According to the new teaching methodology, in some schools (as an experiment, in other schools the program will come into force in 2020), the number of modern writers required for study will quadruple, while the number of classics will be reduced.
Such brilliant writers as Alexander Kuprin, Nikolai Leskov, Alexey Tolstoy will simply disappear from the mandatory list of the school literature curriculum. Instead, in addition to the already existing obligatory modern authors such as Vasily Bykov, Viktor Nekrasov, Valentin Rasputin, Vasily Shukshin and Yuri Trifonov, a rather impressive list of contemporaries will be added: Anatoly Gladilin, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, Viktor Pelevin, Vladimir Makalin, Vasily Aksenov, Yuri Bondarev, Yuri Dombrovsky, Fazil Iskander, Asar Eppel, Anatoly Rybakov and Yuri Rytkheu. And if earlier teachers of literature had freedom in the choice of works and authors, now the proposed program does not imply any options.
But the “happy” news did not end there. As stated in the preface of the improved manual on the literature compiled by the Russian Academy of Education, the listed authors are a guideline for drawing up work programs for the academic subject and determine the mandatory part of the educational content. That is, they will have to be included in all textbooks of literature, as well as in collections of tasks for the exam.
It is also noteworthy that the number of obligatory authors has increased from 40 to 50, while the number of hours of literature in high school has decreased from 5 to 2 per week. Thus, the material will be passed superficially, without going into details. It is already easy to imagine the results of the exam, with such and such a rate of mastering the school curriculum.
So where, one wonders, is the logic of all these innovations? Maybe then, on a general wave, introduce such contemporary writers as Yulia Shilova and Daria Dontsova into the school curriculum, and force children to write essays on their works at entrance exams at universities?
One cannot be sure that the younger generation will ever get acquainted with such works as "Garnet Bracelet", "Notes of an Unknown", "Motherland", if they are not included in the school curriculum. It is likely that of all schoolchildren, only a few of these classics will know. Perhaps the works of Pelevin will seem more interesting to schoolchildren in comparison with the work of Leskov, but Leskov is a classic, and this must not be forgotten. It is not our tastes and reading preferences that play the main role in the school curriculum, but literature is not at all an entertainment discipline. This is a way to instill in new generations respect for the classics, a way to get to know your national culture, learn the history of your homeland and connect more than one generation.
So why was the literary program updated? For what purpose were so many modern authors introduced and the number of classics excluded? After all, this is a great decline for school education. And to be honest, some of the works of contemporaries are clearly drawn to the age category of 18 and older. The current generation is often not interested in anything other than computer games and the Internet. The school literature curriculum is the only chance to instill a love of classics and reading.
But how can you instill a love for the classics when it is gradually disappearing from the pages of school textbooks? And how can we talk about the growth of the individual and the prosperity of the nation, if the state personally excludes the classics from the life of the younger generation? What a terrible zombie policy?
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One gets the impression that the state is striving to create an uneducated working mass of people, to the formation of stupid spineless puppets, incapable of analysis, and therefore much more susceptible to someone else's will.
Christina Mitru
