He works as a teacher. Territory of fear: monologue of a teacher who decided to leave school. When I was a student

A specialist with a secondary or higher education in the relevant pedagogical field can work as a teacher in a secondary or specialized school. Most often, students - future teachers are interested in how teachers work, what their responsibilities are, what their work schedule is, etc.

Activities of a teacher

The main task of the teacher is to coordinate the activities of students in studying and assimilating educational material. All actions of the teacher are regulated by various curricula - lesson-based, thematic and calendar-based, which are developed either by him or her or are based on those offered by the Ministry of Education.

There are no uniform lesson notes for all teachers, since each teacher must rely on his own teaching experience, the basic knowledge of his students, and the specialization of the class or educational institution.

For those who do not know how you can become a teacher, what kind of education you need to get and what skills you need, it will be useful to read our article -.

How a teacher works: organizing the process

When preparing for each lesson, the teacher ensures the preparation of the following organizational aspects:

• Prepares didactic materials, visual layouts, manuals and other technical educational tools;
• Provides preparation of demonstrative materials, filmstrips, presentations, experiments;
• Provides preliminary exercises with the help of which the educational material will be consolidated and understood;
• Selects suitable methodological and educational literature.

The teacher must not only ensure the presentation and delivery of educational material, but also must control the acquired knowledge. His responsibilities also include:

• Cool management;
• Educational work;
• Formation of personal qualities of students;
• Educational work;
• Identifying the inclinations and characteristics of each student;
• Preparation of documentation (report cards, class magazines);
• Organization of extracurricular activities - cultural trips, competitions, meetings, etc.;
• Education and development of the scientific and creative potential of student youth;
• Developing students’ desire to learn new material and master knowledge;
• Implementation of existing and development of new thematic plans.

Teacher's working hours

According to the Labor Code, the number of hours per week during which a teacher must perform his direct labor duties, including when preparing for lessons at home (checking notebooks, etc.), should not exceed 36. The Labor Code is the main regulatory document which regulates the work of teachers and other workers.

The number of working days per week is determined by the educational institution itself; the working week can be 5 or 6 days. Working hours, according to the curriculum, are distributed according to working days.

Paid leave for teachers is always provided during the summer holidays and is 56 working days. If the working year is not fully worked out, then leave is provided in advance.

You can learn about the qualification requirements for an applicant for a teacher position from our article.

The State Duma has seen the light! There is a shortage of teachers in Russia. Strange! Why? Because the teacher must!

Come to work fifteen minutes before the start of classes, and if you are on duty, then an hour, and on days of duty you must be prepared to meet at the entrance not only children, who, by the way, in half the cases, never say hello at the entrance and for educational purposes we need to teach them this: “Hello, Vasya, you need to say hello when you enter.” a D, not an A+, teach the physical teacher how to jump over a goat correctly, ask the class teacher why food at school is so expensive, etc. Block the road with your chest and list by heart the numbers and dates of orders from the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation banning adults from attending school during school hours. Calm down the tender, vulnerable parents, listen to unliterary indignation and tell them about what is expected after twelve zero-zero.

I must joyfully and in a good mood, creating a favorable atmosphere in the lesson in forty minutes, teach a class of thirty people to understand the intricacies of a new topic, while observing all the requirements of the Federal State Educational Standard, interviewing at least five people (or better yet the whole class and in writing, because parents only believe a written test, while checking that the topic of the lesson corresponds to the planning and this particular paragraph was asked in the diary), not forgetting that in the class a couple of children have disabilities - they see poorly, hear poorly - they need to be individually explained, Petya and Vasya have begun a transitional period age - it’s easier with them, otherwise they can send them to three letters, another four with obvious mental retardation are simply bored, they don’t have time to learn the material and haven’t mastered it in the previous couple of years, with them, too, individually, if you please, the rest need to be clearly explained with using video material, presentation, dance with a tambourine, preferably in a playful way, so that it “gets it.” Resolved the conflict between Sveta and Lena, who do not want to sit with each other “because...” Don’t forget about your homework! Go around the class and make sure everyone has written it down in their journal.

During recess, run to the teachers’ room for a “short” meeting regarding the directives sent by the ministry on how on your next weekend you should organize children for a demonstration dedicated to the All-Russian Sports Day (see instead - geographical dictation, parents at a general parent meeting dedicated to the Unified State Exam, Unified State Exam, VPR, children for the regional action “Green Planet”, city cleanup, vocational guidance, etc.), a couple more invented “Days of Prevention..,” “Days of Protection...”. Competitions, don't forget about competitions! City, regional, All-Russian, Internet and non-Internet competitions, website competitions and blogger competitions, lesson competitions and extracurricular activity competitions, teacher of the year, best class teacher, best in his subject...etc. The crazy printer sent monitoring again! Class teachers urgently fill in how many boys born before 2008 in your class attend sports sections. How many of your girls had single-parent families before 2009? How many disabled children have you visited at home in the last month? Are you not the class teacher? Then urgently provide in electronic and paper form diagnostic cards for low-performing students and a plan for working with them. And the class teachers too, by the way. And don't be late for class, the bell has already rung!

Even during recess, if there is no meeting, you must be on duty in recreation! Did someone get into a fight? What to do? Are you separating? Be prepared for criminal prosecution. You have no right to touch children! Can't you separate? Be prepared to face criminal prosecution for non-intervention. Don't forget about the dining room. Not really! Don't eat it yourself! To eat by yourself is if there is a “window” - a free lesson in the schedule. Feed the children. Check if everyone got their portions, take note of those who don’t eat or don’t eat well, ask why, maybe they don’t like something? Be prepared in the evening to answer the mothers why the pasta was cold and the children did not eat.

During the break, you need to answer a hundred questions on a new topic for those who didn’t understand, show once again how to apply the formula to the problem, look at Lena, Petya, Vasya “and what do I get in the quarter..”, take out the worksheet from the year before and prove that in it really has errors, explain what these errors are, solve this example and show what should happen.

After lessons, the teacher must check written, test, independent assignments, develop plans for the next day, put grades in the electronic journal, fill out monitoring, prepare reports on the activities carried out, prepare a summary of the video lesson that you are preparing for the next competition, think over the “goodies” for it, which others definitely won’t have, prepare visuals and presentations, do extra work with Petya, because that’s what his mother asked the director, “Well, is it difficult for you?”, and the director asked you, you need to talk with Vasya’s mother, who came after twelve, why does he have a C, having taken out and sorted all his independent and written works for her, having worked through with her all the examples where Vasya made a mistake and showing what should happen, showing where in the plan this topic is and getting stuck for not checking that Vasya did not write down in homework diary. After listening to how children should be taught, and especially Vasya.

In the evening, during the evening dinner, the teacher must answer calls from parents, tell why the pasta was cold, and the daughter didn’t eat anything, why the chemistry teacher gave a C, what is assigned in Russian and how to complete the assignment in geometry, what to glue the cube from, where are Vasya’s sneakers, Ira lost her tablet, go look...

You are a teacher, which means you will definitely be forced to find employment, disadvantaged people, low-income people, a website, Olympiads, wards... these are duties not included in the main activity and for them an additional payment of two thousand rubles. For this, plus two hours a day, you do what was imposed on you, including meetings every week in some methodological center ten miles from your location. Travel at your own expense.

Teacher's salary depending on category 7000-9000

Come work at school!

|Elena Chesnokova | 2998

For many schoolchildren, the school principal is an adult and distant person. The director gives orders, they call to the director, they even intimidate the director. What are our directors really like? Why do they work in schools for decades, and many devote their entire lives to raising and teaching schoolchildren, without complaining about low wages and hard work?

Petrova Tatyana Vasilievna has been working at the school for more than 30 years. She was also an inexperienced student - an intern, nervous in her first lessons, a physics teacher, enthusiastically teaching her favorite subject... For 12 years, Tatyana Vasilievna has been the director of the 2nd lyceum, and, thanks to her skillful leadership, the lyceum is developing and becoming more comfortable for students. There is a high level of teaching staff here, so more and more winners and prize-winners of Olympiads are appearing among the lyceum students. The percentage of lyceum graduates entering universities is increasing. And, as before, many interesting events are held for students, such as the classic “Initiation into Lyceum Students” and new, creative ones, like the recently held “Autumn Ball”.

- Tatyana Vasilievna, why did you choose the profession of a teacher?

Since childhood, I dreamed of working in a school; I saw myself only as a teacher, which is why I entered pedagogical school.

- Why do you especially love your job?

Because the work is very creative. Constructing a lesson is a script, and the work of a teacher is close to the work of an actor. You teach the same topic in different classes in different ways - you try to get people to listen to you, so that everyone will find it interesting. After all, as much as the teacher is passionate about the subject, so are his students.

- What is the difficulty of a teacher’s job?

I think the main difficulty is that you have to work a lot with people: students, teachers, parents. But everyone has their own views and their own individual character.

- How do the jobs of a principal and a teacher differ?

Both the director and the teacher are managers. Only the teacher controls the class, and the director controls the entire school staff. The director has more responsibility - he, as a leader, is responsible for the entire school, so he must see the prospects for the development of the entire educational institution.

- What, in your opinion, is the ideal teacher?

First of all - honest. As you know, children are good at feeling insincerity and hypocrisy. Kind to children - a real teacher loves children, understands, feels them. A good psychologist. Well, and what is certain is that impeccable knowledge of the subject and love for it is necessary.

- What are modern schoolchildren like?

Which? Different. The main character traits are formed in the family, and if the family is problematic, then this affects the child. Of all the “myths” about modern children, the only truth is that they read little... And I just can’t agree with the opinion that “schoolchildren used to be better.” Each era is different, when we were growing up, we were also told that “it used to be different.” Modern schoolchildren are interesting, unique, and they are still children, despite how sometimes they want to be adults and try to prove their “adultness” with their behavior and clothes. It is important that today every student is an individual and requires an appropriate attitude towards himself.

It's no secret that teachers' salaries leave much to be desired. So why do teachers work in schools for decades, and why do young teachers go to teach at schools?

If a teacher works at school for a long time, this is, of course, his calling; he simply cannot imagine himself in another environment. Not everything in life is about money; sometimes satisfaction from what you do is much more important. I know one young teacher who left school, went into business, earned many times more money, but after a while she returned with the words: “I can’t live without school.”

- What would you like to wish to eleventh-graders - readers of the newspaper “Grade 11”?

Rely only on your own strengths, work hard and study so that you can be confident in yourself during the exams. Try to determine your future profession at the beginning of the school year. Choose something you like so you don’t regret it later. Well, in the future - get great moral satisfaction from your work!

It is customary to romanticize young teachers: in the eyes of the majority, yesterday’s students should become the hope of Russian education as soon as they graduate. In reality, things are much tougher - the green specialist is burdened with endless overtime, mistrust of colleagues, responsibility for students and a small salary. “Big Village” asked three young teachers to talk about their work: what to do when you dreamed of opening a pub but became a teacher, how not to get bogged down in bureaucracy, why hide tattoos and why you should love your job.

Kirill Kovalenko

SamLIT

At school I was still that hooligan: in the third grade I broke one boy’s nose, and I was registered in the children’s room of the police, and besides, until high school I studied mostly with C grades. So I could not even imagine that I would become a teacher - if we talk about a child’s dream profession, then I only wanted to be a president.

But in the eleventh grade it became clear that they would not take me to the presidency - then I submitted documents to the planning, aerospace and Limansky Academy. Then he passed by the ped and decided to serve there too - and as it turned out, he only went through there. I decided that this was better than the army, and became a student at the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Computer Science.

Until my fifth year, I didn’t think that I would really become a teacher - I liked the idea of ​​opening a pub in my area more. This is not an empty idea: from the second to the fourth year I worked as a beer seller and generally understood how everything worked, but then I realized that I had little prospects in this direction.

Despite the fact that I combined almost all the time of study with work, the PGSGA were very proud of me: for three whole years they promised to hang my photo on the honor board (though they never did), they sent me to the Olympiads, where I consistently did not win anything, and at the end they awarded me the title of student of the year for my scientific and creative achievements.

I was wearing a baggy jacket and tapered trousers, like an idiot, and students in brand new suits were looking at me

In my fifth year, school ceased to be a vague prospect for me - except for the field of education, I was not expected anywhere. By that time, I was terribly annoyed by the thought that I would become a teacher - it seemed that this was an extremely thankless job, and, moreover, low-paid. But reality set in, and going to a position you don’t like is destructive for a person, so I tried to love my future profession. I got a job as a tutor, then did an internship at SamLIT and stayed there to teach computer science to junior classes.

This may seem stupid, but in my first lesson I was worried not because the schoolchildren would not accept me, but because of the stupid suit I wore to the lyceum. I was wearing a baggy jacket and skinny trousers, like an idiot, and students in splendid suits looked at me - mostly, after all, we have children of wealthy parents. But then the fear disappeared, I found a common language with the guys, and everything went great.

Now I teach computer science, technology and robotics to junior and mid-level students. I come to work at 7-20, leave at 15-30, otherwise the usual routine: lessons, breaks and lunch in the canteen, where for 80 rubles you can afford a salad, soup and a cutlet with vegetable stew.

There are many talented children at the lyceum - for example, one of them programmed a weather station with the rudiments of artificial intelligence. I still feel like I'm dumber than most of my students. There was a case when I needed to talk about a binary tree of graphs, and I spent the whole evening at home, memorizing a topic on which I had messed around at school and university. In the morning at the blackboard, I realized that I had completely forgotten everything I had read about - and then the time came for my pedagogical techniques: I asked who in the class was ready to show off their intelligence, and the winner of the All-Russian Programming Olympiad responded to my question. He started writing the program, and by the middle I remembered what it was about, and my failure went unnoticed.

Two of my third graders even went to a Husky concert

But there were also incidents that schoolchildren noticed. I was once showing my fourth graders how to use pictures in a word document. We started looking for images on the Internet right in class, with a projector covering the entire board. I decided to go through the characters of my favorite cartoon “Treasure Island”: first Captain Smollett appeared on the screen, then Squire Trelawney. The last one I had to show was Ben Gunn: I typed the name of the pirate into the search engine, and then a dark-skinned actor known as the Black Lord appeared in full screen - who knew that his name was the same! I have never closed a tab so quickly in my life - it was very embarrassing.

It’s scary to screw up in front of children, because modern schoolchildren are very cruel: they find the teacher’s most painful point and gnaw at it until he breaks. They also laugh at me for various reasons - sometimes to my face, sometimes whispering at the last desks. This is very offensive. Otherwise, schoolchildren are schoolchildren: they love to chat, they are often lazy, except that their jokes now do not last longer than a week - after all, it is the era of the Internet. Regarding hobbies, it all depends on the parents, at least in grades up to the fourth: those who are not allowed near the computer are interested in the same things as mom and dad, and often cannot find a common language with their peers. Schoolchildren who are still allowed to go online are much better savvy: they adore Ivan Gai, Khovansky and joke pages. Two of my third graders even went to the Husky concert with their parents - playing children's songs for them is somehow stupid. At the same time, the requirements of modern education are not at all childish - today’s child faces many more tasks than fell on me when I was at school. But children are unlikely to realize this - a lot is demanded of them from a very early age, and teenagers are already accustomed to everything.

My team consists mainly of people older than me. They are very creative and enthusiastic: colleagues are ready to devote themselves entirely to their work and try to infect others with this. It's no joke - many of them come at seven in the morning and leave at ten in the evening, checking notebooks until late! At the same time, we have quite fun corporate parties - we usually go to camp sites, where the teachers go for a walk in the forest, and I drink cognac with the physical education teachers.

I really want to please children - to be their friend, colleague and partner. But to do this, you have to clench your fists tightly, because schoolchildren try to test the strength of each young teacher: they talk to you in their own jargon, they begin to familiarize themselves. In this case, I explain for a long time and patiently the norms of respect for elders - and, of course, I also try to tell everything about computer science and modern technologies as interesting as possible, because knowledge, basically, is what educates. I know this from my own experience and I see it in the children with whom I tutor: one of them entered our lyceum after several lessons with me, I pulled the other from a D to a stable B in mathematics. Moments like these are inspiring.

I don’t know if I’m ready to work as a teacher all my life: this is a very difficult job, I would even say, a path where I have already made my mistakes. But I don’t want to leave the education sector - maybe in the future I’ll take an administrative position. And there’s nowhere to go yet, to be honest.

Violetta Akhmedova

School No. 34

When people ask me how I got into school, I answer - by chance, and this is true. In the summer of 2014, I made a promise to myself that I would finally find a job in my profession, that is, I would become a journalist. My searches continued for a month, but did not yield results. One day, walking along Svoboda Street, I met the head teacher of my home school. She said that the school urgently needed a teacher of Russian language and literature, and suddenly offered me this position. I immediately answered that I did not have a special education, although I studied at the philological faculty of a pedagogical university: firstly, my specialty is journalism, and secondly, there was no talk of any pedagogy. But the head teacher said that there are retraining courses, that she knows me, and everything will work out for me. I agreed the next day: working at school seemed very interesting and romantic to me, and I also wanted to return to my native walls in a new capacity. I was very naive and did not know at all what awaited me ahead.

During the first school year, I simply tried to survive, because the salary was very small: I was given only two sixth grade classes and several hours of extracurricular activities, during which I taught journalism to children and published a school newspaper. Throughout the 2014-2015 school year, every day after my lessons I went to courses and seminars, where I was taught pedagogy, new education standards and other things - sometimes completely incomprehensible and unnecessary. I endured and hoped that the next year would bring me more joy, both materially and morally.

Sometimes children make me angry on purpose - for example, they play their cloud rap

But my hopes were not justified: the workload became greater - they also gave me fifth grade, notebooks every day, preparing for lessons and working on endless projects and competitions, as well as documentation that appeared from somewhere every time. Finishing some things, I received new ones. It's not that bad, but it's really hard mental work that takes a lot of time and for which you want to be grateful.

I've been working at the school for three years now and nothing has changed. I arrive at half past seven and leave at four, but the work doesn’t end there - at home I sit down at my laptop again. And so six days a week. It should be noted that my story is not universal - for my colleagues from other schools, everything may be different. And wages, and attitude towards teachers, and children - everything greatly depends on the specific institution.

By the way, about colleagues: the female team is something. We have three men: two physical instructors and a labor worker. There are young teachers, but they are few, and for obvious reasons they have no enthusiasm for their work. I prefer not to communicate with anyone at all - and I don’t have time.

Minuses are minuses, but there is something at school that I can’t freak out about and give up everything - these are children. Thoughts about them save you, even when everything goes wrong. The sixth graders I started working with are now in eighth grade - they are crazy, they are alive, they are sincere, they are individuals. They received me well from the very beginning - and, despite the same age, they turned out to be completely different: the “Beshki” are very noisy, energetic, and the “Veshki” are quiet. With one I light up and explode, the other calms me down. Then little fifth-graders appeared in my life; now they are in sixth grade. There is one continuous love here.

Colleagues say that if I were their daughter, they would rip my tattoos off along with my skin

Over the years, the guys have studied my character: they try to cheer me up when I’m in a bad mood, and stop getting angry if they see me tired and exhausted. Sometimes they make me angry on purpose - for example, they play their cloud rap, which I can’t stand - but simply because they, like me, are interested in observing a person’s emotions.

A teacher must be tolerant, and I am calm about their tastes, interests, and way of expressing myself. They treat me the same way: they are interested in knowing where I go, what I listen to, what I eat.

I have tattoos. The director immediately said that I would need to hide them so that there would be no problems. I wear shirts to work to cover the tattoos on my chest and arm, and knee-length skirts or trousers to hide the tattoos on my legs. This doesn’t bother me, I just don’t understand why in the modern world people are not ready to accept us for who we are. Some colleagues say that if I were their daughter, they would rip off my tattoos along with my skin, despite the fact that no one saw them at work. The children were able to identify me on social networks - although I am registered under a different name and surname - I have few photographs there, but of course they recognized everything. At the same time, no one bothered me with questions - the children turned out to be much smarter than the adults.

I don’t have enough money, free time, and work gets harder and harder every day

I don’t have a class guide; If they give it next year, I don’t know how I’ll live: I’ll have to completely forget about myself. Despite this, they gave me an office. This is very convenient, but again it’s a total expense: I buy markers for the board, then notebooks for leaflets, or I clean the floors myself. Thanks to the children who help during duty.

For myself, I decided to finish this year, and during the summer vacation to think about what to do next with my life. I don’t have enough money, free time, and work is getting harder and harder every day. But will I be able to no longer hear this drawn-out: “Violettaa Vadimovnaa!”? Will I be able to deprive myself of childhood delights, emotions, discoveries? I don't know the answer to this question yet. Thanks to the head teachers of my school who believed in me and invited me to work - in any case, this was a great experience.

Yulia Dmitrieva

Worked at school No. 6

My mother and grandmother worked as teachers all their lives: so my fate was, to some extent, predetermined. I wanted to be like them since childhood: I took toys, placed them on the sofa and spent a long time teaching them mathematics and the Russian language. But then childhood dreams were forgotten. In the eleventh grade, I decided to become a journalist, submitted documents to PGSGA and Moscow State University and entered Moscow. But my mother began to worry about my moving to another city, and I couldn’t watch her worry, so I stayed in Samara. I entered the pedagogical program - not in journalism, but in philology - and so the fear of moving determined my path.

For the first time I came out to the children at the First Gymnasium, during practice: I walked up to the blackboard, got ready to greet the class, and found myself in a complete stupor. All the schoolchildren were on their phones, and in the future more than one lesson went like this: when children are given expensive equipment with a lot of games from an early age, it is difficult for them to switch to something less interesting like classes. There was a strong sense of social stratification in the class - those who did not have an iPhone were unsure of themselves and tried to assert themselves by bullying their classmates and reproaching them with too expensive jeans.

The student’s father blurted out: “You only play with dolls, not teach children!”

After university, I wanted to go to the Medical-Technical Lyceum, of which I am a graduate, but a young specialist cannot get there - there are no places. Then I got a job at school No. 6 on Samarskaya. I worked with both senior and junior grades. It was more difficult with the latter: I was given class guidance from fifth-graders, and in addition to educational activities, I was also tasked with educational ones. I had to stop constant fights, take away electronic cigarettes from kids, organize endless school meetings - but I just wanted to teach classes! The children’s program was also not easy: the class was considered linguistic, the children learned English and French, and Russian was taught for seven hours a week. We studied according to Shmelev's textbook with exercises that not every student can solve - these are university problems. It sounds prestigious, but in reality it is difficult for a child to absorb so much information. The students needed banal tasks to develop speech much more.

It’s difficult to be a young specialist: the team didn’t take me seriously for a long time. But it was even more difficult with the parents of the students. One day I called one father to school and met him without makeup. When he saw me, he blurted out from the doorway: “You only play with dolls, not teach children!” Who won't be affected by this?

Modern technologies come to school very slowly. When I joined the team, all educational institutions were actively introducing electronic journals, which, according to the plan, were supposed to supplant paper journals. But in reality, we kept track of both, and also wrote grades in a diary and on special pieces of paper. In addition, each teacher kept his own notebook, where he recorded the grades assigned - there was simply heaps of paperwork. Nobody liked this system, but few dared to protest - there were teachers who ignored the bureaucracy and devoted more time to teaching children. Their graduates shone with excellent Unified State Exam results, but no one cared: for disobedience they were fined up to three thousand rubles. And all this - with a salary of twenty thousand.

I saw other teachers try to avoid stress and work half-heartedly, but I didn’t want to follow their path

All the time I worked at school, my hobby was music - I have been playing drums in a rock band since the tenth grade. Now I am a member of two bands at once - in one we perform stoner rock, in the other we perform shoegaze. The children quickly learned about my hobby: first from social networks, and then they even came to the open concert. Music aroused their keen interest, and then I decided to organize a drum circle at school. I asked the director, they gave me the go-ahead, and 15 people signed up for the group. We had training drums, rubber ones - their sound was not at all the same as real ones. I needed 60 thousand for normal instruments - I understood that no one would allocate that kind of money for my club, but I couldn’t invest my own. So our classes ended, although I taught them for free and was ready to teach more.

I felt that there was a growing gap between my work and my passion - but I also realized that I was terribly tired of raising children. I became very ill due to nervousness. I saw how other teachers tried to avoid stress and worked half-heartedly, but I didn’t want to repeat their path - and working full-time didn’t have enough energy. But the last straw was that it was not possible to combine work with a master’s degree: I wanted to continue my studies, but because of this I would have to miss several classes, and the authorities said: “Choose.” I chose creativity and perspective.

I didn’t have a farewell to the team, but the children gave me a real concert. They showed a video where they collected all the moments from our school life, and then presented gifts: a picture drawn in art school, sweets, some little things bought with pocket money - someone even brought their favorite toy, a tattered teddy bear. At the end, one boy said: “I always wondered where famous people come from: and then I saw you, so talented and amazing, and now I understand.” Everyone was crying.

Sometimes I really miss my children, but I need to look to the future: now I am recording albums with my groups, and most importantly, I am finishing my master’s degree in pedagogy and want to become a teacher at a university. Even though my career as a teacher is over, it seems to me that the field of education is my calling: I still have a lot to say to the world.

Artem Novichenkov

I worked at the school for less than four years, very long and intense. While still a fourth-year student, I was invited to Moscow school number 1101 as a teacher of Russian language and literature for 24 hours a week with a salary of 24 thousand rubles. And it was an incredible experience. Restless 5th grade, a daily stack of notebooks to be checked, the director’s rudeness and bullying (bullying of one of the team members. - Note ed.) by teachers. And the school was on the other side of the city, and after work, sleepy, I went to the university for classes. It was very difficult and lonely. I learned that I was fired from my students.

In my fifth year I wrote my thesis and, as soon as I graduated, I returned to work as a teacher. I didn't see any other options.

I moved to Northern Butovo and got a job at a school nearby. When I first met the director, I immediately realized that I wanted to work with him. He is smart, progressive and wise - even when I moved to Mytishchi, I did not change my place of work. In 2009, I worked at the school for three full years, graduated from three ninth grades and three eleventh grades. It brought so much happiness, so much experience and meaning. And now I'm leaving.

When I was a student

When the teachers said: “Have you forgotten your head at home?”, “The bell is only for the teacher!”, “I’ve unlearned mine, but you haven’t!” - we winced. It was disgusting and boring, but we didn't realize What exactly it wasn't like that. “Well, the geography is stupid.” “It’s always like this with a math girl - she’s just lonely and angry.” “A Trudovik is a Trudovik.” When the head teacher asked: “Aren’t you ashamed? But it should be!” - we played shame. When the Russian girl said: “We write three, two in our minds” - and gave a three in advance, we played diligent. When the class teacher sent us to clear the schoolyard of snow for a grade, they played submission.

These roles were part of a quest called "School". For some students, the roles - C student, excellent student - were assigned until graduation. The teachers played a good teacher or an evil one, the security guard played the security guard, the librarian played the librarian, the head teacher played the head teacher, and the director played the director. And everyone knew the rules, although they were not written down anywhere.

In the head teacher’s office, the sovereign symbol of the carpet appeared in the mind: silence, standing on the soft, head down, agreeing to everything - as long as it’s not the director

We clearly understood: some mini-quests, for example, geography and social studies, are easier to pass, while others - mathematics and chemistry - are more difficult. We cunningly tried to avoid painful situations: we forgot our diaries at home, delaying reprisals, disconnected our phones from the network when we knew that they would call today, skipped tests, and faked illness. And it seemed normal. Everyone did that. This is a real game, except that the goal is the opposite: not to reach the “boss” and win the fight, but to avoid a fatal encounter before time runs out. 11 years. With breaks.

The quieter and more diligent you are, the easier it is to hold out. For violating the rules, you moved to a level that made it more difficult to stay in the game. The hierarchy is clear: subject teacher - class teacher - head teacher - director. In the head teacher’s office, the sovereign symbol of the carpet appeared in the mind: silence, standing on the soft, head down, agreeing to everything - as long as it’s not the director. You wait and, ashamed for being who you are, exhale after the pardon, which was facilitated by the suddenly softened teacher.

The director's office, always located away from school life, seemed to be separate, the most comfortable and golden, with portraits on the walls, inspiring awe. The director spoke measuredly and authoritatively. Talked about you to the teachers as if you weren't here. But you know: she will strike again when she speaks directly, and no one will intervene, because everyone is afraid of the directors. What can we say about you being so small?

For me, school was a territory of fear, not universal, of course, because there were safe lessons, but absolutely daily and persistent. Even on weekends, I thought about school everyday life, about the rules, about the game that almost none of us wanted to play, but we played because it was scary not to play. Yes, we didn’t even think about whether it was possible not to play.

When I was a teacher

I thought the game would end: after all, I am a teacher now, so I can choose whether to follow the rules or not. In reality it turned out differently: I could only be the administrator of the game in the territory of my own lesson, which at school number 1101 was controlled either by an inspecting teacher, or by the director who entered without warning in the middle of the lesson, or by sudden diagnostic work, or by some other documents.

In 2009, the school gave me a lot of freedom and a lot of trust. No one ever censored my lessons, checked my notes, or forced me to write explanatory notes because I called little Pushkin Sasha or told the children about Mayakovsky’s love drama (and that was all). I could study anything with the children: from Homer to Alexievich, from Batyushkov to Fowles, from the Tao Te Ching to Venichka Erofeev. And a hundred more books.

It finally seemed to me that I could live freely in the school space and not play. Forget the rules and make your own.

Today, thousands of girls and young men graduate who think they are bad, but in fact they simply failed to follow the rules

But there were always three or four guys in the class who refused to read, behaved differently, and interfered with the lessons. I made comments to them, at first I even asked for diaries, although every time I felt disgusted. I understood that I was becoming part of the game, playing the role of a punisher. With every remark they made me into a villain and themselves into a victim. But the worst thing is that they could no longer live without it. How can we reverse this? They are scoundrels in mathematics, scoundrels in chemistry, but what should they learn from me? The school gave them roles that explained them: “Well, I’m bad, how can I study well?” And convincing them otherwise was difficult, and sometimes impossible. And today thousands of girls and young people are graduating who think that they are bad, but in fact they simply did not cope with the rules or did not fit into them. And no one could prove to them that they were good guys. Or he didn’t bother to prove it. Teenagers with the psychology of the defeated.

By the end of the first year of work at school number 2009, I realized that assessment is only a punitive tool of encouragement. The teacher uses it as a tool of manipulation. And he often gives grades not for knowledge, but for following the rules, and also according to the role: C student, average student, excellent student...

I needed to get rid of this grading system.

In high school I just canceled grades. But the system required me to make marks in the journal, and I put them down nominally. In the final grades I gave what I considered fair. If someone wanted to challenge the grade, they could complete an additional task. In two years there was not a single case when a student did not agree with the assessment. And for the 8th grade, who were not yet ready for such a drastic transition, I came up with a quest. The educational process turned into a role-playing game in which you need to level up your character and your clan. For any action (a book read, an essay, a poem learned, a movie review), the student received points. He himself chose which tasks to complete and which not, understood how he could get points, and also knew in which lesson he could just relax.

The news that Artem Nikolaich replaced grades with “some kind of quest” spread quickly throughout the school. One teacher even hinted to the director in a private dialogue: “What is he doing there with the children?” The director far-sightedly replied that this system has been used in the West for a long time, everything is in order.

Some teachers started looking at me sideways. They have already come to terms with the fact that I play table tennis with the children during breaks or go to the gym to throw a ball. The cancellation of grades and the column of arrogant fives in the electronic journal, I suspect, seemed offensive to some. I broke the rules. Not even that - I offered alternatives. Created a conflict. Many people stopped saying hello. And after that, relations became even colder, especially with fellow philologists.

They left my lesson and found themselves in a familiar manipulative situation, where they were expected to be meek and hypocritical

My system offered a situation of choice: everyone did only what they wanted, and exactly as much as they considered necessary. I hoped that this way the children could learn responsibility.

But, it seems to me, it is in vain. They left my lesson and found themselves in a familiar manipulative situation, where humility and hypocrisy were expected of them, which they really did not like. My lessons were a drop in the ocean. There were 3 out of more than 30 in a week.

I knew that for many schoolchildren I had become a favorite teacher. I liked it. Now I want to get away from this, stop being a guide, relieve myself of messianic responsibility and give up this sweet nectar of children's attention. Then I wanted to have more points of contact. We already had a group on VKontakte, but it lacked intimacy and intimacy. Knowing that the students have many questions that they do not dare to ask me, in a year and a half I was asked more than two hundred questions, which I always tried to answer as frankly as possible. More than a year ago, we created a chat to which everyone was added: this is how we began to communicate more outside of school. After a long time, I started again - and that’s how I got into their players. In short, at some level I still won. However, for me this is a local victory, because the people who make the school what it is remain to work there. What kind of people are these?

What I won't become

I thought a lot about the people we privately call teachers. There are few of them at my school, but in some, I know, they are the majority. I watched them, listened to them talk in the staff room, heard them interact with children in class, and also heard them talk on the phone to their children. And the first thing that always caught my eye was their tone.

I looked and thought: “Does she really talk like that at home? Where is the real Nina Viktorovna, and where is the teacher?” And if you listen to the conversation: no, she communicates normally with her son, even warmly. That is, their “teaching” is a mask. What does she give? Protection? From what? From whom? From children? Or is he building distance? Or does it offer some new opportunities?

And then I began to think about why people even become teachers. I don’t think that choosing a profession is accidental unless it’s a choice out of necessity. And here's what I came up with:

The first is from loneliness, there are always a lot of people at school, there is a feeling of family and an attitude towards the office as property.

The second is an attempt to fill life with meaning and justify one’s existence, because the profession of a teacher in the eyes of society looks noble.

The third is messianism, the desire to occupy minds, to form, to educate, that is, to be someone on whom they depend.

Fourth - the ability to control, manipulate, pull strings, squeeze out emotions.

I described the worst of the types. The most common character traits of a Russian secondary school teacher can be reduced to the following list:

Manipulativeness
- passivity
- nervousness
- envy
- inertia, stereotypical thinking
- humility

A person with such a set can work with papers, numbers, but not with people, especially not with children. For the worst thing is that they teach what they themselves follow. Their manipulative vocabulary is quite limited:

“Sit down and think about your behavior!”
“No, look at him!”
“The whole class is waiting for you!”
"Who cares what you want? I want a lot of things too!”
“Do you even have a conscience?”
“When will you start thinking with your head?”
“Are you going to make fun of me for a long time?”
"That's it, the conversation is over"

At first glance, phrases are found everywhere - and we no longer pay attention to them. But upon closer examination, it turns out that they all put the child in the position of being guilty, wrong in his desires and needs, unequal to the teacher or classmates.

At school there is no word “want”, there is the word “need”

But today's high school student is perspicacious. Often he immediately notices injustice. But what should he do when the teacher is always right, and the class is usually afraid to provide support and prefers to simply remain silent? He can't not go to this teacher's lessons, can he? How many times have I noticed that this or that student would like to be not in my lesson, but somewhere in a better place. But neither he nor I could do anything about it. Like two prisoners in a cell, we were chained to each other.

In school there is no word “want”, there is the word “need”. This violent role model is practiced in every lesson in every classroom in tens of thousands of schools by a million teachers over eleven years of almost every person's life.

And I'm leaving school because I don't want to participate in this violence and disrespect for people. And I don’t want to openly confront him anymore. And it comes out of all the cracks: from toilets with stalls that don’t close and often missing toilet paper; from the canteen with unappetizing food; from an overloaded schedule, complaints about appearance, rudeness of security guards and cleaners; from furniture that spoils clothes and common locker rooms that don’t close. And most importantly, moral violence and disrespect lie at the heart of teacher-student communication.

This text is not a door slam or a complaint. The only thing I feel is a deep feeling of annoyance that the modern appearance of secondary schools is exactly like this. And in order to change it, it takes time and effort of many people, but, first of all, the state, although... what am I talking about?