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p The most subtle means for influencing the formation of a young mind are in my opinion words and beauty. There was a time when schools were being criticised for setting too much store by literary pursuits. This criticism (echoes of which can still be heard today) was a misunderstanding. I was greatly surprised at it. ... Lack of correct, well-directed education 81 through words in certain schools gives rise to many problems. It is impossible to consolidate a pupil’s emotional sensitivity and his belief in morally upstanding relationships without a good grounding in language and literature. (22)

p A teacher who knows how to speak to his charges possesses the indispensable skill of intellectual and emotional influence. The art of education involves first and foremost the art of speaking, addressing oneself to the emotions. I am firmly convinced that many conflicts in schools which all too often end in catastrophe can be traced to a teacher’s failure to talk meaningfully to his pupils. (14, 12)

p The effectiveness of a teacher’s address to his pupils lies in the truthfulness of his words. Pupils are extremely sensitive and responsive to the truthfulness of their teacher’s words. Children are even more sensitive to false, hypocritical words. (14, 12)

p Poor teaching can often be traced to the teacher’s knowledge of a mere two or three objectives when he addresses his pupils: sanction, prohibition, censure. For skilled teachers addressing their charges can involve a great deal of different objectives and one of the most frequent is the exposition of moral truths, concepts and standards. (14, 12)

p We hold that communist ideology presupposes respect for man. The translation of this 82 concept into concrete standards and rules for school education demands considerable teaching skill and ability. (14, 4)

p Dear reader, I do not intend to leave you with the impression that I am against commands, demands or discipline in education. Without reasonable expression of the teacher’s will and the demands of the collective and society, education would be pure chaos and the teacher’s words nothing but some syrup of abstract kindness.. . . Young people respect, love and set store by those who possess strong will and cannot endure spineless individuals and idle chatter. These sentiments are the wise truths and golden rules of our education system. I would warn against the reprehensible and impermissible state of affairs, however, when a school atmosphere consists of nothing but orders and demands and the individual wishes of the boys and girls are ignored. The skill of the teacher’s volitional influence upon his pupils’ minds makes itself felt when pupils, aware of their duty, willingly give themselves orders and set themselves standards. The teacher impresses and inspires by his moral example of a sense of duty. ... (12, 105)

p For the pupil to understand correctly and listen in a dignified way to bitter, yet justified truth from an elder is very hard and to achieve such behaviour requires patience and perseverance on the part of the teacher. . . . We teachers are often required to express 83 disapproval or censure with dozens or even hundreds of different nuances: it should be done in such a way that the pupil feel prepared to reveal his feelings to us rather than bottle them up, rather than see our bitter words as prejudice. If asked what was the most vital secret of all in our profession, the secret on which the ability to win hearts and minds depended, I should reply the ability to foster the right attitude to criticism and disapproval. (31}

p In no way do I rule out the use of “no’s" in education.. .. Many shortcomings stem precisely from the fact that people are not taught from early childhood to come to terms with their desires and to adopt a correct attitude to the words “can”, “ought” and “no”.

p Yet while developing the individual’s ability to come to terms with his desires, a teacher should respect, not degrade the individual, as teachers do when punishing a pupil. Promoting respect of the individual to my way of thinking is the key to the moral core of the individual which we are called upon to create. (35}

p The educational impact of the teacher’s censure depends upon his moral qualities, his tactfulness and authority. However harsh his assessment of a pupil’s behaviour, an experienced teacher would never go so far as to mete out some really devastating censure. Intelligent criticism always contains an element of 84 astonishment: “I never would have expected such behaviour of you, I thought you capable of far better things than your recent behaviour.” These words are not usually used directly but the pupil is left to “read them between the lines"—achieving this is the real art of criticism. If a teacher indulges in invective instead of subtle and intelligent censure, thus undermining his pupil’s sense of dignity, this arouses bitterness, despair, resentment and introversion, so that a pupil starts to look upon the teacher as a hostile figure. The art of censure lies in a wise combination of strictness and kindness: a pupil must sense in his teacher’s censure not only justified severity but also kind concern. (14, 12)

p Straps and fists are a disgrace and shame to the teaching profession, because in schools, those sacrosanct worlds where humanity, goodness and truth should reign supreme, there are frequent cases when children are afraid to darken their doors, because they know that the teachers will tell their fathers about their bad behaviour and poor progress in learning, and then their fathers will beat them. That is not an abstract sequence of events concocted for the occasion, but the sad truth: mothers often write letters to me on this very problem, and even children themselves. When a teacher notes in a pupil’s work record—“Your son has no wish to learn anything, do something about it"—he is in fact packing a stick into the pupil’s satchel which the father will make use of 85 when he gets home. If we imagine a complex operation is in progress and a skilled surgeon is bending over an open wound, when a butcher bursts into the operating theatre with an axe stuck into his belt which he then seizes hold of and shoves into the wound—well fists and straps are no better than that butcher’s axe. ... A child hates those who strike him. He is well aware that his father’s hand is being guided by the teacher and he starts to hate both his father and teacher, both school and books. (12, 17)

p As a rule I forgive children who commit a misdemeanour by mistake. Forgiveness can reach the most sensitive areas of a pupil’s selfesteem, it serves to dynamise a pupil’s will directed towards ironing out the error he has committed. A child not only deeply repents of what he has done, but tries to redeem his guilt through active effort. .. . There are circumstances when forgiveness has a far more powerful moral impact than punishment would ever have done. (5, 42-43)

p Punishment, particularly when there is uncertainty as to its justification (which you will find in the overwhelming majority of family conflicts), coarsens the child’s mind and emotions and fills him with bitterness and resentment. (16)

p Prohibition is a very necessary and effective educational device when skilfully used. 86 Prohibition if backed up by the indispensable moral authority of the teacher who prohibits, can forestall many disasters: it can stop young people squandering away their lives, yearning for more than their fair share of life’s benefits which they have not earned by working for them themselves. . .. Indeed the desires of an immature individual can be compared with the shoots on a young fruit tree: a number of young shoots appear on it, and some of them are “wild”, which gardeners prune back leaving only the fruit-bearing ones on the tree. The same thing happens with human desires during years of childhood and adolescence: there are no end to the schoolchild’s desires. Yet if everything that shows green is given its head then the fruit tree will run riot and the abundant growth of “wild” shoots will choke the growth of the fruit-bearing branches. If the elder members of a family try to satisfy a child’s every wish, a capricious being will emerge, the slave of his own whims and a despot in the family. Education of desires is subtle intricate work demanded of the teacher/gardener, who must be wise and determined, sensitive and merciless. He skilfully prunes back the “wild” shoots, leaving behind those that will bear fruit. (14, 12)

p A sign of blind ignorance in teaching matters is the fact that certain teachers, when placing confidence in a child, remind him at the same time that although there have been many bad conduct marks in his record trust is 87 still being placed in him, implying that he the teacher is a kind person and the pupil for his part must be good as well. . .. Words of this type are salt in a child’s wounds, for he feels that the teacher thought up the whole business about placing trust in him, merely so as to tighten his own control of the situation. More often than not he refuses to cooperate with the teacher’s efforts. (14, 12)

p While an adult can appreciate unfairness as a mistake, for a child an understanding of all the complexities of life is not yet within a child’s reach. ... A child senses injustice when he is shouted at rudely, or laughed at, even in what might seem to be no more than a chance remark, and—most serious and important of all—in condescension on the part of adults towards children. (13, 3)

p An agitated child has not lost his faith in justice and his teacher. Moreover he expects to hear truthful words from his teacher and hopes that he will be treated fairly. An intelligent teacher after realising his mistake will find scores of means for “relieving the pressure”. If a teacher is bereft of even the most elementary teaching ability, then on the contrary he will attempt to stifle the child’s agitation, to “close all safety valves" thus reducing the child to a state of dull submissiveness. Sometimes this is actually achieved, and at what cost! (13, 3)

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p Persecution complexes—which are most dangerous disorders—are encountered much more seldom than children of the nervous, highly strung type. After once experiencing the shock of unfair criticism, a child begins to see injustice all around him. .. .

p The longer a child suffers from this, the more his will weakens. As the expression goes, he ceases to be able to pull himself together. When preparing his lessons, he is thinking less about the content of the material to be studied and more about how the teacher will call upon him and be overstrict, etc. ... In the mind of a child subject to a persecution complex there takes root and gradually develops a feeling of hatred not only towards the teacher, but in general to everything associated with school. He thinks up the most ingenious excuses so as to be able to stay at home. Deceitfulness is one of the characteristic features of this disease, when it becomes chronic. When lying such a child can look his teacher or mother straight in the eye, for lies appear to him as the truth. The child is himself convinced that his lie is the truth, especially in those cases when preparation for lessons and homework are being involved. (13, 3)

p Feigned nonchalance is really no more than the other side of embitterment. A child pretends that he is indifferent to everything: the bad marks which he is given almost every day, and his parents’ summons to the school. This assumed carefree behaviour is a form of outlet 89 for active protest.... After the return of an exercise book containing a test, for which— as he knows all too well—he has been given a poor mark, such a child will nonchalantly throw his exercise book back into his desk, without even looking at the mistakes. He strolls up to the board in a free-and-easy fashion, trying thereby to conceal his constant tension and pain resulting from hurt pride. It is children with a deep sense of pride who are most prone to lay on this feigned nonchalance. (13, 3)

p Superficial unconcern is the lot of active, energetic, impulsive children. Unable to understand the inner world of the child, the teacher sees activity and energy as stubbornness, mischievousness and capriciousness. The teacher tries to suppress what seems to him superfluous activity in an unnecessarily course and tactless way that offends the child. He doesn’t understand what the teacher wants because he doesn’t feel his activity as something that can be isolated from his nature: activity is inherent in the child. (13, 3)

p It should be noted, as a matter of fact, that cases of feigned nonchalance are observed only among boys. Often these are children who in Classes 1 and 2 or even 3 manifest real ability and achieve considerable success. Then something strange seems to come over them: their school record slopes off abruptly and their marks accordingly. The reason is clear: the 90 children achieved their success too easily, basically without effort, and teachers did not notice this in time. They grow accustomed to good marks, then when for the first time they are obliged to grapple with some serious work, and make an effort, they do not know what that involves, or how they should go about it. They become the victims of their own lack of discipline. Bad marks bowl them over, while their sense of hurt pride assumes disastrous proportions. Feigned nonchalance becomes in addition to various other things a means of disguising shame. Only concentrated activity and energy help him to avoid dejection and bewilderment. (13, 3)

p I am dwelling in some detail on this condition for it is something which teenagers are particularly prone to: it develops slowly and gradually and is disguised by ordinary joie de vivre. Certain teachers tend to interpret this nonchalance as their pupils’ sober approach to life: there is nothing terrible about it, they maintain, for it just means that the young person has realised that he will not be able to shine any more and for that reason has become indifferent. In order to recognise various mental conditions a rare degree of teaching skill, sensitivity and considerateness is required. (13, 3)

p Indifference is the opposite of feigned nonchalance. It is a defect of young girls, although shy, weak-willed boys often suffer from it as 91 well. It appears far earlier than most “defects” and develops relatively faster: deep-rooted indifference can be encountered as early as Classes 2 and 3. It should be noted that more often than not it develops in the wake of some ordinary, externally imperceptible disease of the digestive, respiratory organs or the cardiovascular system. (13, 3)

p I see indifference as the most dangerous mental state of all. In indifferent pupils it is particularly difficult to restore a child’s inner resources, since they are often already being undermined by other diseases, as pointed out earlier.

p Yet at the same time the emergence of this condition is highly pronounced and not difficult to notice. Most frequently of all it is diligent hard-working and assiduous pupils (in particular girls) who have to work hard for their success who become the indifferent ones. A child is working away diligently when at some stage his strength fails him, often simply his physical strength. A teacher, who only has eyes for the results of work, has no idea of the price paid for those results. The child has run out of steam, as the saying goes, and then come the low marks, or a serious warning from the teacher, or a summons to the school for the parents. The child is seriously worked up by this time, his nervous system is keyed up but only temporarily, soon the excitement dies down to be followed by depression. The child is exposed to a new danger, which he is unable 92 to escape and which the teacher fails to observe: namely terror of marks. (13, 3)

p This terror is not only fear of unsatisfactory marks, but the result of a severe emotional trauma. The condition starts early, from the very beginning of school education. The earlier it starts, the harder it is to recognise, the more difficult it is to distinguish manifestations of fear from manifestations of retarded intellectual development. ... Imagine a child who does not know what shouting is, let alone shouting combined with invective and who naturally is petrified when he encounters it. His fear paralyses him to such an extent that he does not hear even his own name: the teacher’s words lose all meaning for him, he is unable to take in what the teacher is talking about. In this way whole “chunks” of a lesson (15 to 20 minutes) can be blotted out of a pupil’s consciousness.

p Or we find a teacher glued to the spot in astonishment to see that the rest of the class have long since started drawing circles while Vitya is still struggling with vertical lines. The teacher does not appreciate what is happening. Vitya meanwhile is gradually acquiring a reputation as an inattentive and unimaginative pupil. (13, 3)

p An inhibited, fear-ridden child cannot think normally. There remain in his mind only shreds of a thought process. Fear impedes his speech and the child appears almost 93 tongue-tied to the teacher. Yet in another context the child might appear like any other. With his mother or father, his elder friends, in the woods, out in the fields helping bring in the harvest he would be not only eager to work but intelligent, resourceful, lively, gay and enterprising.. ..

p In the vast majority of cases a child overcomes this fear in the end. Yet under the influence of fear his normal development is inhibited for a number of years. Some of his most precious years are lost. (13, 3)

p Bitterness is the most extreme and profound reaction of an overexcited nervous system. Once more this is a reaction to unfair treatment. ...

p Bitterness directed against school in general and against the teacher in particular is found as a rule in young teenagers. Actions betraying a bitter or cruel streak are essentially criminal ones, the repercussions of which can be very serious. (13, 3)

p What should be done to avoid such things occurring in schools? Most important of all is to be aware of what is going on. It is wrong to go on reconciling oneself to the fact that the child’s emotional life is a closed book to certain teachers. The question of children’s mental states should always be included on the agendas of teachers’ meetings and seminars on theoretical problems and the practice of communist education.

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p Child psychology must be central to educational theory and that of the dynamic, not narrowly pragmatic variety. (13, 3)

p It is impossible to treat a child humanely if one has no access to his emotions. Humaneness cannot be achieved with the help of special methods. Condescension or “sweet words" is profoundly alien to genuine humaneness.. . .

p A truly humane approach is distinguished first and foremost by fairness. Yet there is not and indeed cannot be any abstract fairness in schools. Fairness demands a sensitive awareness to the inner world of each individual pupil on the part of the teacher. A teacher can only be fair if he has enough mental energy to devote attention to each individual pupil. Accent on routine, stereotypes, lack of individual approach are the worst manifestation of indifference and unfairness. (13, 3)

p We must not close our eyes to the fact that in some schools children do not grasp or sense their teacher as an individual, thus making it impossible for themselves to show understanding for the difficulties he encounters in his work. With their mischief and pranks children often aggravate tired teachers who have reached the end of their tether at the close of the day, and start losing control and shouting. . .. Shouting is one of the unmistakable signs of a poor knowledge of human relationships. When teachers start shouting this stuns and deafens his pupils. ...

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p You may well have had occasion to notice that when teachers start shouting at children their voice is quite different from the one they use in a peaceful setting. The teachers themselves would not recognise their own voices.. .. A shouting teacher stifles and muffles the voice of a child’s conscience. .. . (13, 3)

p In answer to the question as to whether a teacher should ever raise his voice or shout, I would reply that the emotions of an emotionally sensitive person reach children’s hearts without anyone having to resort to shouting. A teacher who is acutely sensitive to a child’s inner world will never resort to shouting. Children can pick out anxiety, disappointment, perplexity, surprise and indignation along with dozens of other emotional nuances in the ordinary voice of their teacher. The teacher endowed with true human sensitivity does not need to indulge in rhetorical exercises to ensure that such emotions are conveyed to his pupils. Genuine emotions children will always be able to “read between the lines”. (13, 3)

p Nothing serves to harden and embitter a young heart more than insult. Insult brings to the surface coarse, sometimes even brutal instincts from the depths of man’s subconscious. There will not be an end to juvenile delinquency until this intolerable feature of bad teaching disappears. Sometimes it seems incredible to the adult mind that a young person 96 should have committed a cruel or inhuman act; should have struck a blow at another of his kind and humiliated him. Let us take a more careful look at such a youth and then we shall without doubt encounter emotional immaturity, born of a combination of environmental factors such as violence, insults, mistrust, indifference, heartlessness met with from the elder generation. (14, 2)

p The truly skilful teacher assesses the actions and behaviour of his pupils not in specially chosen pithy phrases but first and foremost through the emotional nuances of ordinary words. Let us take the phrase: “That was a naughty thing you did....”

p These words used by one teacher can arouse disappointment, stinging shame, even confusion, while another using the same words cannot produce any emotional reaction and will be met with nothing but indifference. The first teacher would be possessed of profound emotional sensitivity, something that cannot be deliberately learnt but which is inextricably bound up with an individual’s moral resources and principles, his warmheartedness. The words of the second teacher carry no message and he often tries to compensate for this deficiency by shouting. How many “educators” there are in our schools who only command one note in the emotional scale—indignation! They deserve our profound sympathy, for the educational influence they can exert in the classroom is precisely nil. (14, 12)

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p There are cases (although extremely rare ones in good schools) when certain pupils commit grave breaches of discipline, confident they will get away with it while well aware of the implications of their behaviour which is preventing both teacher and pupils from working normally. If pupils of this type from other schools arrive at mine, I set things right by means of critical mistrust combined with another effective method of correction namely especially strict supervision. Such methods can be used, I would stress again, only for such pupils as have acquired a distorted view of right and wrong, an inflated sense of their own importance and have lost the ability to appreciate the emotional reactions of those around them—all this as a result of situations that have built up at home and numerous mistakes committed at previous schools.

.. .Mistrust as a method of correction loses all meaning and degenerates into the opposite if it does not meet with the approval and support of the collective. Before resorting to mistrust the teacher should carefully prepare the ground for this step through discussion of the moral implications involved with all members of the class collective, and above all through emphasis of the collective’s refusal to tolerate or reconcile themselves to idleness, parasitism, indiscipline and slackness of the wrongdoer. (14, 12)