Critical articles about the comedy Woe from Wit. Comedy "Woe from Wit" Literary criticism

Problems of Soviet school education

The problems of Soviet school education cannot be derived from provisions outside the Soviet public life and Soviet political history. It is hopeless to try to build an educational technique using deductive conclusions from any science: psychology, biology, etc. This does not mean at all that the principles of these sciences should not be involved in the construction of Soviet educational technology. However, their role should be purely official, completely subordinate to the goals dictated by political (practical) circumstances in the life of Soviet society.

Currently pedagogical significance sciences such as psychology and biology are very poorly developed. It is very likely that in the near future we will witness the most extensive discoveries in these areas, which will enable us to use the evidence of these sciences more carefully and more accurately for our political purposes.

But both now and in the future, one thing is beyond doubt: no pedagogical means can be derived (syllogistically) from the provisions of any science. Such a conclusion in best case scenario will be an apolitical conclusion, very often it will be a politically harmful conclusion. The best proof of this is the practice of pedology. At present, it is quite appropriate to consider any tendency to deductively draw a logical conclusion of a pedagogical means from the position of any science as a pedological tendency.

The relationship between means and ends should be the testing area on which the correctness of pedagogical logic is tested. Our logic must be Marxist logic, dialectical logic.

From the point of view of this logic, we cannot allow any means that would not lead to the goal we have set. This is the first position. The second, completely natural, is that no remedy can be declared permanent, always useful and always acting equally accurately. Pedagogy is a dialectical science that absolutely does not allow for dogma.

The expediency and dialectical nature of the educational means are the main provisions that should form the basis of the Soviet educational system.

Expediency. Not every logic of expediency can satisfy us. In the twenty years of practice of our pedagogical science there were many mistakes, and almost all of them consisted in a distortion of the idea of expediency.

The main types of such curvatures are as follows:

a) type of deductive prediction,

b) type of ethical fetishism,

c) type of solitary facility.

The type of deductive prediction is characterized by the fact that it is dominated by the conclusion from the accepted premises. at the same time, the premise itself is never controlled and is considered infallible; Therefore, the conclusion is considered infallible. In this case, they usually say: this remedy must necessarily lead to such and such results. These results are expressed, for example, in positive terms. Their positivity is derived from this remedy as logical conclusion, but at the same time, the very positiveness of the result is considered proof of the correctness of the remedy itself. The logical circle thus obtained is almost impervious to the blows of deductive criticism, while other criticism, the verification of actual results, in this case is generally considered fundamentally vicious. Faith in the remedy is so great that unexpectedly bad results are always attributed to the supposedly incorrect use of the remedy or to extraneous causes that only need to be found.

An error such as ethical fetishism lies in the fact that both the means and the method are placed next to a concept whose ethical content is beyond doubt. This very standing next to each other is considered a sufficient argument and not subject to control. Such mistakes are made by our pedagogical thought. This includes many attempts to organize the so-called labor education. The proximity of such a concept as work turned out to be sufficient to be confident in the salvation of many means that, strictly speaking, had nothing to do with work. All errors of self-organization and self-government are found in this same area.

Finally, expediency was very often asserted in relation to a solitary means, of course, also without practical verification. The dialectical nature of pedagogical action is so great that no means can be designed as positive if its action is not controlled by all other means used simultaneously with it. A person is not brought up in parts, he is created synthetically by the entire sum of the influences to which he is exposed. Therefore, an individual means can always be both positive and negative; the decisive moment is not its direct logic, but the logic and action of the entire system of means, harmoniously organized.

The expediency and dialectical nature of pedagogical action in Soviet pedagogy can only be organized experimentally. In our school there are enough grounds for inductive-experimental inference. But the true logic of the pedagogical means and system of means lies not even in the narrow school area, but in the broad social life of the Union, in the area of those principles and traditions that already quite clearly distinguish our society from any other.

First of all, the significance of this broad area is reflected in the very setting of educational goals.

Goals educational process must be clearly felt educational organization and each teacher individually. They should form the main background pedagogical work, and without a sense of a developed goal, no educational activity is possible. These goals should be expressed in the projected personality qualities, in the pictures of characters and in those lines of their development that are definitely outlined for each individual.

These personality qualities, which we project in each pupil, can be general and private, individual. The Soviet person must, on average, differ as a typical character. Raising it typical character Soviet man and should constitute one of the most important goals of pedagogical work. Unfortunately, there is not a single study on the qualities of this typical character, although intuitively we already know what qualities a Soviet citizen actually has. This knowledge is realistic knowledge. It is not the forms themselves that are important, but the trends, and Soviet pedagogy, starting from these trends, must project the qualities of a new typical Soviet person far ahead, and must even outstrip society in its human creativity.

To these general typical qualities we include the following aspects of personality: a person’s well-being in a team, the nature of his collective connections and reactions, his discipline, readiness for action and inhibition, the ability to tact and orientation, integrity and emotional long-term aspiration. All this is synthesized in the complex of traits that turn our student into a politically active and responsible figure.

To this same general complex we include the system of knowledge and ideas that should form his educational reserve by the time he leaves school.

Special common task is to harmonize this knowledge with the indicated character traits, bringing them to one Soviet synthesis.

The goals of individual education are to determine and develop personal abilities and orientations in the field of not only knowledge, but also character. In this department, questions about the usefulness or harmfulness of the so-called withdrawal should be resolved. An extremely important question is, for example, this: is a soft, pliable, passive character, prone to contemplation, reflecting the world in the form of an internal dim and non-aggressive work of analysis, subject to breaking and restructuring or subject to our Soviet improvement? This example shows how tender and subtle the task of individual education can be for a teacher.

The general and individual goals set for Soviet education must be mandatory goals, and we must strive for them in direct and energetic action. Educational work requires decisive and active energy aspirations towards the goal. Our upbringing must necessarily be persistent and demanding, first of all in relation to ourselves. We must know what we are achieving and never forget about it. Not a single action of the teacher should stand aside from the goals set. No parallel or side goal should separate us from the main goal. Therefore, if, for example, such a side goal arises, we must first check its possibility from the point of view of compliance with the main goal.

The above dialecticity pedagogical process necessarily requires from the teacher a great deal of comprehensive attention related to the whole system of means. The system of means itself can never be a dead and frozen norm; it always changes and develops, if only because the child grows, enters new stages of social and personal development, and our country grows and changes.

Therefore, no system of educational means can be established forever. But who should change it, who can be given the right to make amendments and adjustments to it? It should be set up in such a way as to reflect the need for movement and discard outdated and unnecessary means.

The above principles must be implemented in the following departments and details of educational work: a) the team and its organization, b) general movement the collective and its laws, c) the general tone and style of work, d) the collective of teachers and their center, e) the system of regime and discipline, f) the aesthetics of the collective, g) the connection of the collective with other collectives, h) individual characteristics team, i) continuity of generations in the team.

The problems of Soviet school education cannot be derived from provisions that stand outside Soviet social life and Soviet political history. It is hopeless to try to build an educational technique using deductive conclusions from any science: psychology, biology, etc. This does not mean at all that the principles of these sciences should not participate in the construction of Soviet educational technology. However, their role should be purely official, completely subordinate to the goals dictated by political (practical) circumstances in the life of Soviet society.

Currently, the pedagogical significance of such sciences as psychology and biology is very poorly developed. It is very likely that in the near future we will witness the most extensive discoveries in these areas, which will enable us to use the evidence of these sciences more carefully and more accurately for our political purposes.

But both now and in the future, one thing is beyond doubt: no pedagogical means can be derived (syllogistically) from the provisions of any science. Such a conclusion, at best, will be an apolitical conclusion, and very often it will be a politically harmful conclusion. The best proof of this is the practice of pedology. At present, it is quite appropriate to consider any tendency to deductively draw a logical conclusion of a pedagogical means from the position of any science as a pedological tendency.

The relationship between means and ends should be the testing area on which the correctness of pedagogical logic is tested. Our logic must be Marxist logic, dialectical logic.

The expediency and dialectical nature of the educational means are the main provisions that should form the basis of the Soviet educational system.

The main types of such curvatures are as follows:

a) type of deductive prediction,

b) type of ethical fetishism,

c) type of solitary facility.

The type of deductive prediction is characterized by the fact that it is dominated by the conclusion from an admitted premise, while the premise itself is never controlled and is considered infallible; Therefore, the conclusion is considered infallible. In this case, they usually say: this remedy must necessarily lead to such and such results. These results are expressed, for example, in positive terms. Their positivity is derived from a given means as a logical conclusion, but at the same time, the very positivity of the result is considered proof of the correctness of the means itself. The logical circle thus obtained is almost impervious to the blows of deductive criticism, while other criticism, the verification of actual results, in this case is generally considered fundamentally vicious. Faith in the remedy is so great that unexpectedly bad results are always attributed to the supposedly incorrect use of the remedy or to extraneous causes that only need to be found.

The mistake of this type of ethical fetishism lies in the fact that both the means and the method are placed next to a concept whose ethical content is beyond doubt. This very standing next to each other is considered a sufficient argument and not subject to control. Such mistakes are made by our pedagogical thought. This includes many attempts to organize so-called labor education. The proximity of such a concept as work turned out to be sufficient to be confident in the salvation of many means that, strictly speaking, had nothing to do with work. All errors of self-organization and self-government are found in this same area.

First of all, the significance of this broad area is reflected in the very setting of educational goals.

The goals of the educational process must be clearly felt by the educational organization and each educator individually. They should form the main background of pedagogical work, and without a sense of a developed goal, no educational activity is possible. These goals should be expressed in projected personality qualities, in character pictures and in those lines of their development that are definitely outlined for each individual person.

These personality qualities, which we project in each pupil, can be general and private, individual. The Soviet person must, on average, differ as a typical character. Cultivating this typical character of a Soviet person should be one of the most important goals of pedagogical work. Unfortunately, there is not a single study on the qualities of this typical character, although intuitively we already know what qualities a Soviet citizen actually has. This knowledge is realistic knowledge. It is not the forms themselves that are important, but the trends, and Soviet pedagogy, starting from these trends, is obliged to project far ahead the qualities of the new typical Soviet person, and must even thereby overtake society in its human creativity.

We include the following personalities among these general typical qualities: a person’s well-being in a team, the nature of his collective connections and reactions, his discipline, readiness for action and inhibition, the ability to tact and orientation, integrity and emotional long-term aspiration. All this is synthesized in the complex of traits that turn our student into a politically active and responsible figure.

To this same general complex we include the system of knowledge and ideas that should form his educational reserve by the time he leaves school.

A special common task is to harmonize this knowledge with the indicated character traits, bringing them to one Soviet synthesis.

The general and individual goals set for Soviet education must be mandatory goals, and we must strive for them in direct and energetic action. Educational work requires decisive and active energy in striving for a goal. Our upbringing must necessarily be persistent and demanding, first of all in relation to ourselves. We must know what we are achieving and never forget about it. Not a single action of the teacher should stand aside from the goals set. No parallel or side goal should separate us from the main goal. Therefore, if, for example, such a side goal arises, we must first check its possibility from the point of view of compliance with the main goal.

The dialectical nature of the pedagogical process indicated above necessarily requires the teacher to pay great attention to the whole system of means. The system of means itself can never be a dead and frozen norm; it always changes and develops, if only because the child grows, enters new stages of social and personal development, and our country grows and changes.

The above principles must be implemented in the following departments and details of educational work: a) the team and its organization, b) the general movement of the team and its laws, c) the general tone and style of work, d) the team of teachers and their center, e) the regime system and disciplines, f) the aesthetics of the team, g) the connection of the team with other teams, h) the individual characteristics of the team, i) the continuity of generations in the team.

LECTURE PLAN "REGIME AND DISCIPLINE"

1. Discipline is the result of the educational process.

Discipline is something to be proud of.

Discipline in the old society is a technical convenience of suppression.

2. Conscious discipline:

a) achieving the goals of the team,

b) protection and improvement of the individual,

c) the discipline of the team is higher than the interests of its individual members,

d) discipline adorns the team,

e) discipline is manifested not only in pleasant things.

3. Discipline is accompanied by consciousness, but does not flow from consciousness,

comes from experience.

4. How the experience of the discipline is organized:

as many demands on a person as possible, as much respect as possible for

5. Requirements. Development of requirements:

a) the requirements of the organizer,

b) asset requirements,

V) team requirements,

d) demands on oneself.

Immutability of the requirement.

6. What to demand:

a) subordination to the team,

b) behavior.

7. Requirements form:

a) attraction,

b) explanations - theory,

c) compulsion,

d) volitional pressure,

d) threat.

8. Varying degrees of all these methods:

a) attraction by direct and internal satisfaction,

b) explanation,

c) pressure with an order and a smile,

d) threat of punishment and threat of conviction.

9. Respect. Internal forms. External forms:

placability,

sincerity,

order,

politeness,

special forms,

always and at every step.

10. Mode, its qualities:

expediency,

accuracy,

community,

certainty (breakfast),

inflexibility.

11.Highest discipline indicators:

special exercises,

collective unity.

12.Punishments:

general view: Punishment is evil. Tolerance.

mandatory punishment

old and new punishment,

meaning public opinion,

punishment makes sense in some cases,

in others it does not,

what punishments,

who should punish

forgiveness,

competition and encouragement

cruelty in punishment.

I am convinced that if a team does not have a goal, then it is impossible to find a way to organize it. Each team should be given a common goal, collective goal- not in front of a separate class, but always in front of the whole school.

My team consisted of 500 people. There were children from 8 to 18 years old, which means students in the first and tenth grades. They, of course, differed from each other in many ways. Firstly, the elders were more educated, more industrially skilled and more cultured. The younger ones were closer to homelessness, illiterate, of course. And finally, they were just children. However, all these 500 people in last years my work was truly a single team. I have never allowed myself to deprive the right of a member of the collective and the voice of a single communard, regardless of his age or development. The general meeting of the members of the commune was truly a real ruling body.

This general meeting, as the ruling body of the collective, caused protests and doubts from my critics and bosses. They said: such a large meeting cannot be allowed to decide issues; a crowd of children cannot be trusted to lead the team. This is, of course, correct. But that’s the point - we need to achieve a situation where it is not a crowd of children, but a general meeting of team members.

There are extremely many ways and means to convert a crowd to a general meeting. This cannot be done artificially, and it cannot be done in one month. In general, the pursuit of quick results in this case will always be sad. If we take schools where there is no collective, where everything is scattered, where at best each class lives a separate life and meets with other classes, as we meet with the ordinary public on the street, then in order to make a collective out of such an amorphous collection of children, of course , you need long-term (not a year or two), persistent and patient work. But on the other hand, a collective was created once, and if you take care of it, if you carefully monitor it and its movement, then such a collective can survive for centuries. And such a team, especially in a school where a child is 8-10 years old, should be a precious, rich educational tool. But such a team, of course, is easy to break up. When, on the one hand, such a powerful force of a children’s collective, an almost unsurpassed power, and, on the other hand, a series of mistakes, a series of changes in leadership, come together - very soon the collective can also be turned into a crowd. But the longer the collective lives, the stronger it becomes, the more inclined it is to continue its life.

Here we come to one important detail, on which I would especially like to insist. This is a tradition. Nothing holds a team together like tradition. Developing traditions and preserving them is extremely important task educational work. A school in which there are no traditions, a Soviet school, of course, cannot be a good school, and best schools which I observed, by the way, in Moscow, are schools that have accumulated traditions.

What is tradition? I have also encountered objections to traditions. Our old pedagogical leaders said: every law, every rule must be reasonable and logically understandable. And you allow a tradition whose reason and logic have already disappeared. Quite right, I allowed for tradition. Example. When I was younger and I had less work, I got up every day in the commune at 6 o’clock in the morning and every day I did the verification, that is. I went to the bedroom with the detachment commander on duty, and I was greeted with a salute and the command “Detachment, to attention!” I checked the composition and condition of the detachment at the beginning of the day. At this time I was accepted as the head of the commune, and, as the head, in such cases I could carry out all sorts of analyzes and impose penalties. Apart from me, no one in the commune used the right to impose penalties, of course, except for general meetings. But now I have lost the opportunity to attend verification every day. The first time I notified that I couldn’t be there tomorrow and the commander on duty would take the roll call.

Gradually this form became common. And so a tradition was established: the commander on duty at the time of verification met as a boss. At first it was clear, but then it was lost. And the new recruits knew that the commander had the right to impose penalties, but they didn’t understand why. The old ones remembered this. The commander said: “Get two outfits!” And they answered him: “Yes, two outfits.” And if at another time of the day or night this commander had presented such rights, they would have said to him: “Who are you?” But this tradition was preserved and greatly strengthened the team.

Another tradition, which has also lost its logic. Once upon a time there was a conflict. The commander on duty in the evening, giving a report, said: “And Ivanov violated discipline at dinner.” And Ivanov said: “I didn’t violate anything of the kind.” After checking the case, I said that, in my opinion, he did not violate. And others were for it. But the commander on duty insisted on his own. I left the matter without consequences. The commander on duty appealed my decision at the general meeting. He stated: “Anton Semenovich had no right to check my words: I didn’t just tell him in his ear, I gave him a report, stood at attention, with a salute, in the presence of all the other commanders. In this case, since he doesn’t trust my report , he shouldn’t trust the duty either. If he checks every report of mine with investigative testimony, then why be on duty?”

The general meeting decided: Anton Semenovich is wrong, the report of the duty commander is not checked. If they whisper in your ear, then please check it out. And for 10 years it was the law. Anything could be said during the day, and when the report is given, then it is really true: he raised his hand in salute, which means it’s true, it’s true, and if you really weren’t guilty of anything, then Consider to yourself that the commander was mistaken.

And this wonderful tradition It became so ingrained that it became easy to work with. Firstly, not a single commander on duty allows himself to lie, because he knows that he must be believed, and secondly, there is no need to waste time and energy on checking. Perhaps the commander on duty really made a mistake, but the unfortunate victim must obey. And when one Komsomol member raised a conversation - what kind of rule is this, it needs to be canceled, because I really wasn’t late for work, and the duty officer said in his report that I was 10 minutes late, and told me that there could be no checks - They explained to him that maybe you were right, you really went for the incisors, but for us and for you, sacrifice more than your rightness: if we check every duty officer, what he says, then it will not be the duty officer, but a lackey, but we need a duty commander. There were a lot of such traditions in my team, literally hundreds. And I didn’t know all of them, but the guys knew them. And the guys knew them unwritten, recognized them by some kind of tentacles, antennae. This is how it should be done. Why is that? That's what the elders do. This experience of the elders, respect for the logic of the elders, respect for their work in creating the commune and, most importantly, respect for the rights of the collective and its representatives are extremely important virtues of the collective, and, of course, they are supported by tradition. Such traditions brighten the lives of children. Living in such a network of traditions, the guys feel in the atmosphere of their special collective law, are proud of it and try to improve it. Without such traditions, I consider correct Soviet education impossible. Why? Because it's impossible proper upbringing without a powerful collective that respects its dignity and feels its collective identity.

I could name so many interesting traditions and I’ll roughly name a few. This is also a tradition, and also a funny one. The member of the sankoma on duty is on duty every day, wears a red cross on his hand and has great rights, the rights of a dictator, he can invite any of the Komsomol members or members of the team to get up from the table and go wash their hands, and he must obey; he can go into any apartment of an engineer, employee, teacher, and report at a general meeting that such and such a teacher’s apartment is dirty. Moreover, they decided to never figure out what kind of dirt: this one has water poured, this one has dust on the windowsill, this one has dust on the back of a chair. They decided never to report in detail, not to describe the disorder, but just one word - dirt. This was absolutely enough to initiate prosecution against her. And according to tradition, this “dictator” - I don’t even remember where it came from - was always chosen from among the girls, always a girl, always the youngest and always clean. For example, they offer so-and-so and say: “What are you talking about, she’s already 17 years old.” And no one understands why a seventeen-year-old cannot be elected as a member of the Children's Socialist Society. “Yes, she went out last time, her stocking came down - that’s why it’s impossible.” Why does it have to be a girl? They say that a guy can’t always clean up properly himself, and, secondly, logic says that girls are meaner. If a girl tells it, she won’t let anyone down, friend or foe. I fought against this: “It’s a shame, why are you depriving men of such a right, what does it mean whether she’s a neat person or not.” All the same, they agree with me, but like elections - if you nominate a Komsomol member, no - everyone is against it, let’s give it to a pioneer. The pioneer was promoted to be such a child, why should she be trusted with such work? “No,” they say, “it’s suitable.” And these same DChSKs were barbarians, there was no life from them, from such a twelve-year-old girl there was no peace for anyone during the day - at dinner, and at work, and in the bedroom, and everywhere. And they scold her: “It’s impossible to live. She searches and searches for dust in the bedroom, there is no dust, so she turns the chair over and says:

What is this?

The hair got stuck."

And she writes in the report that bedroom 15 is dirty. And you can't say anything because it's true. And this Nina is a child, she says: “You were combing your hair, your hair was flying, so should I cover you?”

Such a child reports, grown guys look at her. She says that there were so many visits to apartments, so many messages, etc. " Good job? - “Good.” And again they choose her, forgetting that they themselves suffered from it.

This is a tradition. The team felt that it was precisely these little girls, the most pedantic, the most pure, honest, not inclined to any hobbies - neither heartfelt nor otherwise - that they should be entrusted with such work. And this tradition was so deep that even at the Komsomol bureau they said: “No, this one won’t do; give us this Klava, it’s small, clean, it will work.”

And children are amazing masters of creating such traditions.

We must admit that in creating traditions we need to use some small, instinctive conservatism, but conservatism good type, i.e. trust in yesterday, in our comrades who created some value and do not want to destroy this value by my whim today.

Among such traditions, I especially value the tradition of militarization - games. At one time I was often reviled for this, called a gendarme, Arakcheev and other general names. And I'm in Lately, insisting on this, I always blushed and felt that I was committing an immoral act. But last year, here in Moscow, the 2nd part of the 16th volume of Marx and Engels was received, and with great pleasure, after 16 years of torment, I read that Engels also insisted on such militarization. He has an excellent article about the need for militarization in schools. This should not be a repetition of the law of the military unit. Under no circumstances should there be imitation or copying.

I am opposed to what some young teachers are keen on - this is a constant march: they go to the cafeteria - they march, they go to work - they march, they always march. It's ugly and unnecessary. But in military life, especially in the life of the Red Army, there is a lot of beauty that captivates people, and in my work I became more and more convinced of the usefulness of this aesthetics. The guys know how to decorate this “militarization” even more, making it more childish and more enjoyable. My team was militarized to some extent. First, terminology is important. For example, I don’t quite agree that schools can be called junior high schools. I think this is something we need to think about. What does it mean: a student studies at school, and his school is called incomplete high school? Such a truncated name. The name itself should be attractive to him. I paid attention to this terminology. And when I suggested calling him “team foreman,” the guys said that’s not it. What is a brigade foreman - a foreman in production, but in our detachment there must be a commander. But you will do the same thing. No, how can I say, I can order, but the brigadier orders, they will tell him: you are not a commander, but a brigadier. IN children's team unity of command is organized extremely beautifully.

Such a term as reporting. Of course, they could have just gotten the boy's report, but I think they are very fascinated by some of the legitimacy of the report. The legality is this: the commander must come to the report in uniform, not in overalls, not in the dress in which he can run around all day. At the report, when one commander gives a report, he must salute, and I do not have the right to receive the report while sitting, and everyone present must salute. And everyone knows perfectly well that by raising their hand, everyone salutes the work of the detachment, the entire team...

Then much can be introduced from military life into the very life of the collective, into its movement. For example, the commune had a wonderful tradition of starting general meetings. The general meeting was always to be opened only by the commander on duty. Moreover, surprisingly, this tradition was so great that when large authorities, including the People's Commissar, came to the commune, still no one was allowed to open the general meeting, only the commander on duty. Moreover, the meeting for all ten years, according to tradition, always had certain regulations. The signal for the general meeting was given on a trumpet. After this, the orchestra, which was located on the balcony, plays three marches. One march for hearing, you could sit, talk, come, go. When the third march ended, I had to be in the hall, and I felt that I could not help but appear; if I had not appeared, I would have been accused of disturbing the order. When the march ends, I am obliged to command: “Stand under the banner! At attention!” - and I don’t see where the banner is, but I’m sure that it is close and that when I give the command, it will be brought in. And when the banner is brought in, everyone must stand up, and the orchestra plays a special banner salute; when the banner is placed on the stage, the meeting is considered open; The duty officer immediately enters and says: “The meeting is open.”

And for 10 years, not a single meeting was opened differently, and if it had opened differently, they would say that we are in chaos, that the devil knows what is going on here, etc.

This tradition adorns the collective, it creates for the collective that external framework in which one can live beautifully and which therefore captivates. The red banner is a wonderful content for such a tradition.

According to the same tradition, the flag bearer and banner assistants were chosen by a general meeting from the best and most worthy communards and were chosen “for the rest of their lives,” as they said, i.e. while you live in a commune. The flag bearer could not be punished with any punishment, the flag bearers had a separate room, they had an extra full dress suit, and it was impossible to call him “on you” when he was standing with the banner.

I don’t know where this tradition came from either; but the fact that the flag bearer is the most honorable person in the commune is proven by the fact that only one of my communards received an order for military merit, and this was the flag bearer.

Honoring the banner at school is a rich educational tool. In the commune named after For Dzerzhinsky, this honor was also expressed in the fact that if there was a banner in the room, which on the occasion of repairs had to be taken to another room, then it was impossible to do otherwise than to assemble the entire team, call the orchestra and solemnly move the banner to another room.

We passed through almost the entire Ukraine, the Volga, the Caucasus, the Crimea, and the red banner was not left without a guard for a single minute. When my teacher friends found out about this, they said: “What are you doing? The boys need to sleep at night. You have a health campaign, a campaign, and they stand by your banner at night.”

We spoke in different languages. I didn’t understand how it was possible to leave the banner without a guard in a field situation.

At the entrance to the commune there was always a sentry with a working rifle. I'm even afraid to talk about it. Of course, he had no cartridges, but he had great power. Often a thirteen or fourteen year old boy stood. They stood in line. He checked every stranger at the entrance - who he was, what he needed, why he was coming - and had the right to block his path with a rifle. At night the doors to the commune were not locked, he also stood guard, sometimes he was cowardly and afraid, but he still stood there for two hours. And then one day one of the pedologists came from the Ukrainian People's Commissariat of Education with a security officer. happened between them interesting conversation: “Well, is he standing like that?” - “It’s worth it.” - “He’s bored. They should give him a book to read.” He says: “What, should a watchman read a book?” - “But of course, you need to use time and gain development.” Different people: she is amazed that the sentry is doing nothing, and the security officer is amazed at the assumption that the sentry can read a book at his post. Affected in different ways. And this organization is a necessary function, and an educational function of the team...

There was a rule, also a tradition: you cannot go down the stairs holding the railing. I know where it came from. Ladder good home, the stairs began to be trampled down, where the railings are, they are trampled down there, and the guys decided: in order to save the stairs, you don’t need to walk near the railings. But they forgot about it. New people have arrived. "Why can't you hold on?" They are told: “You should rely on your spinal column, not on the railing.” And at first they didn’t mean strengthening the spinal column, but preserving the stairs.

There must be an aesthetic of military life, smartness, clarity, but in no case just walking.

As for military training, it does not completely coincide with this aesthetics. These are shooting sports, cavalry sports and military affairs. And this is clarity, aesthetics, and in children's society it is absolutely necessary. It is especially good because it preserves the strength of the collective, it preserves against illegible, awry movements, against the looseness of movements, against their scatteredness. In this sense, form is extremely important. You know this better than me, and on this score there is a certain point of view of both Narkopros and the party, and I will not talk about this. But a form is only good when it is beautiful, when it is comfortable. Due to the form, I had to go through a lot of various troubles and failures until I arrived at a more or less comfortable and beautiful form.

But as far as form is concerned, I'm ready to move on. I believe that children should be dressed so beautifully, so colorfully that they cause surprise. In the old centuries, troops dressed beautifully. In our society, such a privileged layer of society that has the right to dress beautifully should be children. I would stop at nothing, I would give every school a lot beautiful shape. This is a very good glue for the team. To a certain extent I was moving in this direction, but they cut my hair short. I had gold and silver monograms, embroidered skullcaps, ironed white pique collars, etc. The team you dress well is 50% in your hands.