p How useful it would be for the teaching profession if a careful and sober assessment was made of the scope of abilities available to collectives of young children (and youngsters in their early and late teens) and of the tasks that are quite outside their reach. This is important not so as to undermine faith in the potential of the collective; on the contrary, once demagogy has been ruled out, what is important is precise definition of the conditions in which it can really become a powerful educational force.

p The teacher’s task is to interweave all the diverse influences into one and achieve where possible harmony between them. (24)

p A correct intellectual and emotional interaction between the collective and the individual for pupils in their early teens requires consideration, tact and discretion on the collective’s part to all strictly intimate matters. It requires great skill on the part of the teacher to determine the border-line beyond which outside interference in the individual’s private life is intolerable. The higher the individual pupil’s intellectual level and the more profound and pure his moral convictions, the broader that sphere is, and the richer the intellectual and emotional life of the collective, so that the individual might find within it the source of his subsequent development. (6, 161)

p It is difficult to find anyone who in his life has never committed mistakes; indeed such mistakes are particularly likely in childhood when the process of the emergence of moral principles is under way. Yet not one of the child’s deeds can be compared with an analogical act carried out by an adult. Theft within a collective of children is something entirely different when compared to a similar act perpetrated by adults. If a child’s misdeed is exposed and censured in the same way as that of an adult, this leaves its mark on a sensitive child’s heart for a very long time (sometimes for life). A child who makes a mistake and is publicly shamed in front of the collective becomes withdrawn and estranged in relation to his friends and—what is particularly undesirable—his inclinations and endeavours to 283 attain positive goals are dampened and his desire to be honest and upright also decreases. This is why among all undesirable actions, cases of child theft demand particular tact and attention and an understanding of a child’s inner motives and emotions. (5, 13)

p Indiscriminate use of punishments undermines the cohesion in a schoolchildren’s collective and often leads to joint action on the part of all the children in the group concerned to conceal the misdemeanour committed. Initially from the children’s point of view these tactics represent just defence of the collective in face of a teacher’s unfair behaviour. It is well-known that in the junior classes the children do not embark on such behaviour. At that stage children talk openly and sincerely to their teacher about the wrongdoings of their classmates. In junior class there is no enmity between the wrongdoer and the children who tell the teacher about him. At that time children who openly tell their teacher about the misdemeanours of their fellow pupils are not called “telltales” or “sneaks” or other unpleasant names. These words appear in children’s vocabulary later, at the time they start covering up for each other. (5, 144)

p Whatever the circumstances leading pupils to cover up for each other the fundamental reason is always one and the same—namely ill-judged use of that most intricate of the educator’s tools—punishment. (5, 45)

p It is important not to lose sight of the dialectical contradiction inherent in the exertion of educational and moral pressures on the mind and soul of an individual during his formative years: the stronger the pressures brought to bear on the personality, the more likely they are to arouse inner protest, and sometimes even indignation. The teacher should approach carefully the question as to whether a collective can be made aware of something which a particular pupil would regard as something quite private and inviolate. The range of questions involved in the life of the individual citizen in modern socialist society has grown beyond recognition and is continuing to broaden. By baring to public gaze what an individual pupil would regard as personal and take close to heart, a teacher not only belittles his sense of dignity, but also blunts his emotional sensitivity, coarsens his nature and—perhaps without noticing it or even against his intentions—makes a child thick-skinned, a quality which finally leads to emotional ignorance. (14, 2)

p Much is being said about “public opinion" within the collective, about its influence on the individual. .. . Such influence is possible, but it only comes to constitute a real force if a truly moral atmosphere reigns in the school or the collective and moral standards and values are taken seriously. Otherwise there can be no question of “public opinion" within the collective, without which a community of schoolchildren is like a loose, amorphous mass or crowd 285 and is not therefore a real collective. (14, 4)

p While blindly adhering to the principle of “parallel influence”, many teachers forget that a collective is not something faceless or abstract. When a teacher views a children’s collective as an instrument which he has “close to hand" to use whenever he thinks fit, this means that he is ignoring the highly complex intellectual and emotional sphere of the collective linking its various members. (28)

p Any structure, any organised arrangement of school collective plays its role in education work only if teachers have positive experience of collectivist relations gleaned from work within primary collectives in individual classes. (/, 22)

p It is with deep regret that I regard those children, to which the collective “attaches” a strong, upstanding pupil. A child of weak character grows so used to regarding himself as someone weak-willed, that if he is riled as a “dimwit”, a “blockhead” or “duffer”, all he will do is respond with a wan smile. It is heartrending to observe such children, and there are such children in our schools. (24)

p If a collective of children comes to see itself as a single whole then through this unity considerable educational influence can be exerted, not so much when the collective criticises and punishes but when it accepts responsibility for 286 good and bad in general and also for wrongdoing perpetrated by individual members. (5, 48)

The intellectual and emotional sphere of the collective and those of the individual take shape thanks to the interaction of the one upon the other. The individual learns much from the collective, but at the same time no collective can thrive if the individual members do not possess rich inner resources and a wide range of interests. (28)