Education and Art in Soviet Russia/Document 3
The above document is a clear, sober set of rules, suggesting anything but anarchy in the administration of the educational system, and differing fom corresponding laws of other countries only in the remarkable clarity of the legal phraseology.
But while Document No. 2 is a legal paper, giving necessary instructions only, Document No. 3, which follows, is a personal expression, by one of the educational specialists of the Soviet Government, of the philosophy and purposes of the new system. It is characterized throughout by a constructive humanitarian spirit.
DOCUMENT No. 3
SCHOOL REFORM
Commissary Lepeshinsky's Paper, Read at the First All-
Russian Congress of Teachers-Internationalists,
June 2, 1918
The Commissariat of People's Education has as yet done very little in the field of reforms in popular education, since this problem could be approached intelligently only after the removal of the Commissariat to Moscow.
It has become customary to accuse the new Government of indifference toward the cultural values of the past, and, particularly, of disrupting the schools. Such an accusation is obviously wrong. In so far as the school stands for wrong principles, breeding privileges and a spirit of utilitarianism, and is a servant of the ruling classes, it has been destroyed. Such a school system was an instrument to befog the consciousness of the masses and crippled the children physically and spiritually. The destruction of the old school system, as an integral part of the whole social structure of the past was brought about not by a group of individuals, but by the elemental force of life itself. History had paved the way for such a destruction, and it had become a pressing necessity of the present revolutionary period.
It is, however, not sufficient to take notice of this spontaneous destruction alone. The revolutionary classes of society, particularly their more advanced upper strata, their leading elements, must introduce into these elemental processes a maximum of intelligence and system. First, a surgical application is needed to remove all useless remnants of the past; yet, creative activity is also needed, although it perhaps will, of necessity, be slow and cautious to begin with. The school has ceased to be an instrument in the hands of the exploiting classes; with the people's victory it has in reality become a people's school. And now the Commissariat of Education is busily engaged in transferring it into the hands of the people's government—the Soviet organs.
The school no longer needs teachers who simply are office holders, teachers appointed from above, teachers detached from the people. Our Commissariat emphasizes this circumstance and suggests the principle of electing teachers by local organs created by the population itself.
The school has ceased to be a source of privileges based on other values than intellect and knowledge. The Commissariat, therefore, is taking prompt action to abolish diplomas and certificates conferring all sorts of privileges on persons graduated from various branches of academic training.
The old school system was not a channel of education but an instrument for obscuring the mind of the people. The revolution has swept away this school system. Governmental activity has brought new problems before the school. Our Commissariat, as an educational center, is engaged, as a first step, in freeing the school from church influences and encroachments—the separation of the school from the church.
These first steps are only the beginnings of the task. Before us is still a long path of a tremendous and prolonged creative work of organization which shall ultimately give to the people the school they need in this period of reconstructing life on a new basis—in the period of the international struggle of the proletariat for Socialism.
Having this task in mind the Commissariat sounded a call inviting learned and practical individuals, people of extensive pedagogic training, to participate in this task. The Commissariat of People's Education has opened wide the doors to all who would and could help. Something has already been done in this direction. Recently we created at the Commissariat of People's Education an educators' advisory board which in turn was subdivided into a number of sub-committees, these latter conducting a preliminary campaign in favor of school reform and gradually formulating concrete problems, the solution of which should determine the substance of our activity of school-organization.
Our conception of a school is one from which religious services and teachings are absolutely barred. Secondly, a people's general education school must be compulsory and accessible to all, regardless of sex and social distinctions; it must be a school where tuition, books, etc., are free; and, lastly, we conceive of the new school as a labor unit. The school must be homogeneous in the sense that it is of uniform type, with a definite minimum amount of instruction—in the sense of uniformity of aims and problems grouped between two chief centers of gravitation—and in the producing of an harmonious individual with regard to his social development; and, finally, in the sense of establishing an organized connection between the various school grades and unimpeded promotion of students from lower grades to higher.
The principles underlying the development of the school, as a labor unit, can be summarized thus:
1. An early fusion of productive labor with academic instruction is the mightiest weapon in the task of reconstructing modern society.
2. The technology of the present mode of production demands an all-round development of the individual, who must possess the ability to work and be equipped with polytechnic knowledge for various industrial fields. Therefore, a school of general science must assume the character of a polytechnic (vocational) school, while specialization and professionalism are outside the scope of the general science school and are the problems of the higher schools, or of educational training outside academic walls.
3. Manual labor must form an integral element of school life; all school children must participate in productive labor. The useful results of such labor should be made obvious to the students, having for its object either the direct creation of useful articles of consumption (chiefly for the needs of the particular school), or the performance of productive labor which only ultimately creates material blessings, as for example, caring for cleanliness, hygienic conditions of life in schools, etc.
4. The school becomes a productive commune, i. e., both a producing and consuming body based on the following principles, guiding the social education of children:
a) the principle of school autonomy and collective self-determination in the process of mental and manual labor;
b) the principle of satisfying all the children's needs by the children themselves;
c) the organization of social, mental endeavor (scientific bodies, magazines, collective work, etc.).
5. The school must offer the widest possible opportunities for the full play and development of the creative forces of the child. To accomplish this, the child must be reared amidst surroundings favorable to its mental and physical capacity, the presence of which should favor the greatest possible harmonious development of the child's body and soul. Essential prerequisites hereof are:
a) Self-activity of children in various fields of school-life, their independence and initiative while at work and a spirit of self-reliance in matters of everyday routine; b) introduction of an educational system stimulating the creative forces of the child;
c) artistic activity, as the chief element in the child's esthetic development, guiding the passive emotional processes of its spiritual life.
6. The methods in the child's bringing-up and in the educational training of children are to change their former character in accordance with the new problems of the school. Attention in the matter of children's education should chiefly aim to bring up a human being, as a social creature, and to produce an understanding of social labor: first, at the present time; then—labor in past human history; and, last, labor's problems in the near future. There ought to exist a direct organic connection between the educational mental work in the school and the element of productive labor. Educational training is to be conducted in full conformity with the latest discoveries in psychology, physiology and pedagogy, and in particular—in the direction from the known to the unknown, from the concrete to the abstract.
It seems to me that the people should receive a graded knowledge, and this can be made possible only when the child will be attached to the school for a considerable length of time. It is urgent to create conditions whereby the majority of children of school age should be forced to pass a long course of instruction. Compulsory schools exist in many countries, why not here in Russia?
We ought not be afraid that there will be a lack of schools, and of teachers: we will gradually introduce an extensive educational course and accelerate the formation of a teaching force.
All persons favorably disposed towards this cause should be recruited; we must also widely propagate our ideas, and, with this object in view, are beginning to publish our information bulletins on school reform work. These bulletins we shall freely circulate throughout Russia. However, what is most needed is not merely world-propaganda, but deeds. With this object the Commissariat of Education is organizing experimental schools. It would be an error to assume that here, in the capitals, there is a tendency to introduce bureaucratic methods in the management of the schools. We wish to impose nothing on the people, and when we draw up certain plans, it is chiefly because the population itself, in the person of its organs of local social administrative units, requires from us a general outline and suggestions.
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