Why education was the best in Soviet times. Soviet education was the best in the world

Myth: The Soviet education system was perfect

This myth is actively replicated by the communists and people who are simply fiercely nostalgic for the USSR. In fact, Soviet education was comparatively strong in the sciences, mathematics and engineering, and sports. However, in most other areas it was comparatively weak, both in comparison with Western counterparts of that era and in comparison with modern education:
History, economics, philosophy and other humanities in the USSR were highly ideologized, their teaching was based on a deeply outdated 19th century Marxist paradigm, while the latest foreign achievements in these areas were largely ignored - or were presented exclusively in a negative way, as "bourgeois science". In general, the students of Soviet schools and universities formed a rather simplified and distorted humanitarian picture of the world.

Foreign languages ​​in Soviet schools were taught on average at a very low level. Unlike Western countries, in the USSR there were practically no opportunities to invite native teachers, and at the same time access to foreign literature, films and songs in the original language was difficult. Almost no exchange of students was carried out, which allows to seriously raise the level of language proficiency while living abroad.
A rather sad situation developed in art education, architecture and design in the late USSR, which is clearly seen in the deterioration of the architectural appearance of Soviet cities in the 1960s-1980s, as well as in the mass desire of Soviet citizens to buy foreign things - qualitatively. and beautifully made.
If it seems to someone that all these humanitarian areas are not important, then it is worth noting that it was precisely because of the underestimation, because of the insufficient or incorrect development of these areas that the Soviet Union eventually collapsed so easily.

Myth: problems in the education system began in the era of perestroika and the collapse of the USSR

In reality, there were always certain problems in the Soviet education system, and the main crisis phenomena that modern Russia had to deal with began to grow back in the late USSR and were already noticeable in the 1970s and 1980s.
Until the 1960s Soviet education had a key task: to train as many workers, engineers and scientists as possible in order to meet the country's needs for specialists and labor during rapid industrialization, and also to make up for the colossal losses of educated people and skilled workers caused by the civil war, white emigration, the Great Patriotic War, as well as repressions. Moreover, workers and specialists needed to be prepared with a large margin in case of a new war and new human losses (in the same way, duplicate enterprises and production sites were built in the USSR in case of war). In the conditions of a serious shortage of personnel at that time, any graduates of universities and vocational schools were very quickly "torn off with their hands", arranging for work at various great construction sites, new factories, and design bureaus. A lot of people were lucky, and they got interesting and important jobs, they could make a good career. At the same time, the quality of education was not critical: everyone was in demand, and often they had to finish their studies right at work.
Approximately in the 1960s. the situation has changed. The rate of urbanization and industrial growth in the country has dropped sharply, industry and science have had time to fill up with personnel, and their overproduction in the conditions of a long peaceful period has lost its meaning. At the same time, the number of vocational schools, universities and students by that time had grown dramatically, but if earlier they were in super demand, now the state could no longer provide everyone with the same attractive jobs as before. New industries were created in insufficient quantities, in the old ones the key positions were firmly occupied, and the old men of the Brezhnev era were by no means in a hurry to give up their places to the youth.
Actually, it was then, in the last decades of the USSR, that problems in education began to grow, which can be summarized approximately as follows:
A sharp increase in the contingent of universities and vocational schools, which led to a drop in the average level of students and a drop in the ability of the state to provide everyone with good jobs (the obvious solution would be the development of the service sector, the permission of entrepreneurship in order to create new jobs, the development of self-employment opportunities - but due to its specificity, the Soviet state could not or did not want to take such steps).
The fall of the social role of the teacher and teacher, the decline in salaries in the field of education in the late USSR (if in 1940 the salary in the Soviet education system was 97% of the industry average, then in 1960 it was 79%, and in 1985 it was total 63%.
The growing lag behind the West in a number of disciplines, caused by the closed borders and the ideological interference of the state in science.
These problems were inherited by modern Russia, were partly resolved, partly aggravated.

Myth: Soviet education was better at raising a person

From the point of view of those who are nostalgic for the USSR, Soviet education brought up a Man and a Creator, while modern Russian education brings up philistines, consumers and businessmen (it is not entirely clear why the latter are denied the right to be both people and creators).
But is it really so good to bring up people in the USSR?
Soviet education brought up entire generations of alcoholics - from the 1960s to the 1980s. alcohol consumption in the country has more than tripled, as a result of which, since 1964, life expectancy for men has stopped growing in the RSFSR (unlike in Western countries), alcohol mortality and alcohol crime have sharply increased.
Soviet education brought up a society of people who, since the late 1960s. ceased to reproduce itself - the number of children per woman fell to less than 2.1, as a result of which the number of subsequent generations became smaller than that of the previous ones. At the same time, the number of abortions in the USSR exceeded the number of children born and amounted to about 4-5 million per year. The number of divorces in the USSR was also colossal, and remains so in Russia to this day.
Soviet education brought up a generation of people who destroyed the USSR and relatively easily abandoned much of what they had been taught before.
Soviet education brought up people who massively joined the ranks of organized crime in the 1980s and 1990s. (and in many ways before).
Soviet education brought up people who easily believed the many charlatans of the perestroika and 1990s: they joined religious sects and neo-fascist organizations, carried their last money into financial pyramids, enthusiastically read and listened to various freaks-pseudo-scientists, etc.
All this indicates that with the upbringing of a person in the USSR, to put it mildly, not everything was perfect.
Of course, the point here is not only in the education system, but also in other aspects of the social situation. However, Soviet education could not reverse this situation and largely contributed to its formation:
- insufficiently brought up critical thinking;
— the initiative was not sufficiently encouraged;
- Paternalism and excessive reliance on authorities were actively nurtured;
- there was no adequate education in the field of family and marriage;
- ideological framework narrowed the view of the world;
- many negative social phenomena were hushed up, instead of studying them and fighting them.

Myth: Capitalism is the main cause of problems in education

From the point of view of communist-minded critics, the main cause of problems in education is capitalism. We are talking not only about the commercialization of education and a general approach to educating a person, but also about the capitalist structure of society and the economy in general, which is supposedly in a deep crisis, and the crisis in education is just one of the manifestations of this.
The capitalist crisis of society and education can be conceived as a global one or, above all, as an internal Russian one - allegedly, surrounded by enemies and ruined by capitalists, Russia can no longer afford capitalism and capitalist education.
From the point of view of Marxists, the main types of crisis associated with capitalism are the crisis of overproduction and the crisis associated with the lack of resources. The first is caused by the overproduction of goods that consumers cannot or do not want to consume, and the second is the lack of resources to produce and maintain the achieved standard of living in an ever-expanding capitalist economy (resources include land and labor). Both types of crises force the capitalists to reduce the consumption of the population of the country and at the same time start wars - for new markets or for new resources. Now the West is in a state of double crisis, and therefore Russia is in danger - partly because they want to profit from its resources, and partly because it itself has adopted capitalism instead of socialism.
The global crisis does indeed take place, but all these constructions linking it with the opposition of capitalism and socialism, as well as with the problems of education, are rather shaky and dubious.
Firstly, crises of overproduction and shortage of resources also take place under socialism - for example, the same overproduction of workers and engineers in the late USSR, or the crisis of the lack of good teachers in foreign languages ​​(more famous examples are the overproduction of tanks and children's shoes in the late USSR). ).
Secondly, in the current global crisis, Russia has a very high chance of resisting, both thanks to the Soviet military heritage (a strong army and military-industrial complex), and thanks to the royal heritage in the form of a vast territory with rich resources.
Thirdly, the way out of the crisis is not necessarily associated with war - the development of technologies can help develop new resources or create new markets. And here there are good chances for both the West and Russia.
It is also worth remembering the obvious fact: the Western education system (of which the Russian system is an offshoot, and after it the Soviet system) was created precisely under the conditions of capitalism in the era of the New Age. As for the Soviet system, it is a direct continuation of the education system in the late Russian Empire, which was created under capitalism. At the same time, although the education system covered only a part of society by 1917, it quickly grew in scale, and already in the middle of the 19th century Russia had excellent higher and engineering education by world standards, and in the early 1910s. Russia has become the European leader in the number of engineering graduates.
Thus, there is no reason to oppose capitalism and quality education. As for attempts to explain the degradation of education not simply by capitalism, but by capitalism in the stage of crisis, then, as already mentioned, crises also occur under socialism.

Myth: Russian education has changed dramatically compared to the Soviet one

From the point of view of critics, the education reforms have incredibly changed the educational system in Russia and led to its degradation, and only a few last remnants of Soviet education still survive and keep everything afloat.
But is modern Russian education really that far removed from the Soviet one? In fact, for the most part, Soviet education in Russia has been preserved:
In Russia, the same class-lesson system operates as in the USSR (originally borrowed from German schools of the 18th-19th centuries).
The specialization of schools is preserved.
The division of education into primary, complete and incomplete secondary, secondary specialized and higher education is preserved (at the same time, higher education has been largely transferred from 5 years of study to the bachelor's + master's system - 4 + 2 years, but by and large this has not changed much ).
Almost all the same subjects are taught, only a few new ones have been added (at the same time, the programs for some humanitarian subjects have been greatly changed - but, as a rule, for the better).
There is a strong tradition in the teaching of mathematics and science (compared to most other countries).
On the whole, the same assessment system and the same system of work of teachers have been preserved, although accountability and bureaucracy have noticeably increased (introduced to improve control and monitoring, but in many respects turned out to be unnecessary and burdensome, for which it is rightly criticized).
The accessibility of education has been preserved and even increased, and although about a third of students are now paid students, a significant part of out-of-school education has also become paid. However, this is nothing new compared to the Soviet era: paid education for students and high school students operated in the USSR in 1940-1956.
Most of the school buildings remained the same (and the renovations carried out clearly did not worsen them).
Most of today's Russian teachers were trained back in the USSR or in the 1990s, before the reforms in education.
The Unified State Examination was introduced, which is the most noticeable difference between the Russian system and the Soviet one, but it is worth emphasizing once again that this is not some kind of teaching method, but simply a more objective method of testing knowledge.
Of course, various experimental schools have appeared in Russia in a noticeable number, in which the organization and teaching methods differ to a much greater extent from Soviet models. However, in most cases we are dealing with slightly modified and modernized Soviet-style schools. The same is true for universities, if we exclude frankly profane "degree-building" institutions (which began to actively close since 2012).
Thus, in general, Russian education continues to follow Soviet patterns, and those people who criticize Russian education, in fact, criticize the Soviet system and the results of its work.

Myth: A return to the Soviet education system will solve all problems

First, as shown above, there were many problems and weaknesses in Soviet education.
Secondly, as shown above, Russian education as a whole is not that far removed from the Soviet one.
Thirdly, the key modern problems of Russian education began in the USSR, and no solutions were found there for these problems.
Fourthly, a number of modern problems are connected with the development of information technologies, which were simply absent in the USSR at such a level, and the Soviet experience will not help here.
Fifth, if we talk about the most successful period of Soviet education (1920s-1950s), since then society has seriously changed, and in our time we have to solve largely different tasks. In any case, it is now impossible to reproduce the socio-demographic conditions under which Soviet successes became possible.
Sixth, education reforms do carry a certain risk, however, conservation of the situation and the rejection of reforms is a sure path to defeat. There are problems and they need to be addressed.
Finally, objective data show that the problems of modern Russian education are largely exaggerated and, with varying degrees of success, are being gradually resolved.

If we follow the logic of Soviet patriots that the Soviet education system was better than under the tsar, then those people who did not study in any tsarist gymnasium, but studied in Soviet schools, or who studied at universities not with former tsarist professors, and the very Soviet ones should show no less, and perhaps even greater results than the people I listed above. That is, people born in some Soviet 50s (the apotheosis of "Soviet" science), studied in Soviet secondary schools in the 60s and received higher education in Soviet universities in the 70s, should have shown the whole world something new extraordinary. Well, where are these new Kurchatovs, Keldyshs, Kapitsa, Landau, Tupolevs, Korolevs, Lebedevs, Ershovs? For some reason I don't have them.

That is, in fact, any unbiased person can see that the explosion of scientific and design thought in the USSR was based on people who received the basis of their education in tsarist times or, in any case, were trained by tsarist specialists. Their work was continued by their students, but as the first and second passed away, the so-called. "Soviet science and technology" is becoming more and more dull. In the 80s of the 20th century, both Soviet science and Soviet design thought no longer amazes anyone and cannot boast of a galaxy of world-class names. That is, the Soviet system of education, for any reason, proved to be more flawed than the system of education of the "bastard" tsarist Russia. Academicians in the 80s were like uncut chickens, but just how these academicians enriched science is an open question.

Thus, it can be argued that the scientific and design breakthrough that characterized the USSR in the 30-60s became possible not thanks to, but in spite of the Soviet system. Landau, Tupolev, Ioffe, Lyapunov, Rameev, Korolev created in spite of the disfiguring souls and brains of the people of the Soviet government. Of course, a number of these people, thanks to the military ambitions of the communists, at some point got their hands on colossal human and material resources, but only a completely presumptuous communist agitator can assert that people like Kapitsa, Landau or Kurchatov in a different political and economic system organization of life, would not be able to achieve world-class results.

Science is not Soviet, or capitalist, or tsarist. Science is a thought, an idea, and the unhindered exchange of these ideas. Therefore, until 1917, Russian science was a full-fledged component of European science. For example, Popov and Marconi were an integral part of a single science, albeit with a national flavor. And when the Bolsheviks decided to create some kind of separate "Soviet science", it initially seemed that the experiment was a success, because in the name of the development of military industries, the Bolsheviks actually invested a lot of money in the scientific and technical development of some industries (to the detriment of many others). However, the isolation of "Soviet science" inevitably led to regression and stagnation, a clear eloquent evidence of which was the fact of the disappearance of the Russian language as the second compulsory language for scientists of the world at international symposiums. And this happened already in the 70s of the XX century. World science has ceased to speak Russian, since it did not expect anything interesting from “Soviet science”. The times of Ioffe, Landau and Kurchatovs, brought up in the tsarist gymnasiums, ended when the times of ordinary "Soviet scientists" brought up in the Soviet education system began.

Recently, many people often ask themselves questions: why do we have such a low level of education and why many graduates cannot answer even the simplest questions from the school curriculum? What did they do with the previous education system after the collapse of the USSR? In the Soviet years, the personnel training of future specialists was fundamentally different from that which today prevails throughout the entire post-Soviet space. But the Soviet education system has always been competitive. Thanks to her, the USSR came out in the 1960s on the first lines in the ranking of the most educated countries in the world. The country occupied a leading position in terms of the demand for its people, whose knowledge, experience and skills for the benefit of their native country have always been valued. What were they like, Soviet science and Soviet education, if cadres really should decide everything? On the eve of the new academic year, let's talk about the pros and cons of the Soviet education system, about how the Soviet school shaped a person's personality.

"To master science, to forge new cadres of Bolsheviks - specialists in all branches of knowledge, to study, study, study in the most stubborn way - this is now the task" (I.V. Stalin, Speech at the VIII Congress of the Komsomol, 1928)

More than once, different people interpreted the words of Bismarck in their own way, who, regarding the victory in the Battle of Sadovaya in 1866 in the war of Prussia against Austria, said that it was won by the Prussian folk teacher. It meant that the soldiers and officers of the Prussian army at that time were better educated than the soldiers and officers of the enemy army. Paraphrasing it, US President J.F. Kennedy, on October 4, 1957, on the day the USSR launched the first artificial satellite of the Earth, said:

“We lost space to the Russians at the school desk.” The Soviet school prepared a huge number of young people who were able to master complex military equipment in the shortest possible time, were able to take accelerated courses in military schools in a short time and become well-trained commanders of the Red Army and patriots of their socialist Fatherland .

The West has repeatedly noted the successes and achievements of Soviet education, especially in the late 1950s.

NATO policy brief on education in the USSR (1959)

In May 1959, Dr. C.R.S. (C.R.S. Congressional Research Service - Research Service of the US Congress) Manders prepared a report for the NATO Science Committee on the topic "Scientific and technical education and personnel reserves in the USSR." The following are excerpts from this report, the notes in square brackets are ours.

“When the Soviet Union was formed a little over 40 years ago, the state had to face enormous difficulties. The harvest of the Soviet south was destroyed by the locust invasion, resulting in food shortages and low morale of the population [note - no word about the so-called "Holodomor"]. Nothing contributed to the defense, except for the rational use of territorial and climatic conditions. The state lagged behind in education and other social areas, illiteracy was widespread, and almost 10 years later [and this is 1929] Soviet magazines and print publications were still reporting the same level of literacy. Forty years ago, there was a desperate shortage of trained personnel to get the Soviet people out of a difficult situation, and today the USSR is challenging the US right to world domination. This is an achievement that knows no equal in modern history ... ".

“Over the years, a significant proportion of trained personnel has returned to the education system to train even more specialists. Teaching is a well-paid and prestigious occupation. The net annual increase in trained personnel is 7% in the USSR (for comparison, in the USA - 3.5%, in Great Britain 2.5 - 3%).

“With each new stage of scientific and technological progress, a corresponding teacher training program begins. Programming teachers have been trained at Moscow State University since 1955.”

“At the level of postgraduate education, the USSR does not experience a shortage of professionals capable of managing state projects. In higher and school education, everything indicates that the number of professionally trained graduates will not only easily remain at the same level, but can be increased.”

"Western experts tend to be jealous of the quantity and quality of equipment in Soviet educational institutions."

“There is a significant tendency in the West to take extreme views on the Soviet Union. Its citizens, however, are not supermen or second-rate material. In fact, these are people with the same abilities and emotions as everyone else. If 210 million people in the West work together with the same priorities and the same zeal as their counterparts in the Soviet Union, they will achieve similar results. States that compete on their own with the USSR are wasting their strength and resources in attempts that are doomed to failure. If it is not possible to constantly invent methods that are superior to those of the USSR, it is worth seriously considering borrowing and adapting Soviet methods.

And here is another opinion of a Western politician and businessman about Stalin's policy:

“Communism under Stalin won the applause and admiration of all Western nations. Communism under Stalin gave us an example of patriotism, which is difficult to find an analogy in history. Persecution of Christians? No. There is no religious persecution. Church doors are open. Political repression? Oh sure. But now it is already clear that those who were shot would have betrayed Russia to the Germans.”

Now we can say with confidence that education in the USSR was at the highest level, which is confirmed by the conclusion of Western analysts. It, of course, in many ways did not meet international standards. But now we are well aware that this is a problem of "standards". For now we have the very world standards. Only now, the most capable representatives of our youth, trained in accordance with these standards, by our Soviet standards, do not pull on the literate at all. So-so ... solid C students. Therefore, there is no doubt that the matter is not in ministers Fursenko or Livanov, that the modern problem lies purely in the system itself.

What was the Soviet system of education, which was so respectfully spoken about in the West, and whose methods were borrowed both in Japan and other countries?

Until now, there are disputes about whether the education system in the USSR can really be considered the best in the world. Someone agrees with confidence, and someone talks about the detrimental effect of ideological principles. Without a doubt, propaganda existed, but thanks to propaganda, illiteracy of the population was eliminated in record time, education became public, and so many Nobel laureates and winners of international Olympiads, as there were annually in Soviet times, were not until now. Soviet schoolchildren won international olympiads, including those in the natural sciences. And all these achievements arose despite the fact that general education in the USSR was established later than in Western countries for almost a whole century. The well-known innovative teacher Viktor Shatalov (born in 1927) said:

“In the post-war years, the space industry arose in the USSR, the defense industry rose. All this could not grow out of nothing. Everything was based on education. Therefore, it can be argued that our education was not bad.”

There were indeed many positives. Let's not talk about the mass character and accessibility of the school level of education: today this principle is preserved. Let's talk about the quality of education: people like to compare this property of the Soviet past with the quality of education in modern society.

Availability and inclusiveness

One of the most significant advantages of the Soviet school system was its accessibility. This right was enshrined constitutionally (Article 45 of the Constitution of the USSR of 1977). The main difference between the Soviet education system and the American or British one was the unity and consistency of all parts of education. A clear vertical system (elementary, secondary school, technical school, university, graduate school, doctoral studies) made it possible to accurately plan the vector of one's education. Uniform programs and requirements were developed for each stage. When parents moved or changed schools for any other reason, there was no need to re-learn the material or try to understand the system adopted in the new educational institution. The maximum trouble that a transition to another school could bring was the need to repeat or catch up with 3-4 topics in each discipline. Textbooks in the school library were issued free of charge and were available to absolutely everyone.

It is a mistake to assume that in the Soviet school all students had the same level of knowledge. Of course, the general program should be assimilated by all. But if a teenager is interested in some particular subject, then he was given every opportunity to study it additionally. At schools there were mathematical circles, circles of lovers of literature, and so on.

However, there were both specialized classes and specialized schools, where children got the opportunity to study certain subjects in depth, which was a reason for special pride of the parents of children who studied at a mathematical school or a school with a language bias. This brought up in parents and children a sense of their own exclusivity, "elitism." It was these children who in many ways became the “ideological backbone” of the dissident movement. In addition, even in ordinary schools, by the end of the 1970s, the practice of hidden segregation had developed, when the most talented children fall into the "A" and "B" classes, and the "D" class is a kind of "sump", which practice in today's schools is already considered the norm.

Fundamentality and versatility of knowledge

Despite the fact that a powerful number of leading subjects stood out in the Soviet school, among which were the Russian language, biology, physics, mathematics, the study of disciplines that give a systematic view of the world was mandatory. As a result, the student left the school bench, having almost encyclopedic knowledge. This knowledge became that strong foundation on which it was possible to subsequently educate a specialist in almost any profile.

The key to quality education was the synchronization of acquired knowledge in different subjects through ideology. The facts learned by students in physics lessons echoed the information obtained in the study of chemistry and mathematics, and were linked through the ideas that dominated society. Thus, new concepts and terms were introduced in parallel, which helped to structure knowledge and form in children a complete picture of the world, albeit an ideological one.

The presence of incentive and involvement in the educational process

Today, teachers are sounding the alarm: schoolchildren lack motivation to study, many high school students do not feel responsible for their own future. In Soviet times, it was possible to create motivation due to the interaction of several factors:

• Grades in the subjects corresponded to the acquired knowledge. In the USSR, they were not afraid to put deuces and triples even in a year. Class statistics certainly played a role, but were not of paramount importance. A loser could be left for the second year: it was not only a shame in front of other children, but also a powerful incentive to take up studies. It was impossible to buy an assessment: you had to study, because it was impossible to earn an excellent result in another way.
• The system of patronage and guardianship in the USSR was an indisputable advantage. A weak student was not left alone with his problems and failures. The excellent student took him under his care and studied until the loser achieved success. For strong children, it was also a good school: in order to explain the subject to another student, they had to work out the material in detail, independently learn to apply optimal pedagogical methods. The system of patronage (or rather, help from the elders to the younger ones) brought up many Soviet scientists and teachers, who later became laureates of prestigious international awards.
• Equal conditions for all. The social status and financial situation of the student's parents had no effect on the results at school. All children were in equal conditions, studied according to the same program, so the road was open to everyone. School knowledge was enough to enter the university without hiring tutors. Compulsory distribution after graduation, although perceived as an undesirable phenomenon, guaranteed work and the demand for acquired knowledge and skills. This situation began to change slowly after the 1953 coup d'etat, and by the 1970s the children of the partyocracy became more "equal" - "those who are more equal" received places in the best institutions, many physics, mathematics, language schools thus began to degenerate into "elitist ”, from where it was no longer possible to simply remove a negligent student, since his dad was a “big man”.

• The emphasis is not only on education, but also on education. The Soviet school covered the student's free time, was interested in his hobbies. Sections, extracurricular activities, which were mandatory, left almost no time for aimless pastime and generated interest in further education in various fields.
• Availability of free extracurricular activities. In the Soviet school, in addition to the compulsory program, electives were regularly held for those who wished. Classes in additional disciplines were free of charge and available to anyone who had the time and interest to study them.
• Material support for students - scholarships accounted for almost a third of the country's average salary.

The combination of these factors gave rise to a huge incentive to study, without which Soviet education would not have been so effective.

Requirements for teachers and respect for the profession

A teacher in a Soviet school is an image with a high social status. Teachers were respected and treated as a valuable and socially significant work. Films were made about the school, songs were composed, presenting teachers in them as intelligent, honest and highly moral people who should be emulated.

Being a teacher was considered an honor

There were reasons for this. High demands were placed on the personality of a teacher in the Soviet school. The teachers were people who graduated from universities and had an inner calling to teach children.

This situation continued until the 1970s. Teachers had relatively high salaries even compared to skilled workers. But closer to the "perestroika" the situation began to change. The development of capitalist relations contributed to the decline in the authority of the teacher's personality. The focus on material values, which have now become achievable, has made the profession of a teacher unprofitable and unprestigious, which led to the leveling of the true value of school grades.

So, Soviet education was based on three main "pillars":

• encyclopedic knowledge, achieved through versatile learning and synchronization of information obtained as a result of studying various subjects, albeit through ideology;
• the presence of a powerful incentive for children to study, thanks to the patronage of the elders over the younger ones and free extracurricular activities;
• respect for the work of teachers and the institution of the school as a whole.

Looking at the Soviet education system from the "bell tower" of modernity, some shortcomings can be noted. We can say that they are something like a brick that we, many years later, could add to the temple of science built by the country.

Let's look at some flaws that are better seen from a distance.

Emphasis on theory rather than practice

A. Raikin's famous phrase: "Forget everything you were taught at school, and listen ..." was not born from scratch. Behind it lies an intensified study of theory and the lack of connections between the acquired knowledge and life.

If we talk about the system of universal compulsory education in the USSR, then it surpassed the education systems of foreign countries (and, above all, developed capitalist ones) in terms of the breadth of the thematic spectrum and the depth of study of subjects (especially mathematics, physics, chemistry, and other branches of natural science). On the basis of secondary education of a very high quality (by world standards of that era), the universities of the USSR gave students not directly applied knowledge, but mostly knowledge of a fundamental nature, from which all directly applied knowledge and skills stem. But Soviet universities were also characterized by the general defect of the Western-type education system, which had been characteristic of it since the second half of the 19th century.

Lack of "industry philosophies"

A common defect of the Soviet and Western education systems is the loss of the canons of professional activity: therefore, what can be called the “philosophy of design and production” of certain technospheric objects, the “philosophy of operation” of certain devices, the “philosophy of healthcare and the provision of medical care” and etc. applied philosophies were not in the curricula of Soviet universities. The available courses called “Introduction to the specialty” for the most part did not cover the problems of this kind of philosophy, and, as practice shows, only a few of the entire mass of university graduates were able to independently reach its understanding, and then only many years after receiving diplomas.

But their understanding of this issue in the vast majority of cases did not find expression in public (at least among professionals) texts:

• partly because the few who understood this problem were mostly busy with their professional work and did not find time to write a book (textbook for students);
• but among those who understood, there were also those who consciously maintained their monopoly on knowledge and related skills, since such a monopoly underlay their high status in the social hierarchy, in the hierarchy of the corresponding professional community and ensured this or that informal power;
• and partly because this genre of “abstract literature” was not in demand by publishing houses, especially since this kind of “philosophy of work” could largely contradict the ideological guidelines of the apparatus of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the stupidity of bureaucrats-leaders higher in the hierarchy of power (in the professional sphere) .

In addition, those who were able to write this kind of book, for the most part, did not occupy high leadership positions, as a result of which they were not always “according to rank” to write on such topics in the conditions of the tribal system of the post-Stalin USSR. And those who were “according to their rank” in post-Stalin times were mostly careerist bureaucrats who were not able to write such vital books. Although bureaucratic authors sometimes published books that purported to fill this gap, they were essentially scribbled.

An example of this kind of graphomania is the book of the Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Navy from 1956 to 1985, S.G. Gorshkov (1910 - 1988) "Sea Power of the State" (Moscow: Military Publishing. 1976 - 60,000 copies, 2nd supplemented edition 1979 - 60,000 copies). Judging by its text, it was written by a team of narrow specialists (submariners, surface sailors, aviators, gunsmiths and representatives of other branches of the forces and services of the fleet), who did not perceive the development of the Fleet as a whole as the construction of a complex system designed to solve certain problems, in which all elements must be presented in the required quantities and relationships of the functions assigned to each of them; a system that interacts with other systems generated by society and with the natural environment.

S.G. Gorshkov himself is unlikely to have read "his" book, and if he did read it, due to the dementia of a careerist, he did not understand the inconsistency of life and the mutual incompatibility of many of the provisions expressed in it by the authors of various sections.

Before understanding the problems of the development of the country's naval power, expressed in the works of Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union I.S. Isakov (1894 - 1967), S.G. Gorshkov was very far away, which had an extremely harmful effect on the defense capability of the USSR and the development of its Navy during those 30 years when S.G. Gorshkov headed the Soviet Navy.

Those who are prejudiced that under the leadership of S.G. Gorshkov, a mighty fleet was built, we must understand that every fleet is a collection of ships, coastal forces and services, but not every collection of ships, coastal forces and services, even with their large number and diversity, is really a Fleet. The latter took place in the USSR, when S.G. was the commander-in-chief of the Navy. Gorshkov, and it was very ruinous for the country and not very effective militarily.

Non-interference in the technical issues of the ideological bureaucracy

“How could it happen that sabotage has assumed such wide dimensions? Who is to blame for this? We are to blame for this. If we had put the matter of managing the economy differently, if we had gone over much earlier to the study of the technique of business, to mastering the technique, if we had intervened more often and sensibly in the management of the economy, pests would not have succeeded in doing so much harm.
We must ourselves become specialists, masters of the business, we must turn our faces to technical knowledge—this is where life pushed us. But neither the first signal nor even the second signal provided the necessary turn. It's time, it's time to turn to technology. It is time to cast aside the old slogan, the obsolete slogan of non-intervention in technology, and become experts themselves, experts in the business, become the full masters of economic affairs.

The slogan about non-interference in technical issues in the practice of management during the civil war and the 1920s meant that a “politically ideological”, but semi-literate and ignorant of technology and technology, a person could be appointed leader, as a result of which under his leadership were “politically immature and potentially counter-revolutionary professionals. Further, such a leader set before the professionals subordinate to him the tasks that the higher leaders set for him, and his subordinates, in turn, relying on their knowledge and professional skills, had to ensure their solution. Those. the first stages of the full function of enterprise management (or a structure for another purpose) turned out to be behind the "politically ideological" but not knowledgeable leader, and the subsequent stages were behind the professionals subordinate to him.

• If the head of the team and the professionals were conscientious or at least honest, and as a result, ethically compatible in the common cause, then in this version the enterprise management system was efficient and benefited both parties: the head learned the business, subordinate professionals broadened their horizons, were drawn into political life and became citizens of the USSR (in the sense of the word "citizen", understandable from the poem by N.A. Nekrasov "The Poet and the Citizen") de facto, and not just de jure.
• If the manager or professionals turned out to be ethically incompatible due to the dishonesty and dishonesty of at least one of the parties (at least the "ideological" leader, even professionals), then the enterprise management system to a greater or lesser extent lost its efficiency, which entailed consequences that could legally qualify as wrecking either a leader, or professionals, or all together (such an article was in the criminal codes of all union republics).

How such a system worked in practice in military affairs, see the story of the writer-marine painter, and earlier - a professional naval sailor L.S. Sobolev (1898 - 1971, was non-partisan) "Exam". In this story, the "spirit of the era" is presented accurately in many aspects, but from the point of view of liberals - slanderously. However, the same “spirit of the era” was also “in civilian life”, therefore, the system “political and ideological leader - subordinate professional specialists, apolitical and unprincipled” (such as Professor Nikolai Stepanovich from A.P. Chekhov’s story “The Boring History”) also worked in civilian life.

In fact, I.V. Stalin, in the quoted speech, set the task: since one “ideological conviction in the rightness of socialism” is not enough for business leaders, their ideological conviction should be practically expressed in mastering the relevant technical knowledge and applying this knowledge to identify and solve problems of economic support for the policy of the Soviet state in all its components: global, external, internal; otherwise, they are hypocrites, covering up real sabotage with their "ideological conviction" - idle talk.
And now let's turn to the speech of I.V. Stalin "New situation - new tasks of economic construction" at a meeting of business executives on June 23, 1931 (highlights in bold are ours):

“... we can no longer get by with the minimum engineering, technical and command forces of industry that we used to get by with before. It follows from this that the old centers for the formation of engineering and technical forces are no longer enough, that it is necessary to create a whole network of new centers - in the Urals, in Siberia, in Central Asia. We must now provide ourselves three times, five times as much with engineering, technical and command forces of industry if we really think to carry out the program of socialist industrialization of the USSR.
But we do not need any command and engineering forces. We need such commanding and engineering-technical forces that are able to understand the policy of the working class of our country, are able to assimilate this policy and are ready to implement it. honestly» .

At the same time, I.V. Stalin did not recognize the monopoly on the possession of conscience and business qualities for the party and its members. In the same speech, there is the following passage:

“Some comrades think that only Party comrades can be promoted to leading positions in factories. On this basis, they often wipe out capable and enterprising non-Party comrades, pushing Party members to the forefront, although they are less able and uninitiative. Needless to say, there is nothing more stupid and reactionary than such, so to speak, "politics". It hardly needs proof that such a "policy" can only discredit the Party and alienate the non-Party workers from the Party. Our policy is not at all to turn the Party into a closed caste. Our policy is to create an atmosphere of "mutual trust" between Party and non-Party workers, an atmosphere of "mutual verification" (Lenin). Our Party is strong in the working class, among other things, because it is pursuing precisely such a policy.”

In post-Stalin times, if we refer to this fragment, the personnel policy was stupid and reactionary, and it was as a result of it that M.S. Gorbachev, A.N. Yakovlev, B.N. Yeltsin, V.S. Chernomyrdin, A.A. Sobchak, G.Kh. Popov and other activists of perestroika are reformers and unable to put them in the place of V.S. Pavlov, E.K. Ligachev, N.V. Ryzhkov and many other "opponents of perestroika" and bourgeois-liberal reforms.

The mention of conscience as the basis of the activity of every person, and above all - managers - in the conditions of building socialism and communism contrasts with the statement of another politician of that era.

“I free man,” says Hitler, “from the humiliating chimera called conscience. Conscience, like education, cripples a person. I have the advantage that no considerations of a theoretical or moral nature hold me back.

The quotation itself from the report of I.V. Stalin at the solemn meeting of the Moscow Council of Working People's Deputies on November 6, 1941, dedicated to the 24th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.
But A. Hitler is not an innovator in the denial of conscience. Nietzsche

“Have I ever felt remorse? My memory keeps silent on this matter” (T. 1. S. 722, “Evil Wisdom”, 10).

“Remorse of conscience is the same stupidity as a dog’s attempt to gnaw a stone” (Ibid., p. 817, “The Wanderer and His Shadow”, 38)”

As a result, F. Nietzsche ended his life in a madhouse.

Communism, translated from Latin into Russian, means community, community; in addition, in Latin this word has the same root as “communication”, i.e. with communication, including information communication between people and not only between them, and the root of the word "conscience" is the same "communication" - "message". In other words:

"Communism- a community of people based on conscience: everything else in communism is a consequence of the unity of conscience in different people.

Low level of teaching foreign languages

The lack of experience in communicating with native speakers gave rise to the study of languages ​​​​based on stamps that did not change in textbooks from year to year. After 6 years of studying a foreign language, Soviet schoolchildren could not speak it even within the limits of everyday topics, although they knew grammar very well. The inaccessibility of educational foreign literature, audio and video recordings, the lack of the need to communicate with foreigners relegated the study of foreign languages ​​to the background.

Lack of wide access to foreign literature

The Iron Curtain created a situation in which it became not only shameful, but also dangerous to refer to foreign scientists in student and academic papers. The lack of fresh information has given rise to some conservation of teaching methods. In this regard, in 1992, when Western sources became available, the school system seemed outdated and in need of reform.

Lack of home education and external studies

It is difficult to judge whether this is good or bad, but the lack of opportunity for strong students to take subjects externally and move to the next class hindered the development of future advanced personnel, equalized them with the bulk of schoolchildren.

Non-alternative co-education of boys and girls

One of the dubious Soviet innovations in education was the compulsory joint education of boys and girls instead of pre-revolutionary separate education. At that time, this step was justified by the struggle for women's rights, the lack of staff and facilities for the organization of separate schools, as well as the widespread practice of co-education in some of the leading countries of the world, including the United States. However, the latest research in the United States shows that separate education improves student outcomes by 10-20%. Everything is quite simple: in joint schools, boys and girls are distracted by each other, there are noticeably more conflicts and incidents; boys, up to the last grades of school, lag behind girls of the same age in learning, since the male body develops more slowly. On the contrary, with separate education, it becomes possible to better take into account the behavioral and cognitive characteristics of different sexes to improve performance, self-esteem of adolescents is more dependent on academic performance, and not on some other things. Interestingly, in 1943, separate education for boys and girls was introduced in the cities, which, after the death of Stalin, was again eliminated in 1954.

Degradation of the system of secondary vocational education in the late USSR

Although in the USSR people of labor were extolled in every way and working professions were promoted, in the 1970s the system of secondary vocational education in the country began to clearly degrade, even despite the noticeable advantage that young workers had in terms of wages. The fact is that in the USSR they tried to ensure universal employment, and therefore, in vocational schools, they en masse took those who did not enter universities with two or three students, and also forcibly placed juvenile criminals there. As a result, the average quality of the student population in vocational schools has fallen sharply. In addition, the career prospects of vocational schools were much worse than in the previous era: a huge number of skilled workers were trained during the industrialization of the 1930-1960s, the best places were filled, and it became more difficult for young people to break through to the top. At the same time, the service sector was extremely underdeveloped in the USSR, which was associated with a serious limitation of entrepreneurship, and it is the service sector that creates the largest number of jobs in modern developed countries (including jobs for people without higher or vocational education). Thus, there were no alternatives in employment, as there are now. Cultural and educational work in vocational schools turned out to be poorly organized, students "vocational schools" began to be associated with hooliganism, drunkenness and a general low level of development. “If you study poorly at school, you will go to vocational school!” (vocational technical school) - something like this parents said to negligent schoolchildren. The negative image of vocational education in working specialties persists in Russia to this day, although qualified turners, locksmiths, millers, plumbers are now among the highly paid professions, whose representatives are in short supply.

Perhaps the time will come when we will return to the experience of the USSR, having mastered its positive aspects, taking into account the modern requirements of society, that is, at a new level.

Conclusion

Analyzing the current culture of our society as a whole, we can come to the conclusion that the societies that have historically developed on earth give rise to three levels of unfreedom for people.

Level one

There are people who have mastered a certain minimum of commonly used socially significant knowledge and skills, who are not able to independently master (based on literature and other sources of information) and produce new knowledge and skills from scratch. Such people are able to work only in professions that do not require any specialized qualifications, or in mass professions that can be mastered without much labor and time on the basis of a universal educational minimum.

They are the most unfree, because they practically do not have free time and are not able to enter other areas of activity except those that they have mastered in one way or another and in which they ended up, perhaps not of their own free will.

Level two

Those who have mastered the knowledge and skills of “prestigious” professions, in which relatively short employment (everyday or occasional) provides a sufficiently high income, which allows them to have a certain amount of free time and dispose of it at their discretion. Most of them also do not know how to independently master and produce new knowledge and skills from scratch, especially outside the sphere of their professional activity. Therefore, their lack of freedom begins when the profession they have mastered depreciates, and they, unable to quickly master any other sufficiently highly profitable profession, slide into the first group.

At this level, in the cultures of most civilized societies, individuals are given access to the knowledge and skills that enable them to enter the realm of governance of general public importance while remaining conceptually powerless. The term "conceptual power" should be understood in two ways: firstly, as the kind of power that gives society the concept of its life in the continuity of generations as a single whole (i.e., determines the goals of society's existence, ways and means to achieve them); secondly, as the power of the concept itself over society.

Level three

Those who are able to independently master previously developed and produce from scratch new knowledge and skills of social significance as a whole for them and society and exploit them on a commercial or any other social status basis. Their lack of freedom begins when, without thinking about the objectivity of Good and Evil, about the difference in their meaning, they fall consciously or unconsciously into permissiveness and begin to create objectively unacceptable Evil, as a result of which they encounter a stream of circumstances that restrain their activity of certain circumstances beyond their control — up to the deadly. These factors can be both intrasocial and general natural, and can have a personal or wider scale, up to the global one.

Access to this level is due to the development of managerial knowledge and skills, including those that are necessary for gaining and exercising conceptual power. In the conditions of societies in which the population is divided into the common people and the ruling "elite", in which an even narrower social group is reproduced from generation to generation, carrying one or another internal closed tradition of governance, access to this level is blocked by the system of both universal and " elite" education. Access to it is possible either arbitrarily (rare self-taught people are capable of this), or due to belonging to certain clans of those who carry the internal traditions of governing or electing an individual by these clans to include him in their ranks. This blocking is not of a spontaneous natural nature, but is a purposefully built system-forming cultural factor, the action of which is expressed in the protection of their monopoly on the conceptual power of certain clan groups, which allows them to exploit the rest - managerially incompetent - society in their own interests.

Level of gaining freedom

The level of gaining freedom is the only one: a person, acting according to his conscience, realizes the objective difference between Good and Evil, their meaning, and on this basis, taking the side of Good, acquires the ability to master independently and produce “from scratch” new knowledge and skills for him and society in advance or at the pace of development of the situation. For this reason, it gains independence from corporations that have monopolized certain socially significant knowledge and skills on which the social status of their representatives is based. Note that in the religious worldview, conscience is an innate religious feeling of a person, “connected” to his unconscious levels of the psyche; on its basis, a dialogue between man and God is built, if a person does not deviate from this dialogue himself, and in this dialogue God gives everyone the proof of His existence in full accordance with the principle "practice is the criterion of truth." It is for this reason that conscience in the religious worldview is a means of distinguishing between objective Good and Evil in the specifics of the incessantly current life of society, and a good person is a person living under the dictatorship of conscience.

In an atheistic worldview, the nature and source of conscience are not cognizable, although the fact of its activity in the psyche of many people is recognized by some schools of atheistic psychology. One can speak of conscience and freedom in the indicated sense as a self-evident fact, without going into a discussion of theological traditions of historically developed conceptions of religion, if the circumstances do not favor this; or if you have to explain this problem to atheist-materialists, for whom the appeal to theological questions is a well-known sign of the inadequacy of the interlocutor, or to atheist-idealists, for whom the disagreement of the interlocutor with their accepted religious tradition is a well-known sign of obsession and Satanism.

In accordance with this task, non-economic and non-military-technical in its essence, the task of changing the current concept of globalization to the righteous concept of the system universal compulsory and professionally specialized education in the country was oriented under the guidance of I.V. Stalin, so that everyone who is able and willing to learn acquire knowledge that allows them to reach at least the third level of unfreedom, including the acquisition of conceptual power.

Although the gradation of levels of unfreedom shown above and the phenomenon of conceptual power in the era of I.V. Stalin was not realized, however, he wrote about this directly in the terminology of that era, and this can be clearly understood from his words:

“It is necessary ... to achieve such a cultural growth of society that would provide all members of society with the comprehensive development of their physical and mental abilities, so that members of society have the opportunity to receive an education sufficient to become active workers in social development ...” .

“It would be wrong to think that such a serious cultural growth of the members of society can be achieved without serious changes in the current state of labor. To do this, it is necessary first of all to reduce the working day to at least 6, and then to 5 hours. This is to ensure that members of the society have enough free time to receive a comprehensive education. For this, it is necessary, further, to introduce compulsory polytechnic education, which is necessary for the members of society to have the opportunity to freely choose a profession and not be chained for life to any one profession. To this end, it is necessary to further radically improve living conditions and raise the real wages of workers and employees at least twice, if not more, both through a direct increase in money wages, and especially through a further systematic reduction in the prices of consumer goods.
These are the basic conditions for preparing the transition to communism.”

Real democracy, which is based on the availability for mastering knowledge and skills that allow to carry out the full function of management in relation to society, is impossible without mastering the art of dialectics (as a practical cognitive and creative skill) by fairly wide layers in all social groups as the basis for developing conceptual power.

And accordingly, dialectical materialism was included in the USSR as the standard of both secondary (later becoming universal) and higher education, due to which a certain number of students in the process of getting to know "diamat" developed in themselves some kind of personal culture of dialectical knowledge and creativity, even with that the dialectic in "diamat" was crippled by G.W.F. Hegel: reduced to three “laws” and replaced by some kind of logic, in which form it was perceived by the classics of Marxism - K. Marx, F. Engels, V.I. Lenin, L.D. Bronstein (Trotsky).

However, the education system of the USSR did not provide access to the level of freedom due to the totalitarian domination of Marxism, which distorted the world outlook and brought it into conflict with conscience, which was also facilitated by the principle of “democratic centralism”, which was the basis of the internal discipline of the CPSU (b) - the CPSU, Komsomol and pioneer organizations, Soviet trade unions, which has become a tool for subordinating the majority to the not always righteous will and, in fact, to the mafia discipline of the ruling minority.

But even with these vices, the education system in the USSR still did not prevent those who lived under the rule of the dictatorship of conscience and treated Marxism and the internal discipline of the party and public organizations controlled by the leadership of the party as a historically transient circumstance, and to conscience - as an enduring foundation, on which the essence and fate of every individual and every society is built.

And ensuring the effectiveness of the education system as a means of innovative development of the economy at a faster pace and economic support for the country's defense capability is a means of solving the above-mentioned I.V. Stalin of the main task: so that everyone can become active figures in social development.

If we talk about the development of the Russian education system in the future, then - on the basis of what has been said above - it can only be expressed in building a system of universal compulsory education that can bring the student to the only level of freedom in the previously defined sense and motivate everyone who has problems to achieve this result. with health do not interfere with mastering training programs.

At the same time, education (in the sense of providing access to the development of knowledge and skills and assistance in their development) without an alternative turns out to be associated with the upbringing of the younger generations, since access to the only level of freedom is not only the possession of certain knowledge and skills, but also the unconditional self-subordination of the will of the individual to her conscience, and this is the subject of the upbringing of each child personally, according to the specifics of the circumstances of his life.

Afterword

Soviet school teachers provided basic knowledge in their subjects. And they were quite enough for a school graduate to enter a higher educational institution on his own (without tutors and bribes). Nevertheless, Soviet education was considered fundamental. The general education level implied a broad outlook. There was not a single school graduate in the USSR who did not read Pushkin or did not know who Vasnetsov was.

In the end, I would like to give an essay by a Soviet schoolboy about the Motherland. Look! So our mothers and grandmothers knew how to write. 1960-70 years in the USSR... And this is written not with a ballpoint pen, but with a fountain pen!

We congratulate you all on the Day of Knowledge!

Why was the Soviet education system so unique?

The Soviet system was recognized as one of the best models of education all over the world. How did she differ from the rest and what was her advantage? To begin with, a short digression into history.

The secret weapon of the Bolsheviks

In 1957, the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial Earth satellite. A country whose economic and demographic situation was undermined by the bloodiest of wars, having spent a little more than a dozen years, made a cosmic breakthrough, which the most economically strong and unaffected power in the war turned out to be incapable of. In the context of the Cold War with the USSR and the arms race, the United States perceived this fact as a national shame.

The US Congress created a special commission with the task of finding out: "Who is to blame for the national disgrace of the United States?" After the conclusions of this commission, the secret weapon of the Bolsheviks was called ... the Soviet secondary school.

In 1959, NATO officially called the Soviet education system an achievement unparalleled in history. By all the most unbiased estimates, Soviet schoolchildren were much more developed than American ones.

First of all, its mass character and general availability. By 1936, the Soviet Union had become a country of universal literacy. For the first time in the world, conditions were created so that every child in the country from the age of seven had the opportunity to receive a free education, even if he lives in the taiga, tundra or high in the mountains. The younger generation was becoming totally literate, which no country in the world had achieved at that time!

Education for the masses!

The program throughout the vast territory of the Soviet Union was the same. This allowed any child, the son of a peasant or a worker, after graduating from high school, with the help of the system of workers' schools, to enter a university and there to show their talents for the good of their native country. The Soviet system of higher education was the most massive in the world, because the country headed for industrialization and was in dire need of highly qualified personnel. The new emerging Soviet intelligentsia are the children of workers and peasants, who later became professors and academics, artists and artists.

The Soviet educational system, unlike the American one, made it possible for gifted children from the social ranks to break into the ranks of the intellectual elite and reveal their full potential for the benefit of society.

"All the best for children!"

The Soviet slogan "All the best for children!" in the USSR was reinforced by a serious program of action to educate a new generation of Soviet people. Special children's sanatoriums and pioneer camps were built to improve the health of young citizens, dozens of varieties of sports sections and music schools were opened. Especially for children, children's libraries, Pioneer Houses and Houses of Technical Creativity were built. Various circles and sections were opened in the Houses of Culture, where children could develop their talents for free and realize their potential. Huge editions produced children's books on the widest topics, illustrations for which were made by the best artists.

All this made it possible for the child to develop and try himself in a wide variety of hobbies - from sports and music to creativity, artistic or technical. As a result, at the time of choosing a profession, a graduate of the Soviet school approached quite consciously - he chose the business that he most liked. The Soviet school had a polytechnic orientation. This is understandable - the state headed for industrialization, and one should not forget about defense capability either. But, on the other hand, a network of music and art schools, circles and studios was created in the country, which satisfied the needs of the younger generation in music and art.

Thus, Soviet education provided a system of social lifts that allowed a person from the very bottom to discover and develop his innate talents, learn and take place in society, or even become its elite. A huge number of factory directors, artists, filmmakers, professors and academicians in the USSR were the children of ordinary workers and peasants.

The public is more important than the private

But what was the most important, without which the education system could not have taken place even with the best organization: a lofty, noble idea - the idea of ​​​​building a future society in which everyone will be happy. To comprehend sciences, to develop - not in order to earn more money in the future for your individual happiness, but in order to serve your country, in order to replenish the treasury of the “general good” with your contribution. Children from an early age were taught to give - their work, their knowledge, skills, skills for the good of their native country. It was an ideology and a personal example: millions of people gave their lives defending their homeland from fascism; parents, not sparing themselves, laid out at work; teachers, regardless of time, tried to give knowledge and educate the next generation.

The educational process in the Soviet school was built on the basis of the communist ideology canceled 70 years after the revolution and the ideas of collectivism: the public is more valuable than the personal, conscientious work for the benefit of society, everyone's concern for the preservation and multiplication of public property, man is a friend, comrade and brother to man. The younger generation was told from a very early age that the social value of an individual is determined not by his official position or material well-being, but by the contribution that he made to the common cause of building a brighter future for all.

According to the System-Vector Psychology of Yuri Burlan, such values ​​are absolutely complementary to ours, in contrast to the Western skin individualistic mentality. The priority of the public over the personal, collectivism, justice and mercy are the main distinguishing features of the Russian worldview. In the Soviet school, for example, it was customary to help weak students. A stronger one was “attached” to the weak one, who was supposed to pull up his comrade in his studies.

If a person committed an act that was contrary to public morality, he was collectively “worked out”, put “in sight” so that he would be ashamed in front of his comrades, and then taken on bail. After all, shame in our mentality is the main regulator of behavior. Unlike the Western one, where the regulator of behavior is the law and the fear of it.

October stars, pioneer and Komsomol detachments helped unite the guys on the basis of the highest moral values: honor, duty, patriotism, mercy. A system of leaders was introduced: the best pioneer was appointed as leader among the Octoberites, and the best member of the Komsomol was appointed among the pioneers. Leaders were responsible for their detachment and its success to their organization and their comrades. Both older and younger children rallied not on the basis of (as is often the case in modern schools), but on the basis of a common noble cause: whether it was a community work day, collecting scrap metal, preparing a festive concert, or helping a sick friend study.

Who did not have time, he was late!

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the old value systems also collapsed. The Soviet education system was recognized as overly ideologized, and the principles of Soviet education were overly communist, so it was decided to remove all ideology from the school and introduce humanistic and democratic values. We decided that the school should give knowledge, and the child should be raised in the family.

This decision caused enormous damage to the state and society as a whole. Having removed the ideology from the school, it was completely deprived of its educational functions. It was no longer teachers who taught children about life, but on the contrary, children and their wealthy parents began to dictate their conditions to teachers. The education sector has de facto turned into a service sector.

The collapsed ideology disoriented the parents themselves. What is good and what is bad in the new conditions and circumstances, not at all similar to the Soviet ones? How to raise children, what principles to follow: urethral “die yourself, but help a friend out” or archetypal skin “if you want to live, know how to spin”?

Many parents, forced to deal with the problem of earning money, had no time for education - they barely had the strength to ensure survival. Having given the best years of their lives to the state and having experienced the collapse of the values ​​they believed in, adults, succumbing to their own despair and the influence of Western propaganda, began to teach their children the opposite: that one should live only for oneself and one’s family, “do not do good, you will not receive evil ”and that in this world it is every man for himself.

Of course, the change in views, which had tragic consequences for our country, was also influenced by the one that came into its own after the Second World War, and on the territory of the former USSR - in the 90s.

Free (or, in other words, paid for by the state, by common labor) circles and sections very soon disappeared from the education system. Many paid classes appeared, which quickly divided the children according to property. The direction of education also changed to the opposite. The value was not to raise people useful to society, but to give the child the tools to get more for himself in adulthood. And who could not - he found himself on the sidelines of life.

Do people raised in this way become happy? Far from always, because the basis of happiness is the ability to harmoniously exist among other people, to have a favorite business, favorite people, to be needed. An egoist, by definition, cannot experience the joys of realization among people.

Who are they, the future elite of the country?

From the point of view of the system-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan, the future intellectual and cultural elite of the country is formed from children with and. The percentage of such children does not depend on the status and wealth of the parents. The developed properties of the vector give society a happy person and an excellent professional, realized in his profession for the benefit of people. Undeveloped properties increase the number of psychopathologies.

By developing some and leaving others undeveloped, we lay a time bomb that is already starting to work. Teenage suicides, drugs, murders in schools are still a small part of the retribution for the selfish upbringing, disorientation and underdevelopment of our children.

How to raise the level of school education again?

All children need to be nurtured and nurtured. How can this be done without unifying, without driving education and upbringing into the Procrustean bed of equalization, taking into account the individual abilities of each? The exact and practical answer to this question is given by the system-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan.

The problem of teaching and educating children is directly related to the understanding of psychological laws. Parents and teachers should be clearly aware of the processes that take place in the psyche of the child, in a particular school and in society as a whole. This is the only way to influence the current situation. In the meantime, there is no such understanding, we will swim in the syrup of Western ideas alien to us about what education should be. An example of this is the introduction of the USE system at school, which does not reveal knowledge and does not contribute to their deep assimilation, but is aimed only at stupid memorization of tests.

The secret of effective education lies in each student. This does not mean that you need to completely return to the former Soviet education system or switch to the Western standard and abandon successful methods. It is only necessary to bring them under the modern format, which system-vector psychology tells us about. Thanks to knowledge about human vectors, it becomes possible to reveal the natural predisposition of the child, his potential abilities at a very early age. And then even the most “incapable” student acquires an interest in learning and a desire to perceive knowledge that will help him realize himself as much as possible in later life.

It is necessary to return to the school and the educational aspect. The Soviet school instilled in children basic values ​​in line with our urethral mentality, which is why real citizens and patriots of our country came out of it. But not only this is important. It is necessary to teach the child to live among other people, interact with them and enjoy the realization in society. And you can teach this only at school, among other people.

When a positive psychological climate is created in the family and at school, a personality will grow out of the child, he will realize his potential, and if not, he will be forced to fight with his environment all his life. If there are children in a school, in a class who have a difficult life situation or psychological problems, everyone suffers from this. And if with the help of elite schools it is possible to give some of the children an elite education, then this is not a guarantee that they will be able to be happy in a society torn apart by hostility. It is necessary to create a system conducive to the upbringing and development of all children. Only then can we hope for a happy future for our children.

How to establish communication with a child, create a comfortable microclimate in the family and school, make the class friendly, raise the level of education and upbringing at school, system-vector psychology tells. Register for free introductory online lectures by Yuri Burlan.

The article was written based on the materials of the training " System-Vector Psychology»

Minister of Education and Science that Russian schools need to return to the best traditions of Soviet education - "the best in the world." According to her, education has lost a lot in recent years, abandoning the conservative line of behavior. Teachers from Yekaterinburg responded to her call. They developed a project according to which it is necessary to return the classical Soviet teaching methods to schools, as well as Soviet textbooks “tested over the years”. An employee of the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts of the Scientific Library, a historian of Russian education, the head of the Humanities Master's program at the University

Lenta.ru: Is it true that Soviet education was the best, like everything else in the USSR?

Lyubzhin A: I didn't notice it. If the opinion about the superiority of Soviet education were at all close to reality, it would be logical to assume that Western countries would have to organize an educational reform in their country, following the example of the USSR. But none of the European states - neither France, nor England, nor Italy - ever thought of borrowing Soviet models. Because they didn't appreciate them.

How about Finland? They say that at one time she borrowed her techniques from us. At the same time, it is believed that today this country has no equal in school education.

I cannot agree that Finland is out of competition. This is due to the peculiarities of local education, which is not designed for high results of individual individuals, but to raise the average level of education of each citizen. They really succeed. First, Finland is a small country. That is, everything is easier to organize there. And secondly, very benign people go to teachers there. So the Finns manage to pull out the guys at the expense of strong teachers, and not at all due to a good program. But at the same time, higher education is seriously sagging there.

Many believe that the structure of Soviet education is rooted in the educational system of Tsarist Russia. How much did we take from there?

Exactly the opposite - Soviet education is the complete antipode of the imperial one. Before the revolution, there were many types of schools in Russia: a classical gymnasium, a real school, a cadet corps, a theological seminary, commercial schools, and so on. Almost everyone who aspired to this could learn. There was a "own" school for all abilities. After 1917, instead of educational diversity, a single type of school began to take root.

Back in 1870, in the book of the Russian historian Afanasy Prokopyevich Shchapov, “Social and Pedagogical Conditions for the Mental Development of the Russian People,” the idea was expressed that the school should be the same for everyone and that it should be based on the natural sciences. What the Bolsheviks did. Comprehensive education has come.

This is bad?

It was the elementary school, where elementary literacy was taught, that fit well into the concept of universal education. It was organized at the level in the USSR. Everything that went on is already a fiction. The secondary school program offered the same set of subjects to everyone, regardless of the abilities or interests of the children. For gifted children, the bar was too low, they were not interested, the school only interfered with them. And the lagging behind, on the contrary, could not cope with the load. In terms of the quality of training, a graduate of a secondary Soviet school was equal to a graduate of the Imperial Higher Primary School. There were such schools in Russia before the revolution. Education in them was based on primary school (from 4 to 6 years, depending on the school) and lasted four years. But this was considered a primitive level of education. And a diploma from a higher primary school did not give access to universities.

Did the level of knowledge fall short?

The main skills of a graduate of a higher primary pre-revolutionary school: reading, writing, counting. In addition, the guys could pick up the rudiments of various sciences - physics, geography ... There were no foreign languages ​​\u200b\u200bbecause the compilers of the programs understood that it would be a fiction.

The preparation of a graduate of the Soviet school was about the same. The Soviet high school student mastered writing, counting, and fragmentary information on other subjects. But this knowledge filled his head like an attic. And in principle, a person interested in the subject could independently assimilate this information in a day or two. Although foreign languages ​​were taught, the graduates practically did not know them. One of the eternal sorrows of the Soviet school is that the students did not know how to apply the knowledge gained within the framework of one discipline to another.

How then did it happen that the "attic" Soviet people invented a space rocket, carried out developments in the nuclear industry?

All the developments that glorified the Soviet Union belong to scientists with pre-revolutionary education. Neither Kurchatov nor Korolyov ever attended a Soviet school. And their peers also never studied in a Soviet school or studied with professors who received pre-revolutionary education. When the inertia weakened, the margin of safety was depleted, then everything fell down. There were no own resources in our education system then, and there are none today.

You said that the main achievement of the Soviet school is the beginning. But many people say that mathematical education was adequately organized in the USSR. This is not true?

This is true. Mathematics is the only subject in the schools of the Soviet Union that met the requirements of the imperial high school.

Why is she?

The state had a need to make weapons. Besides, mathematics was like an outlet. It was done by people who were disgusted in other scientific fields because of the ideology. Only mathematics and physics could hide from Marxism-Leninism. Therefore, it turned out that the intellectual potential of the country was gradually artificially shifted towards the technical sciences. The humanities were not quoted at all in Soviet times. As a result, the Soviet Union collapsed due to the inability to work with humanitarian technologies, to explain something to the population, to negotiate. Even now we see how monstrously low the level of humanitarian discussion in the country is.

Is it possible to say that the imperial pre-revolutionary education corresponded to international standards?

We have been integrated into the global education system. Graduates of the gymnasium Sophia Fischer (founder of a private women's classical gymnasium) were admitted to any German university without exams. We had a lot of students who studied in Switzerland, Germany. At the same time, they were far from the wealthiest, sometimes vice versa. It is also a factor of national wealth. If we take the lower strata of the population, the standard of living in Imperial Russia slightly exceeded the English, slightly inferior to the American and was on a par with the European. Average salaries are lower, but life here was cheaper.

Today?

In terms of the level of education and the level of knowledge, Russians are uncompetitive in the world. But there was a “lag” during the USSR as well. The historian notes that, unlike other countries, the Soviet elite had the worst education among the intelligentsia. She was inferior not only to academic circles, but also to any where higher education was needed. Unlike the West, where countries were run by graduates of the best universities. And after the collapse of the USSR, the model of Soviet general education ceased to make sense. If the student is not interested, because the subjects were taught superficially and for the sake of show, some kind of social pressure is needed so that the children still study. In the early Soviet period, the very situation in the country forced a person to become a loyal member of society. And then the pressure eased. The scale of requirements crept down. In order not to deal with repeaters, teachers had to deal with pure drawing of grades, and children could quite easily not learn anything. That is, education does not guarantee a career. In other countries, this is practically not the case.

As a mother of a fourth-grader, I get the feeling that today, compared to the Soviet period, they don’t teach at school at all. The child comes home after classes - and the "second shift" begins. We do not just do homework, but study the material that we seem to be learning in the lesson. Friends have the same picture. Is the program really that complicated?

It's just that the school has moved from normal teaching to supervising. In the 1990s, this was a forced step on the part of the pedagogical community. Then the teachers were left in complete poverty. And the method of "do not teach, but ask" for them has become the only way to guaranteed earnings. For tutoring services, their student was sent to a colleague. And he did the same. But when teaching salaries increased in the same Moscow, teachers could no longer and did not want to get rid of this technique. Apparently, it will not work to return them to the former principles of education.

I see from the experience of my nephew that they don’t teach him anything at school and didn’t teach him anything, but they carefully ask about everything. In schools, tutoring is common from the fifth grade, which was not the case in the Soviet school. Therefore, when they check the school and say: the results are good, then you can’t really believe this. In our country, in principle, it is no longer possible to isolate school and tutoring work.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in Russia almost every year there are reforms to improve education. Have there been any positive developments?

Spears broke around important issues, but of the second order. The knowledge test system is very important. But much more important is the program and a set of subjects for study. And we are now thinking about the fact that tougher exams can improve learning. No way. As a result, the difficult exam has only two options: either we must lower the bar so that almost everyone can get a certificate. Or the exam will simply turn into a fiction. That is, we are again returning to the concept of universal education - so that only everyone can receive a secondary education. Is it really necessary for everyone? Approximately 40 percent of the population is capable of mastering a full-fledged secondary education. The imperial school serves as a reference point for me. If we want to cover everyone with “knowledge”, the level of education will naturally be low.

Why, then, in the world, the need for universal secondary education is not only not questioned, but even a new trend has appeared - universal higher education for all?

This is the cost of democracy. If we call simple things higher education - why not? You can call a janitor a cleaning manager, make him the operator of an ultra-complex broom on wheels. But most likely there will be no difference - he will study for about five years or immediately begin to learn how to handle the remote control of this broom right on the spot. Formally, the Institute of Asian and African Countries and the Uryupinsk Steel University grant the same rights. Both provide crusts on higher education. But in reality, one graduate will be hired for some jobs, but not the other.

What should parents do if they want to properly teach their child? Where to run, what school to look for?

You need to understand that there is no segregation of schools by programs now. Segregation exists according to what the school has - a pool or a horse. We have top 100 schools that are always at the top of the educational rankings. Today they replace the missing system of secondary education, as they prove their advantage at the Olympiads. But you need to understand that studying there is not easy. They just don't take everyone there. I don't think that anything can be done about the current educational system in Russia. Today, Russian education is a patient in need of a very difficult operation. But in fact, his condition is so fatal that he simply cannot bear any intervention.