It's so boring... The survey showed that schoolchildren do not read books from the literature program

Mikhail Pavlovets, a Moscow philologist and teacher at the Higher School of Economics, cited amazing figures in his blog. He reminded his readers that over the past 15 years, he and his colleagues have several times interviewed freshmen of the philological faculties of pedagogical universities about which works of the school curriculum they read in full, which ones are abbreviated, which ones are paraphrased, which ones they did not read at all. The results then turned out to be discouraging: future literature teachers in their majority did not read program books!

What about today? - asked the author, and decided to repeat his survey at the philological faculty of the country's leading university - NRU HSE.

“The results have not yet been summed up (yes, they cannot be considered sociological in the strict sense, but in a certain way they reflect the objective reality). I can tell right away that the results obtained do not differ much from what happened 13 or 8 years ago at the philological faculties of the pedagogues. So, for example, out of 34 interviewed third-year students of Gogol's "Dead Souls" at school, 6 people read in excerpts, and two more - in a short retelling (almost a quarter did not read it in full); Of 34 people, 11 of 34 people read Tolstoy's War and Peace, and three more read it briefly (more than a third!)

For those who say - "well, of course, this is HSE", let me remind you that:

a) those who passed the Unified State Exam in Literature under 100 points or won the Olympiads of the highest or 1st level study at HSE;

b) the overwhelming majority of them studied in the best schools with outstanding teachers, most of whom are firmly convinced that “everyone reads” with them;

c) when I showed the results of 2008 and 2013 to language teachers - they laughed bitterly and said that “those who entered the philological faculty, but in ordinary schools the results are even worse”.

By the way, yes - with great pleasure I would give our survey to pass:

a) students of philological faculties of today's pedagogical universities

b) graduates of ordinary schools who did not want to enroll in philology.

Moreover, the Ministry of Education is completely uninterested in such polls: they have long come to terms with the fact that they do not read texts in literature classes, but pass them through. Society is also generally satisfied with this.

By the way, out of 34 respondents, the main reason that prevented them from reading program works at school, 17 people named “It was not interesting” (exactly half!). And 6 people - "aroused rejection of the very subject of literature". And only two wrote - "I read almost everything"

At the very least, we can conclude that it was not literature lessons that brought many of these guys to the philological faculty. And yes, these are very cool guys, really well-read and versatile, and not only in Russian - it is very difficult to study at the philological faculty at HSE..."