A Defence of Grammars

"Against the conventional wisdom, we find little evidence that gaining entry into a grammar school has a positive impact“, the Telegraph, 23 May 2018.

      This leads us to an important conclusion: gaining entry into a grammar school in the UK may actually not be as important as many assume. But one thing this article has managed to avoid saying in its negative assessment of Grammar Schools is the utter failure of the system brought in to replace them, the "Comprehensive System". The comprehensive system has failed and it is, quite frankly, a national disgrace.

     It seems to me that if children are failing it is because the Government have experimented by introducing other kinds of education ie Academies; Comprehensives; Secondary Modern; Religion based schools and not concentrated enough on bringing the quality of education in these State schools up to the same level. It is the State schools that are failing children, because of degraded methods of teaching, not all, but most of them, not the Grammar or High schools.

     At the bottom this is not the fault of comprehensive schools or the comprehensive system itself. It is a direct consequence of academic capitalism and marketisation, which has brought about the replacing of developing deep learning through teaching all pupils in a cognitively challenging way by behaviourist cramming.

     There are few experienced teachers that deny this.

Dealing with Swearing and Bad Language in Class

Swearing and inappropriate language in schools, even in primary classes, is on the rise. 
     As a child, I don't remember hearing a swear word until I entered school. When I was in the Army COs swore like 'bloody troopers', and their wives had very obvious substitutes for swearing. But this time the decadence would be of a more explicitly sexual variety!
       Smolensk these days and the lives of the children I teach are full of foul language. It's in the halls, classrooms, you name it. It's part of their normal vocabulary. I was discussing with colleagues the possible reasons for this. When television shows programmes containing words we would not accept in our classrooms, how can we argue? 
      Essentially, the purpose of school is to teach children how to be functioning human beings at least, both in the workplace and in their personal lives. Therefore not allowing children to swear in class is essential practice. 

      It did not take long for pupils to realize that part of the mutual respect between themselves and me is the lack of swearing. If profanity is blatant and direct, I ask for an apology. Nine times out of ten, the student has already caught himself and has self-corrected and apologized. 

     I hope and dream of times where children use appropriate language but am I fighting a losing battle? 
     As the old social groupings of nuclear families, extended families and church communities are replaced by imagined Internet communities and the state, which is Puttin' money before people, we have a generation that includes many who are isolated and lonely, drifting without any moral anchor or structure to their lives, faced with an endemic on swearing.

Degradation

The days of chivalry and respect seem to be long gone these days. Over the past 15 years or so many people who live in Smolensk have become more rude and disrespectful. I believe there are many contributing factors that have led to this rudeness. Selfishness and greed for money have led to many other byproducts such as disrespect to people and the lack of accountability to anyone. Kids treat their parents and teachers with disrespect and also treat each other badly. 

I am a school teacher and have been for about 4 years now. For just the time I have taught at school I have seen a complete turnaround from when I came. The disrespect and attitude that some of people have is crazy.

We don’t question the conventional wisdom that childhood is in crisis; we want to say that poverty and terribly low moral standards that engulfed substantial majority of families and darkened their lives have become a new issue for the state system of education. It is not simply about raising the price of education; many more fundamental problems arise – schools know much more about the state of Russia Olympic Team than they do about the state of their children. It shows that there is a lot of hypocrisy and double standard practices within the national education system.

Even further, this seems to be the age of tolerance and acceptance because we are all forced to accept someone's wrong-doings. Society is in fear about being accountable and being able to tell someone else that they are doing something wrong. The Moscow Patriarchate headed by ecumenical patriarch Cyrill has allowed this to creep in the very fabric of Russian way of life, where we get the ‘feel good’ gospel and sin is overlooked and become accepted by every civilian institution.

There are many things to blame on this but it all comes back to selfishness. All good manners can be summed up in one sentence: Do unto others as you would have them to do unto you. In other words, treat others as you want to be treated.

School Theatre Goes all Shakespearean

PROLOGUE.

Great tensions produce great art. 1606, the year the Gunpowder Plot produced, besides Macbeth (an allegory of the Descent into hell), also King Lear (sacrificial, all-forgiving death) and Antony and Cleopatra (an allegory of the Resurrection). The transition from the Roman Catholic Church to Protestant Reformation profoundly influenced Shakespeare’s work. By the time he began writing plays himself, dramatization organized by the gilds was dead and buried...

ACT I

[Enter School teacher]

SCHOOL TEACHER. Shakespeare was a protest playwright who portrayed the world with expressiveness and dignity and the size of the plays in the biggest possible terms and pictures. Now, can I paint two little pictures for you? And you promise not to snigger. Can we do that? I am going to be very monosyllabic indeed. OK…

CHORUS I. Shakespeare was perfectly aware where the revolution ended / Inducing paranoia and suspicions / To an unparalleled degree / – In hell, / Where the ghost of Hamlet’s father came from. (Fig. 1)

CHORUS II. To be or not to be: / Is it better to live or die? / In  a world that feels so 'weary, state, and unprofitable'. (Fig. 2)

SCHOOL TEACHER. But while great art can mirror great tensions, it cannot disperse them: from this time English society became increasingly polarized between Catholics and Protestants, loyalists and revolutionaries, old feudal ways and new bourgeois ambitions.

ACT II

[Enter King, Queen, Polonious, School teacher]

SCHOOL TEACHER. We may suppose that Shakespeare felt the tug of revolutionary tendencies and to some extent sympathized with them. Thus there is real passion in Hamlet’s attempt to cast the light on the false King Claudius. And so the scene was set for the English revolution:

HAMLET. What, frighted with false fire!

QUEEN. How fares my lord?

POLONIOUS. Give o’er the play.

KING. Give me some light. Away.

POLONIOUS. Lights, lights, lights!

CHORUS 1, CHORUS 2.

  But man, proud man,

  Dress’d in a little brief authority.

  Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d –

  His glassy essence – like an angry ape

  Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven

  As makes the angles weep:

  Who, with our spleens.

  Would all themselves laugh mortal.

EPILOGUE

Shakespeare was not alive to witness the final closing down of the theatre in 1642. The whole of this solid Globe came to great crisis of morals, religion and government and the sprawling of the egalitarian and liberal bawdy culture in the modern world.

Home Sweet Home

Наше село

 

   Из всих можных мест постојaнного пребывaнјa, нaјпријемнејше јaви ми се мaло село дaлеко од грaдского шумa, мaло суседство, без многокомнaтных домов в преполньеных блокaх, aле с мaлыми древенными, сельскыми домикaми; просто, неописујемо жилишче, с обывaтельaми, чије лицa сут нaм рaвно знaне кaко цветы в нaшем сaду; мaлы, особны свет зa нaс сaмых, тесно сјединьены и зaтворьены кaко мрaвкы в мрaвјеј копе, или пчелы в ульи, или овце в овчaрньи, или мнишкы в конвенту, или морьaки нa корaбју; кде мы знaјемо всих и јесмо знaјеми од всих, кде интересујемо се всими и можемо имети нaдеју, же вси интересујут се нaми. Кaко мило было бы зaнурити се в тых истинных срдечных чутјaх милого, неведомого вплывa привычaјa и познaти и польубити льудиј около нaс, с всими јихными особливостaми! Тaко сaмо, кaко познaјемо и польубимо все зaкуткы и поврaты тенкых уличек и солнечных луков, кторе мы проходимо всaкы день. Мaло сполеченство, кторым јест сельскa обчинa, јест тaкоже сaмо добро в својеј трезвој ствaрности, кaко в поезији или прозе, долгa, рaзпрострaньенa, мотaјучa се улицa у подножјa крaсивој возвышености, с широкоју дрaгоју попрек, всекдa зaполньеноју возaми и конникaми. Не хочете ли походити со мноју по нaшем селу, льубезны читaтельу? Пут не буде долгы. Мы почнемо нa дольном концу и одтуд будемо шли в врх...

  So, welcome very much to my village! If you ask me, "What lingo do you use here? What is your tribal code?" My answer will be, “I have quite a few though the Междуславjанскы Language is among my favourite linguistic encounters. Its phraseology is wonderful though at times it is slightly subversive and slightly rebellious of itself. Its sound clusters alone are particular areas of life with their own identity, their own banner”. But more importantly, if I were being dismissive now, if we got into an argument, if I didn’t agree, then I might sound a bit more Orthodox and Slavic -- simply because I’m shifting to a more ‘me-voice’ but not a half-way point, for purely pastoral reasons, of  course.

No Quite Rooms for Primary Schools in Russia

Nationally we’re seeing in these years far more highly disruptive behaviour in younger children. All primary school teachers and special educators in Smolensk say they have disruptive children in their class. Those kids who behave well most of the time also have their lapses. Teachers say that dealing with bad behaviour fre­quently gets in the way with teaching. Bad children being verbally and physically aggressive regularly disrupt classes refus­ing to to do what the teacher says. But few teachers will talk openly about violence and disruption they face. If you do so, you will be quite clearly put around that you are a trouble maker.

It stands to reason that if these children with conduct disorders were taken away from the mainstream class, the mainstream class could function prop­erly. But, as I have already said, teachers feel they can’t actually talk openly, so such children are not excluded from school.

Although teachers report aggressive behaviour is more often a problem with boys, girls too can be hard to handle. I had a child in year 2. She would swear, she would punch and hit children next to her, kicking off so bad that chairs were being turned over. She was under tables, over tables, completely unpredictable. And sometimes when she was playing it wasn’t what we call ‘nice play’. Can you imagine a child like that being in the class and your child being in there frightened and scared of her?

Smolensk is one of Russia’s most western cities. With high levels of drug and alcohol misuse, violence and unemployment it’s perhaps not surprising that children are bringing issues to school that affect their behaviour.

The head of the educational area cannot alone reinforce good behaviour. But what special here is that the staff has no specific responsibilities for ‘key’ children needing particular help. In practice classroom teachers and schools in general are simply devoted to areas with dining tables where children get the attention they need to overcome the immediate problems and come down. Schools simply cannot afford pastoral care teams, family workers, behavioural support assistant, and the quite room or the ‘bib room’ - an empty space with bare walls and no furniture to throw or climb on for children identified as having special social and emotional needs.

Full school funding approach as well as early intervention funding are difficult politically because of their long term effectiveness. Bureaucrats do not look way beyond the child’s behaviour and they do not seek to address the root courses of moral degradation with the families and with the children. On the contrary, schools are in many cases facing funding crisis as local council authorities look for savings.

Yet there are proving strategies to address these problems. An investment of just few million roubles early on could make a big difference. But in reality what primary schools have is a bit of a post code lottery in terms of the provision that local authorities make available to them and it can be patchy across the country.

So it’s not surprising that some teachers leave the school due to increasingly disruptive pupils, leaving aside the constrains imposed by poverty and social injustice.

13 Vyazma Primary School

  

  It’s strange how memories of so long ago seem like only yesterday. Most schools in Russia have numbers, not names. Did any one, like myself, go to 13 Vyazma School in the 70's. I can remember a great number of fellow pupils in the same school year. My mum worked as a dinner lady at the infants for quite a few years. Anyone remember the fish tank in the hallway leading into the assembly hall/gym? I used to get to go back to the school to vote. How small everything looked! 

And then 40 years later everything changed. The government’s agenda for transforming primary education includes three main measures: instituting a ratings system (1); encouraging technological innovation(2) and competition (3). If the plan sounds familiar, it’s because they've played this tune before.

However, as the practice shows test-based teacher-evaluation has so far eluded any empirical justification. The best way to game social indicators, of course, remains cheating. In other words, it’s easier to change numbers than people. This came to be a well-worn chestnut in Russia.

Also of note, data-driven measures can distort school systems in more insidious ways. If the leading indicator for schools is graduation rate, it’s likely some fudging and manipulation will result.

Competition among schools and school districts has led some school leaders to find ways to increase instructional time. In many places this has meant less time for children, even very young children, to have time to just play and take a break from the rigours of the academic world. That said, primary schools today are much different than they were years ago.