The fruits of education: Russian schoolchildren confuse human decency with order

(* In order to better understand what are the roots of the problem it's important to know that both notions sound quite similar in Russian language - "poryadok / order" and "poryadochnost / human decency or moral probity", - editor's note)

It is known that in recent years in Russian schools the main emphasis has been placed on patriotic education, and children are instilled with the vicious patriarchal idea that love for the motherland is more important than not only human relations, but also a single human life. What this “work” of modern educators leads to is very clearly seen in the example that the Moscow journalist Irina I. cited in her blog:

“A relative came to me for the weekend - a school teacher from the Ryazan region. And she told how she tried to probe whether the seventh graders knew some concepts, the names of which had practically disappeared from everyday communication, and indeed from the Russian language.

Last week, at the end of the lesson, she asked:

- Who knows what reputation is?

Complete silence.

- Okay, let me ask a simpler question - what is good breeding?

After a long general silence, some teenager:

- This is so without swearing!

Well, when the friendly neighing subsided, the following question was asked:

- What is decency?

The boy and girl raised their hands. He answered first:

- Is it when everyone follows the established order?

- What's the order? Installed by whom?

- Well, those who tell us what to do and how, - the teenager explained, and the girl nodded her head and added that she also thought.

This is the kind of generation that grows and matures in the outback…”

They can disassemble the machine, but they don’t know who Shakespeare is

And here is what the Vladimir philosopher Vladimir Volkov writes in his publication, who decided to try himself as a history teacher in one of the schools in the city of Gus Khrustalny:

“Our patriot is always with a gun. At school, weekly teachers hold "talks about the main thing." But almost none of the students had ever been to the theatre. They are taught how to disassemble and assemble an automatic machine almost from the cradle, and the state has no money to take rural schoolchildren to the theater. The students do not know who Shakespeare, Moliere, Griboedov, Ostrovsky are. Haven't heard of Fonvizin, Dickens, Hugo, Stendhal, Thackeray, Zola. I'm not sure that all teachers have ever attended the theater. But everyone is busy with "military-patriotic education" ... "

In numerous comments, readers confirm that elementary concepts of morality are almost unknown to Russian schoolchildren:

- Yes, I confirm. We worked with such graduates of our university. In principle, they are not bad guys, but they don’t understand moral concepts at all, they don’t even know such words. And in general, the vocabulary is depressingly poor. Tired of their endless complaints against each other, they consider it quite in the order of things, to look for the guilty person anywhere, but not to ask from oneself, let alone mutual assistance and there is no question, she also asked how they understand the saying “Disappear yourself, but help out a comrade !" There was a deathly silence with painful thoughts on their faces. So no one answered. And there were countless such cases.

- And the children are different, and live in different conditions, and the teachers are all different, but if no one explained to the children what "reputation", "education" and "decency" are, then how are they supposed to know this? If children have not been taught to read the right books, watch the right movies and, above all, THINK, then there is no need to ask...

However, in the Soviet school, things were a little better:

- I have a question: have similar questions been asked before? I graduated from school in 1969, my husband - in 1966, and we do not remember that questions of this type were asked in the Soviet polytechnic school. Words were used, but no one was interested in their meaning. Learned-answered. Regarding the meager vocabulary: the children are all different and some have such a level that Soviet students never dreamed of.