Showing posts with label Olga Vasilieva. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Olga Vasilieva. Show all posts

Friday 1 February 2019

Russia’s Education Woes

     We will often find that the reformers of  our education system including Olga Vasilieva, the Minister of Education and Science of Russia, went to traditional school. I believe they perhaps had a few boring teachers, or they felt education was too traditional for them, so they come out and spent their lives trying to reform the education system as best they can. And they mistakenly think that the Russian children nowadays are receiving the same eduction as the one they did.
     However, the result is that they create the situation where a number of children no longer have access to that essential ‘bag of goodies’. A bag of goodies which they themselves got from their traditional educations and have benefited from this bag so well throughout their lives. In other words they climbed the ladder to the top then ‘unwittingly’ pulled the ladder up from under them.
     A number of reformers in our education system believe, for instance, that we are educating our children for the 19th century world. But it would be a mistake to believe that our classrooms are like the 19th century classrooms: there are no canes, no inkwells, no cursive writing, no memorisation, no rote learning, no chanting – no; there’s lots of group learning , there’s lots of asking the children what they think of their teacher and so on – nothing like the 19th century classroom.
     I believe that in fact the problem is that the reformers    misunderstand what ought to be in that bag of goodies –  they misunderstand the essential parts. Let’s take Eton, for example. For super-wealthy Russian MPs, education at one of Britain’s top traditional boarding schools has become as desirable as a pad in Mayfair. Kitting out your little Boris or Svetlana in boaters and blazers has a particular cachet, and that is unlikely to change even if sanctions affect Russia’s relationship with the West (in Sep 2016 Eton boys secured private audience at the Kremlin with Vladimir Putin).
      Eton has very traditional education;  and I’m sure everyone would agree that this is an extraordinary school. Though Eton has two interactive white-boards in its school – we have more interactive board in any primary school here in Smolenk than in Eton. Yet, in the state sector every classroom has in interactive white board, every teacher (there is an expectation) should be using those interactive white boards.
     In Eton where there is a very good education, children will learn Geography instead of taking Travel & Tourism courses: in Eton, they are doing Geography, Ancient History and Latin, and so on.
     One can hardly accuse Eton of  not being able to create creative thinkers when the likes of George Orwell, Hugh Laurie and James Bond himself (or rather I suppose I should say Ian Fleming) went to Eton.
     There’s a quote that I like which sums up what I’m saying: “The education that is best for the best is the education that is best for all.” And I believe that only when we understand the concept of rejecting some reform and embracing some tradition, only then will we be able to move our schools out of chaos and place them firmly in the 21st century.
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