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 VII.

November 20th, 11pm

This morning I woke up late and rushed off quickly, making it to school to see half of a biology park studio and half of a Russian language park studio (and it turns out that I had been to this one before; I just hadn’t realized it was a park studio the first time).  I went to an English class where I answered questions for them about literature and the teaching of it, including a description of Bill Batty’s teaching style.

Then Artiom, a 15-year-old kid with whom I’ve been hanging out a bit and who has been helping me with translations, came and took me to two classes at a nearby traditional school.  It seems that all these public schools have every grade level from primary through high school, although indeed they are usually not integrated.  We went to an English class and a math class in that high school.

Then there was the meeting with Tubelsky, that we’d been planning for 2pm.

We had also planned a dance lesson at 3pm, but the room wasn’t free.  Only two students came, and the three of us went somewhere else where we did a short dance lesson then talked in English for a while.  Finally, Lyudmila met me at the school and introduced me to one of her friends, Jenya, who had graduated with her last year.  We ended up hanging out for five hours.

So here is a bit about the meeting with Tubelsky.  He asked me to fetch Liliana, and two students (Vanya and Anya).  So I stopped by Liliana’s classroom and she was teaching an elementary school class.  I told her about Tubelsky’s invitation, so she went out into the hall and grabbed two high school students, spent a minute telling them how to teach English, then we left them in charge and proceeded to get the others and meet at Tubelsky’s office.  When we had all gathered (except for Anya who was late), Tubeksly started out by asking me to share with him my observations and criticisms of the school.  I started out by saying that I could only share part of my observations now and some more would have to wait until later.  And then I shared three main observations.

“There are two things I like best that I have seen, that I think are  impressive and provide important lessons for other schools.  The first one is the ongoing experimentation.  The second is that you combine life and learning - both by making this living experience educational and by connecting this learning experience to the outside world.  Since you’ve specifically asked for criticism, here is some criticism of you.  I’ve learned that there has been some conflict between you and the rest of the school in the past several years, although there is an attitude of secrecy about the situation so I am not sure of the details.  It seems to me that you know how to be a great leader, and you are able to be that, but that you have failed to communicate to the rest of the school what it means to be a leader.”

Liliana translated it all.  Tubelsky was chain-smoking. 

Anya came in about this time, and Tubelsky tried to get her to do the rest of the translation, which for the most part she did.

He said, “What in particular do you have to add about the English teaching?  What criticisms do you have?”

I said, “I’ve already told this to Liliana, but I think it’s important to work hard to bring as many foreigners here as possible - English isn’t a subject to be studied, but a medium for communication - it’s the communication that’s important, and the English will come naturally - maybe some types of pen-pal relationships could help, too.”

Liliana translated then added, “Of course I agree as well.”

I realize I should have also added that the English teachers should strive harder to use only English in their classes, no Russian whatsoever, especially when giving directions.  I will put that in my letter later.

Then Liliana said that she feels I have “done more” (I think meaning learned more) in two weeks than any of the other foreigners have even in a year’s time.  I wondered, “Would Olga agree?”  Tubelsky said he thinks this may be because I am more comfortable being in a variety of roles, not just stuck to the identity of teacher.

Tubelsky also then asked whether I had some questions for him.  Of course I had my sheet of paper with several questions all ready.  (I learned long ago that the reasons meetings are successful is because of preparation.)

“Could another school be created now in Moscow, transformed from a more traditional one into one more like yours?”

Tubelsky spoke some in Russian and some in English.  He said two things.  One, it’s hard to copy this type of school - if you copy it, it won’t work.  Two, the leader has to be a very uncommon person.  He said that there are generally two types of headmasters, one who is obsessed with the ministry of education and doesn’t know anything about students, and the other who knows all about students but doesn’t know anything about the ministry of education.  But to run a school like this, a leader has to be an expert in everything from politics to teaching to the legal system.  The teacher has to be an expert in the education laws, for instance, because when the state tries to change what you are doing, you have to know where the laws state that what you are doing is correct.  (This reminded me of an anecdote one person told me - because some of Russia’s education laws were written just after the crumbling of the U.S.S.R. there are some very progressive-sounding laws - but no schools actually follow them - and the joke is that the ministry of education is doing Tubelsky’s school a favor by allowing him to follow the laws.)

Then I asked, “Would it be a better school with no state requirements?  How would it be different?” Tubelsky said he thought it would be much better.  There would be no classes - or at least no required classes (the word “required” was mistranslated by Liliana as “optional” – I recognized it immediately because she has made it several times before in conversation with me - I corrected her that the word is “required”).  Teachers would not be paid per class, but just for time in the school, relating to kids, playing with them, whatever.  “School is a club,” Tubelsky dreamed out loud.

Then I continued, “Is this school successful because you are a spectacular leader or because there are so many spectacular teachers and students here?”  Tubelsky said he thought it was about one-sixth him, five-sixths others.  He also said that there are some teachers who can be good if they have a leader who tells them clearly what to do, and need that, whereas other teachers just need space and can lead themselves.  He mentioned that he prefers to work with the second type, and wishes there were more - in fact, he wishes there were more students like that.  Liliana said that she thinks he isn’t giving himself credit.  She went on to describe some more of his way of leading, stressing, “The school exists because of one person.  One person makes history.”  Tubelsky countered, “But I don’t make suggestions, I just create an atmosphere of where we can and do collaborate together.”

He also talked some about Jerry.  “When I saw Jerry at the conference, I was very impressed.  He set up the conference, then he spent his time playing ping-pong; he didn’t need to talk a lot, I think I talk a lot more (implying somewhat that there was a problem with his more active role as opposed to his ideal of being a leader from the sidelines).  I said that I think that both in terms of philosophy and method, that I think he and Jerry are very close, that the minor differences are more simply a matter of circumstance or conditions.  “Thank you,” he said.

Then he gave me a few pieces of artwork from the school and we all split.

I’m in Lyudmila’s room working on the computer.

Today was to be dedicated to the Moscow International Film School (MIFS - www.mifs.ru).  But still at 2pm I was at Lyudmila’s, alternating all morning between chatting with her and reading Tolstoy.  I have been adjusting to a later bedtime for several nights in anticipation of my upcoming travel to Spain and the US.  I was still at home at 2pm because Anton (the recent graduate of the film school) was supposed to organize a visit for me to the school and he was doing a poor job of it.  Artists...  Though I was making the best of it with my live Russian friend to talk to and my dead Russian idol to read from.

Finally, Anton was ready to meet me, and I walked to the Pervomayskaya station then took two trains to meet him at Universitiet just after 330pm.  He was late.  We spotted each other easily.  He looked about eighteen.  His hair was disheveled, like some students from Tubelsky’s school (though this is uncommon among the standard Moscow crowd).  His eyes were wide with excitement to meet me.

We took the train several stops and then walked a kilometer to the film school.  The school has two sessions, like many Russian schools.  It’s open from 9am to 9pm every day, with around 90 students from 9th, 10th, and 11th grades in either the morning or evening group (students graduate from high school after 11th grade in all highschools here). 

Anton explained that the school is partially government-funded but that fund-raising from sponsors is also important for facilities and trips.  The school is called the Moscow International Film School because it’s in Moscow, because the students go on international trips, because they make films (as well as theater, and assorted visual art), and because it’s a school.  I had been skeptical of the school because of this name at first.  I thought the name was traditional and therefore probably represented a traditional school.  And I don’t like art much and especially I hate art schools for some reason.  I now think I may have been a hair hasty in judging the school by the name.  A more representative way to describe the school might be this phrase that I made up today: Learning to Make and Becoming Greatness.

The school is located on the second floor of a building.  The first and third through fifth floors are used by a traditional school (according to Anton, there are battles of all kinds between the two schools).  When we arrived at the school building, we walked through the gates at the ground floor level and up one flight of stairs.  Then when we walked through the doors from the stairwell into the second floor, we were standing in front of a security desk.  But unlike the guards at most schools I had visited, the person sitting behind this desk was about fourteen years old.  Students were walking and running back and forth in every direction through the halls, excited, smiling, all with wide eyes pleased to be living and learning.

Anton said with knowledgeable alumni attitude, “It takes a year for people to understand the complexity of the film school.  So many things are different here.  Big, important field trips happen annually in the spring, after the new students can understand the school.  That first year, the older students help the younger students to understand the school.  I just graduated in the spring, but like many graduates I maintain a lot of connections with the school.” 

Anton went on to explain that recent spring trips have been from one to three weeks long, including trips to South Korea, Japan, Canada, the USA, and some within Russia.  The preparation for the trips takes all year, including learning theater performances to share, making visa arrangements, etc.  The footage taken on these trips is edited the following year.  Both the preliminary work and the editing afterward are essential components of education.

(continuing with the description of the film school...)

I met one of the teachers, German.  He is the Director of Theater Directing.  Anton explained that his wife also works at the school and that the school is their life.  German had recently accompanied some fifty students 2000km southwest in Russia to the rural mountains where he had grown up near Kazakhstan.  German didn’t speak any English, but Anton translated, adding in bits to explain to German about my history and my trip.  It was the first time I had met a group of people who were completely unsurprised by my lifestyle.  Their idea of the possible was already that big.  A few moments, it was as if they had been waiting to meet me, although clearly Anton had not planned anything whatsoever.  The connections were instant.  As an example, German said he is looking forward to working with me in the future.  (At least this is how Anton translated it.)

Here is a rundown of some of what I learned from Anton as we walked around. The school was originally founded some thirty years ago as a film studio with an educational component.  At the time of perestroika (around 1991), the school became an official government high school.  Apparently at around this time or perhaps even before, there was a strong government push to shut it down.  But many parents and assorted supporters rallied around the school.  The school’s Director had a breakdown but the school managed to survive.  The first official administrative Director, from that peretroika era, was a seventeen-year-old recent graduate who is still the Director.  From the educational perspective, other Directors have a stronger role, including another early graduate, Olga.  (There are a lot of Olgas who are teachers!)

I had first heard of Anton from some mutual friends (Nao and Jim) whom MIFS students had met on a visit to the United States several years ago - the same visit when they met Richard Bach.  Anton told me about another friend of Nao’s who is an American around my age who now has an orphanage in Thailand.  But what is the real reason I originally wanted to meet Anton?  As you may have gathered already, it’s not because I had any interest in film - I definitely don’t.  Rather, it was because Nao had explained to me that Anton and his friend Misha had been planning as a postgraduate project to drive across Russia, through China and Laos and to Thailand.  My kind of trip!  So I pressed Anton to tell me his ideas about that trip.

Anton resisted my pressure for a while, saying he would think about the project later and was currently focused on other subjects.  But I pushed and learned some ideas about his route, potential collaborators, budget (about ten thousand USD), timetable (next summer), and sponsors (none yet).  He says he is now focusing on his current animation project with Misha, to be finished in December, and that when he and Misha work in an orphanage this coming spring, they will plan the summer’s trip.  He explained to me that he and Misha are now learning the subjects that other students with similar interests would be learning formally in University.  But they are doing it on their own.  According to Anton, the MIFS sometimes supports recent graduates financially, although I did not gather whether he himself was getting any support.

“It is important for students to learn English,” Anton said, pointing to a poster on the wall advertising a showing of Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure on Sunday.  “The teachers are always working hard to figure out ways to impress this importance on the kids and to teach them.  If they try to do organizing work or to travel without English, they can do nothing.

“And another thing that is important here is that everything at the school is organized by students - not just the trips, that I explained, but also these bulletin boards and these rooms - there are students assigned to each of these to organize them.”

We wound up our tour of the building and then, along with an 11th-grade student (Zlata), we headed back to the metro to meet Misha at the modern shopping mall across Red Square from the Kremlin.

He spent a few minutes telling Zlata what he’d learned about me (in Russian) then he said, “Zlata hasn’t heard of this school where you have been teaching either, this Tubelsky school of Self-Determination.”

“Do the students have clear goals for the trips?” I asked as we crossed the street and headed into the metro station.  “And are the goals shared goals or individual goals?”

Zlata for some reason didn’t have a metro card like all the other students, so she bolted ahead just before the turnstyle.  Placing one arm on each side, she swung her legs through.  A loud beep sounded, and then a clank as the metal gate closed in her turnstyle, triggered, I think, by some light system in the turnstyle.  But there was no stopping Zlata.  Her thin legs flew over the gate and she was headed down the escalator.  No one seemed to pay any mind to the noises or the blonde girl concurrently flying through the air.  This included the old woman who was sitting in the glass office at the end of the row of six turnstyles, carefully watching everyone pass by.

A few moments later, we were all reunited on the escalator, my heart pounding a bit from the excitement and also from the possible danger of having police ask me to produce my (still problematic) registration card, being in the company of the rebellious nymph.  Luckily no such request was made.

Anton answered the question I had posed a minute before, “There are shared goals for the trips, there are clear goals, there is one goal, and there are several goals.”  Perfectly clear.

Zlata spoke up, “The goal for our trip to Canada was to meet indigenous people and to understand their situation.  We are now making a film about them, and about one particular man whom we met.”

Anton chimed in, “It’s also important to see an aspect of what Zlata’s saying - on these trips, one of the main goals is to meet incredible people, to see the Mountains we may become, how we can aim for those things - so on that trip, for example, they also met the former Director of the film school who now lives in Montreal.”

At the end of the long escalator, we boarded the next train towards downtown.  Zlata said, “There is still some spirituality in the indigenous peoples in some places.  We looked for that in Canada.  We also looked for that in Russia.  We have lost it here in the city.  This is just a city.  But we were recently in the north, two days travel from here, on an Island, and there we met a man who shared with us his life with God, there we saw something of the Russian spirit, we saw it.

“We have been getting in touch with indigenous people, like I said, and we make films, and we want to be proactive - not just make films with information but show what is going on so that good things are not killed.”

I listened attentively, then seeing that she was done, let myself dig in with some hard questions - “Does art have a positive effect on people and the world?” I said to her.  I said this partly because I think usually “art” (whatever that is) does not have a positive effect.  I assumed they would disagree.  I hoped somebody might learn something, either me or them.  I hate avoiding necessary and fruitful conflict.  We talked about this as we left the metro and walked through the tall gates next to the historical museum into Red Square.

Zlata started answering me by giving some examples of how their theater performances had made people cry.  Apparently some Japanese people felt that they had reconnected with what it means to be Japanese after seeing the play.  I wasn’t impressed yet.  Perhaps this is politically incorrect, but after six months in Asia, I don’t believe anything Asian people say.

“It affected them, it changed them,” Zlata said.

“But is that change positive?” I retorted.  “If I walked down the street and pick an arbitrary man and beat him up, I could probably get him to cry, and their life will probably change.  But how can we say whether that is positive or negative?”

“How can you say what is positive and what is negative?” Anton chimed in with what now strikes me as typical Russian ambivalent mysticism.  “You Americans have a war with Iraq, maybe you say it is negative, but maybe because of this war something good will come out of it, maybe some people will learn to understand the world and themselves and something new will be born, something more harmonious.”

“Aha,” I said “Harmony.  Is harmony the measure of goodness, then?” I asked.  (I’d never told Anton that this word had this meaning for me and was tickled that he’d came up with it.)

“Maybe,” Anton said as we walked by an ice cream vendor on Red Square.  (Although there was snow on the ground, it’s an unseasonably warm fall.) 

We arrived late to our rendezvous with Misha.  Indeed, there was no Misha to be found; he’d either left or was likewise late.  Zlata called him with her cell phone and then reported back to us that he would soon join us.

In the meantime, I had started probing along another line with Anton.  “I’d like to hear what each of you would like to be doing in ten years, and where you would like to live,” I said.

“We don’t think like that here,” Anton said, not explaining very well what he meant by “here.”  “What if there is a war tomorrow?  One month ago we didn’t know you existed.  We thought we would be making our animation project now.  But you called, and here we all are.”

“Yes,” I said, “But you had that previous plan - you had an idea of one thing or several things you might be doing now.  It didn’t get in the way of you spending time with me; sometimes plans get changed, sometimes cancelled, but that doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with plans.

“Do you have any idols?” I asked him.  “Great people who made a difference in the world?  Some of the people you have met on these trips?  Did they make plans in the world?  Were they just wishy-washy?”

He gave me his brief finale.  “We don’t believe in leaders, in idols.  Everyone is different.”  He had become somewhat hesitant about his answers, I thought not because he was shrinking from my energy, which he met perfectly, but because he was starting to see that his answers weren’t as foolproof as he would like.  I was showing a living and true path to the integration of thinking and living.  In particular, as far as his statement about leaders, it clearly contrasted with what he had previously said about the school trips visiting amazing people.  I gave him some time to think about this without commenting on it.  Then he felt comfortable with leaving that subject and returning to my question about his future plans. 

“I think we need to know more about the origin of your question about future plans to know what to say,” he explained.  “When did you start thinking about this?”

I thought about his question but I didn’t know.  So I said, “I don’t know.”  And I gave a little speech I have given several times recently to assorted people including Lyudmila: 

“Although I don’t know, maybe you can help me figure it out.  I will gladly try to answer any specific questions you can formulate as accurately as possible, about the past or the present.  So I’ll have all the information, and you’ll have to do all the thinking.”  One of the reasons I took this approach was because I didn’t know what his concept of origin is, and actually I even suspected it was a common (but delusional) idea based on causality.

“Maybe we can talk about it next time,” Anton said.  “We don’t have enough time now.”

That was fine.  I realized after a moment that though I couldn’t answer his actual question, I could relate a few words on related themes.  I said, “Maybe this will help for now.  I study people all over the world.  I want to know why people make the choices they make.  I want to know what is the same and what is different about people’s criteria for making choices around the world,” I said.  It sounded good.  I was pleased.

            I looked at Zlata.  She was watching me attentively.  I kept looking at her instead of Anton as I spoke.

            “Is it just random?” I asked. “Did I come to Russia because one day when I was standing around with nothing to do, someone came to me and said I should go to Russia so I did it - and are you here because I called Misha at a moment when he didn’t have anything to do and I told him to meet me here and he did it?”  Zlata nodded that she understood and agreed that there is more to it than that.  Then she moved her chin forward.

“I know what I am looking for,” she said.  “I have had some special spiritual experience - I know there is something more than just these things here, there is something spiritual - something to do with community but something more too - I met this spirit, and everything I do has to do with meeting that spirit again.”

I listened and waited.  But she had nothing more to say.

“Can you tell me more about what it means to meet that spirit,” I attempted.

She took several breaths, quickly, then these words burst out:  “Yes,” she said, “I can tell you.  I want to.”  Then she paused and took another few quick breaths.  Then, “But can I tell you or write you later?  It is so fresh.”

I wasn’t sure whether she was saying that the experience was fresh, or meeting me, or me posing the question.  But I liked her willingness to share with me.  I nodded.

Anton spoke again.  “Each person must have his own inside voice, like a painter - he listens to that inside voice to guide his actions, where to put the blue, where to put the red.  In the same way each person listens to that inside voice when making his choices.  He must trust it.”

Our eyes met and I registered that I had heard him but that it was not enough.

“Do you have this?” Zlata asked me.  I wasn’t sure if she meant plans and dreams for the future, or an inner voice, or what exactly she meant.

“Yes” I said, as it seemed to be the answer to all the possible meanings. 

She waited.  Maybe she was not sure whether to say what she wanted to say, or why she wanted to say it.  She seemed to know what she wanted to say.

Then she said, “Do you have pain?”

(I was almost in love with this blonde seventeen-year-old girl.  Beautiful, of course; daring; thoughtful; hard-working... the number of girls I could fall in love with here in Moscow is not small.  But Zlata perhaps more than all the others combined, and although I didn’t say it before and protested to myself when I felt it, I knew I had felt that from the moment I met her.)

I sat for a moment with everything going on.  Then I said, “I am not sure I understand what you are asking, but I will say something anyway.  I think I do have pain.  My mind has some models for pleasure and pain; there may be other ways to describe pain, but here are the three categories I find sufficient so far.  The first type is the pleasure of familiarity and the corresponding pain of what is unfamiliar.  The second type is the pleasure of getting what we planned for and the corresponding pain of experiencing what we planned against.  The third type of pleasure is the pleasure of harmony and there is a corresponding pain of disharmony.”

She listened and kept looking at me.  She accepted my answer, but I wasn’t sure if it was because it was what she wanted or not what she wanted or just because I was sharing or just because she accepted me in that moment.

            Then I noticed another boy with disheveled hair walking towards us.  I pointed to him and said, “Misha.”  He came to our table and he sat down next to me.  Then together we recollected some of the themes we had been discussing (mostly they were just speaking Russian amongst themselves because Misha doesn’t speak English - despite Anton’s big speech about the importance of English at MIFS).

            Anton explained that Misha had only a few minutes but that he had wanted to meet me.  They asked whether we could meet again before I leave Moscow, and I suggested getting together Sunday in the late morning and then going together to the airport.  We agreed.

Misha stood up and left on his own, then a few minutes later the rest of us, Zlata into the first metro station, and Anton and I further on to another one.  Anton asked me whether I had read any Russian writers.  I mentioned Brothers Karamozov, and he got excited, pulling out a copy of Little Devils as we walked.  He said, “I read Brothers Karamazov recently, too.”

“I read it almost ten years ago,” I said, “I don’t even remember what it was about anymore.”

“You know, it’s very interesting, I was thinking about that book because some of the themes are so similar to what we have been discussing.”  We passed the statue of Dostoevsky in front of the Lenin library.  The letters on the library still said “CCCP”, Russian for USSR.

Then I met up with Lyudmila and went with her to her theater rehearsal.  There were about ten girls in the play, and one boy.  I thought there was just one good actor among the bunch, a girl with short hair who, Lyudmila explained, happened to be married to the boy in real life.  The director was a good actor but not a good director, it seemed to me.  He was trying to show the players physical ways to express things, rather than push them to find an aspect of their own being that resonated with their character.  As a result, they were all obsessed with the way they appeared on stage, rather than forgetting the audience and actually being the character.  I guess what I disliked most wasn’t that the resulting acting was ineffective but rather that there wasn’t enough increasingly deep connection with one’s own identity, but rather just more and more lies piled on top of one another.  Real acting and real being are both spontaneous.  I have real reservations about whether acting is ever good for the actor or the audience as you can probably gather.  This was a typical example for me of my reservations. Nobody was getting more in touch with their anger, or their humor, or their pride, or their joy, or their pain - they were just learning how to pretend to be these things.  It was painful.  Lyudmila says she likes that Director.  Oh well.

On the way home, I had a nice chat with one of her friends from the cast on the metro.  (Most of the cast had been students with Lyudmila at Tubelsky’s school and are recent graduates.)  “Was there anything unique about your experience at Tubelsky’s school?” I asked her. 

She said yes, and explained what it was.  Then she said, “I wonder why you asked that.  Maybe it’s because there’s something unique about you, that you would like to share with me.”

“I don’t know if that’s my motivation, but it’s certainly an intriguing possibility.  I think perhaps the most unique thing about me is that I consider ‘what if’ questions so deeply.”

It was a nice chat; that was the most memorable part of it.

Later, Lyudmila and I had some great conversation about language, our interactions, my eye contact, roles of teacher and student versus friend in our interactions, and more. Then I wrote for a while and read some Tolstoy, going to bed around five.  This morning I woke up at ten thinking of some ideas in connection with the community-to-be.  I wrote up some great notes that I will probably finish typing up in Barcelona.

-

In Tolstoy’s War and Peace, he performs the role of creative historian, creating a story as reasonable as any other as he investigates that history and decimates the fallacy of the objective historian.  The story that emerges is the union of himself and that history.  This present book I am writing similarly is the union of myself and an investigation - the investigation of how to learn and how to teach, how to be and how to become.  I do not believe it is possible to do meaningful objective research.  It’s either not meaningful, or it’s not objective.  I think it’s also equally impossible to do research without having an effect.  Thus, unless we create a situation so artificial that it lacks life, we cannot conduct repeatable experiments.  How then do we learn?  What am I possibly doing in this research?  I do not know.  My best guess is that I am discovering with my deterministic mind what my deterministic self’s trends are.  (Though from another perspective, to think of these questions physically is only applicable within the physical context with a priori physical assumptions unquestionable.)

-

This afternoon I had plans to chat with two of Lyudmila’s friends: Tanya and Nastya.  Lyudmila walked me over there.  On the way, she talked to me about the usual annoying topic of the likely language problems.  I said, “I do not agree that there have been any usual language problems.  The only problem I have come across has been that people keep talking about language problems.  Or is that what you were talking about?” Perhaps I was a bit harsh, but for god’s sake, I have been pretty patient with their annoying addiction to talking about their “gavaryoo paangleeski plokha.”  Just get over it!  Concentrate on the topic at hand, or on learning, and forget about the complaining.  (This is what I have to do at the time - forget about the complaining - otherwise there would never be an interaction.)

According to Lyudmila, Nastya had been the most talented student in the Park Studios.  She spoke just a hair of English and two hairs of German.  Tanya spoke fair English but no German.  This was quite an enjoyable interchange, playing with language and also with the educational themes.

Tanya and Nastya just graduated from Tubelsky’s school this past spring, and now Tanya is studying history and Nastya law.  Tanya had been in the very first group of students the very first year of park studios.  Nastya said, “Our mothers went to the school at the end of the elementary school, that is, at the end of fourth grade, to hear about the experimental programs offered at the secondary school, fifth through ninth.  Then Tanya’s mom decided that Tanya should do park studios, and my mom decided that I should do another experiment, less experimental.  Fifth grade is the start of secondary school in all Russian schools, and it is the start of most of the experimental programs at Tubelsky’s school.”

“Did your mothers consult you about your preferences?” I asked.  They both said no flatly, as if I had asked a stupid question.  Tanya, who had gone through Park Studios, seemed to be an overachiever goodie-goodie.  (As opposed to an overachiever nasty brat like me.)  (I had actually heard from Lyudmila that Tanya’s older sister had taken a different path, in response I suspect to similar maternal pressure to Tanya’s and mine.  Tanya’s sister had left home at 16 to live with her boyfriend and pay for her own apartment and work her own way through University.)

They each told me about their programs, though we focused more on Tanya’s experience in Park Studios.  After her mother’s decision, Tanya took Park Studios by storm.  She followed her mother’s advice about which classes to attend for fifth and sixth grade, then transitioned to more of her own choices in seventh grade, and finally made most of her own choices for eighth and ninth grade (so she says).

Tanya told me about the first several years of park studios.  “We had to make a schedule at the beginning of each week for the week.  Each class period was an hour and twenty minutes, twice as long as the typical periods in the school.  Each class period, there were three or sometimes four choices from which we could choose.  At the end of the day, we wrote down what we had done that day.  At the end of the week, we wrote or explained to our advisor or the Director what we had missed and why.  This was designed so that the teachers would know whether we had a legitimate reason to leave, or what might be wrong with their classes if we had left - the attitude was that it was the teacher’s problem, not the student’s, when someone leaves class.” It seemed clear to me at this point that there was still a pervasive attitude that there was something wrong with leaving classes and something magical about formal learning linked with classrooms. 

I asked the following question to confirm this: “Did students ever spend all day chatting in the hall with friends, and if so, what did they do there?”  She said that in her experience, only seldom did students spend day after day sitting in the hall chatting with friends.  But sometimes it happened, and in those cases, the advisor (Russians incorrectly use the word tutor here but it is not correct in English) would call the parents and invite them to school to discuss the problem.

It is hard to know for sure what might have actually been going on in those interactions.  The explicit thing being discussed might be classes, but the implicit methodology of the teacher determines the ultimate character of the interaction.  When I teach, I strive to insure that everyone has the opportunity to learn every moment they interact with me.  If a student is not motivated, I use that as an opportunity for learning about self, learning about authority, learning vocabulary, learning to think.  If a student is skipping classes, I will happily talk with that student about learning and make clear that it is the student’s choice whether to go to classes or not (unless I’m in a school where it’s not the student’s choice, in which case I’d make that clear).  But I will also make clear that in their interaction with me, I will not respect them in that moment if they are not trying to understand me and trying to help me understand them.  It doesn’t matter whether they go to classes; some education can happen there, or else it can be a real bomb.  The real education happens at every minute anyone is ever talking to me.  Any person who considers their interactions with students, when they are discussing scheduling or choice of classes, to be facilitating their “real” learning time later in classrooms, rather than considering that interaction to be the “real” learning, is missing the most important aspect of effective education.

So how can I tell for sure the character of the interactions those advisors and students have?  Partly I can see some effects on Tanya, and that is my strongest sign.

One of the things that annoyed me most about students at Tubelsky’s school, like almost all Russians - is that they were nearly all deficient in rigorous thinking.  They didn’t know how to express numbers clearly or concepts clearly.  In their interactions with me, they often claimed this was due to language issues, but I do not think this is the case. I think they stumbled because I insist on cognitive clarity (unlike most Russians who just want to rap with them, maybe like most Americans too, but right now I’m just focusing on what’s in front of me here).  This came up when they were talking about the number of students who had been involved with Park Studios.  It seems that sixty students started with Tanya the first year, then more and more petered out and only fifteen of them were left after five years of park studio and two years of high school to graduate together.  (More students had joined park studios during this time at the fifth grade level so the number of students was always between fifty and one hundred.)

Tanya continued, “The main goal of the experiment, from my point of view, was to show that students of different ages can study together.  We studied together in classes and also older students acted as tutors for younger students - when I was in seventh grade, we were tutors for fifth grade students and then in ninth grade we were tutors for seventh and fifth grade students.  One year apart was considered too close for a tutoring relationship.

“There were obligatory ninth grade exams, and this it was bad for many students.  Everyone passed the exams, but many students still had failed to learn much during the park studios.  So the students and also teachers told them that it would probably be better for them to leave Tubelsky’s school and go elsewhere to another school.  That is why many people think park studios were not good.  And many of those students had to go to vocational schools, and things are not good for them, in their own opinion and in the opinion of others.

“The main problem of the program is that many people didn’t like having choices.  It is easier to just have a set schedule - like I did from my mother - but most students did not have that and they struggled a lot because of it.  And there is another problem, because those students who did not do well cannot transfer to another school because they know so little.  Park studios had many good students before, but it seems that now it is just the place for problem students, and they think it will be easy.” (I didn’t put a lot of faith in this last comment, by the way.  I felt it was just a repetition of common assumption, not her own analysis.)

“But what is your interest in park studios?  What do you want to know?” Tanya asked.  (Nastya was translating most of this, although sometimes Tanya spoke a bit of German or English.)

I said, “I want to know what is possible for human beings - how much choice can they have in the world, how much choice in education, what are the effects of choice in different cultures.”

“Well, we definitely had choice - I chose in the seventh grade to be in the English class of tenth grade Russian literature,” Tanya said.

“But that is maybe also just because of the school, not the specific Park Schooling program,” Nastya added.  “I also made choices like that, although I was not in Park Schools at the time.”

“Can you tell me, of the students who left the school and who seem to be less successful than you, who do they blame?”

“They blame the experiment, though not the teachers.  They just think there was too much choice,” she said.  “The idea was to be flexible with learning, not to force it, that it should be from the student’s own initiative.  There was also another attitude, that universal skills are more important than specific skills.”

“Do you find now that the universal skills you learned are important to you?” I asked.

“Yes,” she answered.  “For instance, I am in an English class at the University.  Many students agree that there are problems with the way the course is taught.  I suggested that we should change the way it was happening.  But other students just wanted to go along.

“Also I learned that with freedom comes responsibility.”  This could mean anything.  But this is the kind of question where there actually is a language barrier.

“I want to ask this again, could you just stay in the hall and talk to your friends all day?” I asked.

“The teachers might allow it at first, but they would encourage a student to go to classes.  And if I decided not to go, I would have to explain why I was not going.”

“Were there grades to indicate the performance of the students?” I asked.

“We were supposed to do self-evaluation, it was better than teacher evaluation,” she said.

“Alright, maybe we’re getting to the end,” I said.  (We’d also eaten lunch during this time, prepared by Tanya as we talked.)

“Do you think it was a good idea you were in the project?” I asked.

“It’s a big risk for kids and adults” she said first.  Then, “There are advantages and disadvantages of everything.”

-

It sounds to me like it was exactly the right program for the combination of Tanya, her mother, and the teachers at the school.  I personally would probably be a different type of teacher and a different type of student and a different type of parent so I think something else would be appropriate for me, but for this combination it was great.  Tanya, who I had taken for a goodie two shoes at the beginning of the conversation, unable to think for herself, had presented marvelously an astute perspective on her own education, had explained how it affected her today, had shown that it had affected her deeply.  Yes, perhaps she hasn’t actually managed to change that English class at the University.  But one thing at a time.  This is Russia.