Necessary Preliminary Remarks
Except for the first seven years of my life, I have spent the rest of it in and around schools:
First as a student, then as a teacher in various schools and universities, initially in Russia and later in the United States.
Raised two wonderful daughters 25 years apart.
Tutored students.
Translated significant educational and psychological books from English into Russian.
Participated in and even led numerous national and international educational projects.
Conducted my own research, defended a dissertation in education, and then for many years assisted young researchers as a scientific advisor or consultant.
Engaged in teacher training and professional development.
Thought, read, and occasionally wrote about childhood, parenthood, teaching, and school.
During the pandemic, I established a community of Russian-speaking homeschooling parents in the diaspora.
Since the start of the war, I have been teaching Ukrainian children and providing support groups for Ukrainian parents. I have also organized trauma training courses for Ukrainian psychologists.
For many years, I have been consulting with parents and teachers... The list goes on and on...
During this time, I have met, perhaps, tens of thousands of people of all ages, educational backgrounds, experiences, and occupations. For various reasons and on various occasions, sometimes for a long time, more often for a year or two, I entered the lives of my students. I honestly tried to teach them all, and some of them, indeed, have learned a couple things from me here and there. Like every teacher, I have left many hundreds of students behind me, whose faces or names I cannot remember: they diligently did the things connected to me and did not cause any unnecessary trouble, but we never had a chance to touch souls. Why did it go that way? One or two kids from almost every group of students I ever taught became lifelong friends. Why exactly these particular ones? Almost every group I taught had a couple kids in whom I invested like no other, most of them went into adulthood without ever looking back, and I’m still not very sure why.
From all these experiences, meetings, reading, work and reflections, this book was born.
This book is not a memoir, not a monograph, and not a strict scientific study; you will not find ten references in each paragraph on its pages. There will be no bibliography, no subject index at the end. The further I move along it, the more it seems to me that there is nothing at all in it, except for trivia each known to someone and just coming together here. Apparently, its genre should be best defined by the French concept of vulgarization scientific (popular science).
Finally, it was not easy for me to write all this. I hope it will be easy for you to read. But only if you can maintain the position of an outside observer. There is, as they say, “nothing personal” here, we are talking about an institution in which a considerable number of people are trying to honestly do their job, but it turns out badly for almost everyone in there and for all of us together.
Table of Contents
The World of People, Things, and Ideas at the Beginning of the 20th Century
Things
Adults
Children
Human Sciences: Pedagogy and Psychology
The World of School at the Beginning of the 21st Century
A Leap Over a Hundred years
Structure and Architecture, Space and Time
People and Relationships
Children and Families
School Adults
School Days: Boredom, Fuss, and Lies
Human Sciences, Education, and School
Around Education
Politics, Finance, and Bureaucracy
Publishers, Textbooks, and Equipment
Testing Industry
Tutors, Private Tutors, Online Schools, and Platforms
At the System’s margins
Education as Personal Quality
Education
Understanding
Context
Interest
Freedom
Chance, Choice, and Encounter
Trust
Patience
Respect
In Search of Systematicity
Finally, Love
The Hardest part: Common Sense
Parent Education
Why do we care to have children
Expectations and Reality
Can One Learn To Be a Good Enough Parent
Teacher Education
What kind of Teacher Does School Need?
What kind of Teacher Do Parents Need?
What Kind of Teacher Do Children Need?
How Does a Person With a Diploma Become a Teacher?
How Are Teachers Trained?
Would We Dare?
Acknowledgements