergarten, school, sports and cultural-administrative complexes. The idea of ​​​​creation belongs to the general director of the Rosa Khutor resort, Sergei Bachin and his former partners. "I was brought up Soviet system education, I believe that it was one of the best in the world. At the same time, when he lived and worked in the States, he saw their best private schools and very decent public educational institutions. I had the opportunity to compare the two systems. When he returned to his homeland with his children in 1998, he faced the collapse of the education system: complete neglect and lack of discipline reigned in schools. None of the then educational institutions even remotely resembled the ideal model that I imagined. The state of the school reflected the general situation of the collapse of the system. It was painful to watch how everything that was strong collapses Soviet Union: heavy engineering, rocket science ... Research in the field of fundamental sciences has ceased. It was then that the understanding came that the time had come for my essential choice of how to live on. The realization has also come that it is possible to change something in the world around us only by personal example. In general, the same approach applies to raising children. I proceed from the fact that we are not temporary workers on this earth. And my mission, no matter how pathetic it may sound, is the revival of the country through the education and upbringing of children. I want to live in my homeland, raise my children here, and so that my children and grandchildren and grandchildren of grandchildren live here, - Sergey Bachin told Forbes Life about his decision to build a school: In preparation for the construction of the school, I studied the literature on architecture and the history of education. After all, buildings are built for 100 years, and educational program outdated every 10 years. Thus, a large educational complex was created with the most modern infrastructure and technical equipment at that time: rarely does anyone think that for an active thought process, children need oxygenated air and a certain temperature regime. During the construction, we not only complied with the requirements of SanPin, we deliberately exceeded them by applying the norms of class A office space,” the entrepreneur notes.

Now Sergei Bachin heads the Board of Trustees of the gymnasium. The council meets once a month, and besides, Bachin is in constant interaction with the director of the gymnasium, Olga Ragozhina.

Sergei Bachin is convinced that the future elite should be brought up on Russian soil. “I am sure that the socialization of a child should take place in his native country, next to his parents. And here, after all, how it happens - they sent the child abroad to study and they think that they have fulfilled their duty. And when a child returns home, there is a gap between him and his parents.

The task of our gymnasium is to raise and educate the future elite of the country, patriots of their Fatherland, who know and understand the history of our Motherland, share its spiritual values, and form the right social guidelines. Belonging to the elite is due to an excellent education, socio-cultural level, moral and ethical values ​​and, of course, responsibility for oneself, for society, for the country.

I believe that I am solving a task on a national scale - the education of the future Russian elite, the children of today's political and economic establishment, who will rule Russia in 5-10 years. And we educate the future elite on Russian soil, so that children absorb the best Russian traditions and spiritual values. I emphasize, and this is my tough position, we do not train personnel for "abroad", which is why we are not supporters of the "International Baccalaureate" system, and this is our fundamental difference from other private schools that prepare children for admission to Western universities and colleges . We guide our students towards admission to the most prestigious Russian higher education institutions.”

The cost of training is 1.5 million rubles per year

He continues his research in the field of pedagogical innovation. The object of attention of the winter session was the school, which is called “New”, the excursion to it allowed the participants to personally assess the degree of novelty.

The Moscow New School in its ideological incarnation has existed since 2005, but it has acquired its walls only recently. The Dar Foundation, managed by Yulia Veshnikova, spent 12 long years searching for a building, forming a team of like-minded people and understanding the concept of an approach to education.

On September 1, 2017, the process of learning and settling in began at the New School, since attending classes and obtaining the necessary knowledge for life should not go against life itself, full and rich. Teachers of the New School believe that childhood does not end at the threshold of school, and academic results are the fruits of a keen interest in learning, and not effective cramming. More and more often in pedagogical circles there is a not stupid idea that children are, first of all, people, and not students. This “human” approach to education is based on the idea of ​​free choice and taking into account the characteristics and interests of children. So in the New School, the implementation of the skills and abilities of the child and teaching harmonious interaction with the world is at the forefront. However, first things first...

Coffee and croissants with the friendly director of the New School, Kirill Medvedev

“There should be some kind of “safe” place for teachers in the school,” said Kirill Medvedev, director of the school. In the New School, such a place is a cafe for adults. It was there, in complete "safety", that the first part of the meeting of the School of Teachers and Principals took place. The New School team, from director to curators, is very young (if not in age, then in spirit). Surprisingly, we managed to gather professionals who absolutely do not know how to boast about this and are burning with the idea of ​​educating thinking people who are ready to make decisions and bear responsibility for them.

Children and parents are selected to match: it's a common thing. Therefore, an interview with parents is an obligatory stage of entering a school, says Sergey Plakhotnikov, head of an elementary school ( note: on his bright red sweatshirt, the inscription “Opened notebooks, closed mouths” flaunts - one of the most common phrases secondary school now going down in history).

demonstrates to the participants of the Winter session the “carpentry” device

Mathematics, Russian and English, of course, have not been canceled either, but it is more important to check whether all three partners are suitable for each other: student-teacher-parents - no one is going to play "tug of war" here. Even in the short history of the school, there was a precedent when parents, amazed at the lack of diaries, grades and comments with a red pen, were so confused that they took a completely happy girl into a structure that was more understandable to them (nothing is known about her further fate, but, we think, more and more - less good). And the school reserves the right to refuse admission without giving reasons, which, to be honest, only doubles the demand.

By the way, about the economy: one month of a child's education at the New School will cost parents 40,000 rubles. True, this amount includes meals in the school restaurant (the creators insist on this name, admittedly, not without reason), as well as a package of additional education courses. However, the New School is still not a story of making money, because the conditions created in it for students, equipment, building maintenance are much more expensive. For example: one hall for the so-called "3D-physical education", which has everything - from a climbing wall to a slide - cost, according to the most rough estimates, 1 million 800 thousand. rubles. At the service of children at school - pottery and cooking, carpentry and a 3D printer, and even a huge aquarium with a couple of friendly green geckos, whose name was chosen through an open competition. And the theater hall of the New School could be the envy of some Moscow chamber theaters.

The theater hall of the New School can put on real performances and hold school meetings

Much attention is paid to sports and technology in the school. Seven teachers of sports disciplines (including rhythmic gymnastics and wrestling) and four teachers of technology work with children. There is no grading system: the motivation to study at the New School is being stimulated by other means. There are no calls from the lesson and to the lesson. They are replaced by philosophical remarks a la “Nine-thirty-nine, have you managed to do everything?”...

They also try to avoid homework - there is already a lot of work in the classroom. Children have adopted the so-called "visiting" (walking around the classrooms and getting to know other parallels), some of the classes take place in mixed groups. In early December, the first school assembly was held. For high school students, a student served as a "pass" to the assembly elementary school with whom it was necessary to get to know and make friends. The selection process at the meeting of generations proceeded from personal sympathies, similarities. But "no one left offended."

Once a month, children visit the museum, choosing it in advance. School meetings are held weekly. Parents are attracted to physical education classes (“exercises with parents”), as well as joint evenings, often with a guitar, games, and creative improvisation.

New School Gym

In the main school, tutors and mediators (special people designed to resolve emerging conflicts) work with students. Tutors serve as a kind of "structuring mirror" for a teenager: they fix his goals, aspirations, changes in interests, but do not press, do not call for responsibility and do not reproach. For three months, more than one hundred and thirty training seminars were held for teachers and tutors.

The system of additional education is also widely developed. Currently, about four hundred and eighty children are studying in the program. The main areas are sports, music, art and technology. There are classes in robotics that are very popular, no doubt - computer classes. Ethnic drums and electric guitar are preferred to piano lessons. Both boys and girls attend cooking classes.

Yana Kudryavtseva, Director for the Development of Additional Education at the New School, talks about the specifics of her field

The new school, in a sense, “trolls” the prohibitions adopted in the old school: in the corridors and the reading room you can find an electronic piano and a drum kit with invocative inscriptions “You can play!” (fortunately, in modern world headphones are widely used).

In the New School, writing on the walls is allowed!

If everywhere children are forbidden to draw on the walls, then here even special walls are created for writing and drawing. So what?! After all, this is self-expression!

Moreover, according to teaching staff and the administration of the New School: “A school is not only walls!” And even, it would be more accurate to say, first of all, they are not.

Photo by Nikolai Seredin

Interesting topic professional development teacher and leader?

Kirill Medvedev

Candidate of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, one of the methodologists of the Teacher for Russia program, director of the New School

Sergey Volkov

teacher of Russian language and literature at school No. 57 (1992–2015), associate professor of the Faculty of Philology at the Higher School of Economics (2011–2015), head of the department of literature at the New School

Julia Veshnikova

Graduate of the Faculty of Philology of Moscow State University, Director of the "Dar" Foundation, founder of the "New School"

- What principles did you follow when creating the "New School"?

Medvedev: Any school is looking for an answer to the question of what should be modern education. In private schools, a common theme is closedness: we just want to work in the openness paradigm, we try to attract professionals who are of interest to us. In this sense, the New School is a socio-cultural project that includes both the school itself and the educational center.

Veshnikova: At school, we strive to turn almost everything into the educational process. What is called "Education-360", when the child is constantly in the process of learning. Unfortunately, Primary School often makes the child ask as few questions as possible. And only growing up, people understand that the right question is 80 percent the solution to the problem. So we encourage children to learn to ask questions.

Your school welcomes future students from the doorway with an unusual space. What kind of interaction do you expect with him?

-Medvedev: We are building a school - an environment for the development of the entire community - children, parents, teachers. The corridor, for example, not only performs a transport function, but is also a place where a child could interact with the school, study, and communicate. We didn't add a lot of color on purpose, because we think it should come along with the kids, who will rethink and refine it. It is the same with the cabinets: they are arranged in such a way that they can be quite freely handled with furniture. As you can see, the topic of choice and awareness is very important for us: children must appropriate the space and decide for themselves what will be there. We have a nice fantasy - to put electronic musical instruments with headphones next to the music room so that children can play without disturbing anyone.

The same is with the center of additional education, working in the afternoon. At this time, completely different people, including adults, will come here, and for them this space should also be unusual, conducive to classes.

The list of summer reading for New School students is quite extensive and differs from the programs of the leading liberal arts schools in Moscow. Will it be a purely author's course with a certain trajectory and aimed at a certain result?

Chemistry laboratory

© New School

- On what basis was the corps of teachers recruited?

Volkov: I recruited philologists. I needed people who know the subject, are adequate, who are interested in life, who are ready to listen and hear others, enter into a dialogue with the student and who themselves want to learn. They took them.

Medvedev: Interesting and original people are important to us, but the most important thing is that they be professionals. An essential factor is the value system: a person should not care, because work at school is, of course, a matter of life. The ability to negotiate and compare expectations with colleagues and children is important. We have an emphasis on the tradition of strong schools, but at the same time, we expect teachers to be flexible, able to learn about the world and respond adequately to it.

Veshnikova: The school is supposed to teamwork, but the team consists of pedagogical stars. People should be able to listen to each other and - despite the fact that they are masters of their craft - to change their minds if someone's arguments convinced them. But this should not be confused with a betrayal of principles. Rather, it is about willingness to revise professional approaches. Unfortunately, some inertia is typical for star teachers, but we tried to gather those who take the trouble to think and try something new. And our director makes it possible to work in a team without an authoritarian regime. In my opinion, this compares favorably with most of the very good schools in which a vertical of power is built and all decisions depend on one person. And if this person - a star - leaves the project, then in a couple of years the school is closed. It was important for us to build a systemic thing that will live for centuries, like Cambridge: it is not the name of the director that matters, but a set of principles that work for a common brand. I hope that Kirill Vladimirovich will have the courage to cope with this, because everyone has the temptation to take everything into their own hands.

Medvedev: I have been in a school and university environment for a long time and I know how difficult it is to build a horizontal structure when teachers or heads of departments get together and really decide something. But at the same time, the inclusion of horizontal elements has a big payoff for everyone. Therefore, we try to keep this regime as long as possible. Of course, there are moments when the situation does not come to a common solution, and here it is already necessary to turn on the classic vertical mechanisms.

Veshnikova: Yes, of course, in the process of daily (but I won’t say routine!) work of the New School, the administration, teachers, children will look for, develop, intelligently borrow and implement a variety of pedagogical and organizational approaches and solutions. But the main principles on which the New School is based will be preserved precisely as a system of values, as a base, as a foundation. Therefore, the fund, having prepared, organized, fully financed and launched our project, will not leave it after the start school year. And this is not only about material support, about funding that the school will need for a long time to come - we are creating the New School Board of Trustees and supervisory boards, which, without interfering daily with the work of the educational institution, will closely observe life and trends and guard the very values ​​​​of which I spoke above.

kitchen laboratory

© New School

Are you afraid that, having graduated from the New School, a person will be lost in a world of low educational requirements?

Veshnikova: Not at all. If a person has collected a certain number of necessary cognitive tools, he will find a resource for himself. He will be able to understand if he is there and if he has enough opportunities - and if not, how to get them. We want to create an atmosphere of good restlessness in the school, so that a person does not stop, but has the habit of constant self-development.

Medvedev: So it's easier to prepare for uncertainty. After all, no one really understands what to expect, what will happen in our lives in five years and how to move towards this. Everyone understands that changes are taking place, and it is important to learn how to cope with this somehow - both for a child and an adult. And not in ten years, but right now. This is a story about choice, and at school we will strive to develop, train the ability to choose. It is very difficult for adults to give a child a lot of choice, but we still think it is important to update this topic.

© New School

Today, in addition to specialized humanitarian (and not necessarily humanitarian) education in schools, there are many open lectures, seminars, many of which have been successfully institutionalized. Does the approach of the New School differ from the usual formats in which the figures of the bearer of knowledge are still in priority over those to whom this knowledge is intended?

Medvedev: Good question. We did not have the original task to be different. We did not think about the question “What would you like to give up in a public school?”. Rather, it is important for us to take something from there. But at the same time, we opted for individual learning trajectories that offer different opportunities for the child to manage their time. In high schools, which we have not yet launched, even individual schedules and individual educational plans. In general, this is a vector where you can move, build your program relative to it. This is not a humanitarian or mathematical profile - this is a personal profile of the student, which implies personal interests, opportunities and aspirations.
Well, the position of the “talking head” should a priori decrease. " talking head” implies a simple transfer of knowledge. It seems to us that it should not be so - even in cases where expert opinion is extremely important. There is an experience of colleagues from Yerevan, where no more than 15 minutes per lesson is allocated for a teacher's speech. We did not introduce such special rules, but we still tried to use the subject-subject form of interaction. It is, of course, difficult, but we are laying a route in this direction. Here important role plays and additional education, where completely different people come, unfamiliar to children, with whom you need to somehow interact. This is a story about emotional intellect which is often talked about now.

Volkov: Will there be lecture elements in our lessons? Yes, they will. Does this mean that we have usurped the right to knowledge and are broadcasting from above? Not at all. The lecture can and should go on in a constant dialogue. In a normal lesson there are always a lot of conversations, disputes, discussions. We do not have the situation when I know the truth and lead children to it: we all do not know and are looking for the truth. It’s just that I’m a little older and have trained more in this matter, that’s all my difference. And so we go together - and each at the same time in his own direction. The beauty of literature is that each person can give his own answer to the same question. If in math problem the answer in the class must match (which does not cancel the different solutions), then we have a coincidence of answers rather a minus than a plus.

Dining room

© New School

- Will communication be established with higher educational institutions(invitation of teachers, courses, use of methods) and if so, with what?

Medvedev: Interaction should be born naturally, and this is usually the way from below. We first establish communication, and then we institutionalize it. The question is only in specific tasks. Of course, we are in the neighborhood with Moscow State University and we have many contacts at the level of teachers: for example, our head of the biological and chemical direction closely cooperates with the Faculty of Biology and the Botanical Garden. There is also a connection with the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics in the mathematical direction. In the same Moscow State University, there are laboratories for which it may be important to reach out to specific children and offer them something.

Volkov: I myself also work at the Higher School of Economics and the Moscow Art Theater School, so there are already two universities. But seriously, we are building an open education that will be connected by many threads with the world in general and with higher education in particular. Well, it’s worth saying that the founder, and his director, and the director of the school, and, for example, I are graduates of Moscow State University: some of us studied together, walked along the same floors, soaked up the same university air. The school itself partly grew out of it.

- What is the profile of a student entering the New School? What are the expectations for them?

Medvedev: In short, it was important for us that the children already had some kind of subject-cultural base. When a child enters the 5th-8th grades, he already has a certain level. Our task is to determine this level and attitude to learning, so we had subject entrance tests (Russian language, mathematics, elements in English). And then it depends on age: in elementary school students, we were looking for curiosity and interest in learning. At the final stage, an interview was held with the child and parents: we wanted to find out whether we are close to the parents in our expectations and to what extent these expectations include the position of the child himself.

Medvedev: We do not want to take a model where along with the mark comes an emotional assessment and, as is often the case, an element of psychological pressure. In the assessment system, we strive to shift the focus from scoring to the issuance of feedback, with which it is necessary for a child, parent, and teacher to learn how to work. We can say that this is a super task for us.

Why do kids today go to school? What can teachers give them that parents, books, and the Internet can't? Anna Nemzer discussed this important topic with experts in the field of education:

Irina Bogantseva, director of the private school "European Gymnasium";

Kirill Medvedev, teacher of mathematics, head of the Creative Laboratory of the Second School Lyceum;

Konstantin Levushkin, teacher at the Letovo school, methodologist at the Arzamas academy and the Teacher for Russia program;

Dima Zitzer, teacher, director of the Institute of Informal Education INO.

Photo: Pavel Lisitsyn / RIA Novosti

Nemzer: Firstly, I congratulate you all on today, except, perhaps, Igor Moiseevich, but I also congratulate you just in case. I want to say that, of course, I took on a completely immense topic. Actually, this is an occasion for several round tables or a dissertation. I'm going to pick three or four points of discussion, and besides that, I'd like to try to focus us on a tunnel of conversation that today we're talking about the interests of the student. It is clear that the teacher and director have their own interests, but I think that each of those present in their work proceeds primarily from the interests of the student. Through this, I would like to build our conversation.

I conditionally designated the first part for myself as “Parent and child”. The first question I would like to ask Igor Moiseevich. Ideologists home schooling against the separation of the parent from the child. They say that the school is an institution that provides for this separation, but in principle it is not very natural and organic. Where to find such a parent who will be ready to give up their own interests and, perhaps, work and devote all the time to teaching a child?

Chapkovsky: There are quite a significant number of such parents, and it is growing. When we started (and we started in 1986, in another country and in other conditions), they were few. People then kept very closed, tried not to be indicated that they were such clever people, according to Soviet law they could be deprived of parental rights.

In 1992, a law allowed family education. So they called it, education in the family, and not an external student or something like that. For a long time, people actually did not react to this. Only in the last two years can we say that family education has become social phenomenon. Kommersant published information that 15% of people support this cause (this does not mean that they chose this form). These percentages are the result of other statistics recognized by the Ministry of Education. The level of education in the secondary school system is falling, and the school threatens the health of the child - this is also known.

Parents who are fixing the system say: "I need to educate my child." Where are these parents, I can tell you. There is a simple parental question: "We want our child to have a happy childhood, be healthy and that education does not encroach on either his happiness or his health."

Since many people have already gone this way and got successful results, the number of people is growing, plus the system itself is pushing for this by the circumstances that I told you about.

Nemzer: It's clear.

I'll ask one more question. How long do you think a joint parent-child project should last? Until the university, ideally, this should continue? How do you see this picture?

Chapkovsky: No. The fact is that a person becomes an adult. As he grows up, the rights that were formally legally represented by his parents are physically transferred to this child. Eat age-related psychology, which captures different moments. At some point, ordinary boys begin to appreciate their independence. If it is not taken into account, then nothing will work.

I will tell you in practice, looking ahead a little, that family education has a definite purpose. It is called simply - to teach a child to acquire knowledge independently. This usually happens after passing the preliminary stages, which I will not dwell on, by the seventh or eighth grade. Sometimes it never happens, so you have to babysit this child to university. But there are some numbers. How to achieve them, to teach a child to learn independently - this happens in many families.

Nemzer: The average temperature in the hospital - to the seventh grade ...

Chapkovsky: By the seventh more often girls, by the eighth - boys. They learn to learn on their own.

Nemzer: Okay, we'll get back to this conversation. Then I ask the representatives different schools. Indeed, school involves the separation of parent and child. When we say: “I do homework with my child until late in the evening”, as a rule, this is perceived as a deviation from the norm. When we say: “My child does everything on his own, I don’t take any part in this at all, he is absolutely independent,” this seems to be the norm, this is good.

Does the school involve some kind of parental involvement, is it necessary and to what extent? Irina Vladimirovna, maybe you will start?

Bogantseva: Our very conversation and the people who have gathered here testify to the fact that the school as an institution is going through a crisis. People see different ways out of this crisis. Exactly in your words, Igor Moiseevich, I thought 24 years ago, when I already had ten years of experience as a teacher at school, then I worked at the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences.

I had a third child, it was a girl (the first two were boys). Somehow I felt sorry for her. Such a small girl. Moreover, each time you learn to be a mother more and more. I did not see the way out of the crisis that you propose. I thought that I would make a kindergarten for this wonderful girl, very small, just so that the girl would have more girlfriends. Very intimate place.

This thread has continued. It turned out that a very good kindergarten cannot be made very small. All the best that I had to surround her: the best specialists, conditions - require financial investments. I’m not even close to being an oligarch, I didn’t have any special money, which means that I had to earn these investments without leaving the machine.

This is another way out of this crisis. Of course, when we say that the level of education is falling, this, comrades, is the average temperature in a hospital. There is no level of education. There is a second school, there will probably be another excellent school, there is the European Gymnasium, there are some schools of a completely different level not named here. We will add it all up and share it, this will be the level of education. This does not exist in nature.

Nemzer: We can not talk about the average temperature in the hospital now. I have a very specific question.

Bogantseva: As far as parents are concerned, of course, parents have very little experience of participation. The participation of the parent should not, in my opinion, consist in the fact that he should do homework with the child. For example, in the first class there should not be any homework. And then the child should more or less be able to do it himself.

The parent is not excluded. For example, one day the student's father came to the prom. I saw him for the first time. The graduation party was interesting, beautifully organized. He said: “What a good school it turns out to be!” He figured it out at prom. And who did not let him go on a hike with us, to go to Bashkiria, to Great Britain, to Italy on an art history excursion? Who did not let him come, as the Chinese mother did, and make us a tea ceremony? That dad, probably, also knew how to do something. By the way, he was a fairly well-known film director. There was an unplowed field for activity, no one would have stopped him, but somehow it didn’t occur to him. Although we encourage parents to participate in this way, to contribute to our common life.

Nemzer: That is, after all, parents are more likely to be incorporated not into the educational process itself.

Bogantseva: Why? It can also be an educational process. For example, we have a notary parent. Last year I taught social studies and invited her to the topic “Notaries”.

Nemzer: Wonderful.

Kirill, can you say how, from your point of view, a parent should fit into the educational process?

Medvedev: A few words about public schools. I would say that there are two points in the relationship between the school and parents that can be called bad. The first point is if the school is completely closed and will be protected from parents. Full of examples, this is very bad. Another option is if parents withdraw themselves from any interaction with the school and understanding.

If we are talking about family education, obviously they should be much more immersed in the fate of the child. When a child is sent to a public school, it does not mean that he was sent there. We have the jargon of "safe school" in our community: I turned in my child, now I'm free, I can go to work.

Bogantseva: In relation to a private school, this is an even more common position among parents. I passed, paid the money, what do you want from me now? Of course, it's sad when a parent takes this position, but it's not because the school is pushing him out, but because that's how he works, poor fellow. He loses something from life himself in this way.

Nemzer: Kostya, you are still building the school of the future, if you call a spade a spade. There is no school, it should start in 2018. How do you imagine this process, how do you spell it out?

Levushkin: I'm not a director, it was necessary to call Mikhail Gennadievich in this regard. I can only discuss this issue from the position of a boarding school teacher.

Nemzer: Wonderful!

Levushkin: Speaking from a teacher's perspective, my personal experience on interaction with parents was quite negative.

Nemzer: Your parents are bothering you.

Levushkin: Not for me. It's hard for me to interfere. I have a feeling that they interfered a little with the child. A catastrophe begins in high school, because parents embody their interests and desires through a child, through circles.

Nemzer: Can you give an example of how this was expressed?

Levushkin: These examples are full, from the choice of faculty and university to the choice of circles and a set of exams. I will give one example. The girl came to England to study the language. The first lesson was even more or less cheerful, then she burst into tears. They ask her what happened, and she says: “You know, my mother insisted that I learn six languages ​​​​in this camp.” On the sixth or even on the third it broke down.

When my parents quite often tried to interfere with my work, like “Give them more”, “Go with them more of this”, I had to cut it off very hard. I personally did not have a resource to work with parents, although it should be.

Chapkovsky: I want to say that in 1990, when I had already gained some experience, I published an article in the Chimes newspaper entitled “The system cannot be corrected, it is hostile to the child.” Even these arguments of teachers in relation to parents are condescending. I do not want to offend any of you, but these speeches are even illegal. The law provided for what we call in everyday life "parents are the main people for the child." The law formulated this very clearly: parents, legal representatives, have a priority right over all other persons, including teachers, in the field of upbringing and education.

I thought to myself: if I were a director, a person comes to me with a pre-emptive right in relation to his child, and I begin to explain to him: “You are doing it wrong, you are preventing me from studying.” Herself school system was considered by me as a system where parents are deprived of their parental rights. They are somehow shifted. From good teachers you can hear: "The parent interfered with teaching the child."

I believe that this is a huge distortion, which, of course, comes from how the class-lesson system was born. I can say in a nutshell: it was born as a request of an industrial society. Illiterate parents could not educate their children, the society took up their education. It is clear that for illiterate parents you were the priests of science. It was simply impossible to say something bad about a teacher until the age of 50. Then they began to sort it out somehow, when the system was corrected. Briefly, I can say this about it.

Bogantseva: About preemption. A perfectly real little example. Daddy sent the boy to our school and then wanted to talk to me about it. He says: “So I gave Sasha away, you keep him stricter. If necessary, then screw it up. I give you that right." He has the priority right, he delegates it to me.

I told him: “You know, we have concluded an agreement on six pages in small print regarding your child. There is not a single point that I will flog him. He says: "Look, I was flogged, and now I'm a businessman who can pay you, I'm cool." I sit and think: “If you hadn’t been flogged, maybe you wouldn’t have been a mediocre businessman, but would you have become the president of the country with your abilities, which they hammered into you with a nail, blocked you?”

I don’t tell him this, I just answer: “You know, we probably won’t be able to cooperate with you. Our pedagogical concept does not provide for your pedagogical measures.” He went to some other place to exercise his preferential right, but we did not join this right.

Chapkovsky: This is fine.

Bogantseva: So rights are different, you know? Many parents dispose of the child as if it were their own. And this is not so. They did not give birth to a child into the world in order to do whatever they want with it and out of it.

Chapkovsky: If we criticize the school, I will tell you a lot. You start criticizing your parents. Parents are different.

Bogantseva: And schools are different. We will come to this and stop.

Nemzer: We really do not set ourselves the task of reaching an agreement; moreover, I do not believe that we will come to some kind of common answer. I think we can all agree that you can't flog.

Bogantseva: Why should we agree? Look, we present four different education options. Each of them has the right to exist. There is no need to prove: “I am so beautiful, I have everything right, and let the rest not exist.”

Chapkovsky: It's not about that. If we talk about the interests of the child, as the question was posed, for them, no one has been invented better than parents, that's all.

Bogantseva: There are different parents.

Chapkovsky: No. What does different mean? As soon as the rights of parents are violated, the collapse of the family and the state begins. Parents have a restriction, it is regulated by criminal law. Until then, there is no one better than parents, whatever they may be, for the child.

Bogantseva: This is your point of view, you can have it.

Nemzer: Dear friends, we have all spoken out on this issue. I think we'll move on to next topic, much more difficult and complex. I would like to bypass it, but, unfortunately, it will not be possible. One way or another, in a modern school, the child is really separated from his parents. One way or another, the modern school is an institution of hierarchy and power. With the most democratically minded directors and teachers, this is still a kind of pyramid headed by the director. Next come the teachers, at the bottom of the pyramid are the children.

The school has a problem of violence. I categorically do not want to discuss specific cases now, talk about bullying, about horizontal persecution of students by students or cases of violation of pedagogical ethics. There are a million of these cases, we will drown in them.

We would like to understand one thing. School, unfortunately, the structure is really hierarchical and not democratic in its structure. The student is somehow defenseless. If you do not give students full guarantees of safety, then how to create in them a feeling of protection, a feeling that they can come and talk about their problems?

Cyril, let's get started.

Medvedev: Because I am a representative of a public school, which is seen as a prototype of a terrible hierarchical pyramid that devours children at the lower level. In good schools, the design is multifaceted and multi-layered, on the different layers of which different things happen. In some situations there is no hierarchy.

I think colleagues in the school sector will agree that when they talk about a good school, they always talk about a good atmosphere, acceptance, mutual assistance, and so on. It is formed very subtly: for example, how a teacher addresses schoolchildren. He can call them friends, colleagues, he can really think so, and not do it for show.

At our school, for example, it is customary to communicate with children informally, go on hikes, organize camps. We don’t leave school and talk, and this is actually the security system of this whole complex system. There is some kind of self-government, a children's request, with which teachers work. Where the school is sensitive, it tries to build protective barriers and work with the parent so that the problem is not overlooked. It happens that parents do not see something that they see in the school walls, and vice versa. In this sense, the school has the option not to create a factory with pants color hierarchy levels.

Nemzer: I didn't even mean what you're talking about. All the same, one way or another, there are lessons, schedules, grades. It is clear that in good schools a lot of effort is spent to create a friendly atmosphere, informal relationships, trips and so on. But it is still quite difficult to get away from this structure.

Boarding school. The parent is separated from the child quite thoroughly. How to ensure the protection of the child there, how to create a sense of security for him, Kostya?

Levushkin: Are we talking about protection and safety or about the freedom of the child? I understand a little more about the second than about the first.

Nemzer: I think these are pretty closely related things. A free child feels free, among other things, to pay attention to his problems, not to be pinched.

Levushkin: Once again I will jump off the topic of the boarding school, because it has not yet been created, what can I say about this? Dima Zitser will tell you about this wonderfully if he joins.

If we talk about class boundaries, then these boundaries exist, of course. It is not possible to destroy them at school now. But you can blur them as much as possible. For me, the ideal student is the one who, in a year or six months, will begin to ask uncomfortable questions and do something like the following: at the beginning of the lesson, a topic, a question and a way to solve it are announced. The child says: “It seems to me that this method is not very successful. I'm in a so-so mood, especially after math, so let's restructure your lesson." The teacher must be ready for this.

I am not lying, this is an ideal, this year I will implement this model, abandoning the lesson system and conducting project cycles for at least three to five lessons, where children are free, work at their own pace and, unfortunately, decide in the given corridors, but those tasks that seem important to them.

Bogantseva: You spoke about the hierarchy and school as evil from the point of view of the hierarchy. In fact, when a child comes to first grade today, he already knows everything about hierarchy and power, because no one has and will never have such power that parents have. What is power, he knows, feels and will continue to feel. And we were attached only somewhere on the side, although we were attached, yes. You could say they added.

Indeed, I agree with you that the child should feel protected. If this is an elementary school, then we rely on the fact that the teacher should be the one who is this protection, including a pad between the children, which protects them a little from each other, sees them well and knows, loves and understands. It is easier here, because the children are small, this is not yet adolescence, when natural aggression is more developed in them.

When is this high school, from the fifth grade (just in the fourth they already enter adolescence) ... We have a very important tool in the school to protect children - school rules that have been around for about 15 years. They were developed by children, almost every year they change a little, because the real situation changes, through discussion at the school parliament. We have a body that is elected every year.

There was a case when one girl seriously violated discipline at school. The girl had recently come to school, probably did not yet know our rules very well. She was in the ninth grade. I was literally faced with the question that I should expel this girl from school. Many demanded it.

Nemzer: Teachers, your colleagues?

Bogantseva: And students. They are much stricter on everything than the teachers.

And I didn't want to do it. I thought: “She just came, she hasn’t settled in yet, you never know.” I come to the library and say: "Give me the school rules, I'll see what I should do in this particular case, what should I do." And the librarian says: “There is no copy, this girl took it.” She decided to study what would happen to her for what she had done.

You see, we both came to the same point. At this point, we do not have the arbitrariness of the director: I like or dislike this student, I will do this to him. There is some legislation, I want to act according to it. And she knows that they will do the same to her. This, in my opinion, is protection. This is called democracy, which is the worst form of government, except for all the others, as Churchill said.

Nemzer: Dima, we discussed a number of issues. Tell me, how do you think it is right to provide protection at school, how to provide some kind of immunity outside of school, and what do you think about all of the above?

Zitzer: Let's figure out who and from whom we want to provide protection.

Nemzer: There is a problem that I mentioned earlier. There are different variants of school violence, problems can arise in a variety of ways: horizontal, vertical, and so on. How to make sure that a child feels safe at school, knows who to go to with his misfortune, and so that the school hierarchy does not put pressure on him at this moment, so that he is free?

Zitzer: I suggest that you return to the topic of today's broadcast to answer this question. If I remember correctly, it sounds like "Why do we need a school?". It seems to me that the conversation goes all the time about why adults need school. Why do children need school? For me, the answer is quite obvious: a person will be protected at the moment when he finds himself in a place about which he understands very well what he is doing there, why he came there, why he chose him, what led him there, and so on.

If we remain in the paradigm that adult uncles and aunts will decide for creatures who do not understand very well, why they need a school, how to organize their life, life, and so on, it seems to me that a person can never be protected. This structure will not allow a person to be protected. He will always be in danger. I believe you understand why.

Adults are different. We've already talked about parents. And parents and teachers and random adults we meet. If we, as educators, are ready to say that we will decide for him, what kind of protection can we talk about? Is it possible?

Nemzer: Dima, I'm in the highest degree I welcome the transfer of all initiative to the child.

Zitzer: And who said that the entire initiative?

Nemzer: Looking into the eyes of reality: first class, the man is seven years old. I fully admit that there are situations when a child goes to school on September 1 for the first time, returns home, says: “I don’t want to anymore,” and the parent says: “Okay, as you say, it will be so.” But there are few such cases. Still, it is quite difficult to cross out the parental paternalistic model. How to be in this situation?

Zitzer: What does "parental paternalistic model" mean? One of the interlocutors said that the parent is the most main man for a child. Of course, this is true up to a certain age, up to seven years for sure. The parent falls into a multi-vector influence. It is influenced by the school, our program, articles, radio and so on. The parent, in a certain sense, finds himself in a field of hysteria, or, in any case, serious pressure. At this point, the parent needs help.

I don't subscribe to the idea of ​​a paternalistic parenting approach. It seems to me that everything is much more complicated and simpler. A parent is a person who loves him, often undividedly. The child definitely loves him unconditionally. The parent should be on his side. I will give you a simple example. How is the parent meeting organized in the first class? Adult uncles and aunts gather and, wrinkling their foreheads, discuss how to organize the life of a seven-year-old creature. I can't find another noun because there isn't one.

What will change, for example, dear friends, if the parent meeting is organized as follows: we will have a seven-year-old person you mentioned, mom or dad, a teacher, and they will all discuss how his life is organized? Can't we say more? Wouldn't the person feel protected at that moment? Will the teacher not understand at this moment that he is doing a really good and very important thing, because this is the very help and support of the individual? Won't the parent at this moment become calmer when he says: “Here he is, my beloved person, here is the teacher, important in his life, here I am. We speak together. It's called dialogue." Like this, for example.

You will tell me: "There is inertia, a certain model, in which we drag ourselves and our own children." Let's change it. No man will ban this form parent meeting that I'm talking about. There are schools where this model is implemented.

Chapkovsky: First of all, the question on your part does not take into account one obvious thing. The hierarchical model of the family has passed the test of human history and has led to the development of society. You omit one very important thing when you discuss the hierarchical model of the school. At the very bottom there is a community that does not exist anywhere else in life. It's called uniform. From the point of view of any psychologist, it objectively generates aggression.

Zitzer: If the adults decide that the same age will be closed in one circle, change this.

Chapkovsky: Communication of the same age is an objective environment for the emergence of aggression, because each person wants to be an individual. You didn't answer the question about why bullying exists. This is the same phenomenon, which has its own basis. One of its roots is peer-to-peer communication that exists nowhere else in life, except for the draft army.

You start talking about special schools, but how are schools built? on a territorial basis. Neighbors don't choose each other, the teacher doesn't choose his class. It's some kind of mechanical system. Bullying and hating is not just a property of our system. This is a worldwide phenomenon. The same-age group, which does not exist in life, turns out to be preparing for life. There are no such groups, she does not cook.

Nemzer: Dima, will you answer us something about this?

Zitzer: I don't quite understand what the question is. The description I just heard fits the prison, the army. If it's obvious, let's change this system. I categorically disagree with my colleague that only such schools exist. The global education system is changing dramatically. This is a completely different topic, but what has happened in the last 12 years, for example, in education in the UK, is a revolution. Perhaps it has not reached us or we do not want to see it.

I'm not saying that you need to do only as in the UK ...

Chapkovsky: What, they stopped smacking there?

Zitzer: Present this system as a given… First, it turns out that we, the adult world, organized it in this way and provoked bullying — I agree that it happens for this very reason or this is one of the reasons — and then shrug and say: “Friends, look, they are bullying, let's intervene again, ”it seems to me that it’s just dishonorable on the part of the adult world in relation to the children’s world.

If we understand what the reason is, then the force is on our side. This is not a joke, not a mistake, this is how the world works. In this sense, we can help them and ourselves, by the way.