Grades Aren’t Needed in School
Comment: “School doesn’t teach you to be happy.” That is what an eleven-year-old boy wrote.
My Response: That’s right! In school today they simply demonstrate that dullness, obedience, and the suppression of happiness are normal conditions.
Question: But in principle, the slogan of the school should be: “We must teach children to be happy”?
Answer: Yes, we must raise people who are happy.
We need a school that teaches the correct attitude toward the world, toward life, toward friends, toward teachers, and toward parents, and this does not require grades that someone else gives you, but rather that when you are taught, you yourself give yourself the grade.
Question: Can make such demands even of a little child?
Answer: That is what we must aim for. Explain this so that they themselves can grade subjects, textbooks, their instructors, and so on.
Comment: So the child can say: “Today I was not in shape. I should have read this, and worked on that a bit.”
My Response: That is good.
Question: There is a fear of making mistakes. School doesn’t teach that it’s possible and necessary to make mistakes. By the way, that is what the eleven-year-old boy says. Do you think one should make mistakes?
Answer: I agree with him.
Question: So is a mistake an important thing? And one must make mistakes?
Answer: It is inevitable.
Question: And what if I make a mistake?
Answer: It is okay. I’ll fix it, I’ll learn from it even more than from something I did without a mistake.
Question: So it is even more important than if you move forward flawlessly?
Answer: We constantly make mistakes and correct ourselves, make mistakes and correct ourselves.
Comment: Trolling, classmates’ mockery in this often the fault of teachers who expose children to ridicule.
My Response: To live in such a society, a child must be taught how to relate correctly to society, to the environment, that this is possible, that this is and will exist until we correct our nature. That it is the nature of man that compels him to be above others at any cost.
Question: And the fact that they put me down now, is that just human nature?
Answer: Yes, that is their nature, nothing can be done. But I must understand their nature and somehow, in some way, forgive them, accept them as they are. And maybe even correct them in this way.
Question: And I should feel that this is also my nature; it is the same, and I can do the same?
Answer: Naturally, yes.
Question: So, you would like to introduce the words “human nature,” “human egoism” almost from the first grade, so that a child would feel it?
Answer: Even earlier.
Comment: The amount of homework. “I think homework does not affect children’s performance and education,” says the eleven-year-old boy.
My Response: I think homework causes disgust, hatred toward school. And therefore, it is not needed. What is needed is simply that a child goes there (whatever they teach him and however they teach, better or worse, more or less interesting), but he comes back from there, and he doesn’t have this homework hanging over him.
Question: So that he doesn’t have this burden, that “I urgently need to do this, how will I go to school tomorrow!” And instead of homework what should there be?
Answer: Instead of homework there should be absolutely free time, somewhat structured, but felt as free, what he himself would like to occupy himself with.
Question: Himself? So that he finds his own niche?
Answer: Yes, everyone in something. We had a lot of clubs back then. I don’t know they probably do not now.
Comment: I don’t think so. There were Pioneers Houses, clubs.
My Response: There was such a huge House of Pioneers! And there were a huge number of clubs, and all were free. You went, signed up wherever you wanted. Even in several if you liked! And went, studied.
Comment: Do you remember the modeling club, radio.
My Response: Yes, and you didn’t pay for anything. I went, among other things, to a photo club. Photographic paper, chemicals, everything was free. Absolutely everything free! That is so amazing!
Comment: And how warmly the club teachers treated the children!
My Response: Yes, people with a character like that worked there.
Question: Where did it all vanish? What was so bad about it?
Answer: The time! The time is not the same. We fell into such a bad streak.
Comment: “We fell into it, ”that should be the name of this story.
My Response: Yes.
Comment: “School doesn’t prepare you for adult life,” this boy thinks.
My Response: I actually think that nothing can prepare you for adult life. We just plunge into it, like into a whirlpool. And that’s it. And then each swims out in his own way.
Question: What is preparation for adult life, if we’re speaking about it?
Answer: Here it is necessary to create special, absolutely clear, realistic pictures from life.
Question: In school? Right for the children so they learn to get out of them, to deal with them, and so on?
Answer: Yes, to discuss and so on. On the other hand, to give them some patterns, but realistic ones. For example: “How would you act if you…” and you give them a story.
Comment: You know, this boy’s conclusion is very interesting. He says: “I think that the main subject in school could be a subject where we are taught to understand one another. After all, the ability to communicate is the most important thing.”
My Response: That’s exactly right!
Comment: It’s as if he’s listening to you.
My Response: Make him Minister of Education. And that’s it. ☺
Comment: No knowledge is needed, only such conclusions.
My Response: And put all these ministers into school.
Comment: Exactly!
[347172]
From KabTV’s “News with Dr. Michael Laitman,” 8/13/25
Related Material:
There Should Be No Schools
How Genius Children Lose Their Abilities
The Stenciled Education
Video: 
Audio: 
