A Visit To The School For Self-Determination in Moscow, Russia

Click on writing link to left, to see the index to all the parts. You are viewing part IV.

November 13th, 8pm

Tubelsky found me early in the day today and asked whether I had an “excursion” in the school yet.  Russians say “excursion” when they should probably say “tour.”  I said I had seen several classrooms with Olga and others.  He didn’t understand my answer, I think.  He took me by the hand and led me into a classroom.  He explained that this classroom was a free space, where any child could come when he has nothing else to do.  There was a small jungle gym inside (there is also a huge one out in the hall), there were many boxes of games and legos, and there were some books.  Four students and one teacher were in there when we entered.  Tubelsky tried to get her to speak some English to me, but either she was too shy or didn’t speak any.  She was about my age, twenty-five or thirty.  He told me she is responsible for that room.  He pointed out three circular platforms hanging high in the air from ropes, and showed me that they could be lowered.  They all had lego constructions on them, partially completed by students, waiting for a day when those students would return to finish their work.  Most of the legos were big legos.  I think the room was for the elementary school only.  One thing I like about the school is that the space is shared by students from first grade to eleventh grade (kindergarten is in a nearby building).  They do still have some divisions between elementary school, middle school, and high school, but it is only for some aspects of school life and they all still consider themselves in school together.

Tubelsky led me back out of the room.  Liliana saw us in the hall and took me away to the media center to work on an editing project for Tubelsky.  This project became one of my main jobs at the school today.  I was rewriting the English version of a school brochure.  It had ten short questions with long answers.  It had been translated from Russian but not by a native English speaker.  As a result, it was quite unappetizing and just reading a few sentences brought on mental indigestion for me.  However, I bravely edited the document.  The before and after are included in the appendix.
Liliana came a few times to check on my work.  I was guarded at first.  It can be a challenge to get native speakers to think in language-independent concepts: people everywhere are obsessed with playing out their culturally and linguistically-dependent ideas in second languages.  But she was actually very helpful.  We found some spots where between the original translation and my re-editing, the document had deviated too far from the spirit of the original and found good ways to bridge the gap together.
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A young man named Ivan became my tour guide today.  About fourteen years old, he is enthusiastic about some aspects of his education.  However, if I understood one joke made by Tubelsky, Ivan is not disciplined.  Nevertheless, he does speak more English than the average student, I believe because his parents speak some English.

Ivan told me about his folk singing and dancing group, and he was clearly passionate and motivated about it.  Throughout the afternoon, as he brought me to visit different parts of the school, his lack of English vocabulary got in the way of our communication.  I tried to help by volunteering English words when he was tongue-tied, and sometimes it worked.
As we ate lunch in the cafeteria, some students used their basic English to ask my name and my hobby.  Clearly they were open to meeting their guest and wanted to practice their English, even if it was difficult to do so.  Some of the students followed us after lunch, instead of going to their normal classes.

Ivan took me around to a few different classrooms.  I noticed that several teachers were late arriving for their first class after lunch.  I noticed that there were an average of ten students in each classroom and never more than twenty.  (Masha had told me earlier that there are sometimes up to twenty-seven per class, but I never saw a large class even once.)  Ivan sometimes introduced me as a musician, as I carried a mandolin, and the teachers welcomed me to stand in the back and watch, or, in a few cases, to sing at the front.
There was one combined class I saw that had almost twenty-five, but it was actually two classes that were meeting together for some reason.  They were high-school age, and they were rowdy, obnoxious.  I did not enjoy it much, and I did not understand it either.

Overall I felt comfortable and welcomed everywhere I went.
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This morning, Tubelsky had told me about the 4pm meeting of the school council.  So at 4pm, I went to the room.  It was completely empty.  Then Tubelsky walked by outside and told me the meeting would start in fifteen minutes.  Ilya was still with me (she had stopped by the school and spent a few hours with me on a walk then having a snack and at a class).  We chatted in the teacher’s lounge, then I went to the school council and she returned to her graduate school lab to start some virus cultures as part of her research.  This time as I entered the school council room, the meeting was just beginning.

I saw about a dozen students, all but one of them girls.  There were also five adults spread around the room.  The chairs had been rearranged from rows into a circle, and Tubelsky gestured for me to sit down next to him.  He introduced me in his broken English, “This is Peter, great friend of school.  He is organizer with Jerry Mintz of conference of democratic schools and can do many things for school.”  He held my arm in his hand as he introduced me.  I noticed that his hands are soft, in contrast to the rough smoker’s voice that emerges in his Russian drawl from his generously padded belly.

“We are half boys and half girls here,” he said to me quietly.  He may have meant that usually that is the balance, or that he likes to see a balance.  It was obviously not a balance in this year’s council.  Tubelsky stood up and started walking around inside the circle, handing out candies.  They were Swedish licorice, some of them shaped like false teeth and some of them shaped like tiny Easter eggs.  Then one of the men came and sat down next to me.  He was skinny, with about half a head of black hair and glasses.  He translated for me for the rest of the meeting, not perfectly but good enough so I understood what was going on almost all the time.

Tubelsky returned to his seat.  Natasha, a Chemistry teacher who had come in with me a minute earlier sat down on the far side of Tubelsky, began to speak.  She was apparently responsible for cultural exposure at the school and requested 1600 rubles (just over 50 USD) to pay for an upcoming performance.  A discussion ensued amongst all those present.  One student asked how many people would probably be interested.  Natasha replied 50 or 100.  Then a student made a proposal to allocate the full requested amount.  Another teacher made a counterproposal to allocate the full amount, but to charge 10 rubles per ticket to reimburse some of the expenses.  Then Tubelsky himself also made a proposal, to allocate 600 rubles.  He called for votes.  The first proposal was his own.  He was the only one who voted yes.  The teacher’s proposal was next, but she withdrew it.  Finally, the proposal that had been made by one of the students was passed with about fifteen votes.  Everyone seemed satisfied with the results.  Tubelsky then began asking students to volunteer to publicize the concert by going from one classroom to the next.  Some volunteers agreed to do so.
The next item on the agenda was to discuss future agendas.  Copies of three sheets of paper were distributed to all those present.  These sheets apparently corresponded to categories of possible subjects for discussion.  All three lists, of about ten items each, had been made by a student and a teacher working together, and with the consultation of other students.  The first list included “educational questions” such as homework guidelines, organizing the semester’s experiential “business days” (when for 3 days the school becomes a city, complete with mayor, businessmen, and entertainment), and questions about who can use which facilities in the school.  The second list included “living questions” such as dining room conduct, products carried by the school store, smoking by students, and bathroom conditions.  The final list seemed to be very closely related to the other lists, “activity questions” I believe, including items such as cinema club use of the media center, holiday celebration preparations, classroom rules, and financing for guests and field trips.  The final item on this last list was the protection of intellectual property at the school (such as images and poems).  I don’t know if it was due to the translation or to the original categorization scheme, but it seemed to me that these categories and items might as well have been randomly grouped rather than according to a theme or category.

As the list items were read by the student who had made the lists, people sometimes gave short commentary on them.  Tubelsky insisted that each item needed a volunteer to prepare an analysis before they could be considered at future meetings.  Volunteers came forward for at least some of the list items.

I think altogether, Tubelsky spoke almost half the time at the meeting, with about two thirds of the remainder being students and one third of the remainder teachers.  I was pleased with everything I saw.  Tubelsky clearly was God at the meeting – he was the designer of the meeting process, he was the moderator, he was the guide to help others understand the process, he was a participant – he was a respected and benevolent God.  During the course of this two-hour meeting, there was no apparent conflict of interest.  I don’t know whether conflicts of interest arise at other times.  I don’t necessarily have any problem with the way the process worked.  I know that ultimately in a public school, and in most schools, the Principal must be the ultimate authority on all questions.  He should ideally never have to use that ultimate authority, but he always has to retain the right to.  And yet, one of the important roles for that Principal is to welcome others into the decision-making process, so that they can develop the skills of how to be leaders.  This is what I saw Tubelsky doing.

Near the end of the meeting, everyone took a ten-minute break.  I followed several teachers and Tubelsky into the smoking lounge.

“What do you think now?” he asked.

I said, “I had met you two times before coming to your school.  And both times I was sure that you knew something about philosophy of education.  But I didn’t know whether you were able to put that into practice.  I had to come to Moscow to find out.”

All the teachers were pulling hard at their cigarettes and looking stern.  One of them was trying to translate.  The teacher’s smoking lounge is a small room with four chairs and a couch and three ashtrays and one small window.  It was cold in there because the small window opens right outside.  The air was quickly filling with smoke.  I realized that my friends were confused and dwelling on the likelihood that I was being critical.  But I had just been setting them up to feel the tension and waiting for them to insist that I tell them the punchline.  (I always like to answer people’s questions by explaining the context in which I understand my answer, and only once I see that they understand that context to give the answer.)  So I continued with even simpler English, and on the second time through it sounded like they properly understood me and their previous incorrect assumptions.  This time I said to Tubelsky, “And I am very pleased with what I see here.  It is clear that you are able to carry out your mission.  You have both the philosophy and the practice.”

He smiled very happily and locked two of his fingers in front of his belly.  “Yes, practice and philosophy both, that is what I want.”  Then the other teachers left the room.  Tubelsky was on his second cigarette.  After a few more long puffs, he said, “Fifteen years ago, I never imagine today I would use English, have International exposure.  I never learn English.  I know then it no use.  Now I have friend international, you and many, many.  I try and English so little.”  I perceived that he was sad that it was so hard for us to communicate, and yet it was also clear that he was glad that we were talking at all.

We returned to the meeting, and within a half-hour the last few agenda items had been covered.  Everyone voted to end the meeting, and most of the students filed out of the room.  Tubelsky and the few stragglers rearranged the desks into rows.  I took my leave to return here to the house.

Is this program (park schooling) unique worldwide?  No.  I know of some public school teachers in the US who also allow their students to leave class any time, or nearly any time.  Is the school unique?  Every school is inevitably unique in some ways – the question is whether it is unique in some particular ways that show something remarkable is possible.  Is it unique in a way that it should not be unique?

I wandered into a random classroom a few minutes ago.  The door said Mathematics.  After several attempts at communication, the old teacher with the grey hair realized I didn’t understand Russian but welcomed me in.  I recognized some of the students.  I sat down at the back, but the teacher beckoned me to come forward with my mandolin and accompany her as she read a poem.  Then she talked about how music is a universal language, sang “Oh Suzanna” with me, and asked me to play another tune.  Then everybody did a ten-minute free write, and I have been writing these two paragraphs while others write also.  One skill of good teachers is the ability to be flexible and take advantage of circumstance. 

I am in the media center (computer room) of the School for Self-Determination.
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This morning, I found Ivan at the coat room on duty, as he had promised.  Along with two other students, it is his responsibility today to monitor the coat room, taking the students’ coats and giving them a tag to be used later to retrieve their coats.  Each high school student (grades 10 and 11) is on duty a half-dozen times a year.  They miss their classes on those days.

Once most of the coats had been handed in, Ivan had some free time.  He and I walked from one classroom to the next.  I think we probably visited about five classrooms – mostly from the elementary school.  I sang or played one song for each class then invited the students to the American dance lessons this afternoon and the American discussion next Tuesday.  I like how many children are willing to express kindness and excitement when they see me.  I hope some of them will actually come to my event.

Then we sat down in the library with one of the other students who is also on coat duty today.  (Their third duty partner manned the coatroom alone during this slow period.)  It was frustrating to me when I asked them questions.  They had little vocabulary and even less practice trying to effectively use that limited vocabulary.  At one point, Tubelsky walked by and put his hands on the heads of the two boys sitting with me.  He said, humorously but honestly, “Bad students, what can you do, no words.”  I’m glad the Principal can and does share his opinions, and that many of those opinions are about learning.
            At the library, there were no Russian-English dictionaries, supposedly because they had all been loaned out.  Eventually, I insisted that one of the boys find a dictionary somewhere, and Ivan’s friend went for a walk through the building and came back with the small book five minutes later.  Meanwhile, Ivan and I had continued working on conversational English.  When the friend returned, I asked a variety of questions, and I will list here what I learned.

These boys are in an experimental section called “immersion.” It is one subschool, just as park schooling is a subschool.  The immersion experiment has two sections, and if successful it may be expanded to nine sections in later semesters.  Each week, the particiants have only immersion course, in which they spend most of every day. (They also have two other courses unrelated to the immersion course at the very end of each day.)   This week they are in geography immersion, then biology next week, followed by history, physics, and social studies.  Sometimes the subjects will repeat a month or so later, picking up where they left off.  In history, for instance, each immersion week is focused on a different period (Ancient Peoples, Rome & Greece, Middle Ages, Peter I, American Colonies) with a strong emphasis on role-plays during each period.  The originator of this experiment turns out to be none other than my translator at yesterday’s school council meeting.  (This reminded me of a moment when he said to me “Many rules must be reinvented every year because they are no longer valid when the creators leave the school.”  I had asked, “Is that Tubelsky’s idea?” and he had answered, “It is years of school culture developing this.  When we started the school, he was the ideologue, but there were many others involved and essential.”)

Some students (one out of three sections of their grade level, 10th I think) chose Park Schooling instead of the immersion experiment.  I’ve mentioned Park Schooling before.  In Park Schooling, students can change classes during the course of a semester, week, day, or even class period.  According to the coat room boys, Ivan and his friend, the most common reason to choose Park Schooling is the idea that it is easier.  And indeed, according to the theory and the practice, students are able to leave; if they choose, they could spend all their time in the hall or the library, so long as they don’t interfere with others’ “freedom”.  I imagined that Olga would not agree that the goal of Park Schooling is to make learning easy.  She would more likely say that the goal is equality and instant feedback: if the children leave the class, the teacher immediately knows that something is wrong.

I received an English copy of “The Constitution and Collection of Laws of Citizens of School Number 734” from Ivan.  (This school is number 734.)  This was translated into English by a student here this year.  Inside the front cover, the inscription reads “Have a Right” in big letters and the following in small letters: “This booklet contains the Constitution of S.P.U. ‘School of Self-Determination’ and collection of Laws, which were composed, accepted and changed by students and teachers of the school.  Given collection is written for the citizens of the school and for all who want to understand the school way of life.”

I asked about two specific constitutional rights of children:

“The student has a right to have individual learning plan, by his own wish and with teacher’s agreement, and according to this, has a right to visit lessons freely with following passing the examinations and tests.”  This apparently concerns the pace of learning, but not the content.  According to this right, a student may insist on learning more slowly or may request end-of-semester exams early.  It would not, however, apply for a student who wanted to learn computer programming instead of mathematics.

“The student has a right not to appear on a lesson, but only be agreement with a teacher.” This rule concerns “legitimate” reasons for missing classes – for instance, illness, conflicting learning activities, emergencies; it does not concern missing class to goof off.  Generally, no conflicts would come up because everyone understand legitimate and nonlegitimate, but if a conflict did arise, the student and teacher would consult the school court or the Principal.

There are also sections of responsibilities listed with the rights of each group, for instance, “The student has to finish the course of incomplete secondary education”, and (in the teacher’s section), “The teacher cannot give the student the individual plan, if the student doesn’t want it.) There is also a short essay at the beginning of this book by the student who translated it.  I think it is not deceptive – rather, I think it is an accurate representation of what goes on here.  I don’t know whether the student understands what she wrote.  Maybe I can meet with her and talk about it next week.