THE SCHOOL IS YOUR NAVIGATOR AND GUIDE
Going back to the generalized image of the good school we want to see in the future, how different do you think it is from the typical school of today? There is one trend I noticed back in 20152016 in European schools, and it seems to me that it is now rolling over to us quite successfully, including through our joint efforts books, lectures, education. At the center of the educational process is a person, a child. It seems to me that until recently we were like cab drivers at the exit from the airport, when the arriving passenger was shocked at what was going on. Ideally, the school is like a navigator. You say: I need to get there and there," and the navigator tells you: Okay, Ill take you there using the most scenic route while avoiding congestion. Trust me, I am your guide."
A famous person once gave me a good metaphor. This metaphor applies to journalists and to psychologists, but I think it is equally applicable to teachers, because we all deal with people. When you do something, you have to remember that you are like a guide in the mountains, youre leading people. If you keep picking paths that are only comfortable for you, at the end of the road there may be no one left behind you. You have to remember that people are following you, and you have to choose the road for them, not for yourself.
The School of the Future the ideal school is built on the fact that first you help the child to decide where he or she needs to go, you build a route, and then you help them along this route.
I think were just moving from a school of equalization to a school of personalized routing, trying to proceed from the childs interests. This brings us back to the original meaning of the word "pedagogue, which, as you may recall, is translated as "a child guide.
The ideal school is built on the fact that first you help the child to decide where he or she needs to go, you build a route, and then you help them along this route.
Have you encountered any schools that have built a truly personalized trajectory for children, a format where the child's interests actually count?
The only perfect example I have found so far is the school I describe in "The Other School book. Thats Kunskapsskolan in Finland, where the general school curriculum for the whole country is shaped for each individual student. This model is highly scalable, and they have patented it and have been using it successfully in England and in India. It really impressed me a lot that you could do that.
I think we had such attempts in Russia at the A. N. Tubelsky school. At least I heard a lot about it from alumni and teachers who worked there. The teachers agreed they would use their disciplines to develop certain skills in children: the skill of logical thinking, critical perception of information. Each instructor was hitting a different aspect of that goal from his or her discipline.
One of the teachers at the New School was doing a personalized route in his history classes. He was building a system where students could read more, do more work to get the next level, like in a game. At the highest level, they could deliver a lesson, like teachers.
This personalization of education, from what age it is appropriate, do you think? From age seven, middle school or high school?
Thats a good question. Psychologists now say that the age of adolescent crisis in children is shifting. If it used to be at 1314, 1516 years old, now it starts with children as young as 10. I guess it makes sense to say that the earlier you try different things, the better. At the very least, Im absolutely convinced that getting experience at an early age really shapes you in the future. I can see it in my loved ones and in the children I am in contact with. And Ive done three or four thousand interviews with children in the last three years. Those who have had an experience are very different from their peers.
Tatyana Kovaleva, professor at the Moscow State Pedagogical University, believes that the time has come for self skills, the skills needed to take care of oneself. Psychologist and professor Alexander Asmolov speaks of soft skills as a set of competencies that a person must possess in a changing world. In what proportion do you think the School of the Future can and should teach soft, hard, and self skills?
First of all, big thanks to Alexander Grigorievich Asmolov, with whom we have a very warm and close relationship; it is his merit that it is said about these skills so much.
As is often the case with social change, there can be a strong bias at first. Now some private schools are positioning themselves exclusively as soft skills schools, the preparation for the business world. But gradually we will be able to find balance between self skills and soft skills, because, for example, teachers and parents lack the skill to take care of themselves, and a lot of them experience burnout. As an Italian acquaintance of mine used to say: "How are you going to work if youre not rested?
These skills help us relate objects to real life. To be honest, Im a big fan of phenomenon-based learning[3], where you learn one global topic through different disciplines, and you tie all the subjects together in that way.
TRUST AND OPENNESS TO THE NEW
You mentioned the Finnish model of education. What is its main difference from the Russian model?
We visited Finnish schools together with teachers from Russian schools. One day we came to a school that had just introduced education via VR technologies. They taught biology, geography, and anatomy lessons using VR glasses. What our teachers were most concerned about was who paid for these glasses. The Finnish teachers had no idea what they were talking about. I explained that we couldnt have teachers spending budgets. And at some point it became clear that the key word for Finnish education is "trust," the trust of the state in teachers. The teacher can change the curriculum to suit the students as he or she sees fit. If they think VR glasses are needed, then so be it.
One Finnish teacher told us: "Historically, we have three categories of professionals in our society, the specialists who are more trusted by the country. Its teachers, doctors, and the police." And we all went: "Oh, I see." Therein lies the difference between Finnish education and Russian education.
In Finland, teachers are legally obliged to try new methodological findings and techniques, that is, they are obliged to follow everything that is new. And I think thats a very big difference.
I think we need to get off teachers back and let them live outside the box at least a little bit. When you have every other teacher complaining that everything is too hard, that makes it impossible for them to get creative.
I think we need to get off teachers back and let them live outside the box at least a little bit. Because when you have every other teacher complaining that they find themselves stuck and everything is too hard and they have to find ways around, that makes it impossible for them to get creative. We all like to work in a free atmosphere, without being disturbed by various issues.
Can the School of the Future be available to any child without any admission screening? What does it take?
Its my dream, to be honest. In fact, thats what a lot of private schools are scolded for selectivity, when you select the most talented people to go to school. I dont really believe in this model because bullying tends to flourish in such schools. The harshest emotional and physical violence happens in those schools where everyone tries to outdo each other, and where there is incredible rivalry, unfortunately. Thats when, in principle, a lot of people give up and get off the finish line, because its impossible to study in that rivalry for too long.
I think that non-selective school access is definitely not an issue for the next 1015 years, unfortunately.
If you were creating the School of the Future today, what do you think is the best way to do it?
Any good project starts with defining your target audience. I always divide my projects into "whats and "hows. Its the same here: what we want from the school, and how we want to do it. These are two related things.
Next we need the recipient to find the sender, that is, for the parent request to match what the school has to offer. This, by the way, is the advantage of private schools. When people come there, its because they already have a good idea of what they want.
Next comes the most important stage finding staff. I dont support the view that the situation with teachers in regular public schools is very bad. There are a lot of good teachers out there, you just have to look for them and get them out of the schools where they feel bad.
Which of the existing schools in Russia, in your opinion, are closest to the School of the Future? Oddly enough, I think it was the Tubelsky School under Alexander Naumovich himself. It was a school that was way ahead of its time. Maybe also Dima Zitsers Orange School in St. Petersburg, because, indeed, it has a model of learning that is built on absolute freedom. Frankly, I havent seen anything like that anywhere else.
This may sound surprising, but this is also School No. 42 in Belgorod. It struck me that you can put together a community of teachers with the right attitudes and teaching humanity, 4C skills[4] in a perfectly ordinary municipal school. I wouldnt call it the School of the Future outright, but its a very valuable example to me.
What about foreign schools?
I wont be original here, I really like the Finnish schools. For example, Saunalahti and Ressu. Or the Swedish Kunskapsskolan School, which I mentioned earlier. There is also La Source School, which is the last one I describe in my book "The Other School.
And another school that I remember for its views on teachers and for what our Western colleagues call forward thinking is Ørestad, a "gymnasium without walls in Denmark, which makes an honest attempt at open space, where you learn to interact with other kids, even through space, from high school on. That is, you are forced to learn with others side by side. From the perspective of the director of this school, empathy is one of the main skills of the 21st century. We often talk about personality, but we dont support this idea in any way. And that school is built around the idea of the child being at the center of the educational process.
WE NEED A REPACKAGING OF MEANINGS
Let's talk about humane pedagogy. In my opinion, this is a somewhat strange phenomenon, because everyone knows about Shalva Amonashvili and his followers, yet there are fewer than ten accredited schools on the Center for Humane Pedagogy website. Is humane pedagogy worth taking into the future, and if so, how shall it be done?
I love Shalva Aleksandrovich very much, especially after he called "The Other School his Bible. After those words, I can basically call my career completed (smiles). But I think the packaging is the issue. Behind such a beautiful name is a very simple thing. Its a love for children. Any teacher who treats his or her students humanely is, in my opinion, a humane pedagogue.
Any teacher who treats his or her students humanely is, in my opinion, a humane pedagogue. It takes a person who has the talent to repackage the ideas of humane pedagogy, to make them mainstream.
I would act on the methodology of the Finnish director Lina Liusvaara, which at one time struck me very much. When she and I walked around the Ressu school, I saw that for all its innovative approach, there were a lot of classes with the classical seating arrangement of students. I told her: "Its so unlike the image of the Finnish school that we know." The principal told me: "Because we think its wrong to break everything thats been done before us."
Right now, for example, Im making a big film about Lev Vygotsky. In fact, it is amazing how much we use Vygotsky's works without even realizing it. In the U. S. I will be in touch with two people who worked with Vygotsky and Lurie. They are James Werche and Michael Cole people who still remember that Soviet model. Its very important for me to show in this film a person who had a great influence on all of us, and we dont even realize it.
I will also be talking to Elena Bodrova, who lives in America. She wrote the book "Tools of the Mind" together with Deborah Leong. She took Vygotsky's teachings and everything he said about children and repackaged those ideas. Now she is taking American schools and kindergartens by storm. The book became a bestseller, and it rediscovered Lev Vygotsky for the Americans.
We can do the same with humane pedagogues. When we open their writings, we realize that it is all written in very outdated language for the modern reader. It takes a person who has the talent to repackage their ideas, to make them mainstream.
If you summarize everything you have said, what will change in the school in the long run? Firstly, the teachers. There will be fewer graduates of pedagogical universities, and more specialists from different fields.
Secondly, parents will work more in tandem with teachers, the notorious triangle "child teacher student" will finally be closed. We will definitely get there through conflicts and difficulties.
Ive also asked the question "Where do we get teachers?" to various principals, and School 18 in Bratsk is recruiting teachers from the parent community. In many regions, people are interested in part-time teaching jobs. It seems to me that this is the next step, when parents become more involved in the educational process.
A very important point is trust in the student and trust in the teacher. For example, during the pandemic, good teachers knew that students were still in class, even with their webcams off.
Naturally, I think we will come to a personalized education path and the interests of the child will be taken into account. My book began with the school being rebuked for its lack of connection to real life. From the saying that we teach kids a thousand things, but when they come out of school, they dont know the difference between a mortgage and a loan. I am happy to see my book at the principals offices in many schools in many different regions. They say: "You know, the idea of tying every subject to real life as much as possible is so important these days." These are often obvious things. It is pretty obvious with foreign languages, but how do you do it in math class? The teacher can explain speed not through proverbial notations such as X and Y, but through the speed of the Internet and the weight of the file you need to download. I think there will definitely be more examples of this in the future.
Экспертные мнения / Expert Opinions
Школа будущего школа про жизнь и среда возможностей. Интервью с Анной Высоцкой
Наталья Гладких, Иван Смекалин
DOI 10.55140/2782581720222-S11421
Каждый родитель хочет для своего ребенка самого лучшего, в том числе дать ему хорошее образование. По данным исследования онлайн-школы для детей и подростков Skysmart, только 55 % опрошенных родителей в целом удовлетворены уровнем школьного образования. Основная причина недовольства отсутствие индивидуального подхода к ребенку. На помощь родителям в выборе лучшей школы приходят образовательные консультанты и коучи. Редакция журнала «Позитивные изменения» поговорила с Анной Высоцкой, нейропсихологом и экспертом в области образования, на счету которой свыше 1000 консультаций в год для родителей по выбору школы.