Мы можем сделать то же самое с гуманными педагогами. Когда мы открываем их труды, то понимаем, что это все написано очень устаревшим языком для современного читателя. Нужен человек, который талантливо переупакует их идеи, сделает их массовыми.

Если обобщить все, что вы сказали, что поменяется в школе в перспективе?

Во-первых, учителя. Будет меньше выпускников педагогических вузов, и в большей степени будут люди из разных сфер.

Во-вторых, родители будут больше работать в паре с учителями, этот пресловутый треугольник «ребенок – учитель – ученик», он будет у нас наконец-то закрытым. Мы точно к этому придем через конфликты и сложности.

Вопрос «где брать учителей?» я тоже задавал разным директорам, и в школе № 18 Братска идет набор учителей из родительского сообщества. В очень многих регионах людям интересна частичная занятость преподавателем. Мне кажется, что это следующий шаг, когда родители будут больше вовлекаться в образовательный процесс.

Очень важный момент – доверие к ученику и доверие к учителю. Например, во время пандемии хорошие учителя знали, что ученики все равно сидят на уроке, даже с выключенными видеокамерами.

Естественно, мне кажется, мы придем к индивидуальному маршруту и к учитыванию интересов ребенка. Моя книга начиналась с того, что школу больше всего упрекают за отсутствие связи с реальной жизнью. Та самая фраза, что мы учим детей тысяче вещей, но, выходя из школы, они не знают разницы между ипотекой и кредитом. Я с радостью вижу, когда захожу в школы в самых разных регионах, свою книжку у директоров. Они говорят: «Вы знаете, настолько важна сейчас идея того, что нужно максимально каждый предмет привязывать к реальной жизни». Часто это очевидные вещи. С иностранными языками все понятно, а как это сделать на уроке математики? Учитель может объяснить скорость движения не через пресловутые обозначения, такие как икс и игрек, а через скорость Интернета и вес файла, который тебе нужно скачать. Мне кажется, в будущем таких примеров точно будет больше.

Alexander Murashev, a journalist, author of "The Other School" book and the “Normal People" YouTube project, presenter of the namesake program on Radio Mayak, is a guest of our Journal's special issue "Positive Changes: Education." Editor-in-Chief Natalia Gladkikh talks to Alexander about the concept of the School of the Future and how school can become one's navigator in life.

Alexander Murashev

Natalia Gladkikh

PhD in Psychology, Leading Expert, Centre for Technological Innovations, Institute of Social and Economic Design at the Higher School of Economics

Alexander, to start off our interview, why do you think the school will be needed in the future?

I think this is the biggest question of 2022. The answer is quite clear: the school is needed to get to know the world and yourself. Remember Richard Bach, the writer? He said that the only way to get to know yourself is through relationships, because only one man in human history has been able to do that just by sitting under a tree. We all know his name. Nobody else has succeeded.

When you find yourself in a good school, you identify yourself and search for your kind. Ideally, the school is a community. I guess that’s what specialized classes were created for: that’s where you gradually figure out what you’re interested in and find your kind. Unfortunately, all these communities by interest now only exist outside of the school system. These include all kinds of children’s camps and online communities.

You interact a lot with teachers. How do they answer this question?

The Moscow Department of Education has recently conducted a street survey and found out that most people think everything is very bad with the education: "Everybody says it’s bad, so it must be bad.” And I really wanted to make a film showing that we had good teachers in the most ordinary schools. We went to three locations in Russia: Bratsk, Birobidzhan and Belgorod. To the most ordinary district schools. But when you ask teachers: "What is the school for? What do you teach?”, they talk about how the most important thing is "blazing” people. I’m growing increasingly convinced that you don’t need big budgets, you don’t need a private school, you don’t need some kind of a superstar principal to create this community of «blazing» people. I quizzed the students, the teachers, the principals. It’s just a cohort of people who like to teach, who enjoy teaching.

I am glad people like this exist. And, going back to the first question, this is what the school is about, it is about motivating each other and enjoying each other’s company.

You talk about community, but when I come to school, unlike some hobby group or family class, I don't know who is waiting for me there, and I don't get to choose whom I will study with.

Absolutely, yes. But I believe that gradually it comes down to a backbone of people who are blazing for what they want. I asked the principals outright: "But surely you must have teachers who are not like you, whose idea of education is banging the students on their heads with a ruler." – "Of course we do." – "And what do you do about them?" – "Nothing, really. It is just that once they find themselves around us, they either fit in with the team or realize it is not their thing."

It’s like any workplace. You come in, everyone there is different. Some people really want to work, while others just want to sit through the office hours and go home in the evening. The principal’s role then is to assemble a team of people who will not sit through their hours but who will blaze for their work.

Do you think it is normal to have teachers migrate from one school to another?

I often get letters from teachers: "I work hard, but other than me, there are just one or two committed individuals in the entire staff, and I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to be creative in the classroom." In cases like this, of course, people would leave to other schools, just to find what is right for them. I don’t really believe in being a "lone warrior." In teaching, you won’t go far on enthusiasm alone.

Then where do we look for good teachers?

As my latest filming trip shows, regular municipal schools tend to hire people who have not graduated from pedagogical universities and are therefore not trained to be teachers. Instead, they opt for specialists in various areas. For example, a person is very passionate about geography, and goes to teach this subject in school. Roughly speaking, the Asya Kazantseva or Alexander Panchin type of people (science journalists and popularizers of science – editor's note). And this sounds like a feasible option, because such people really enjoy talking about their subject. We pay them for their lectures, without realizing it is just as much teaching work, instead we give them a beautiful name like «popularizers» or “researchers." However, in fact, these are ready-made teachers – just take them, lure them into school, and that’s it, they are ready to teach the kids.