Children's problems at school. Problems of a modern student consultation on the topic The greatest number of problems in education are created by schoolchildren

There are a lot of complaints about the current state of affairs in the school and the education system as a whole. However, psychologists advise loving or at least appreciating your crises. After all, the crisis of any system is a reason to reconsider the situation. So how do we equip the school?

The selection includes analytical materials from experts and educators on what is wrong with the school and what to do. For some, articles can be a reason for discussion, because the selection includes different opinions. But this is good, if you believe the common phrase that truth is born in a dispute.

Why is it impossible to study calmly in Russian schools, what psychological difficulties does a child face on the way to knowledge, and how does the emotional atmosphere in Russian schools differ from the Czech one? What needs to be done to make learning and teaching easier? Says the candidate of pedagogical sciences, living in the Czech Republic.

“And on which piece of paper to write, on a double one?”, “I forgot my pen”, “They didn’t tell me.” All this is well known to every teacher. But the problem is not only in children's lack of independence, which is overcome with time, but also in children's ideas of adults. Someone is nostalgic for Soviet childhood and does not see the obvious from this, someone believes that everyone owes him, and someone is hiding from real problems.

What are the problems and challenges faced by novice specialists who leave to work in other cities? What is the modern approach to education in the context of relations between the center and the periphery? What is it like for a “teacher from the capital” to bring light and knowledge when the audience is not in the mood to listen? Young teachers who have left the big cities to teach in rural schools talk about their work.

Why do students get papers in schools that show anything but the real level of their knowledge? What about the fact that the school world is generally very different from the real one? Why are many things that deserve discussion not included in the school curriculum? And other problems of school education.

Another statement about why everything related to school automatically causes boredom and a feeling of frustration - both in children and adults. For some reason, even as venues for topical educational events, more often they tend to choose more fashionable spaces, because at school everything breathes with chronic melancholy. They go to school only for elections - and this, probably, is also not just like that.

At the beginning of the 21st century, the educational system trembled in the face of a new threat lurking in the smartphone of every student. “OK, Google” - and all the answers are in full view, which means that teachers, it seems, are no longer needed. An article about the new function of the teacher, the peculiarities of the thinking of the "digital generation" and how free access to information is changing education.

It is still difficult to rebuild and quickly respond to changes, but it is obvious that there is a need for a new approach to the system. The director of the Moscow International Salon of Education talks about how to build your own education, and about new ways of development and pedagogical creativity for everyone who teaches the younger generation.

To make the lessons meaningful and school education useful, it is not enough for today's teacher to simply retell the textbook. You need to justify different points of view and be critical of information, transferring the same skill to students. The rector of the Moscow Pedagogical University and the former Deputy Minister of Education - about what kind of teachers modern pedagogical universities need to educate, and about the knowledge that a student needs (or not).

Information about gases, bandages and sapper shovels is a good thing, but the modern world is fraught with threats that we simply could not imagine 10-20 years ago. Therefore, it makes sense to tell students what cybersecurity is, how to behave online so as not to become a victim of crime, and how to properly protect your digital devices.

A little more about what questions the school poses to the teaching staff, and how enthusiasts solve them. According to the organizer of the Teacher for Russia project, acting classes, the ability to meditate, skills taken from business education and the ability to break through the inhuman formulations of the Federal State Educational Standard will come in handy for successful pedagogical specialists.

All of us in our lives are connected with the school - we all went through it as students, many of us have children who are either already in school or will soon be studying in it; many of us work at a school, and many would like to go there. In our country, there is a lot of talk about education, about schools, about the forms of final exams - the school topic is one of the most important in our life. What is important in the school itself?

Whatever they say, the most important thing in the school is the students, that is, those for whom the school was created. Let's imagine that all schoolchildren, following the advice of some teachers, quit studying and went to work - the school can be closed, because it will simply cease to be needed. At the same time, many students do not want to study at all, which, quite naturally, annoys many teachers. Why don't kids want to learn? There are many reasons for this.

Firstly, many teachers treat their work and children incorrectly. Teachers believe that no matter how uninteresting the child is, he needs to be made to know the subject (while each teacher considers his subject the most important). But teachers often do not take into account at all the individual characteristics of their students, some of whom, due to their personality, are not able to study well in this subject. Teachers, on the other hand, make a generalized conclusion - “this student is bad”, although in other subjects he may well be one of the best. Teachers may blame students for not wanting to learn; say that they will work with this student only when he wants to learn. But if he really wants to learn this subject, he himself will be able to get the necessary information, and he will not need a teacher. The task of the teacher is to captivate students with their subject, and not to “pound” it into them against their will.

Secondly, school education is strongly divorced from life. At school, one thing is invested in a child, but on the street and at home, he encounters a completely different one. The vast majority of knowledge gained in school is not applied in life, and this is also why this knowledge is quickly forgotten. Often, students are presented with requirements that do not correspond to the capabilities of their age, so they are difficult to fulfill. And homework can take a lot of time, and a person will not have time for a free life, but it is also needed - you can’t lock yourself in school. Education at school is very formalized, and not everyone can fit into the established form, which also creates problems for students with a more spontaneous personality. All this causes students to hate the school, turning it into hard labor. And studying at school is difficult and uninteresting, so the task, if not to make it easier, then at least to make learning at school interesting and relevant to life.

Thirdly, we do not quite understand what exactly the school should do. Someone thinks that she should teach (but it is not clear what exactly); someone thinks that she should educate (but it is not clear what exactly), but no one can give an exact answer what the school does. And school is the foundation of every person's life; it was at school that many received what allowed them to subsequently build their whole lives on this basis; but in the same way, many were broken by the school and deprived of the opportunity to achieve anything. What should the school do? In our opinion, the objectives of the school are as follows:

1. Show students the world in all its diversity and offer interests in this life.
2. Give a person a chance to try to realize himself in what he found interesting for himself.
3. To help a person to promote himself in the area of ​​his interest, at least at the initial level.

That is, the school should help a person find and realize himself in life. The school must make it interesting for the student to study in it and it is interesting to live in general. But to do this, we need a lot of systematic work to improve the school as a public institution. What can be done in this area?

We put forward several proposals:

1. Reduce the number of subjects to 7 - 9. At the same time, subjects similar in content should be combined into one. Teach the basics of science, gradually deepening the complexity of the presentation of the material. We offer the following list of subjects:
   1. Physical training.
   2. Russian language.
   3. Foreign languages ​​(at least two).
   4. Exact sciences (mathematics, physics, chemistry).
   5. Humanities (history, literature, etc.).
   6. Natural sciences (geography, biology, etc.).
   7. Arts (music, MHK, drawing, etc.).
   8. Other optional classes.
2. Each subject is compulsory. Each subject can be studied at one of two levels - advanced and standard. At the same time, one subject must be studied at an in-depth level, and the student chooses this subject himself.
3. There are exams for every subject. There are several forms of exams, and the student himself chooses the form of passing the exam. In the case of an unsatisfactory grade, it is allowed to retake the exam in other forms, and the student is given a better grade.
4. Studying is not allowed. Perhaps the study lasts 4 days a week (in the lower grades - mandatory). The number of lessons per day is no more than 7 even in high school. The duration of the lesson is 40 or 45 minutes. Duration of autumn and spring holidays - at least 10 days; duration of winter holidays - not less than 16 days; summer holidays - from May 26 to September 1.
5. In addition to the main school classes, classes in an art studio and classes in the sports section are mandatory. In each of these areas, the student must complete at least 53 weeks of classes at least 2 times a week (a total of 106 classes in each area). But in case of high results in one of the directions, it is allowed not to pass the second direction.

These transformations, in our opinion, will help improve the quality of education, school work, and give students new and broad opportunities to build their future lives.

Article summary:

1. The main thing in the school is the students.
2. Problems and goals of the school:
   1. Problem: the wrong attitude of teachers to work. Task: the teacher should captivate students with their subject.
   2. Problem: isolation of education from the requirements of life. Objective: to make learning at school close to real life.
   3. Problem: Uncertainty about the direction of the school. Objective: To help students find themselves in life.
3. The main task of the school is to help a person build the foundation for his future life, which should be successful and interesting at the same time. The school should not give and force - it should help a person to find his own interests, activities and knowledge.
4. Our school needs some changes that will make learning in it more productive, which will help solve the main task of the school. Suggestions for these transformations are presented in our article.

Why is it difficult for children at school?

Every year the number of students with learning difficulties is increasing. Already from the first days of schooling, a group of students is identified who have difficulty mastering the program in basic subjects.

Attention should be paid to the very first manifestations of school difficulties, because they begin a serious backlog of the child in school, loss of interest in it and faith in one's own strength. If at the same time he is punished - both by the teacher and the parents (with censure or harsher measures), then the desire to learn disappears for a long time, and sometimes forever. The child begins to consider himself helpless, incapable, and all his efforts are useless. Psychologists are convinced that learning outcomes depend not only on whether a person is able or not able to solve a problem, but also on how confident he is that he can solve this problem. If failures follow one after another, then naturally, there comes a moment when the child says to himself: "No, I will never succeed." Since "never", then there is no need to try! Thrown by mom or dad, among other things: “Well, what a stupid you are!” - exacerbate the child's insecurity. Not only a word, but also just an attitude that you demonstrate (even if unintentionally) with a reproachful look, intonation, gesture, sometimes speaks to a child more than big words. Sometimes parents justify themselves: “Yes, I don’t scold him for his grade, but can he sit quietly in class ?!” The fact is that for a child it is not so important what you are dissatisfied with, what you scold, what you reproach for - for bad grades or for bad behavior, for spinning in class, or for not understanding the learning task. There is only one meaning: they scold me - it means that I am bad, I am not good for anything.

1. Weak level of ability development

Each child has his own level of development of memory, thinking, attention and his own limit of possibilities. Someone easily learns for one five, while someone needs to make great efforts to get a solid three. If you suspect that your child is learning poorly for this reason, a child psychologist can confirm or refute your assumption. He will conduct a series of psychodiagnostic studies and tell you whether the child's intellectual abilities allow him to successfully master the school curriculum.

2. Knowledge gaps in academic subjects

Basically, this problem occurs in children who are often absent from school, or in children with a slow pace of learning information (they do not have enough study time to understand and learn the topic, and the class is already moving on in the school curriculum). Gradually growing, such gaps in knowledge on the subject lead to the fact that the child needs to make more and more efforts to understand new material.

3. Exaggerated requirements for academic performance

Many parents want to be proud of the success of their child, they dream that he gets only good grades at school. But what efforts should the child himself make for this, can he always meet your expectations?

High demands, especially when combined with various punishments for not meeting them, often give the child the feeling that parents love and accept him only when he is successful and has something to be proud of. And then, if the child is able to fulfill the requirements of the parents, he learns well at any cost. Including at the cost of lack of sleep, refusal to communicate with friends, hobbies, etc. This can lead to overwork, nervous breakdowns, depression, fear of making a mistake, and other negative consequences.

It is even sadder if the child is not able to fulfill the requirements of the parents, for various reasons: lack of abilities, not enough willpower to sit for hours on textbooks, etc. Then, faced with failure (low grades), the child is acutely experiencing it. Parents often exacerbate the situation with their criticism and discontent. All this is repeated from time to time, the child feels helpless and gradually ceases to believe in himself, as a result: loss of interest in learning, refusal to do homework, absenteeism, double diaries (for parents and for school), etc. .

4. Inability to subordinate one's behavior to rules and requirements

It is important to note here that there are children who do not know how and children who cannot physically control their behavior (children with hyperactivity and attention disorders, neurological diseases, etc.)

Problems caused by the physiological characteristics of the activity of the brain, as a rule, cannot be compensated only by measures of pedagogical and psychological influence; medical assistance is also required here. In those cases when it comes to the inability and unwillingness to obey the existing requirements, our efforts will be aimed at creating a positive attitude towards the rules, developing educational motivation, actualizing the need to be accepted and, possibly, restructuring the entire system of norms and rules of conduct. This may require a long time and deep joint work of the child himself, his parents and the psychologist.

5. Conflicts at school (with children or teachers)

This problem is quite rare in children studying in elementary school, more often parents of teenagers face it. The fact is that there is a very big difference between these two ages. For children of primary school age, success in learning is very important, so classmates who study well and do not experience behavioral problems are most sympathetic. The teacher for them is most often an important and authoritative person.

For teenagers, everything is completely different: for them, it is more important how they look in the eyes of their peers, whether they enjoy the authority and respect of their peers, whether they are accepted by classmates. The significance of the figure of the teacher and school success fade into the background. Therefore, in order to solve the problem of relationships in the classroom, the younger student needs to become successful in school, while the teenager has the opposite - conflicts in the classroom can provoke a significant drop in academic performance. And only by solving the issues of concern for a teenager at school, he can focus on his studies.

Conflicts happen in any team, and if a child knows how to deal with them, then there is nothing wrong with that. The danger comes when the situation gets out of control and becomes unfavorable for the child (affects his status in the team, emotional well-being, the right to receive objective marks, etc.).

6. Lack of interest in learning

This reason rarely occurs on its own, much more often the reluctance to learn is the result of various difficulties that the child encounters in connection with the school: failures, conflicts, frequent criticism of teachers and parents, a constant feeling that he is worse than others, etc. That is, any of the above problems can lead to a lack of interest in learning. In this case, it is necessary to understand what is the primary problem and pay special attention to its solution.

Only by understanding what factors led to a decrease in academic performance and unwillingness to learn, you can effectively help your child. After all, in different cases, different methods of assistance are needed.

What can parents do if school difficultiesyet appeared?

First - do not consider them as a personal tragedy, do not despair and, most importantly, try not to show your grief and discontent. Remember: your main task is to help the child. Therefore, accept and love him as he is, then it will be easier for him at school.

Second - tune in and get ready for the fact that you have a long joint work with the child (he cannot cope with his problems alone).

Third - your main help: to maintain his confidence in his abilities, try to relieve him of a sense of tension and guilt for failure. If you are busy with your own affairs and snatch a moment to ask how you are doing, or scold, this is not help, but the basis for new problems to arise.

Fourth - forget the phrase "What did you get today?" Don't demand that your child immediately talk about his school affairs, especially if he is upset or upset. Leave him alone, he will tell you everything if he is sure of your support.

Fifth Do not discuss the child's problems with the teacher in his presence. It's better to do it without him. Never reproach, do not scold the child if his classmates or friends are nearby. Do not emphasize the successes of other children, admire them.

sixth – you should be interested in doing homework only when you constantly help him. Be patient when working together. After all, the work of overcoming school difficulties is very tiring and requires the ability to restrain yourself, not raise your voice, calmly repeat and explain the same thing several times - without reproaches and irritation. Typical parental complaints: “I don’t have any strength ... I exhausted all my nerves ...” usually such classes end in tears: “I can’t restrain myself, I scream, otherwise I’ll crack.” Do you understand what's the matter? An adult cannot restrain himself, but the child is to blame. All parents feel sorry for themselves, but the child is very rare ...

For some reason, parents believe that if there are difficulties in writing, you need to write more; if he does not read well, read more; if he thinks badly, solve more examples. But this tiresome, unsatisfying occupation kills the joy of the work itself! Therefore, do not overload the child with what he does not succeed.

It is very important that nothing interferes with you during classes, so that the child feels that you are with him and for him. Never demand that the child immediately start doing the task on his own. First, take everything together with him, make sure that everything is clear to him.

It is equally important to decide with which of the adults it is better for the child to do homework. Moms are usually softer - but they often lack patience, and emotions are over the edge ... Dads are tougher, but calmer. Try to avoid such situations when one of the adults loses patience, calls for a change and “for reprisal” of another.

A child with school problems will only in rare cases fully know what is given to him at home. And there is no malicious intent here: the fact is that homework is almost always given at the end of the lesson, when the class is already noisy, and your “lagging behind” student is tired and almost does not hear the teacher. Therefore, at home, he can quite sincerely say “Nothing was asked.” In this case, ask your classmates about homework.

When preparing homework, the total duration of continuous work should not exceed 20-30 minutes. Pauses after such work are required!

Do not strive at any cost and spare no time to do everything at once.

seventh - try to find contact with the teacher, because the child needs help and support from both sides.

eighth - the most important thing in helping a child is a reward for his work, and not only in words. Unfortunately, parents often forget about this. And if this is not done, the child, starting to work, may think: “There is no point in trying, no one will notice my success.” The reward is obligatory; it can be a joint walk, a trip to the zoo, to the cinema ...

ninth – children with school problems need a measured and clear daily routine. We must not forget: such children are usually restless, not collected, which means that it is not at all easy for them to follow the regime.

If the child has difficulty getting up, do not pull him, do not rush, do not push him again; It's better to set your alarm clock half an hour earlier.

Perhaps the most difficult time is the evening, when it is time to go to bed. Parents strive to quickly put the little student to bed, and he, as best he can, is playing for time. Often this ends in a quarrel, tears, reproaches. And then the child cannot calm down and fall asleep for a long time ... You can give him some freedom (by allowing him to go to bed not exactly at nine, but from nine to half past ten). A complete (without any training tasks) rest on Sunday and especially during the holidays is very important.

tenth , and lastly, the timeliness and correctness of the measures taken significantly increase the chances of success. Therefore, if you yourself cannot determine what prevents your child from succeeding in educational activities and how to help him, or if you are not completely sure of the correctness of your position in relation to the child, it is best to seek help from specialists (psychologist, teacher, speech therapist, neurologist, child psychiatrist). They will help to establish the cause of school difficulties, and suggest how to get out of this situation. And follow all their recommendations!

The quality of school education in modern Russia has become one of the most discussed topics today. Strange government reforms, senseless innovations in the school curriculum, deviation from the norms of the concept of a secular state towards a religious principle - all this not only injures the child's psyche, but can also form in him an absolutely wrong perception of the world around him at the most important stage of life.

It so happened that modern school education in Russia is a bunch of problems that have always existed separately and it was possible to deal with them, but when they merged into one big and heavy lump, it immediately went to the bottom and pulled all those achievements which we reached at the time when the first man flew into space. And the point here is not at all in a stupid generation, it's just that no one is going to rebuild the system for this generation. The state does not need citizens with an open mind, it needs cogs in the state machine that will thoughtlessly maintain the integrity of the unit under the driver.

Personnel question

Take, for example, school teachers. There have always been bad and indifferent teachers, but there have never been so many of them. There are many reasons for this, and not the least of them is the attitude of the state towards the teaching profession. If earlier this work was considered one of the most important, and the teacher himself was a respected and valuable person, now middle managers and other businessmen, whose skills after the apocalypse will be worthless after the apocalypse, are respected in society.

The humiliatingly low salaries of teachers have led to a lack of those who want to connect their lives with this profession, so there are practically no valuable personnel who consider teaching the meaning of their lives. A hungry teacher who barely makes ends meet is unlikely to be able to give children knowledge if he is simply physically unable to do so. The passing score for applicants to universities for teaching specialties is extremely low, and becomes a straw of salvation for those who do not see a chance to enroll in a more prestigious profession.

Of course, among the teachers there are quite talented and creative people who want to convey science to children in full with the help of an interesting presentation. Unfortunately, such teachers are overwhelmed by the modern system of bureaucracy. They have to write countless reports, programs, fill out unnecessary paperwork and do everything except educate their charges. In addition, the ideological machine has recently become active, which obliges teachers to put in the minds of children the “correct” perception of modern Russia and its government, which also does not contribute to the popularity of the teaching profession.

The question of the education system

The planned budget for education in Russia is reduced every year. In 2015, it amounted to 629.3 billion rubles, and in 2016 it was already 579.8 billion rubles. The budget for 2017 has become even lower - 568 billion rubles, and such a pace should alert any sane citizen of modern Russia. Obviously, such decisions will entail a reduction in the number of teachers, as well as teachers in other educational institutions. Many scientists will simply be fired, and schools will not be able to afford the necessary equipment to teach children. But the braces are in place.

Another of the cornerstones is the controversial reforms in the education system. For many years, the mention of the Unified State Examination causes a semi-conscious state in schoolchildren and their parents. This innovation has repeatedly proved its inefficiency: the questions on the exam do not correspond to the school curriculum, look stupid, and do not allow assessing the level of knowledge of the graduate. Every year, news pops up about how, in the pursuit of performance, some schools show phenomenal results in the Unified State Examination, schoolchildren cheat for free, and parents organize entire groups to help their children.

In recent years, there has been a tendency to distort the school curriculum, which is a chaotic set of subjects that do not overlap with each other. If the exact sciences situation looks stable, then the government's strange reforms affect the distortion of information in the humanities. Historical facts are distorted, new rules of the Russian language are introduced, from which teachers of the old school are horrified, many works of writers are removed from the literary program solely for political and ideological reasons. All this can lead to horrific consequences and increase the number of illiterate people with narrowly focused thinking to perform a single task throughout their lives.

A question of generations

The old credo "And so-a-ak it will do!" reflects in the best possible way on modern school education. The unwillingness to rebuild the system for the new generation, which is spoiled by the Internet and access to a wide variety of information, leads to the fact that children are simply not interested in being in a school lesson, where the teacher reads a paragraph from the textbook in a monotonous voice. One glance at the equipment in the school physics classroom is enough to depress even an adult who does not adhere to mossy conservative views. What can we say about children who like to be in the "trend" and welcome everything modern.

Forcibly holding a child at a computer in a computer science classroom to teach him how to draw lines in the Paint editor is a very popular activity in modern schools. It is much easier to do so than to develop a program that will really interest the student - this is a dangerous initiative that can lead to the destruction of a pattern developed over decades.

The problem of the modern generation is that children are simply not interested in learning. In many ways, this is the fault of parents who let their child's life take its course. A few decades ago, many parents gave the child a base on the structure of the world around him, which stimulated him to engage in self-education. It was fashionable to read books, but now young people have a stereotype that this is a shameful occupation for outcasts, and if books are read, then only those that are “in trend”. Usually these are memoirs of philosophers, from which you can pull quotes for status in social networks.

Given all of the above problems, many parents face the question: “Is it worth it to send their children to school at all?”. We are not talking about those situations when parents deny education as such in order to dedicate their child to the service of the Faith or something else. We also want to remind you that Article 43 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation states that general education is compulsory for everyone, and parents are obliged to provide their child with the conditions for receiving it. It is another matter which conditions are best suited for children whom parents want to protect from the shortcomings of modern Russian schools.

The need for a school for parents and their children

It is sad to admit this fact, but the school for many parents is something like a long-term locker, where dad and mom hand over their child in order to calmly go to work and not worry that their child is not under supervision. In especially neglected cases, parents prefer to leave the child in aftercare even when one of them is at home due to forced circumstances, forcibly depriving the child of the comfort of the hearth.

Children perceive the modern Russian school as a duty and hard labor, therefore, communication with friends is of interest to them, first of all. If communication with peers is provided in combination, for example, with homeschooling, then the need for school in a child's life is reduced.

Complete lack of training effectiveness

Definitely, the school gives the child knowledge, but this is extremely inefficient due to the lack of a logically constructed education program. Children are taught to read, write, sometimes even count, but the teacher can pay much more attention to the ugly handwriting of the child than the content of his composition, because it is important to do it “according to the system”, and not based on your imagination. If a child was able to independently enter a prestigious university after school, then in 90% of cases this is his merit, and not the school.

The program for almost any subject is spread over hundreds of lessons, during which children do not do something useful or interesting, because the system obliges memorization, and not understanding causes and effects. At a time when the tutor tells the child in detail the rules of the Russian language and explains why in this case it is written this way and nothing else, the school teacher simply makes the rule memorize by heart, but putting it into practice turns out to be incredibly difficult due to lack of information.

By the end of the school year, a rare student will remember what he was told in the lessons at the very beginning, since he completely lacked the practical part. Numerous controls look like a duty that is performed without understanding the content. All this leads to the fact that closer to the graduation classes, parents have to hire a tutor for their child in some subjects, who begins to teach the student the subject from the very beginning, but according to a well-built program, which is qualitatively assimilated in a shorter time. And the point here is not at all that the child is stupid, it’s just that he wants to spend his most active years of his life in the most diverse way, and he simply won’t be able to walk around concentrated on the next equation or formula from algebra for a whole year.

The way out of this situation is obvious: you need to hire tutors for your child, which entails additional costs. Not all parents can afford it, but modern Russian schools do not plan to change.

Is school a social institution for a child?

Undoubtedly, communication with peers develops in the child a number of qualities that will be useful to him in the future. Ideally, the student should develop leadership, communication, imagination, willpower, determination, oratory, speed of thinking and the ability to navigate in a non-standard situation. In fact, things are much worse.

The leaders in the class are hooligans, who use intimidation methods to force others to accept their point of view and behavior. They don’t like smart people at school, but the words “Are you smart?” are a known insult. Sometimes it comes to the fact that the authors of this phrase are the teachers themselves.

The communication of children in modern schools is built in such a way as to correspond to the "fashion". Already from the school bench, we understand that the initiative rapes the initiator, therefore it is better to be silent and not stick out, because you can incur the wrath of the whole class, and even the teacher.

The indifference of teachers leads to the fact that they are absolutely indifferent to the relationship of their wards. Often classes are divided into small groups that mutually hate each other, but no one wants to understand this.

Reduction to a common denominator

The task of the modern school in Russia is to make everyone the same. The student should not stand out from the general mass, so as not to create "problems" for teachers and society.

Creative impulses in the child are stifled in the bud, and only the most persistent can sing in the school choir, the rest face contempt from their peers, especially boys. Under the influence of certain layers of the school hierarchy and fueled by his father's views, a special set of classes is being formed that corresponds to the image of a "real man". Anything that does not correspond to it can cause persecution of the child and humiliation in the eyes of classmates.

The high speed of thinking in the modern school is more of a burden than a privilege. Most often, teachers simply do not pay attention to the student's attempts to show that he is coping with the task much more efficiently than the school curriculum requires, and sometimes they practically kill it in a person. When a teacher repeats a statement for the tenth time to the weaker students in the class, a child with a high speed of thinking becomes unbearably bored in the lesson.

Activity and creativity are almost always blocked by the education system in the bud. “You should not stand out from the crowd, because you and the class are one, no one will adapt to you, adapt to everyone.” Suggestions from students to direct the lesson in a more interesting direction are immediately suppressed by teachers, because this is not provided for by the program. If a child likes a certain subject, then he is forced to study it on his own after school, because he does not receive due attention and advice from the teacher on issues of interest. It will not be possible to express one's opinion with impunity; this will be followed by the reaction of the class and the teacher.

At school, no attention is paid to teaching the perception of the surrounding world. Critical thinking is considered something of an atavism, which is diligently eradicated by teachers, pushed by the knee of ideology. Children stop understanding the text they read. In addition, textbooks are often written in a language that only the author understands. Dry and uninteresting presentation kill any desire in schoolchildren to get a share of knowledge. Only a few can formulate their thoughts in a clear explanation, each answer in the lesson is not a dialogue between a teacher and a student, but a mini-exam, where the student tries to please the teacher-head with a trembling voice.

School objectives and reality

Ideally, the school class should become for the child a simplified model of an adult society, where the student undergoes many years of preparation for independent living and relationships with people. In fact, it turns out to be a kind of prison, where there is its own set of rules that everyone must obey. Opinions that are different from the thoughts of teachers or unspoken leaders in the class are immediately ridiculed by others, especially if the child is shy and cannot stand up for himself.

For many, modern schools in Russia are a psychological trauma that lasts a lifetime. Unpleasant moments from the past haunt a person for many years, while positive events are forgotten much faster, this is how our mind works.

Schooling Alternatives

Recently, it has become fashionable among wealthy parents to organize education for their child at home. This method has its advantages, but it is not perfect either.

Even if you decide that your child should be homeschooled, you should know that in accordance with the legislation of the Russian Federation, the student is still required to attend school to pass tests and exams, otherwise the social protection authorities may initiate a lawsuit against parents who forbid their child to approach the educational institution. to your child have to get a high school diploma.

In addition, when studying at home, you will have to take care of the social component for children who need communication. If you do not want to raise a misanthrope and a sociophobe out of your son or daughter, then you will have to carefully organize the child’s communication with other children.

At the moment, modern schools in Russia need full-fledged reforms and the introduction of innovations that will restore our pride in advanced and smart youth. But does this problem concern our state?

For the next 11 years, this will be your biggest concern: school. How to help your child learn well, how to avoid conflicts, what to pay attention to so as not to miss the problem ...

Let's break it down and try to figure it out. Here are the most common topics that parents turn to a child psychologist.

Primary School

How do you know if your child is ready/not ready for school?

The most important parameter that I pay attention to is baby's physical development. Strong / weak constitution, how developed coordination and fine motor skills, the state of the nervous system, the number of permanent teeth. Simply put, how physically mature a child is for school. You probably don't remember, but just 100 years ago, children went to school only at 9 years old, before that they were considered "babies". Remember the literature of the 19th century: "A little girl about eight years old entered the room." "She was left alone with a seven-year-old baby in her arms." The norms have changed, but the physiology has not changed much. Do the so-called "Filipino Test": a child who has already passed a half-height jump should cover the ear with the palm of his hand from the opposite side THROUGH the head. This confirms that the proportions of his body are no longer infantile, but closer to those of adolescence. The teeth should also begin to change, at least two holes should glow in the first grader's smile.

While parents of boys are often reluctant to heed the “keep him another year in kindergarten” advice, I still urge you to take your time. This last preparatory year could be decisive. The difference is very visible, believe me,

when a child is ready for school, he studies with pleasure and without stress, he does his homework, he practically does not get sick.

And the little Phillipok, who seems to already know how to read and count, but is psychologically small and weak for a whole day in a stressful environment, will quickly leave the track, endless acute respiratory infections and tears begin in the morning (especially in winter). This is not a study, but one torment.

The second thing that everyone hears, but no one understands what these words mean: "learning motivation prevails over the game". In practice, this means that the child prefers to read, listen, look at, and not drive cars on the carpet, play with dolls, build towers from the designer. And at the age of 6, educational motivation is very rare, and by the full 7 years, almost everyone should (ideally) have it.

In fact, from the preparatory group of the kindergarten, we see very assiduous, calm, attentive girls who play “to school”, and extremely mobile, loose, energetic boys, for whom it is a problem to sit still for at least 15 minutes. And no school preparation classes can change this situation, since we are talking about the state of the nervous system, and not at all about behavior and “correct habits”.

From here we move on to the third point: hyperactivity and attention deficit.

Even if your prep doesn't have an ADHD diagnosis (which, I will say right away, has the right to put only a child psychoneurologist or neuropsychologist with extensive experience, and preferably after an examination, and in no case a garden psychologist or teacher), children with hyperactivity, with immaturity of the central nervous system in the last 15 years has become much more. And in order for the child to be comfortable at school, so that he can realize his full potential, parents will have to make extra efforts.

From the field of neurological problems - dyslexia, dysgraphia and dyscalculia, those. inability to read, count and write. It is the impossibility, the extreme difficulty in recognizing characters, and not laziness, whims and unwillingness to learn. It is possible to distinguish one from the other, but it is better if a specialist does it. All of the above dysfunctions are corrected by classes with a neuropsychologist.

See what happens.

It is extremely rare that learning problems in elementary school are due to misbehavior, upbringing, or something else. Most often, the cause of failure is the neurological status of the child, immaturity or damage to the nervous system, i.e. organic problems that need to be found and fixed (if possible).

Well, what if the doctors don't find anything? Then it’s worth considering whether it’s psychologically safe enough for the child at school, in the family, are there any permanent sources of tension: someone threatens the baby, parents quarrel or go through a divorce, someone in the family is seriously ill, a new child has been born . Children themselves cannot connect, for example, lack of sleep due to a baby and poor memorization in class. Nothing new to say, but sleep and eating habits have a much stronger effect on brain function than we usually think.

high school

By the age of 11-12, children move into pre-adolescence, when relationships with peers (and not intra-family ones, as it used to be) come first in their inner world. Now it is important to learn to be no worse than others. Or NOT to study - so as not to be considered a botanist. In fact, it used to be like that. In the list of priorities of modern children, study is on the one hundred and fifteenth place, approximately. Right after "obey your elders".

Now children study only in some very extreme cases, it is not possible to motivate anyone with the usual “study, otherwise you will go to vocational schools”. And there are (again) clear biological explanations for this.

From a biological point of view, adolescence is the worst time in your life to study.

The prefrontal cortex of the brain is flooded with a thick syrup of sex hormones, which makes any purposeful action, memorization, concentration on abstract objects extremely difficult. The only thing the body is busy with during this period is the search for a suitable sexual partner. All. According to the mind, teenagers should be urgently married/married into a good family, attached to any physical work, taught to run a house and go hunting. Well, as it was done all over the world until the Second World War. And in some places it is still practiced.

Am I explaining clearly? What teachers call “laziness” or “completely blossomed” is just a complex and extremely energy-consuming operation to rebuild the whole organism from a child to an adult. It requires colossal effort, calories, building materials. And all these physicists, mathematicians, social science and great Russian literature, from the point of view of Mother Nature, are nothing more than painted daisies on a tank. This evolution is not needed.

Therefore, my most important recommendation to parents of teenagers: lower the requirements. You will save yourself a lot of nerves if for a while you stop WAITING from your suddenly grown child of the former zeal and sharpness. No, demanding that homework be done, both on time and in the proper amount, is sacred, it is simply necessary, otherwise everything will go downhill. But to expect that the boy will do all this voluntarily and I would not do it with songs. Your business is to control, force, check, and his business is to shirk, fool you, evade and wallow on the couch.

(I described the whole process in some detail in, and there will be a webinar on the same topic soon. Details on the site.)

If your child obviously has not yet entered the transformation phase, i.e. did not suddenly gain height and weight, secondary sexual characteristics did not appear, there are no sharp mood swings, but studies still moved out?

Or missed something important and setting due to illness, or conflicts with someone at school, with a teacher or class.

How to find out?

The simplest, but most unpleasant action: we take a textbook, open a paragraph and ask you to answer questions at the end. Everything immediately becomes clear. If the child answers the question “How does acid differ from salt” cheerfully “Acid is sour, and salt is salty” (as I used to be), is it clear what he has been doing in chemistry lessons for the past six months? Then you can either catch up yourself, or invite someone to help. Not necessarily a professional tutor, a neighbor, a high school student, a grandfather - an engineer with experience, will completely cope with the program up to about 8th grade.

If you find that the child understands the subject, but there are only deuces in the diary, and he can’t really explain anything, you should go to a child psychologist. I don’t know if there are still epic grandparents who could send a suffering monster away for the weekend, and get a completely disenchanted good fellow. There used to be. Now their place has been taken by art and fairy tale therapists, essentially performing the same job: to listen without interrupting, without judging, to pat on the back, take a steam bath, lay on the stove and say “Morning is wiser than evening.”

A very confusing story of painful relationships with classmates, painful bullying, persecution by a teacher, but at least on a national basis, can be found. And all of this has an impact on learning.

If you are absolutely sure that from the side of psychology everything is in order - go to the doctor, take tests, just like that, for no reason, academic performance does not fall. Even simple hemoglobin can affect memory, and what can we say about vision or hearing?

senior classes

To all of the above, I want to add this: high expectations. Sadly, not all children need a higher education, not everyone can handle it. Yes, it seems - what is there difficult! But, thanks to the same sex hormones, as well as the initial data that are laid down genetically, it would be more useful and healthier for many children to leave school for a profession after the 9th grade. I saw many such examples when parents fought to the last, literally by the scruff of the neck dragging the child to the university. Which then all the same rushed, because - "I do not pull!". And vice versa, very, very prosperous stories, when at the age of 18 a person already started working, and did it WITH PLEASURE, because “it turns out!”.

Sometimes we (teachers) see that, according to their intellectual data, a child could study perfectly well, but something interferes. Usually this is either depression (very common in high school), or the search for oneself. The high school student rushes about, not yet fully understanding what is expected of him, what he wants himself. Career guidance advice, with tests, with conversations, with visits to universities in various specialties will help here.

There are studies that show that the most successful are people who embody the dream of early childhood.

So remember what your little one dreamed about between the ages of 3 and 6 and try to apply it to today's reality.

In general, we can say the following: if your child has seriously decreased academic performance

• First, check the age limits
• Secondly, we check the state of physical health
• And only thirdly do we begin to suspect psychological problems.