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p Love of work is above all a facet of children’s emotional life. A child is eager to work when work brings him joy. The deeper the joy derived from work, the more children will set store by their honour and appreciate their effort and their reputation involved in that activity. Joy derived from work can play a powerful educational role, helping a child to feel himself 195 a member of a collective. This does not mean that work is reduced to mere entertainment. It demands concentration and perseverance. But we should not forget that we are working with children who are only just beginning to discover the world. (10, 209)

p The joy derived from work cannot be compared with any other forms of joy. It is unthinkable without appreciation of beauty, but here beauty lies not only in what a child perceives, but also in what he creates. Joy in work enhances everyday life; as he learns to appreciate that beauty a child experiences a sense of dignity and pride in the knowledge that difficulties have been overcome. (10, 210)

p A sense of joy is only accessible to those who are able to exert themselves and who know what sweat and tiredness are. Childhood should not be just one long holiday; if children are not called upon to exert themselves in any kind of work within their capacity, then the happiness to be derived from work will remain outside their experience. The ultimate value to be derived from education through work consists in the fact that it firmly implants in the child’s heart and mind the appreciation of work for the people. Work for the people is not only essential to our daily lives without which our very existence would be impossible, but it also provides scope for the manifestation of various aspects of our nature, pursuits and aspirations. In work a rich diversity of human relationships 196 unfolds. It is impossible to foster love for work if a child is not aware of the rich beauty of such relationships. People see their work activity as a vital means of self-expression and selfassertion. Without work man is an empty cipher, runs the popular belief. An important task of those engaged in education is to ensure that every pupil’s sense of his own dignity and self-respect be based on success in work. (10, 210)

p While an important stimulus for older pupils ... is provided by moral consciousness, . .. the creative aspect of actual work processes is the main stimulus for younger pupils, indeed sometimes the only stimulus leading them to complete work assignments of considerable duration. In creative work children find those elements which appeal to them in fairytales and play: vivid manifestation of man’s most striking intellectual and emotional qualities. (6, 85)

p It is wrong to expect that from a child’s first steps in work activity he will find it attractive and enjoy it. On the contrary, at the outset a child experiences disillusionment in real work long before he grows tired. Real love of work eventually stems from a child’s appreciation of the creative role of his efforts, and the social significance of his work. Without this realisation any coercion meets with resistance on the part of pupils, which grows as the measure of coercion increases.

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p Children will always be children and it is interesting activity which brings them satisfaction beyond all else. Certain teachers hold that interest cannot be a reliable stimulus for work activity and here more precise definition is required. We must distinguish between what arouses interest in children—activity for which they show inclination or the desired result of the activity. There are interesting occupations which for all intents and purposes do not involve work. If all children’s effort and energy were only expended on interesting occupations of that kind this would soon undermine their strength of character. Sometimes things are taken to funny, indeed ridiculous extremes: an attempt is made to select an “interesting occupation" for an inveterate idler that is destined to absorb him and cure him of all his shortcomings. Experience shows that idlers always surface in situations where there are interesting pastimes to be found but no interesting work.

p In what should the interest of work consist for children? Work in itself does not represent any interest for children; indeed it is impossible to imagine that children setting out for a game of volley-ball on seeing flowerbeds that have yet to be dug and spades lying nearby would forget about their volley-ball. Such things do not happen. Yet while playing volleyball children expend considerably more energy, than they would have done digging over a small flower-bed. Play, however, brings them satisfaction and digging over flower-beds in itself is not a source of satisfaction. Interest 198 in work and a sense of satisfaction derived from work are acquired and evolve. For children interest in work should consist in appreciation of the fact that they can make an impact on Nature; force a plant to give a bigger yield, or an instrument to lend wood or metal a desired shape. The deeper a child’s awareness of his strength and power over things, the more persevering and tenacious he will be in surmounting difficulties, and the more interesting simple, everyday work tasks will be. It is for the sake of this kind of interest that work sessions are made a part of the pupils’ intellectual and emotional experience. (3, 16)

p A wide diversity of motives account for the attraction of work. These include a foretaste of the pleasure derived from the implementation of a plan, the expectation of a tangible material result, the awareness of a duty discharged visa-vis the collective, and a sense of responsibility for the performance of essential work, and finally the desire to introduce something new to work activity, to the work process. Making the most of all these motives, we, in our school practice, strove to ensure that the most powerful of all was the idea. Without that underlying idea there could be no question of active effort. In this connection it should be borne in mind that the less experience of life a child has and the less his physical strength the more childlike that idea should be, based on play. The result of work must be as substantial, obvious and tangible as possible. (3, 17)

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p Love of work is a moral quality that can only be fostered within the collective. The more powerful the collective’s respect for work, the more effective the character moulding of each schoolchild. (3, 18)

p The social significance of productive work also depends upon the degree to which the work in question is completed and carried through. There are schools in which pupils have a rather big amount of assignments to do, but where the educational value of that work is considerably lower than it need be, because work projects are not carried through to completion. The schoolchildren come to take part in such work when they feel that there are not enough hands, when they “help out in a crisis".. . Work is as essential to the individual as food, it must be regular and systematic. The body of staff at the Pavlysh school goes out its way to ensure that the children there not only engage in work projects during their years at school but sees to it that they complete the various work projects they begin and go through all stages of the work process—from appreciation of the ultimate objective . .. to profound satisfaction gleaned from its results. (3, 19)

If a pupil embarks on a lengthy work activity, and if after daily stints at it he achieves definite results, then the time will come when he will take an interest in work not thanks to the encouragement of the teacher, but of an inner

200 Emacs-File-stamp: "/home/ysverdlov/leninist.biz/en/1977/SOE347/20070212/299.tx" incentive. Such is the inevitable consequence of long work activity directed towards the achievement of a specific objective. An inner incentive to work is a powerful force making for self-discipline which is only cultivated in the process of carrying out a long-term work assignment. (3, 20)

p We plan our educational process over a long period so that every pupil, as a member of his work collective, should carry out a complex, responsible piece of work from start to finish.

p Every effort should be made to avoid haphazard, random work of an “emergency” nature, and that is an indisputable rule in educational trying to foster interest in work. (3, 21)

p The more the pupil is aware of the noble aims of work, the less he needs supervision and the more strikingly his own conscience provides his stimulus for work. (6, 99)

p It is very difficult to compel pupils to exert themselves mentally, but to compel them to engage in physical work is significantly easier. A combination of manual and brain work is an all-important means of fostering love of work in the laziest and most neglected of pupils, whom parents have never made work. Pupils of this type we first of all make carry out a certain amount of physical work, gradually making sure that they started to see in that work a path to an enhanced understanding and mastering of the forces of Nature—albeit on a 201 small scale at first. If a man starts to regard physical work as a way to achieving social and intellectual objectives, then this means he has already overcome his laziness and the chance to foster diligence is at hand. (11, 358)

p We are deeply convinced of work’s ennobling influence. If a child has put even the tiniest part of his heart into work for the sake of other people and found joy for himself in that work, he can no longer become a bitter, self-centred individual. I take the most difficult and “ incorrigible" of children by the hand, lead them to the school vineyard and say: “Let’s start working here together, with the whole collective.” As we work away together, however “hopeless” a case he might have seemed, a willingness to work emerges. The real difficulty consists not in the fact that the child in himself is a difficult case, but that he needs a good deal of taking by the hand and helping to find his bearings in life’s complexities and warning in face of misguided steps. Yet to achieve all this it is essential to encourage interest in work. The day will come when the difficult and “incorrigible” pupil passes on the fruits of his labour to other people and experiences joy in doing so. From that moment on he is a “man worth his salt”. (9, 76)

p We aim to have all pupils both small children and teenagers working for as long as possible in the company of an adult for whom work is a source of happiness and delight. 202 Shared experience of joy in work is the basic ingredient of self-education. He who has experienced this feeling keenly in childhood and as a teenager will aspire to respect in the eyes of society. Self-education in this way becomes an active form of participation in the cultural and moral life of society. (8, 14)

p Guidance of a teacher during work sessions means that a child is aware of a sense of inspiration and absorption in work at his side. If a teacher’s work represents a model for a child and impresses him, then the teacher will win his affection. Experience shows that there is no indifference or apathy in the world so strong that it can hold out against the creative inspiration of a teacher or older pupil passionately absorbed in his work. If we notice that a child is indifferent to everything, that nothing interests him, we begin to discuss who among the teachers or older pupils should be brought together with that difficult child. That is where an individual approach to a child starts. Every teacher, school head or director of studies has his handful of problem children who come from difficult homes, where they know no parental love and affection. We find a way into the hearts of those children first and foremost because we are their friends in shared work; one and the same plans, goals and projects concern us all. (11, 354)

p Children are always profoundly and powerfully influenced by the fact that some kind of 203 work engrosses them and their teachers to an equal degree. In work of this kind children open up their hearts and they become their teachers’ friends and comrades. Our primary-class teachers plant flowers in little greenhouses with the children during the first autumn of their school career. In the spring we teachers, together with the children, plant out the flowers, tend them, plant trees and take delight in their beauty. Children are always profoundly impressed by the fact that teachers know how to graft fruit trees on to wildings, transplant tree and arrange attractive flowerbeds. Instruction in practical skills at this stage takes the form of joint work shared by pupil and teacher. We work with the children not only out in the garden, but also in the workshops and workrooms and join in their model-building and mechanics sessions. Work sessions shared with children are some of the happiest times in our teaching experience. (11, 367)

p However well academic work be organised there is always a certain element of monotony in it. Possible negative consequences of this can be avoided if pupils are confronted with a longterm interesting goal.... For this some definite stage, quite clear to the pupils, must be picked out in the work programme. One of the factors which give rise to indifference and rejection of study is that the latter is seen as a tedious activity to which there is no end. This attitude to academic work is particularly dangerous in middle and senior classes. Pupils in middle and 204 senior classes must be presented with a work goal in their study of specific subjects or subject matter. Without these definite horizons pupils risk turning into mere automatons carrying out homework “from such and such a page to such and such a page”. (3, 145, 147)

p Pupils are interested by work which opens up to them opportunities for constant progress and advance. Attempts to base production work on simple routine work operations mastered at the first stage of production courses leads to disappointment and later pupils’ indifferent attitudes to eventual trades and professions. (3, 372)

p Only productive labour, which successfully combines individual and social interests, can be an effective factor in education. If the only aim of work is to carry out the largest possible amount of work (which more often than not does not demand serious knowledge, skills and experience), then its educational influence will be insignificant. This can hold back the development of a child’s natural inclinations, reduce interest in the results of work carried out and produce indifference in relation to the quality of work carried out. (3, 329)

p The following sentiments are also voiced: “Load him up with work, so that he will not have too much time on his hands and then there will be no problems during adolescence.” This represents a primitive, oversimplified and 205 harmful view of activity and also man’s intellectual life in general. Firstly, the unintelligent “loading” of work on a pupil may result in “overloading” which is extremely harmful for a young boy’s or girl’s growing body. Secondly, physical work does not play a decisive role in man’s intellectual and emotional life, particularly that of a personality in the making, at its formative stage, if that work is not a means of forging the individual’s strength of character. Furthermore, if physical work devours all the individual’s time and energy his intellectual and emotional life will be robbed of resources and prospects for future development.... A one-sided understanding of man’s practical activity sometimes leads to a situation in which pupils between the ages of 12-16 develop a disdainful attitude to work. If this activity has a rich ideological foundation and gives them a sense of a full, rich life then youngsters are able to carry out considerably more physical work than they would normally do. (6, 88)

p Work to encourage a sense of discipline should be based on work discipline.... Work in a collective is man’s natural condition and this condition alone helps to promote discipline. Yet work does not promote discipline in that it leaves no room for idleness, but rather through its very essence. A lack of discipline is not measured in pranks and minor infringements of rules of behaviour, but first and foremost in the failure of the child to carry out his study obligations, in his careless attitude to socially 206 useful productive work, and in choosing to shift his own share of work on to others. These qualities emerge when involvement in work follows several years of idleness. (3, 426)

p Fear of work arises in cases when conditions in the environment contradict the requirements made on the pupil: when one thing is being said and something else practised, when there is talk of creative physical and brain work, while outside the school walls the laws of agrotechnology are being flaunted and attempts are being made to compensate for the low level of production techniques with excessive physical effort. Young people in general react very strongly to any discrepancy between words and action, and discrepancies connected with questions of work are particularly harmful—-(3, 119)

p Two types of work are involved when it comes to work activity organised for the younger generation—paid and unpaid. When deciding on the correlation between these two types of work we based our approach on the profound changes that are currently at work within our society. The working people are receiving more and more material and nonmaterial advantages from social consumption funds regardless of their own particular work. The share of such boons in the life of children is incomparably greater than it is in the life of adults and this places a great responsibility on us teachers. Pupils must understand the value of work that goes into that which they receive 207 from society for nothing. To this end we bring them to participate in unremunerated work for society. The more the younger generation receives from society without paying for it with their own effort, the more important their unpaid labour. (11, 322)

p The higher the level of material well-being of children at the present stage of social development, the more important their participation in unpaid labour for society. . .. Pupils set up collective funds with which they purchase not only articles for their cultural needs and recreation, but also machines, tools for use in the workrooms and workshops, electric motors for working models, batteries for wireless sets, motor cycles and sewing machines. (8, 135)

Communist labour—labour according to ability—cannot be defined in terms of individual norms. We must start preparing our pupils even now for work without specified norms. By making every pupil understand the need to give his utmost to society, we are establishing new, communist relationships within the collectives. (7, 24)