Not quite a normal school

2024 Author: James Gerald | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 14:00

Before eleven she never fell asleep - now she rushes to bed at the first sound of the nine o'clock news. Folding clothes. Checks the backpack. Brushes teeth at night.

Wakes up at six and wakes up adults. On the pleading "baby, let me sleep" she shouts: "The school is calling!" Asks for an extension. Almost does not whine. Ties her shoelaces herself. Wonderful are your works, O Lord.

The first class begins so cool and rosy that, with my carelessness to superstitions, I knock on wood: not to jinx it, not to jinx it. Because school is how it usually enters a child: a flower outbreak on the first of September, and then what - work and duties, duty and need, hard lifting and simulation of a sore throat. All the more so for an introverted, non-kindergarten child who has not tasted the joys and horrors of collectivism.

Little is needed for such a childish enthusiasm! Children have light backpacks: albums, felt-tip pens, sandwiches, one (independently chosen) book, usually with fairy tales. They don't even wear replacement shoes, but leave the bags in the locker room. No formulas, no textbooks - yet: in the classroom they draw cryptograms - the beak of a greedy bird, a mother and daughter, an old woman, slides, hockey sticks, airplanes, garlands of lanterns, "laughs" - they are about to make handwritten letters. They teach dactyl - the language of the deaf and dumb (an excellent tool for the development of digital motor skills). They fold and open a flower on their fingers: a-z, u-u. They sing "from the blackboard" songs about the crow and the cat's house. At recess, they play the snow queen and the golden gate.

The teacher looks absolutely unperturbed. She has a remarkably quiet voice - and that's the thrill. I ask how the teacher makes comments: does she address by last name, reproaches, etc.

- What you! She always says: "Sasha, I ask you …"

- How does the lesson start?

- Well, how, how. Hello. Sit down please.

This even and unchanging "please" for some reason seems to me the key to an optimistic continuation.

And what do you call all this - "nothing special" or "unique approach"? Do not know. I only know that all children are admitted to this class, regardless of their level of training; that they don't ask "how can you help the school?" or "where do you work?" This is despite the fact that the school is, to put it mildly, not rich and, of course, free, municipal.

… I just watched the famous film "First Grader" - about Marusya Orlova, the idol of children's generations - and my soul became wounded. The entire ideology and style of the authoritarian school is in full view. The first teacher, the goddess Anna Ivanna (flawless, colorless like a statue), punishes and pardons the girlish flock with one movement of her eyebrows. Frost on the skin: poor Marusya writes with a pencil, she did not deserve (!) The right to write with ink. Her handwriting, you see, is not calligraphic enough!

"You go to school like adults go to work. Studying is your job!" Anna Ivanna rattles soulfully. With what fright? - I ask, crazed, into the TV, but Anna Ivanna does not hear me. And Marusya is already on duty, inspirational checks the palms of her classmates and rejoices at other people's dirty nails.

Marusya Orlova, according to the logic of the educational strategy and ethical values set by her school, was supposed to become a prosecutor. Or an inspector - traffic police, RONO, it doesn't matter. The important thing is that that school, with its priority of calligraphy, clean nails and the sacred role of a teacher, is more alive than all living things. But my daughter and I still go to "not quite a normal school." By the beginning of the year, our teacher did not even have an approved rate, because nineteen children in a class is ruinous for the state (and I recently learned that, according to the rules of hygiene, there should be at least 25 people in the classroom, but no more than 50 (!), does it mean that forty-nine is legal, and nineteen is not? And the notorious "quality of knowledge" is probably higher at 49?). Most likely, this rate will still be approved, not to disband the class, but why does it happen that an unconditionally good school must prove to the state its right to exist?

… I sit in line at the children's clinic, remembering Marusya Orlova and the beak of a greedy bird. The daughter is leafing through "Uncle Fyodor's Aunt". Next to me is the mother of a first-grader from some gymnasium chirping about elitism. “Everything is so elitist, you know, so exclusive. The contingent of children is exceptional, all from good families. We ordered a corporate uniform in the studio - Scottish skirts, vests, jackets. But. "You can strangle yourself," - he accidentally breaks out … "How did you say?" Everything, everything, I am silent. Do not tell her how a child on the way from school asks me: "Do you know, in all schools, children are as happy as I am?" And I say: “Probably, in all, well, I don’t know for sure, actually it should be so,” - and cowardly and superstitiously try to extinguish in myself the feeling of rare luck, so as not to frighten her away, not to jinx it, not to be deceived …

Marina Karina