Home education as an alternative to a comprehensive school. The right not to go to school: family education as an alternative to classroom

Going to school only for your favorite lessons is possible! Did you know about it? You can come to the second or third period, or attend school only three times a week instead of five, or not go to school at all, and still master the program perfectly.

Svetlana Marzeeva, the author of the Alternative Education in Russia portal and the founder of the Family Schools Club public organization, told the correspondent of MIR 24 about the wide opportunities the Law on Education provides for parents and children.

Three years ago, Svetlana called on parents and teachers to jointly educate their children in small groups, uniting on a territorial basis. Since then, there have been more than forty such groups in Moscow, and their number is constantly growing. For some, such a group is an alternative to a regular school, but for someone it is a real salvation. Here is what Svetlana had to say:

Now the law provides parents with literally unlimited opportunities in choosing an educational trajectory for their child. Many simply do not believe that it is possible not to attend the lessons of teachers who do not like, or simply unloved subjects, you can sleep in the morning if the child is a “night owl”, or attend lessons in several subjects at one school, but, say, in mathematics or chemistry - in another, where they teach more interestingly. It is only necessary to competently build relations with the school, somewhere to exercise their right, and somewhere to agree.

What does "agree" mean? Parents are used to being obliged to comply with all the requirements of the school. In what part can we negotiate with her?

In the part where the school itself makes decisions within the law. The fact is that the school is also given great rights and opportunities by the state. Any public school can choose not only educational programs, but also textbooks, can make attendance free, can allow its students to study in several schools at once (in the law this is called "network learning"), can afford small classes, unusual subjects and the most modern techniques. I know it sounds fantastic, but it is completely in line with Russian law. Moreover, such schools existed before. For example, school No. 200 (humane pedagogy according to the system of academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Sh.A. Amonashvili), school No. 734 (school of self-determination of Alexander Tubelsky).

- Let's first talk in more detail about what is required by law, about which it is not necessary to agree.

Most importantly, parents have priority rights in the field of upbringing and education over other persons: see the Family Code and FZ-273. This means that you, as a parent who knows the inclinations and needs of the child, know better if he needs to do homework and go to school every day. You have the right to write a statement that you are asking to transfer your student "to study according to an individual curriculum" (Article 34 Part 1 of Federal Law 273-FZ), and then choose those subjects that you decide to attend at school. And the rest study at home and pass certification on them (that is, write one final control or take a test, or submit an essay). That's all, nothing more is needed for this - no arguments, no medical and other certificates, a statement from the parents is enough.

Exactly the same opportunities are given by a statement with the wording “I ask you to transfer my child to part-time education.” But which of these two options to choose is already a subject of negotiations with the school. Previously, it was very difficult to get permission from the school not to attend certain lessons, because there were no such precedents, and they were perceived as some kind of eccentric trick.

But after some representatives of the administration of educational institutions lost their positions, they realized that this was not a joke and that parents really had good arguments and serious reasons. So, there are more and more students who attend classes at school only partially, and not only in the capital, but also in the regions.

What reasons do parents have to achieve such conditions, I would say special? After all, it has not yet become a mass phenomenon.

Over the years that I have been involved in my project, I have studied well the reasons why people turn to alternative education. The first is the health of the children. Second, the quality of their education.

The fact is that the school curriculum is based on memorization and at the same time is heavily overloaded with unnecessary and outdated information.

Many well-known teachers say that it is impossible to complete the amount of tasks that are required from children, starting from high school. "School program is not feasible!" - These words belong to Alexei Bitner, a former Novosibirsk teacher and director, who today helps students get rid of school, graduating from it as an external student.

Children who honestly try to remember everything experience constant stress. Therefore, the body is simply forced to turn on defense mechanisms - that is, diseases, and sometimes they are very serious, even incurable.

Those who have a more stable psyche have to turn on indifference, lie, pretend, skip or simply ignore all this constant violent information intoxication. Against this background, the lack of time for walks, reduced sleep, rest, the need to sit still for 8 hours a day - these are already “little things”.

It's about health. Now about education. Such a life kills interest not only in knowledge, but in general deprives one of energy and joy. That is, even important skills and information are not acquired by children. In addition, a lot of important things remain outside the school, which children are not taught.

They don’t teach conflict-free communication, they don’t teach to find a common language with other people, they don’t teach financial literacy. Career guidance, psychology, the basics of economics and business - all this has to be acquired outside of school. But when? If you go to school, then there is simply no time for it.

I remember when I was at school, we were asked to learn the ballad "Heather Honey" for the summer. My daughter was asked to do the same, but in three days. This is a very significant difference: everything is the same, only much faster. Because more modern literature has been added over the past years, but nothing has been reduced, they simply reduced the study time.

In the public school system, parents don't delve as deeply into educational issues, but they do see the tip of the iceberg—children in high school lose interest in learning. And in order to maintain motivation, and at the same time health and joy, they also come to the conclusion that it is necessary to reduce the time that the child spends on school. That is why in recent years we have seen such a surge of interest in alternative forms of education.

But what if the parents work and cannot take the child to school or are not ready to take responsibility for his education?

If we are talking about secondary school, then the responsibility for their own education is already within the power of teenagers. They no longer have such a passion for learning, like kids, but the motivation is still there. For example, they themselves consider a difficult or boring subject important. Or they want to test their strength. Or they need this knowledge for their future profession.

And if we are talking about elementary school, then everything is simpler there. To succeed in elementary school, it will be enough for someone to have a good teacher. After all, it is not by chance that everyone repeats: look not for a school, look for a teacher. And if someone wants more, then you can transfer the child to family or distance learning, find a few like-minded people in the neighborhood and pool the money to hire a teacher to teach your children.

By the way, this is exactly what we did with several parents. This was in 2012, before the last law on education was passed. I did not come up with this scheme, the first such family school was invented and implemented on the basis of a circle for difficult teenagers by psychologist Boris Grechukhin - a bright, extraordinary and internally very free person.

And who would have come at that time with the seditious thought that "free mass education is the confiscation of children from their parents." But big words are easy to say. And what was it like to create your own school in the USSR? Moreover, stating: “No professional school teachers. Students and parents take care of children.

By that time, parents who opened the first class on the basis of their own private kindergarten had a similar experience, and we did. I conditionally called these groups of parents and teachers family schools, but this not very successful name stuck. Literally in four years of such non-schools more than fifty in Moscow and the Moscow region. And now there are such associations in St. Petersburg, and in Samara, and in Kaliningrad, and in many other cities of Russia.

Now in the capital and in St. Petersburg even the tiny experience of creating school-parks by Miloslav Balaban has appeared. These are schools of free attendance, where students themselves choose which classes (studios) they attend. Once upon a time, such an experiment was first staged at school No. 734.

Literally over the past two years, another option for alternative education in the beginning has appeared: these are the Zhokhov classes. Vladimir Ivanovich Zhokhov - Honored Teacher of the Russian Federation, author of school textbooks, developed a methodology for teaching in elementary school. Oddly enough, many public school principals have taken on the responsibility of opening such classes. That is, some alternative methods already have support in the form of state schools.

- What other opportunities, not noticed by the broad masses, has the law on education given us?

The Federal Law on Education includes full-time, part-time, family and distance learning. And there is also a network form that allows you to study in several schools at once. And if the first four are used in one way or another, then the last one is just beginning to be mastered by parents and schools. All schools (both private and public) can enter into networking agreements with each other. This means that a student can study in different school subjects at different schools if they have entered into an appropriate agreement among themselves.

For example, the private International School of Tomorrow (MShZD) forms distance classes that learn Russian remotely according to the methodology of Olga Soboleva and under her methodological guidance. So far, only this Russian school has such an opportunity, but children from any corner of Russia can study in it.

With this form of education, students may not attend Russian classes at their primary school: the grades they receive at the MSHS are counted there. They appear in the report cards and the personal file of the student.

It is unfortunate that such promising forms of education are still little used. But it's so great that they exist, that our state has legally taken care of this.

Well, if a child studies at home in some subjects, then how and who controls his knowledge, and will such free treatment of the school curriculum lead to a decrease in the quality of knowledge? After all, parents can rarely objectively assess the level of knowledge of their children.

For those subjects that the child attends partially, control, surveys and other numerous so-called. slices of knowledge. And for those subjects that the child does not attend, schools control the level of knowledge through assessments. They can be one, two, three times a year, at the discretion of the parent and wherever he wants - even in a public school, even in a private school.

If you are guided by the law, then de jure only the GIA and the Unified State Examination are obligatory. But de facto, our parents and their children still prefer to pass certifications annually or every six months in those subjects that the child does not attend. Firstly, to be sure that he is successfully mastering the program, and secondly, to have documents confirming this on hand.

- Why do many schools hardly agree to such experiments?

Many, probably, would not agree, but they are obliged by law. I think that parents are not ready for this first of all. For example, theoretically, a school has the right to start teaching not at 8.30, which, in my opinion, is unhealthy, but at 9.30 or 10.00.

I remember how we told the director of a cool lyceum about the success of the children, from where we took the children to teach them on our own. And she told us: “Of course, because they get enough sleep!”. She herself understands the benefits of this, but she cannot make the time to start school later, because every morning at 8.00 and even earlier, children are brought to the door of a closed school, whose parents have nowhere to go. That is, educational institutions simply respond to parental requests. If the principal of my daughter's school allows free attendance for everyone, his parents will eat him alive!

The deputy director of one of the schools in Tsaritsyno recently told me that it was the parents who opposed free school attendance when they wanted to introduce it in this school. Then this wonderful teacher himself, a candidate of historical sciences, introduced free attendance only at his lessons.

For the first two weeks, no one came to him at all! Children simply could not believe in such a "laugh". And then they began to look, more and more often. And then history became a favorite subject for many. Children will not drop out of school if they are no longer forced to go there. They will simply do it for their own benefit.

Tatyana Rubleva

ON THE FORCE OF HABIT

Participants in a survey conducted by the Rambler analytical service commissioned by MIR 24 told what form of secondary education they consider the most appropriate for a child.

The majority of respondents (70%) support the existing school system in Russia. They answered that the most correct form of secondary education is "standard - like everyone else."

20% of respondents voted for the option “alternative education with an individual approach”. 1168 respondents took part in the voting.

In third place in popularity (8%) was the option that suggests that some of the lessons can be studied at school, and some at home. Least of all respondents (2%) considered it right to study at home without going to school.

Another bell rang, heralding the start of a new school year. Someone went to first grade this year, and for someone the first bell will ring next year, but for now he is just getting ready to become a schoolboy. But there are guys among the future first-graders who will not go to school on the first of September. These children are quite healthy and have already reached the “conscription” age. They just study at home. To put it in the exact language of the law, they receive a family education. We, perhaps, will not now go into discussions about the pros and cons of such training. Enough has already been said on this subject. As a person who himself studied in this way, and as a mother preparing her daughter for this type of education, I will be honest - I personally do not see any disadvantages in family education. The only “minus” is that you need to be with the child all the time, at least in elementary school. Maybe there are kids who can independently gnaw the granite of science at such a tender age, but something tells me that they are negligible. That is, with this type of training, either the mother does not work (or works at home), or the parents somehow alternate with each other. And this is acceptable and may not be for every family. There is another point that makes homeschooling problematic, if not impossible - not every child is able to perceive his mother as a teacher. It happens. At the same time, the child can be as flexible and obedient as you like, the mother can be a very authoritative person for him, and they can have a very kind and trusting relationship. It’s just that for such a child, a mother is a MOM, big, kind and soft, she smells of milk and cookies and is in no way associated with a school teacher. In this case, home schooling may not be necessary. I don't see any more contraindications. Therefore, let's agree that we will talk about preparing the child (or rather the whole family) for home schooling, implying that the decision has already been weighed and made.

This way of learning is now becoming more and more popular. This step is decided by parents with different education and different worldviews. Everyone has different reasons for such a decision - someone is categorically not satisfied with the school education system, someone is afraid of the aggressiveness of their peers, someone saves their child's nerves and time to pursue their future profession or just their favorite things - the school "eats" too much time, and someone just feels more comfortable because of frequent travel. Quite a bit, literally a couple of paragraphs, I will devote to the theory of the issue.

There are two concepts: "unschooling" - this is when a child receives an education without a school at all, and "homeschooling" - when a child takes exams in an educational institution, that is, is attached to it. In Russia now unsookling is possible only theoretically. Yes, according to the law, you can come in 11 years to the final exams, and study at home all the time, but at the same time, another law obliges all children who have reached the age of eight to study somewhere and somehow. Proving that your child is homeschooled and not deprived of their right to education by negligent parents can be tricky. Therefore, human rights activists in this area recommend that you still be “at school”, keep in touch with her periodically in order to avoid possible problems with guardianship authorities.

Any general education school can deal with such children, but in practice, not every one goes for it. The law allows this - no one can oblige the school to conclude an agreement on family education. But a "home" child, if desired, can study in any city, regardless of his residence permit. In big cities it is easier - there are more such schools, while in small ones there is often a single school in which children who are in family education take exams.

Not everyone knows that parents who teach children at home are entitled to monthly monetary compensation. But often schools refuse it. It is illegal. If you wish, you can achieve this compensation through calls to the department of education - the law is on the side of the parents. But to do it or not is up to you. That's probably the whole theory.

My daughter will become a first grader in a year, so it's time for us, like all other future first graders, to start the preparatory school year. And then I thought about it and realized that there is absolutely no need to prepare a child for such training in any special way. (Here, by the way, is another plus of home education!). It is enough for a child to be developed by age and to have at least a minimum of knowledge and skills. What will change for my child with the advent of the school? Nothing. It will develop and learn in the same way as it did before - at its own rhythm, in its own "style", at its own speed. Obviously, classes "at the table" from more or less regular will turn into just regular. That's all, perhaps. This needs clarification: by “desk” today, I mean practicing writing skills in written letters and learning how to write and read mathematical operations. That is, things that you want or don’t want need to be worked out and trained. We try to get all other knowledge not at the table, but from life, without allocating special time for them. “Table” creativity (drawing, burning, embroidery, modeling) and reading are also not on our list of activities, because they naturally arise by themselves all the time. It's just that we meet all the questions, lessons and tasks that life puts before us joyfully and openly, we always try to learn a little more than the situation offers. Example: in the spring we changed the roof of our house, and suddenly we saw a bird's nest with chicks on the pediment of the house. Of course, the construction had to be postponed for a while. But what does short term mean? To find out, we called our ornithological center, talked to specialists, leafed through the Birds of Russia photo catalog more than once, read a large number of articles on the Internet, watched more than one program and, of course, watched the nest every day. We found out who built a house under our roof, how long the chicks will live in the nest, and along the way discovered a lot of interesting and varied information from the life of other birds in our region. All this was with the active participation of my daughter, and I am sure that she remembered a lot of the knowledge gained, because this knowledge came to us on time, in a natural way, and was not invented and programmed in advance: “and today we start the theme week“ birds ".

And I can give a great many such examples, they are daily. Life itself makes up a wonderful and varied curriculum, and, interestingly, it always turns out to be "according to growth" for the student. I really want my daughter and I to study this way for as long as possible, solving real problems, and at the table with textbooks and notebooks, only summarizing what we learned, saw, felt, discovered in practice.

The only innovation that awaits us is exams. School-going peers will encounter them noticeably later. This is what the child needs to be prepared for. To communicate with the teacher-examiner. What does it mean? This means fully and accurately formulating each of your answers and every thought, this mother will understand perfectly, and the teacher is not obliged to do this. The second is not to be afraid of incomprehensible questions, often the questions are familiar, they are simply asked in an unusual form for the child. Do not hesitate to clarify, ask again, start reasoning on the basis of what is clear and understandable.

What am I doing now for this?

That, perhaps, is all our preparation for school. But who needs to really prepare for the first grade is mom. There are a lot of questions that she must answer before her son or daughter becomes a "home" student.

Study mode - will it be close to school or more spontaneous? It depends on the nature of the child, on the lifestyle of the family, on habits and routines.
Mom should think over and build the work in such a way as to avoid "hands-on work" - you need to have time for the tests calmly and without nerves.
You can study according to one of the school programs, or you can do without them. This needs to be decided in advance. If necessary, study and choose the most appropriate program for a particular child.
Will all subjects be studied in parallel, or will we “dive” into each subject separately? It is also possible to combine these methods. It's also a good idea to ask yourself this question ahead of time and maybe try out the options in your pre-school year.
Well, and a rhetorical question: how to make sure that studying at home does not turn into a branch of the school with many hours of daily sitting “on the priest” at the table. Something can be done verbally, something while walking, something on a walk, something lying on the couch, and so on - mom should have a lot of ideas and options that can be quickly changed if necessary.

An impressive list of questions. So let's send the mother to the preparatory class, and let the child continue his education as usual. The mother should prepare in such a way that all the innovations associated with the emergence of the controlling eye of the school in the life of the family would be smooth and imperceptible for the child, and therefore painless.

And finally, one more question, perhaps the most important in home schooling - where will the child go with the freed time? There is much more time to live with this method of learning. So where will the child spend it? Does he have favorite things to do? Does he live a busy life or will he wander home from the TV to the computer? In this case, homeschooling loses all meaning.

That's all. Thank you for attention. And to all future first-graders and their parents, who have chosen this not the easiest, but very interesting and full of various possibilities way of creating their image - EDUCATION - I wish you every success!

P.S. This article is the author's and is entirely intended solely for private use, publication and use of it on other sites or forums is possible only with the written consent of the author. Commercial use is strictly prohibited. All rights reserved.

What to do if you are not satisfied with school education? You are not satisfied with the quality of teaching, the environment, against school "equalization", strive to reveal the individual qualities of your child. There can be many reasons. And there are only a few alternatives to school:

Find a school with an alternative teaching method (author's schools, Montessori schools, park schools, and others).
Switch to a part-time (or part-time) form of education in a traditional comprehensive school.
Go to family education.

Today we will talk about the latter option. Family education is often confused with home schooling and external studies. Homeschooling is organized by the school for children who are unable to attend an educational organization for any reason of a medical nature. Teachers come to the home of the students, respectively, academic performance is the responsibility of the educational institution.

With family education, the child's academic performance, passing the necessary intermediate and final certifications is the responsibility of the parents.

Externship is an independent, often accelerated form of education, in which the child is not a student of a particular school. With a family form of education, the child is enrolled in a particular school, using all the privileges - free textbooks, the opportunity to use the school library.

Homeschooling in Russia is a young phenomenon. In Soviet times, it was believed that any education outside the walls of the school is not education. Since the 1990s, the situation has changed, but family education has not become widespread. Today, interest in homeschooling is growing.

pros

The main advantage is an individual approach. Family education is like a coat tailored to the figure of a child.

Parents can independently set the schedule, select teaching methods. All the individual characteristics of the child, his biological clock are taken into account.

There is an opportunity to focus on the study of those subjects that are bypassed or do not pay so much attention at school: languages, architecture, art, etc. Such training is aimed at the natural cognitive interest of the child, and not at getting high marks.

Another significant plus is a comfortable society. Pressure from teachers or classmates is excluded, the child is not in a routine, which makes life freer and more natural. By the way, practice shows that the crisis of adolescence is much easier for children who study at home.

Minuses

Parents who choose family education for their children should be prepared for the fact that this will require a lot of their own time and effort.

And the organization of such training will require from them a high degree of organization, a solid understanding of the goals and objectives, pedagogical skills, and education.

The child may manifest (or may not, it all depends on how the family education system is built) the following "side effects": reduced communication skills, the image of a "white crow", lack or partial violation of discipline, selfishness, a sense of being chosen, infantilism .

What parents need to be prepared for

Almost all parents, one way or another, face similar difficulties in this area. Here are some of them:

search for a suitable school for certification;
the problem of choosing an educational program and methods;
difficulties in dialogue with the school administration, which wants to avoid unnecessary problems associated with transferring a child to another form of education;
parents should be ready to work with normative documents (for example, with educational standards), with subject programs, with teaching aids, in order to most effectively implement training;
homeschooling eats up all (or almost all) of a parent's time.

How to transfer to a family form of education

To transfer a child to home schooling, you need to do only 2 things:

1. Write an application for the transition to the family form of education (in 2 copies).

If you wish, you can hear from such phrases as: "There is no such form of education at all", "You are not allowed to have a pedagogical education", "We do not have a charter, go to another school", etc. But as soon as you get a written statement and ask him to accept, the situation is likely to change.

In order to maintain a warm relationship with the school management, say that you fully trust the director, but you need a written refusal for reasoned communication with the RONO and the education committee so that they do not send back to a school where it is impossible to study on a family form.

2. Inform the local self-government body of the municipal district or city district at the place of residence about the transition of the child to the family form of education.