Question: An 11-year-old student listed ten reasons why children do not want to go to school. I would like to hear your opinion on each of these reasons.

The first reason is the teacher. When you first come to school, immediately they try to instill fear of the teacher in the students. Should one be afraid of the teacher? Or is it necessary to replace this fear with some other word?

Answer: I had a very gentle, young, primary school teacher Iraida Konstantinovna.

Question: For some reason, we remember our first teachers. Is it like first love?

Answer: Yes. Therefore, I do not know how I can hate or fear such a person. She was just a friend, a senior buddy, an adviser. She took care of us. This is the best attitude to the child.

Question: So when a student writes that there are ten reasons why I do not want to go to school and the first reason is the teacher because we are taught to be afraid of him, is this really the first reason?

Answer: It is possible that this is today’s upbringing. We did not have that. We appreciated her and loved her like a great friend or even a mother.

Comment: Meaning that a teacher should be a friend.

My Response: Yes. Only just. We are talking about small children.

Comment: The second reason is the fear of grades. They instill the fear of grades, and then the fear of punishment of parents in front of the school principal, and so on.

My Response: The grade itself does not mean anything. But the fear of punishment, of course, means a lot.

Question: Are grades even needed?

Answer: In principle, grades are not needed. We need a school that will teach the right attitude to the world, to life, to friends, to teachers, and to parents. And it doesn’t need the grades that are given to you when you are taught, but rather what grades you give to yourself.

Question: Can you make such demands even to a small child?

Answer: We must strive for this. Explain it so that they themselves place such grades on subjects, on textbooks, on their supervisors, and so on.

Comment: A child can say: “Today I was out of shape for something. I should have read it, worked on it a little bit.”

My Response: That is good.

Question: Fear of mistakes, schools do not teach that mistakes can and should be made. This is an 11-year-old boy speaking. Do you think mistakes should be made?

Answer: I agree with him.

Question: So a mistake is an important thing? One needs to make mistakes?

Answer: It is inevitable.

Question: And what if I am wrong?

Answer: It is okay. I will fix it, I will learn even more from this than from the fact that I would have done something without a mistake.

Question: So it is even more important than if you move unmistakably?

Answer: We make mistakes and correct ourselves all the time; we make mistakes and correct ourselves.

Comment: Fourth: trolling, mockery of classmates. And it is often the fault of teachers who make children look ridiculous. This is a blow to the “I” of the child…

My Response: It is necessary to teach the child that if we are in such a society, how to properly relate to society, to the environment, to explain to him that it is possible, that it is and will be until we correct our nature, that this is the nature of man that forces him to be above others at all costs.

Question: And the fact that I am being humiliated now, is this human nature?

Answer: Yes, this is their nature, nothing can be done. And I have to understand their nature and somehow, in some form, forgive them, accept them as they are. And maybe correct them in this way.

Question: Should I feel that this is my nature as well, exactly the same, and I can be exactly like them?

Answer: Naturally, yes.

Question: In other words, do you want to introduce the terms “human nature” and “human egoism” almost into elementary classes so that a person feels?

Answer: And even earlier.

Comment: The next reason: stupid tests. Because they do not have a variant of their answers, you need to guess one of the proposed answers.

For example, there is a question and there are four answers to it, and it says: “Specify the correct one.” And the boy says: “And I want there to be another option, my personal answer.”

My Response: He is right.

Question: So these American exams that do not give the option of “Your Answer” are wrong?

Answer: Yes.

Comment: The sixth reason: the amount of homework. “I believe that homework does not affect the academic performance and education of children,” says the eleven-year-old boy.

My Response: I believe that homework causes disgust and hatred of school.

And therefore, it is not necessary. It is just necessary that a person goes there, no matter what they teach him there and no matter how they teach him, maybe worse, better, more or less appealing, but he would come back from there, and this homework would no longer be hanging on him.

Instead of homework there would be absolutely free time. It should also be somehow more or less scheduled, but it should be freely felt to choose what he would like to occupy himself with.

Question: Just himself? He should find exactly his niche?

Answer: Yes, everyone is different in something. We had a lot of clubs at that time. There was a huge House of Pioneers. And there were a huge number of societies, and all of them were free. A child went and signed up wherever he wanted. Even a few at the same time! Come and learn. And he did not pay anything. I also went to the photo club. Both photographic paper and photo developing reagents were free of charge. Absolutely everything was free! It is so amazing!

Comment: And the way the teachers treated you there, with such warmth!

My Response: Yes. People with such characters worked there.

Question: Where did it all disappear to? What was wrong with that?

Answer: The time is not the same! We got into such a streak.

Comment: The next reason is the ban on uniqueness. Schools do not like it if someone is different from others.

My Response: On the one hand, they seem to be encouraging it. But, on the other hand, they do not like it.

Question: Should a child have this right for uniqueness?

Answer: This is not only a right for uniqueness, but also encouragement for uniqueness on the part of everyone, including even friends. This needs to be brought up. Otherwise, this will be crushed and only grayness will turn out.

Comment: “School doesn’t teach you to be happy,” writes the eleven-year-old boy.

My Response: That is for sure! At school today, they simply demonstrate how dullness, obedience, and suppression of happiness is a normal state.

Question: So, in principle, the slogan of the school should be “We must teach children to be happy”?

Answer: Yes. We must raise happy people.

Comment: “School doesn’t teach you how to work with information,” he says.

My Response: This is a whole wisdom, a huge one, which should be instilled in young children.

Question: What does this skill give to a child?

Answer: It teaches one to open one’s brain and heart, mind and feelings, to incoming information, to be able to process it, sort it out, and to be ready to receive the next portion of information.

Comment: The tenth reason: “School does not prepare for adulthood,” this boy believes.

My Response: I think that nothing can prepare you for adulthood. We just rush there, as if into a whirlpool. And that is it. And there we are already swimming out, each in his own way.

Question: And what is the preparation for adulthood?

Answer: Here it is necessary to create special, absolutely clear, realistic pictures of life.

Question: At school? Directly to the children? And so that they learn to get out of them, work with them, and so on?

Answer: Yes, to discuss and so on. On the other hand, give them some stamps, but realistic. For example, “What would you do if you…” and give the story.

Comment: This boy’s conclusion is very interesting. He says: “I believe that the main subject in school could be a subject in which we would be taught to understand each other. After all, the ability to communicate is the most important thing.”

My Response: Make him the Minister of School Education. And that is it. And put all these ministers back to school.
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From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman” 2/10/22

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