Speech therapy portal / Speech development / The origin of the Russian school and the history of the Russian school uniform. How do Soviet schoolchildren differ from modern ones? How does a modern school differ from an old one?

The origin of the Russian school and the history of the Russian school uniform. How do Soviet schoolchildren differ from modern ones? How does a modern school differ from an old one?

05.02.2024

31.08.2016

On the eve of Knowledge Day, WE decided to ask our parents about their school times and young parents about what a schoolchild looks like today.

SOVIET SCHOOLBOY

— Everyone had the same stationery. In the early days, students wrote with ink, so a special sheet of paper, a “blotter”, was included in each notebook, which quickly dried the ink and prevented it from smearing. Plastic rulers were considered a curiosity in some schools. Another attribute of the Soviet schoolchild is the sleeves, which were worn during labor lessons or while writing, so as not to stain the sleeves or wipe them.

Source: livejournal.com

— The students had a highly developed sense of patriotism. Being in the Komsomol is pride for a child. To get into the Komsomol, children went through a strict selection process: excellent academic performance and knowledge of the charter. Many children would be upset to tears if they did not make the cut.

— The appearance is strictly standardized: a strict dress with a black apron on weekdays and a white apron on holidays, bows, rough but high-quality shoes, jackets with a regular collar or a stand-up collar. Perhaps in the city there was a variety of clothes, but in rural stores, if the size was right, the seller immediately wrapped the purchase and gave it to the buyer, since there was no point in choosing from something. The students' sports shoes were not sneakers, but exclusively sneakers.

Source: nnm.me

— The Soviet school provided its children with almost everything. If students lived far from school, they were often accommodated in a boarding school, where they were provided with everything they needed, sometimes milk and buns were given to students for free, and the gym was equipped with all kinds of equipment.

— Schoolchildren were more involved in sports. The system set strict requirements for children, and they, in turn, were more willing to meet them.

MODERN SCHOOLBOY

— The child is now in an unimaginable thicket of information, which is why today's teenagers and children are more advanced than their parents at their age, smarter and more purposeful. They can already clearly formulate how they see themselves in the future. This situation is partly dictated by tougher competition and developed motivation.

“The student now has a huge choice. This applies to everything: from the drawing on the cover of a notebook to the educational system.

Source: altaynews.kz

“Nowadays children are less independent, since their parents take more care of them. Moms and dads devote more time to their children, which cannot be said about the times when parents disappeared at work.

— In terms of school uniforms, now each school can show its individuality. Red jackets, gray-green vests, chest stripes with a coat of arms - by these signs you can find out what school the child is studying at. In other cases, schools adhere to state standards: white top, dark bottom.

Source: liter.kz

— The development of technology, of course, could not but affect the appearance of a modern schoolchild. Abstracts are now written exclusively on a computer and using the Internet, equations are solved using advanced phone applications, and schedules and cheat sheets are transmitted via WhatsApp and VKontakte. This could not but affect the health of children: many of them, before reaching the age of 17, already have problems with vision or posture.

What can you say about modern and Soviet schoolchildren?

We thank Kuanysh Dzhumataev, Yulia Goncharova, Madina Baibolova, Aliya Nurguatova, Erbol Nurguatov, Elena Shikera, Gulzira Abdraimova, Damesh Micheleva, Zaira Mukhamedzharova and Altynshash Uspanova for their help in creating the material.

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Social science. How is your school different from the old Russian school?

Today all schools are similar to each other, all schoolchildren study according to the same program, but in the past there were many different schools even at the same level of education, including private boarding schools. Today, children simply move from primary school to primary school, but before the revolution, children of the same age were admitted to the gymnasium based on exams. Today boys and girls study together, but once they studied separately from each other. Today the grades are 5-point, but before the revolution they were 12-point. Today, a guilty student is given a bad grade in the diary, a remark is written there, and in extreme cases, parents can be called to school; before the revolution, children were flogged (the only exception was the school that L.N. Tolstoy opened for peasant children). Today all children are required to go to school; before the revolution, not all children had this opportunity.

5th grade Social science Simple 748

Lessons from the breadwinner

The first mention of the school in ancient chronicles dates back to 988, when the Baptism of Rus' took place. In the 10th century, children were taught mainly at home by the priest, and the Psalter and Book of Hours served as textbooks. Only boys were accepted into schools - it was believed that women should not learn to read and write, but do household chores. Over time, the learning process evolved. By the 11th century, children were taught reading, writing, counting and choral singing. “Schools of book learning” appeared - original ancient Russian gymnasiums, the graduates of which entered the public service: as scribes and translators.

At the same time, the first girls' schools were born - however, only girls from noble families were accepted to study. Most often, the children of feudal lords and rich people studied at home. Their teacher was a boyar - the “breadwinner” - who taught schoolchildren not only literacy, but also several foreign languages, as well as the basics of government.

Children were taught literacy and numeracy. Photo: Painting by N. Bogdanov-Belsky “Oral Abacus”

Little information has been preserved about ancient Russian schools. It is known that training was carried out only in large cities, and with the invasion of Rus' by the Mongol-Tatars, it stopped altogether for several centuries and was revived only in the 16th century. Now schools were called “schools”, and only a representative of the church could become a teacher. Before starting a job, the teacher had to pass a knowledge exam himself, and the potential teacher’s acquaintances were asked about his behavior: cruel and aggressive people were not hired.

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The schoolchildren's day was completely different from what it is now. There was no division into subjects at all: students received new knowledge in one general stream. The concept of recess was also absent - during the whole day the children could only take one break, for lunch. At school, the children were met by one teacher, who taught everything at once - there was no need for directors and head teachers. The teacher did not grade the students. The system was much simpler: if a child learned and told the previous lesson, he received praise, and if he did not know anything, he was punished with rods.

Not everyone was accepted into the school, but only the smartest and most savvy children. The children spent the whole day in classes from morning until evening. Education in Rus' proceeded slowly. Now all first-graders can read, but previously, in the first year, schoolchildren learned the full names of letters - “az”, “buki”, “vedi”. Second graders could form intricate letters into syllables, and it was only in the third year that children could read. The main book for schoolchildren was the primer, first published in 1574 by Ivan Fedorov. Having mastered letters and words, the children read passages from the Bible. By the 17th century, new subjects appeared - rhetoric, grammar, land surveying - a symbiosis of geometry and geography - as well as the basics of astronomy and poetic art. The first lesson on the schedule necessarily began with general prayer. Another difference from the modern education system was that children did not carry textbooks with them: all the necessary books were kept at school.

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After the reform of Peter I, a lot has changed in schools. Education acquired a secular character: theology was now taught exclusively in diocesan schools. By decree of the emperor, so-called numerical schools were opened in the cities - they taught only literacy and basic arithmetic. Children of soldiers and lower ranks attended such schools. By the 18th century, education became more accessible: public schools appeared, which even serfs were allowed to attend. True, forced people could study only if the landowner decided to pay for their education.

Previously, schools did not have divisions into subjects. Photo: Painting by A. Morozov “Rural Free School”

It was not until the 19th century that primary education became free for everyone. Peasants went to parish schools, where education lasted only one year: it was believed that this was quite enough for serfs. Children of merchants and artisans attended district schools for three years, and gymnasiums were created for nobles. The peasants were taught only literacy and numeracy. In addition to all this, the townspeople, artisans and merchants were taught history, geography, geometry and astronomy, and the nobles were prepared in schools to enter universities. Women's schools began to open, the program in which was designed for 3 years or 6 years - to choose from. Education became publicly accessible after the adoption of the relevant law in 1908. Now the school education system continues to develop: in September, children sit down at their desks and discover a whole world of new knowledge - interesting and immense.

There is a point of view that the desire to return the Soviet school curriculum is nostalgia for youth, when the grass was greener and the water was sweeter for three kopecks. It seems to me that if it were possible to provide in a modern school the conditions that existed in good (! - not all schools were good, but there were many good schools) schools, the number of dissatisfied people would be reduced to a minimum. So it's not about nostalgia. I’ll try to list the features of a modern school - it doesn’t matter in comparison with what standard: Soviet, pre-revolutionary, Neanderthal, whatever.

1) The program is far behind in age. The 4-year primary school program was introduced to create a "zero" class. The age of first grade was returned to 7 years, but the program remained for the older group of kindergarten - and continues to be simplified. In the 20s and 30s, in the first grade, even in rural schools, they counted to one hundred and ended the year with the rudiments of multiplication. Today they finish first grade with the task “Lena had 6 dolls, she gave 2 dolls, how many are left?” (see Moreau's textbook) What kind of eight-year-old child is this task designed for?! The entire program is focused on developmental delays; normal children, by the end of 4th grade, without ever straining their brains, turn out to be ideal and hopelessly mentally lazy. Moscow International Gymnasium in Perovo (city school), 1st grade - children read... “Teremok”. Then we passed “Repka”. In second grade we read “The Fox and the Crane.”

2) The horizons of a child in elementary school are narrowed to the world of a three-year-old: you have to love your mother, you have to love animals, you have to walk happily together. Dictations about the rivers of Siberia, poems about war heroes, stories about military and civil feats and childhood experiences (what happens if you lie, are greedy, do not behave in a comradely manner) have been removed from the program - instead of Zhitkov, Aleksin, Alekseev, Mayakovsky, Dragunsky - endless Charushin (Bianchi is too difficult). The lack of children's organizations and clubs (for example, search groups in school museums) contributes. Again: if you don’t like the Soviet school, let’s take the gymnasium - the problems were full of names of cities and goods, trains went from Moscow to Torzhok, and not endless identical dolls sat on shelves and in drawers, as in today’s textbooks. Ushinsky wrote that for a good teacher, every task is an entertaining encyclopedia. Today, nine-year-old children do not know how many kopecks are in a ruble - some say sixty, some say ten. Do you understand that these are retarded children? It’s not that today they are behind in development, but tomorrow they will become academicians - that’s all! they will not become academics. Another couple of years of this life - they will no longer become engineers.
How many children can you count in a class who are passionate about one of the subjects and dream of a corresponding profession?

3) The attitude towards the student in the Soviet school and pre-revolutionary gymnasium was demanding, but automatically respectful, as if he were an integral little person. And the little man sounds proud. In a modern school, primary schoolchildren are “children”, “dolls”, i.e. "little idiots" They cannot be upset and must be entertained according to the most base standard. I studied - there were no questions: the text in English must be read 10 times. Today, try and tell me that you need to read it at least five times - moms will faint, “how can you torture children like that?” How are we alive? In the 70s - in each class - one or two works of classical English literature, from the 6th grade - without editing, just with comments (Alice in Wonderland, fairy tales by Kipling and Oscar Wilde - two entire volumes, The Call of the Wild, "Lorna Doone", "Little Women", "Six Weeks with the Circus", "The Incredible Journey", "Stuart Little"). Can you imagine how much time on the page you had to look in the dictionary; all the books were covered with pencil or pen. And now in first grade, it turns out, you can’t write more than three lines a day. The kids are getting tired. In class there are three lines in the copybook, there is no homework - you can’t do homework at 7 years old, children are still small.
This is the result - they treat themselves accordingly, they do not respect themselves. There is stupid aplomb, but no self-respect (not to mention efficiency and determination).

4) Same type tasks that do not require brain function. When I was studying, the program at school was designed in such a way that, after going through the material, the student would be caught using it. When simplifying expressions with polynomials, the efficiency of the solution was assessed - i.e. you could simplify, however, if you chose the clumsy, long path, the score was lower. Modern seventh graders go through the square of the sum - solve examples for the square of the sum, go through the following formula - solve examples for it. In the end, three examples will be given for mixed use, no one will solve them - well, okay, everyone got A's when solving using the example. Also in the Russian language - we went through the rule - inserted letters into the corresponding words in a printed notebook: there are no complex dictations, no expositions, no - God forbid - essays. In MMG, our children wrote their first essay in the 6th grade - “description of a room” - in their native language! not foreign! Let's take another example from the Tsar's gymnasium - interest rates have passed - now, if you please, solve a whole section of problems on the profitability of bills, and not just “we need to divide by a hundred and multiply by a number.”
The entire program is divided into formal steps, within which assignments must be completed based on samples. It is very convenient for teachers to check; there is no need to prepare for lessons. But it’s so easy to check the work of a teacher - conduct tests not at the school level, but at the district and city level, and give tasks in which the rules passed will only be elements for combinations. In English – don’t recite the text by heart, but talk about a similar object (give a story in pictures with a boy’s or a girl’s day and the time on the clock - 16, 20, 30 options for such a day with alternating activities in the pictures - and hear whether the student really speaks on this topic).
I give 30 students in grades 8-9 from different schools (excellent students, good students - a group of artists) the task of constructing a segment the length of the square root of five. Nobody could solve it! For some, the root of five is twenty-five. The most popular fun problem was using the Pythagorean theorem for middle school.
In the fifth grade, I asked to put two specified events on ready dates: the construction of the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir and the baptism of Rus'. “But we,” they say, “have never experienced anything like this!” These children don’t even have the urge to turn on their heads.

5) In addition to the formalization of knowledge, textbooks have added many definitions and rules, no one knows why they were inserted there, often postulating elementary things, the understanding of which has never been a problem. For example, in the Russian language textbook for the second grade the following abracadabra appeared for memorization:
“In the same part (at the root) of the same word and in words with the same root, a consonant sound paired in deafness and voicedness is indicated by the same letter.”
Or was it clear to everyone what the word being tested was? So what? You never know, you need to come up with a definition, stick it in a textbook and memorize it:
“The word being tested is a word that is used to check the spelling of a letter denoting a paired voiced-voiced consonant at the end of a word or at the root before another paired consonant.”

6) The use of speech is kept to a minimum. Essays, presentations, reports on the topic (except for paragraphs of abstracts printed or copied by parents), and discussions of literature have sunk into oblivion. The use of printed notebooks makes not just writing, but speech unnecessary. I look at the Russian language textbook for the 2nd grade of a three-year-old - on each page there are tasks “finish the story”, “complete the sentences”, “answer the questions”, “make up questions”, “read poems aloud and write them from memory”, “rewrite the sentences, choosing the appropriate word according to its meaning”, “copy the sentences by opening the brackets and putting the words in the correct form”, etc., etc. – all 178 pages of the textbook. I couldn’t even imagine how many statements we had to generate on our own in our native language. But this is what a teacher has to do! Listen, check what is written - but who would refuse printed notebooks now?

7) Thoughtless gadgetization of education under the constant premise that education must move forward. Where should it go forward? To learn to write, you still need to write, and not look at pictures on the computer. All homework in second grade is to click on the desired letter in the names of 8 vegetables. And nothing in the notebook. And during the lesson, they handed out macintoshes, typed a sentence with one finger, disassembled its structure and assembled the mackintoshes. It was a Russian language lesson.

To count - you won’t believe it - you need to count and communicate with counting objects, and not go virtual from real life. Good teachers brought jars of beans into the class and forced them to sort through the beans and arrange them while counting, because mathematical representation is a representation of objects, tactile and visual as well. (Mathematics is subject-specific, which is why word problems with situational conditions, thrown out of textbooks, are so important.)
Education should move forward in the sense that we need to come up with new ways to make children THINK, make mistakes, achieve, and not repeat primitive identical material under different pictures and shorten texts, because it is difficult for children to read to the end.
The time of personality formation is the time when it is necessary to actively get acquainted with all facets of the object world, and not abstract it into a two-dimensional identical screen. (Not counting the fact that our teachers are increasingly replacing any real learning experience with the use of a computer - where you can sit in the back instead of teaching a lesson while the children “work on the computer”).
The psychological priorities of learning in primates are such that the most active way to gain experience is to repeat after comrades, communicate and discuss.

8) There is no system of alternative schools. “Gymnasiums” actually have the same level of curriculum as regular schools, even those created on the basis of old specialized schools. The only difference is financing. You can go to school and, just like at school in your own backyard, learn to count to 100 for the first three years. The program of the “English” “special school” has been completely destroyed: reading English literature every year, 1-2 classic works, assignments for texts in the amount of 35 questions, 30 sentences in an exercise (and exercises for the text - at least a dozen), mandatory English matinees and evenings of English dramatization, newspaper reading, listening, etc. - and all with the corresponding district and city checks. In modern “gymnasiums” they study using the same Russian textbooks as in “non-gymnasiums” (according to longer-term versions), they do not use any audio or video materials (once every six months, perhaps), there are no tests for listening comprehension at all, there are minimal presentations and essays , lexical minimums for topics - they seem to have completely forgotten about this, they just hammer out the corresponding texts by heart.
So, in “Soviet times” - no, it’s better to say “during the time before the collapse of the school” (it doesn’t matter whether it was Soviet or Tsarist) - there were guaranteed to be schools where more was required from students: English, physics, biology. Elitism was determined not by special concern for students, but by the level of requirements. The students had to study a lot, they were periodically kicked out (asked to leave) - for behavior and poor performance. Special schools trained efficient, responsible people, who almost entirely comprised university faculties and, accordingly, the scientific community. It is a myth that you can somehow study for ten years and then become a scientist. However, some of the “yard” schools were also very good - they had a smart teaching staff. Of course, there were also bad schools in the country.
Now read the reviews of former “special schoolchildren” about the “gymnasiums” created on the basis of their native schools: “there are no schools left, just teacher dullness.” A child who is ready to work for real: write reports and essays in elementary school, read Gerald Durrell, Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, Mayakovsky, perform operations with numbers within a thousand in the second grade (as was the case in ALL schools in the 20s), - there is simply nowhere to go.

9) The rules of behavior have been forgotten at school. Discipline is an important part of the learning process. In bedlam, knowledge is not absorbed. This is very simple: a well-mannered child must be friendly, neat, in a conversation - look at the interlocutor (especially if the interlocutor is a teacher), and not at the game console, cannot run in the school building, cannot come in clothes that expose inappropriate exposure in a public place body parts, phones must be turned off during class, etc. If there are rules and there is a desire to support them - first of all, teachers! – children learn proper behavior. If an adult doesn’t care, conversations begin that these are children, that there are no opportunities, etc.
Today the teacher doesn’t even have an idea of what a good student should be like. She only has a desire not to get involved. Of course, after a good gift from the parent committee, will there be a desire to conflict?
What kind of talk is this that girls won’t be banned from using cosmetics at school? There are wonderful schools where girls are not allowed to wear makeup - and the girls in these schools are alive and well, wearing makeup on dates and discos, and also understand that there are places where the use of cosmetics is inappropriate.

The lack of discipline in school is partly explained by the corruption and helpfulness of the teaching staff, partly by the laziness and indifference of adults, partly by the loss of standards and their own inability to behave, partly by the fact that many adults were “on the sidelines” in their youth and are now proving to themselves and others that in fact they are extremely liberated and do not force others.

But it’s so simple: there are rules, children must follow them, adults must monitor the children and demand from them.

10) The school should be a center of culture, but in reality it instills low, marginal standards. This would not be so scary if there were some other center of culture in the lives of millions of Russian schoolchildren.
There are entertainments and events that are suitable for a family circle, there are events that are suitable for a party at the office, there are those that are suitable for a drunken group of friends, and there are those that are acceptable at school. All of this is not the same thing.
The goal of a school event is not to provide schoolchildren with the kind of entertainment they want (parents can do this in the family circle), but to accustom children to such a pastime so that they can enjoy not only “corporate parties” with a lot of alcohol and “spicy” . You have to understand that bowling with a bar is for a team of friends outside of school, and the quiz “What? Where? When?" - for a school holiday. (And you don’t need to say in advance that a quiz is not interesting, especially if you have never had such quizzes. You should set yourself the task of making cultural school events as interesting as possible.)
We must understand that the school should promote reading - despite the fact that children do not like it, and not social networks.
Families that do not allow entertainment through the Comedy Club should not be placed in such conditions that it is unpleasant to send a child to a party at school (or to school in general). There should be rules for this and enforcement so that teachers who violate them are held accountable, not to mention delegating decisions about extracurricular activities to illiterate parents.
During breaks at school, the TV is turned on so that children do not play pranks. There is a TV in the after-school program, the TV is on in the school lobby - I pick up the child with wandering eyes and impressions of second-rate cartoons. During the after-school period the TV is on, children sit in front of it and play with their consoles and phones. What kind of school is this? How can you leave a child here? (By the way, a city school should have been an example.) I come to pick up the child from the last lesson - he finished work early and is sitting in the back desk playing on someone else’s phone in class, the teacher sees, she doesn’t care, as long as he doesn’t interfere .

11) Lack of control over teachers.
Indeed, teachers have become service personnel rather than mentors. Their own children spend hours playing electronic games, don’t read books, don’t do well in school—this is the teacher’s idea of a normal child. She herself doesn’t have enough stars in the sky, she studied in a very high school and there is no one to point out to her that in this school, in the one she works for, children at the age of 10 were reading Sherlock Holmes and Jules Verne. She herself has not read “The Children of Captain Grant” and is not able to finish reading it. She is addicted to pictures on the computer, forgets to check her notebooks, forgets to announce about the Olympiads - but she spent the whole night preparing a new presentation in Powerpoint, there are photographs of bears and interesting information that the bear sleeps in winter (for third graders). But she made sure that the inscription appears smoothly.
In a good school - I'm not sure such a teacher should exist - but if she does exist (considering that primary school teachers are a teacher's college, not a higher education at all) - there should be rules so that students do not suffer from the level of development or work teachers' relaxation. Inspectors should be periodically present at lessons, there should be responsibility for mobile phones that work in the middle of a lesson for half the class (not to mention electronic games in class), for bedlam in the locker room, for lost notebooks.

12) Material question. Increasing salaries for teachers in Moscow has reduced, rather than increased, the quality of the teaching staff: the work has become attractive. Now possible accountants, secretaries, and store managers are considering the teaching path as an acceptable option - and this is a completely new contingent. In combination with pedagogical colleges instead of a pedagogical university (3 years - and you are a primary school teacher, and even with in-depth training in the field of English or computer science! - and it is by no means a fact that the certificate contains only good marks) we get a standard teacher’s position yesterday's C-grade student, a girl from Contacts, who, during a working day, is one and a half times shorter than the national average, and during a vacation, two and a half times longer than the average, receives additional payments for clubs and additional ones, gifts from parents, as well as full lack of control from the administration and the education department.
The ability to manage finances instantly turned most of the directors into thieves and bribe-takers, recruiting twice the number for which the school is designed, introducing incredible paid clubs and classes, shielding themselves from parents by security guards and secretaries, and having criminal connections with their own teachers and senior employees. department.
* * *
So I admit, there really are reasons for nostalgia.
When I, as a little girl, went to school, there were three specialized “English” schools within half an hour’s drive from home. At first I was sent to a “simple” school in the yard, but the program turned out to be too easy for me and I misbehaved a lot. The teachers (thanks to them!) did not hush up the problem with my behavior (at 6 years old, I don’t make allowances for the “baby”) and my parents transferred me to one of the “English” schools (in Kuzminki), where there was no time to be a hooligan, but I had to catch up with the class (mainly in mathematics, there was no English in the first grade then). For the last two years I studied at another “English” school (in Perovo) - out of 50 graduates, eighteen entered Moscow State University.

What about my children? A school in the yard is no longer an option - thanks to the proximity of the Vykhinsky market (I hope everyone understands everything). The eldest daughter has to travel to the gymnasium across all of Moscow to the Lenin Hills. I take the youngest to my former school in Perovo - or rather, to what’s left of it: no discipline, no decency, no extracurricular work, the program is even more unassuming than in the “yard” school near the Vykhinsky market, each class - 4 parallels instead of two - everything to keep the clients happy (housewives with 2-3 jeeps per family and a Turkish beach during the holidays, which they tell their friends about at school every day until a new beach).

I went to my other old school (“English” in Kuzminki), talked with my parents - everything was the same as what I wrote about the previous school. The parent contingent is only smarter.

So, having on one palm the school of our childhood, and on the other, outright genocide - not to mention talented or capable! - but simply able-bodied, supervised children with a book instead of a game console in their backpack, it is quite understandable to succumb to nostalgia.

In Rus'

Vologda-Perm Chronicle about the school of Vladimir Svyatoslavich: 988. “Great Prince Volodymer, having gathered 300 children, taught them to read and write.” The history of Russian education begins with this message. During the reign of Prince Vladimir, only boys could study at school, and the first subject for their education was bookmaking.

Only a hundred years later, in May 1086, the very first women's school appeared in Rus', the founder of which was Prince Vsevolod Yaroslavovich. Moreover, his daughter, Anna Vsevolodovna, simultaneously headed the school and studied science. Only here could young girls from wealthy families learn to read and write and various crafts.

At the beginning of 1096, schools began to open throughout Rus'. The first schools began to appear in such large cities as Murom, Vladimir and Polotsk, and were most often built at monasteries and churches. Thus, priests were considered the most educated people in Rus'.

Mostly at that time they wrote on birch bark, and in such “business correspondence” even references to primary education in Rus' were preserved:

.vologou sobi kopi a ditmo por[t]i k.- [d]aI literate outsiti. [Buy yourself a Vologda, and go teach your child to read and write]

Moreover, thanks to one confused boy who lost all his birch bark at once, educational notes on birch bark were found. These are the famous birch bark letters of Onfim, a Novgorod boy of the 13th century, the author of birch bark letters and drawings, mainly of an educational nature. In total, 12 letters were written in Onfim’s handwriting: No. 199-210 and 331, and in addition, he owned several birch bark drawings, not numbered as letters, since they do not contain text. The bulk of his letters and drawings were found on July 13-14, 1956.

Letter No. 206, containing warehouses, a fragment from the troparion: “Look at the sixth hour...”, as well as seven funny little men, the number of fingers of which varies greatly.

Judging by the drawings, Onfim was 6-7 years old. Apparently, Onfim lost all his letters and drawings at the same time, which is why they were found together. The bulk of Onfim's documents are educational records. The letters performed by Onfim look quite clear, it doesn’t look like he is mastering them for the first time. V.L. Yanin suggests that his exercises are consolidating during the transition from the tsera (wax tablet) to birch bark, writing on which required effort. One of Onfim’s letters is the bottom of a birch bark tree, which was often given to children for exercise (similar letters from other nameless students have been found). Three times he writes out the complete alphabet, then after it there are warehouses: ba va ga da zha for ka ... be ve ge de zhe ke. bi vi gi di zhi zi ki... This is a classical form of teaching literacy (“buki-az - ba”), known in Ancient Greece and lasting until the 19th century.

Onfim's records are valuable evidence of primary education in Ancient Rus'. From a linguistic point of view, it is interesting that in the texts Onfim does not use the letters Ъ and ь (replacing them with O and E), although they are present in the alphabets he wrote out; Thus, when teaching the so-called “everyday system” of writing, the student also mastered the full inventory of the alphabet in order to quickly learn to read book texts.

Teachers of the X-XIII centuries. Due to the imperfection of teaching methods and individual work during classes with each student individually, he could not work with more than 6-8 students. The prince enrolled a large number of children into the school, so at first he was forced to distribute them among teachers. This division of students into groups was common in Western European schools at that time. The birch bark letters of the above-mentioned Novgorod schoolboy of the 13th century also testify to approximately the same number of students. Onfima. There is no question of any school uniform, as can be seen in the images of the students below.

Sergius of Radonezh at school. Miniature from the front "Life of St. Sergius of Radonezh." 16th century

Since the 15th century, educational institutions at monasteries ceased to be built, and private schools appeared, which at that time were called “masters of literacy.”

In the 16th century in Stoglav (a collection of decisions of the “Stoglava Council”), chapter 25, you can read the following mention of schools in Rus':

Stoglav, chapter 25: About those who want to be promoted to deacons and priests, but have little ability to read and write. And they were appointed as saints, contrary to the sacred rule. If you don’t build them, otherwise the holy churches will be without singing, and the Orthodox Christians will die without repentance. And the saint is elected according to the sacred rule to the priesthood for 30 years, and to the deaconate for 25 years. And if they knew how to read and write, so that they could support the Church of God and the children of their spiritual, Orthodox peasants, they could govern according to the sacred rule, but the saints torture them with great prohibition, because they know little about reading and writing. And they answer: “We, supposedly, learn from our fathers or from our masters, but there is nowhere else for us to study. As much as our fathers and masters can, that’s why they teach us.” But their fathers and their masters themselves therefore know little and do not know the power of the divine Scripture, and they have nowhere to study. And first of all, in the Russian kingdom in Moscow and in the great Novgorod and in other cities there were many schools that taught literacy and writing and singing and honor. And therefore, then there was a lot of literacy and writing and singing and honor. But the singers and chanters and good scribes were famous throughout the whole earth to this day.

Stoglav, chapter 26: ABOUT BOOK SCHOOLS AROUND THE CITY. And we, according to the royal council, laid down this matter in the reigning city of Moscow and throughout the city by the same archpriest and the oldest priest and with all the priests and deacons, each in his city, with the blessing of his saint, elect good spiritual priests and deacons and deacons who are married and pious those who have the fear of God in their hearts, who are able to use others, and would be more literate and honorable and able to write. And among those priests and deacons and clerks, set up schools in the houses of the school, so that the priests and deacons and all the Orthodox Christians in each city would hand over their children to them for learning to read and write and for the teaching of book writing and church singing of the psalter and reading of the psalter. And those priests and deacons and clerks chosen would teach their disciples the fear of God and literacy and writing and singing and honor with all spiritual punishment, and most of all they would keep their disciples and keep them in all purity and protect them from all corruption, especially from the vile sin of Sodom and fornication and from all uncleanness, so that through your fermentation and teaching, they will come to an age worthy of being a priest. Yes, they would naturally punish their disciples in the holy churches of God and teach them the fear of God and all decency, psalmody and reading and singing and canarching according to the church rite. And you should teach your students how to read and write as much as you can yourself. And the power would be told to them in writing, according to the talent given to you by God, without hiding anything, so that your disciples would learn all the books that the conciliar holy church accepts, so that later and henceforth they could not only use it for themselves, but also others, and teach the fear of God about all that is useful, They would also teach their students honor and to sing and write as much as they themselves can, hiding nothing, but expecting rewards from God, and here they accept gifts and honors from their parents according to their dignity.

And only at the beginning of the 17th century the study of sciences and arts in schools began in a new way. The Russian school of the 17th century was structured like this. The students all sat together, but the teacher gave each one his own task. I learned to read and write and finished school.

Russian school of the 17th century

The children wrote with quill pens on loose paper, on which the pen clung, leaving blots. The writing was sprinkled with fine sand to prevent the ink from spreading. They were punished for carelessness: they flogged them with rods, made them kneel in a corner on scattered peas, and the number of slaps on the back of the head was countless.

In the era of Peter 1, the first school in the city of Kyiv opened in systematic sciences, which the tsar himself called a new step in the education of every person. True, until now only children from noble families could get here, but more people wanted to send their children to study. In all schools in the 17th century, teachers taught subjects such as grammar and Latin.

It is with the era of Peter 1 that historians associate fundamental changes in the educational sphere. At this time, not only school institutions were opened, which were an order of magnitude higher than the very first schools, but also new schools and lyceums. The main and compulsory subjects for study are mathematics, navigation and medicine. However, school uniforms were never included in this reform.

This happened later - in 1834. It was in this year that a law was adopted that approved a separate type of civilian uniform. These included gymnasium and student uniforms.

The high school student's costume distinguished the teenager from those children who did not study, or could not afford to study. The uniform was worn not only in the gymnasium, but also on the street, at home, during celebrations and holidays. She was a source of pride. In all educational institutions, the uniform was of a military style: invariably caps, tunics and overcoats, which differed only in color, piping, buttons and emblems.

The caps were usually light blue and with a black visor, and a crumpled cap with a broken visor was considered especially chic among boys... There was also a weekend or holiday uniform: a dark blue or dark gray uniform with a trimmed silver collar. An invariable attribute of high school students was a backpack. The style of the uniform changed several times, as did the fashion of the time.

At the same time, the development of women's education began. Therefore, student uniforms were required for girls as well. The girls' uniform was approved a full 60 years later than the boys' uniform - in 1896, and... as a result, the first outfit for students appeared. It was a very strict and modest outfit. But the uniform for girls will delight us with familiar brown dresses and aprons - it was these suits that were the basis for the uniform of Soviet schools. And the same white collars, the same modesty of style.

But the color scheme was different for each educational institution: For example, from the memoirs of Valentina Savitskaya, a 1909 graduate of gymnasium No. 36, we know that the color of the fabric of the gymnasium students’ dresses was different, depending on age: for the younger ones it was dark blue, for For 12-14 year olds it’s almost sea green, while for graduates it’s brown.

However, soon after the revolution, as part of the fight against the legacy of the tsarist police regime, a decree was issued in 1918 completely abolishing the wearing of school uniforms. The official explanations were as follows: the uniform demonstrates the student’s lack of freedom and humiliates him.

The period of “formlessness” lasted right up to 1949. School uniforms become mandatory again only after the Great Patriotic War, a unified school uniform is introduced in the USSR.

In 1962, the gymnasts were replaced by gray woolen suits with four buttons, but they did not lose their militarized appearance. Important accessories were a cap with a cockade and a belt with a badge. Hairstyles were strictly regulated - styled like in the army. But the girls' uniforms remained the same.

In 1973, a new school uniform reform took place. A new uniform for boys appeared: it was a blue suit made of wool blend, decorated with an emblem and five aluminum buttons, cuffs and the same two pockets with flaps on the chest.

But again, nothing changed for the girls, and then mothers-needlewomen sewed black aprons for their beauties from fine wool, and white aprons from silk and cambric, decorated with lace.

In the early 1980s, uniforms for high school students were introduced. (This uniform began to be worn in the eighth grade). Girls from first to seventh grade wore a brown dress, as in the previous period. Only it was not much higher than the knees. For boys, trousers and jacket were replaced with a trouser suit. The color of the fabric was still blue. The emblem on the sleeve was also blue. For girls, a blue three-piece suit was introduced in 1984, consisting of an A-line skirt with pleats at the front, a jacket with patch pockets and a vest. The skirt could be worn with either a jacket or a vest, or the whole suit at once. In 1988, the wearing of blue trousers in winter was allowed for Leningrad, regions of Siberia and the Far North.

Years pass, and in 1992, by decision of the Russian Government, with the introduction of a new Law on Education. The ban has been lifted, you can wear whatever you want, as long as your clothes are clean and tidy.

The official explanation is to bring the law in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that every child has the right to express his or her individuality as he pleases. School uniforms restrict freedom of expression and have therefore been abolished.

Although some nostalgia for the school uniform remains - at the last bell, graduates very often wear something reminiscent of a Soviet uniform.