Deputies unanimously adopted the law on labor education in schools in the first reading

Deputies of the State Duma intend to educate schoolchildren as a person of labor, and not a qualified consumer. On Wednesday, the lower chamber unanimously supported amendments to the law “On Education in the Russian Federation”, which introduce socially useful work into the school curriculum. Teachers from such a step will surely breathe a sigh of relief: finally, they won’t have to take receipts from their parents that they don’t mind their offspring wiping the blackboard. But the current generation of parents has already had questions: what if the new law will result in trips of children to the dacha to the headmaster – “for potatoes”?

– When we were studying, it was completely normal to go to erase from the board, to clean the class, to participate in a community work day on the school grounds. And then it became banned. Moreover, the prosecutor’s office could come and punish teachers and school management. This is absurd! – the deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on Education, Yana Lantratova, was indignant.

If the amendments on socially useful work for schoolchildren are adopted, the absurdity seems to come to an end. The deputies seriously set out to reforge the younger generation from “professional consumers” to working people. Mental or physical – have not thought about it yet. But the trouble is the beginning. The main thing, as the authors of the bill assure, is that there is a request from the public.

– We have a lot of requests from parents, from teachers, related to the fact that we have strengthened the labor education of schoolchildren. So that we strengthen children, teach them the most important, basic skills that they will need in life, – said Olga Kazakova, head of the State Duma Committee on Education.

She recalled that now in the law “On Education in the Russian Federation” there is only one reference to the concept of “respect for work.” After the hard legacy of the 1990s was removed from the law – the interpretation of all school processes as an “educational service”, the educational function of the school returned to the law. But now the parliamentarians understood: they didn’t screw it up.

– The emphasis on the fact that the child himself participates in these processes, and only then can we form such respect for the working person – there is no such thing in the law on education today, – Olga Kazakova noted.

What exactly will appear in the law after the adoption of the amendments? Not much will be added, but an important one: the duty of schoolchildren to socially useful work. There are two nuances here. Firstly, children will work taking into account age and psychophysical characteristics. This means that if a student, for example, has an allergy to pollen, no one will be attracted to a subbotnik in the schoolyard. He will find something to his liking and opportunities within the school – so as not to break away from the team. Secondly, the concept of socially useful labor itself is being revived. However, it is not deciphered in detail in the amendments. But the deputies say that this is a well-forgotten old thing: wipe the board, put the chairs in their places after the lessons, wash the floor in the classroom. Plus subbotniks and maybe even dining room duty (which was the dream of all schoolchildren in the USSR and the early 90s).

That is, these are not even labor lessons. Although the deputies also talked about them and came to the conclusion that they should be returned to the school curriculum instead of a hodgepodge called “technology”.

– Maybe we should still return the lessons of labor? So that girls learn to cook, and boys learn how to make stools and hammer nails. And then after all grow up guys who can’t do anything. Then they create families in which neither the husband nor the wife can do anything. Maybe that’s where the divorce comes from? – asked the deputy Tatyana Butskaya.

Olga Kazakova, co-author and speaker on the bill, admitted: yes, labor lessons should be returned to schools. But this is a long-term job. We must first repair the workshops, find Trudoviks. The profile committee of the State Duma is discussing this topic with the Ministry of Education. While please, apparently, there is nothing.

Despite the general positive and stories from the series “but when I planted an alley at school on a subbotnik…”, there were also critics of the idea of ​​returning labor to schools. First, as it was said during the discussion, the parents are not happy. “And will they pay for it?” – this is approximately the question that modern mothers and fathers ask. However, as Nina Ostanina, the head of the State Duma Committee on Family Affairs, noted, this is exactly the same generation that studied in schools during the period of the 2012 version of the law “On Education”. The same one where “educational service” and “school is everything to us, we are nothing to school”.

Deputy Sultan Khamzaev also had concerns. He worries that our country is big, you can’t look after everyone. What if the director of some school, under the plausible pretext of labor education, takes the children to his dacha – to patch a fence or build a house, for example?

The parliamentarians immediately rebuked the doubting colleague: “Teachers must be trusted, and in general, this is a school, and not, excuse me, the army.”

Another doubt that sounded in the hall is that we will now instill in a schoolchild a love for work, and then he will enter adulthood, and then bam – and solid capitalism. And the oligarchs will appropriate all the results of his work – what to do with it? This question hung in the air.

Deputy Oleg Smolin brought his colleagues in the lower chamber back to earth, recalling that labor education for schoolchildren is a requirement of the presidential decree. So the discussion is by and large a waste of time.

– According to the decree of the President, we bring up a multifaceted personality. I will quote Hegel, I will not quote Marx… A multifaceted personality is mind, feelings and will. Will is born either in sport or in work. So with the will of today’s guys, everything is not very good. I still allow myself to quote Nekrasov: “Our official is inferior, and he will not sweep the floors.” The more children we have capable of working, the less we will have difficult children! – Smolin did not leave a single chance to critics and added: despite the problems with vision, he himself during his school years, studying at a correctional school, worked for the benefit of the alma mater and even took part in the construction of a new school building.

Smolin’s speech seems to have made an indelible impression on the deputies. The bill passed unanimously in the first reading.