‘I think everyone in class has seen Navalny's video’ What four young professionals learned as participants in the ‘Teach for Russia’ program

In 2015, several regions across Russia launched a program called “Teach for Russia,” sending graduates from the nation’s best universities (Moscow State, MGIMO, the Higher School of Economics) to teach in local schools. Similar projects exist in many countries, from India and China to Great Britain and the United States, with the basic aim of improving attitudes towards school, both among students and teachers. In Russia, a new batch of graduates will be entering the field before June 11. Meduza spoke to several of the program’s participants to learn why they left Moscow to go teach, what life is like at an “ordinary” school, what changes they can make, and why change is needed.

Stas Yankevich

History and social studies teacher at Secondary School Number 3 in Balabanovo, Kaluga region

My mom is an English teacher, and my dad is a physicist, but I never thought I’d become a teacher. I worked as a business consultant at the Moscow International Business Center. I had a clear trajectory, like anybody working in consulting. Sometimes I’d think about why the education system doesn’t make smart managing decisions like those long practiced in the business world. And when I saw an announcement that “Teach for Russia” was looking for applicants, I knew it was my chance to see a school from a systemic point of view, and to study it enough that I could help reform it somehow. 

I tried immediately to get a handle on my new surroundings. For the very first lesson, I asked each of the kids about their hobbies and about what they like. The kids were surprised because teachers don’t usually ask questions like that. We got along well right from the start. But I thought that they’d automatically start studying diligently, if only someone came to them with excitement in their eyes and interest in the subject material. That didn’t happen.

First, for a successful lesson, it’s not enough just to prepare. You’ve got to set a goal: what you want the students to learn and remember in 45 minutes. At the end of every class, I started asking the students to tell me in one sentence what the lesson’s main idea was. For example, kids would say, “In 1812, Napoleon and his army attacked Russia and suffered a crushing defeat.” 

Second, children abhor a vacuum. If you don’t have a clear plan, they’ll sense it, and they’ll go and do their own thing. At work, before I started teaching, I often had to address our board of directors, so I decided to use this experience. I try to imagine that sitting before me aren’t a bunch of schoolkids, but the board of directors, and I’m telling them what’s important. 

Third, children should understand why they need to learn something. Inspiring leaders at successful companies usually talk about why they’re doing something, how they’re doing it, and only later do they get into what they’re actually doing. In school, I’ve noticed that teachers like to say what we’re studying, and maybe a bit about how we’re studying it, but the “why” question is never answered, and sometimes it’s never asked at all. 

When I decided to come teach, I had this idea that I’d design a system where the kids would teach themselves. When they’re speaking their own language, they get through to each other much better than a teacher can. I tell them, “Explain today’s lesson to everyone in class, as if you were talking to your friend after school, speaking naturally.” And they start to say some interesting things, but it’s just the first few words, and then they slip back into the usual school format.

In Balabanovo, there are kids who participate in my leadership meeting group — a project I started, which I’ll be defending at the Higher School of Economics. It’s called “Identifying and Supporting Hidden School Leaders.” At every meeting, the kids complete three tasks, which they invent on their own. For example, they study a painting by Van Gogh, order and plant something from Aliexpress, or learn 15 new words in French. Then each member gives a short presentation, describing their results, and they get feedback from me. It’s my hope that this project will help talented kids come into their own. It’s as if anyone who doesn’t shine as an “A student” is useless, but the truth is that a lot of these kids have great potential.

There’s another project I jokingly call “Parent for Russia.” I remember my first parent-teacher conference, when the parents sat down like children at the desks and readied themselves for criticism. But then I started praising their kids. This noticeably improved the atmosphere in the classroom. Even something as simple as saying “good job” means a lot to anybody, especially with children. This is fuel that keeps them working. Then I tried to meet individually with everyone to talk about their kids, and I realized that parents don’t have the tools to communicate with their children. They want very much to talk their kids into studying harder, but there isn’t enough contact or trust there. Some parents even told me about serious conflicts at home, about their kids running away. 

Listening to these parents, I could hear all the same inequalities that permeate the school itself. I suggested that they listen to their kids, instead of cutting them off. And I told them to cool off when necessary, and not to make any decisions in the heat of the moment, when they’re emotional. Just basic tips from psychology books. I told them that I thought it was important for them to gather at school at least once every two weeks, to do something with their kids, and to see how people in other families communicate with each other. The school still doesn’t have enough of a community like this.

Since I’m a history teacher, after controversial political events, like the U.S. elections, the kids ask me, “Where do you stand?” In class, I turn this into a joke, but I have office hours later in the day for anyone who’s really interested. I think everyone in class has seen Navalny’s video [investigating alleged corruption involving Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev], and I spoke to one guy who took a particular interest. We both took a look at what Navalny’s supporters are saying, and what his enemies are saying. “So what did Navalny do? What were his revelations to the world? Did he carry out an objective investigation? How do you factor into all this, and what are your interests?” I don’t have a political agenda here.

I’m not a teacher because I want to shape children’s political convictions. Let them figure it out for themselves. “Kids, vote for Putin!” or “Let’s have a revolution!” — that’s not what I’m about. When I teach the history of Russia, I present the material from a patriotic standpoint. And I don’t just say that Emperor Alexander III was a conservative, but I also explain how well the economy developed under his rule, and review what criticisms could be made of his policies. 

When my eighth grade class got to the 19th century in Russia, we role played as conservatives, liberals, and revolutionaries. The students were divided into three groups, and they had to talk to each other, adopting their different positions. And the debates got so heated that once another history teacher even came into the classroom and tried to shut the whole thing down, screaming, “What’s going on here!”

She thought the class had gone out of control, but I explained that we were playing a game, and that everything was fine. My kids also create historical news reports. One time, they delivered a report featuring Kutuzov [the Tsarist field marshal who helped defeat Napoleon]. They bandaged a student’s eye and glued on a fake mustache.

When we do creative exercises, the classroom atmosphere becomes a great deal more relaxed. The kids are learning, but it’s fun, and some teachers think that’s all we’re doing.

I have a strong feeling that the system of education first proposed in the 17th century by [Czech philosopher] John Amos Comenius is about to change. This model, built on defined classes, bells, and a single schedule, has outlived itself. The system was designed to educate upstanding citizens and it was considered revolutionary because it emerged at a time when school was a purely monastic enterprise.

At the mass state level, however, the model is no longer effective, and we’ve all become its hostages. There will be decentralization. Instead of studying the whole Dinosaur Age, we’ll study just one question: why did the dinosaurs die out? Instead of learning the entire English language, we’ll just learn how to write a business letter in English. And at every step, parents will choose where their kids go next.

Every parent should realize that they are responsible for their children’s education. It’s not like checking luggage at the airport, and 11 years later you get it back, scratched in some places and broken in others. Education is a reflection of what’s going on in society. It’s never been the case that the world changed, but schooling remained the same.

Maria Napolskikh

English language teacher at the Buturlinovskaya Primary School in the Voronezh region

When I was in my third year at Moscow State University, I came across a leaflet from the “Teach for Austria” project, where young graduates without pedagogical training went to work as teachers in rural schools. I got really hooked on the idea, but the program back then was only in America and Europe. Seven years later, by which time I was working as a translator, the program launched in Russia, and I applied immediately.

First, I did it because I always wanted to teach. In grade school, I had a German language teacher who really inspired me. Second, I remember my grandmother’s story: after finishing medical school, she traveled a long ways to Tajikistan to work as a doctor. I figured, having received a higher education, I should go somewhere where I could do something useful for other people. It could become a family tradition.

I was assigned to a school in the city of Vidnoye [not far outside Moscow], where the students were at all different levels of English proficiency. Some seventh graders knew the language quite well, while others could barely speak a word. Therefore, the most difficult thing was designing lessons so that every student got something useful out of class. Naming just a few of our exercises: we broke up into groups, played games, practiced English outside, and studied verbs with the help of rap battles. The kids invented words themselves, learned them, and then read them aloud.

Not all the other teachers welcomed my methods. When the vice principal comes to class and you’re there standing on a chair, describing a monologue from “Hamlet,” it can seem a little odd. The school has developed a mentoring system, where young teachers are supposed to learn from their more experienced colleagues. This made me feel a bit out of place, because I’d never worked with people in pedagogy. Their heads are full of ideas about excursions with kids, campfires, and [Soviet educational theorist Anton] Makarenko, and I’m from a different culture.

Some of them said, “What a wonderful person you are who’s come to us,” but I was wrong, too. I wanted to do it my way only, and I completely failed to understand that school is its own special context. I’d like very much to offer the following advice to young teachers: no matter where you’re from, never dismiss other teachers’ experience. Any experience is valuable — even you think they’re doing something wrong.

Now I’m working at a primary school in Buturlinovka [outside Voronezh], where there’s an absolutely wonderful faculty. We often talk, discussing anything that gives us doubts. Usually a teacher will say, “Oh, that sounds interesting. We’ll try it out, too,” or “Alright. Makes sense. Keep at it.” When you start getting results, the teaching staff begins to appreciate you. For example, when I start losing the children’s attention, I draw a cat or a dragon on the chalkboard, and I say, “Quiet everybody, or we’re going to wake him.” The kids like this, and they start to do their assignments. One time, a little boy asked me in class, “Why do you have such crooked teeth?” I told him that I ate a lot of Chupa Chups [lollipops] when I was a kid. He had a Chupa Chups in his mouth at that very second. 

I’m a democratic teacher, and I allow a lot: the kids can drink water, they can leave the classroom (as long as they come back), and they can listen to music as they work alone. I don’t see any problem with this, if the music helps them relax, and lets them feel safe when they’re struggling. For some reason, lots of people think that school should look like “school,” and this is the biggest stereotype. School should train kids and educate them, whether it’s behind wooden desks or with the whole class lying on the floor atop blankets. It doesn’t matter if you’re using a textbook or one of Shakespeare’s plays, or holding the lesson in the cafeteria or outside. And it’s not important whether you’re working on an electronic smartboard or without a chalkboard at all. What matters is that the children understand what’s going on.

Some of my senior colleagues told me, “Oh, we were just like you when we finished college!” “We loved kids, and ran to them, but now we’re burned out;” and “Work this job for twenty-odd years, and then you’ll really know what it means to teach.” Stuff like this terrifies me. I don’t want to judge these teachers, because they’ve been doing the same thing for many years, and sometimes, after all, your energy runs out after just five periods in a day. But I imagine myself as a teacher in 20 years, and I absolutely don’t want to burn out. I will do everything possible to preserve my faith in myself and in children. 

In Buturlinovka, the kids and their parents like to know where I studied, and what I did before I came to the school. In this town, people are accustomed to a stable trajectory: you finish ninth grade, leave for college or some technical school, and begin your profession. Of course, if that’s what a child wants in life, then you ought to support them. You shouldn’t force them to go to a university, if they don’t want to. A lot of people want to become doctors or nurses [in Buturlinovka] because it means living near a good hospital.

But sometimes I’ll start a conversation, saying to students, “Maybe you want to try for a college in Voronezh, or in Moscow?” Everyone is a bit apprehensive at first: “Why should I, when my five older brothers have already done it one way?” Or they even say, “The smart people study in Moscow. Where are we supposed to go, if not to [our local] college?” So you start motivating them, and giving them examples of children who became success stories.

If someone dreams about making it to Voronezh or to Moscow, I always tell them what they ought to do. Some parents put up a fight, saying that the family can’t afford it, no matter how hard their kids try. Moving to a big city is just too expensive, they say. But I try to do everything I can. For example, I asked my friend from Berlin to help this one girl with biology. They talk over Skype.

When the children in Buturlinovka found out that the “Teach for Russia” program lasts just two years, they ran to me and said, “Is it true that you’ll be leaving us soon? Is it?” Last year, the children became very attached, and I had a very hard time saying goodbye. This time, I know I can’t live with that, but I also can’t stay forever.

Despite the fact that this is a rural school, it’s a modern school — complete with a 3D printer and a whole language lab. I’d like very much to work in a special school, or a school in a juvenile prison, or in a school for the children of migrants. I have friends in Mali who built a school in the desert. It’s just walls, and the students write on the floor, and I’d love to teach somewhere like that. I want to work as a teacher everywhere. 

Maxim Andryukhin

Literature and social studies teacher at Secondary School Number 24 in Podolsk, Moscow region 

There’s an enormous abyss between classroom lessons and actual literature. I could sense it in school, and maybe that’s why it was only in college that I got interested in books, when my friends spent all their time quoting Dovlatov, Ilf and Petrov, and Venedikt Yerofeyev. I learned about the “Teach for Russia” program at the end of my fifth year in the philosophy department. Generally, I’d planned on going to grad school, but here was the chance to go work with some ordinary school kids — with children who were just like me at that age. It was an opportunity to help open books for children who didn’t really want to be in class at all. It’s one thing to work with university students, but it’s something altogether different to sit down with children who never asked for your help. They’re in school because it’s necessary, and at best they do what their parents tell them to do. At worst, they don’t. I won’t tell you that I figured out in two years how to deal with all this, but I did learn a few things.

First, when teaching, I relied on the students themselves. With every text, I tried to find the topics that interested them — things like your relationship with your parents, friendship, why other people understand things but you don’t, why some people insult others, and why we insult other people when we don’t want to. These are burning questions at school, and every classroom assignment needs to be unpacked with these specific problems in mind. My curriculum was more or less tailored to the student experience, but that wasn’t all.

In my seventh grade class, when we read Saltykov-Shchedrin’s “How One Peasant Fed Two Generals,” I never once managed to get my students to see the humor in the story. They seemed to understand the plot well enough, but the text itself simply didn’t grab them. And then there is the literature from ancient Rus. I’m with the teachers who say it’s too early to read these texts in school, except maybe in the upper grades. Of course, kids in school need to understand that Russian literature predates Pushkin, and they should know this was a long period, but many teachers never manage to connect to their students with this literature. Now, there’s nothing wrong with assigning complicated texts. Something can be 90 percent incomprehensible, and it’s fine, unless the student can’t latch onto anything in the story. If that’s the case, they’ll never return to it when they’re through with school.

Second, I don’t embrace an authoritarian teaching style, and I look quite young. This also influences how the kids relate to me. With me, they can talk about new computer games, new music, videos on YouTube, and Internet memes. It’s easier for them to believe that Lermontov is cool when they hear it from somebody who knows about the latest computer games. For example, I started one class with a clip from the [French 2011 film] “The Intouchables,” where the protagonist, a black man, recognizes Salvador Dali’s “The Persistence of Memory” hanging on the wall during a job interview, and that’s how he lands the job, showing them that culture and reading aren’t just things you learn for pleasure; they’re things that can really help you in life.

At the beginning of class, I give my students six minutes to write a short fantasy story. They’ve got to write something like “What does a falling snowflake think about?” or “What would a cactus that hates its needles say?” They can write whatever they like, but it’s got to be on a given topic. It can be funny, tragic, autobiographical, or fantasy. The main thing is that they make it interesting. This method was developed by Gianni Rodari in “The Grammar of Fantasy.”

Parents have had some questions about my teaching. Their reactions range. Some ask me to explain my lessons, and others have expressed outright disapproval. Some parents accuse me of wanting to brainwash their kids, or they say that my approach is a waste of time and has no connection to literature. I’ve spent a lot of time explaining that it’s easier for students to associate with Pushkin and Tolstoy, once they’ve been in the author’s chair themselves. After all, telling stories is what those writers did, too. 

In my classroom, we rarely spend any time learning to recite poems by heart. Yes, poems develop a person’s memory, but that’s not why poems exist. Students are better off with slightly weaker memories, if it means they don’t come away thinking poetry is just something you cram into your head. I remember how my teacher in school, when telling us to recite poems, used to say, “You know, you’ve really got to play it up!” I think that’s for drama class. It’s not the study of literature. Poems should be read with understanding, not a bunch of expressions, even if that means cutting out the flash, the hand gestures, and the stilted emphasis.

I also lead the school’s theater studio. I may not be a trained thespian, but I can still be useful. When kids try playing different roles, they open up in big ways — especially the kids who were the most stiff and closed off. The inveterate “D students” seem to like these classes, best of all. Coming to theater class is the one thing they enjoy. When studying literature on stage, and not behind a desk, these kids finally feel at home. And we’ve already staged a couple of plays together. 

In school, there’s far too little sense of purpose. This applies across the board: from students, to their parents, to administrators. The kids often don’t understand why they’re doing their assignments, and the teachers don’t know why they’re grading their work. That sense of purpose isn’t about a revolution in the school, and it’s not even about some next evolutionary stage in education. What’s needed is a human approach. That alone can change a lot. When you lose sight of your purpose, it’s easy for things to become mechanical. In school, you’re bombarded with other people’s reasons for education, and you can find yourself spending more time on paperwork than you do on the kids. You’ve always got to remember why you’re going to school, and you can’t forget to relax, so you don’t go insane.

It was only thanks to my colleagues that I survived teaching. When I needed support, they told me, “Don’t worry. The first three months are the hardest.” The ones who don’t make it are the people who can’t relax and can’t stop thinking about school after work. At that time, I was even dreaming about school all the time! That’s how you burn out right away. I’d dream about possible lesson plans, how I’d lead tomorrow’s class, how I’d answer students’ questions, and it never worked out. School tries to take all of you. And if you don’t stop it, it will destroy you.

I have about 200 students in all. Some of them know that I’m leaving the school this year, and some of them don’t know. I haven’t yet told everyone openly. I’m sure there will be those who say, “Good riddance. I didn’t like him anyway.” But I’m happy to know that there are also more than a few people who care about me. I hope their next teacher doesn’t cast a shadow over literature, and I hope the kids will read books on their own. And I’m sure students would gain a wider understanding of the world, if the lovely ladies from the philology department weren’t the only ones teaching literature. 

Next, I’d like to study how to get non-readers interested in reading. This issue concerns adults, too. Often someone doesn’t read books because they had lousy literature lessons in school. We can’t just abandon these people. Next year, I’m remaining in the program as a supervisor, in order to help new literature teachers find their bearings. And only then, when I’ve bulked up my literature muscles, will I return to teaching. 

I accept that I’m going to teach for my whole life. With the help of literature, you can make people’s lives fuller and more meaningful, if not happier.

Anastasia Satusheva

English language teacher in the village of Karinskoye, outside Moscow

I always thought that working in a school was the worst possible backup plan, in case I didn’t make it as a translator. But it so happened that I was invited to work at a school where the English language teacher suddenly quit and they urgently needed a replacement. At the time, I didn’t have a regular job, and I was feeling like I wasn’t doing anything useful. So, long story short, I accepted.

It was very difficult. The lesson begins, and you’re supposed to do something so that the children walk out of the classroom knowing something they didn’t when they walked in. And it’s even harder to make it so that they enjoy what they’re studying. They’re not going to make an effort and listen to you just because they were told to. If they’re bored, they’ll start drawing, looking out the window, talking to each other, and sometimes even kicking each other. Believe it or not, but there are things they enjoy more than studying the English language.

I panicked. The students didn’t listen to me, and I had stress about each and every class. I thought about leaving, and then a friend saw how I was struggling and she told me about this project “Teach for Russia,” and said it might help me.

After the program’s selection process, we all agreed that I would stay in the school where I was already teaching. Every day, I taught seven lessons, working without a break from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30 p.m. I had no time to prepare for class, and no time to reflect on anything. When the workday was over, I had no energy to do anything else. But I still wanted to meet up with my friends and to go out to concerts. After all, there are always so many interesting things happening in Moscow. School and my life were like two separate worlds for me, and I realized that I’d cracked.

The next year, they offered me a transfer to Karinskoye. It’s a small village with less than a thousand people living there. Everybody knows everyone. The school is a two-minute walk from my home, and you can spend time with the children without being rushed, which is precisely what I was missing, working in Moscow.

But working in Karinskoye presented its own challenges, and you can guess why: this young woman (me) suddenly shows up in the village with her iPhone and starts bossing everyone around.

I thought I’d show up, and I’d be so cool that everyone immediately would want to talk to me. But no. At first, the parents were very skeptical about me. But they realized how important it is to me that their children get a good education, when they saw how the children and I were preparing for holidays, for competitions, how we draw after class, and how we go for walks and jogs together. Then, I was suddenly made a homeroom teacher. 

“Dear parents, I never had a homeroom teacher. I don’t know all your children yet. I need your help,” I told them at our first parent-teacher conference. Many of the parents went to this school themselves when they were kids, and some of them have older kids who already graduated. In all this time, they’ve seen how everything at the school is structured. I suggested that we meet on Saturdays, and four or five parents come every week to help clean up the school. Recently, they even replaced me on these Saturday cleanups, when somebody has to watch the kids, because I have to meet with participants from the “Teach for Russia” project.

You’ve got to earn your authority among the children, too. Sometimes they think. “She’s here and she’s smiling. Now we’ll do something that she won’t like, and we’ll see if she screams at us or not.” Every teacher has their own pressure points. I have a very hard time talking to someone who is ignoring me — when I’m explaining something, and the person is just thinking, “Oh, you can just say it again. I’m busy with some doodling right now.”

At first, I used to turn into a strict old teacher, yelling, “Sit down! Eyes on me!” But now I realize that the only solution is to interact with the children. Then you understand why the child is doing this, and if they have some kind of problem and need help solving it.

Let’s say the fifth graders didn’t do their homework. I’ll cancel the day’s lesson plan in order to discuss with them why it’s important to do your work at home, explaining what you lose when you don’t do it. When you communicate with children without lecturing them on morals, and when you listen to them, everything immediately falls into place.

Right now my challenge is working with eighth graders. They haven’t had much success studying English in school, and success is important. Positive experience helps anchor motivation and it pushes us to go further. The students are certain that they’ll never need to know English, and they’re convinced that English belongs to some other world that’s incompatible with theirs.

But I know that’s not the case. By the end of the year, they’d learned to talk about themselves, about their families, to order and serve food in a cafe, and to describe animals, the city, and its buildings. I’m my own cruelest judge, and after every lesson I always feel like everything went over their heads. But gradually we’re building a dialogue, and I can see that our efforts aren’t in vain. The students are coming to class, they’re not skipping lessons, and they’re even bringing their notebooks.

In order to work as a teacher, you’ve got to love children, and you need to understand that all children are alike. Last year, I was at an international conference in Malaysia for the “Teach for All” program (an analogue of “Teach for Russia”). We visited a bunch of ordinary Malaysian schools, and I saw children and realized that it doesn’t matter where you are. Kids in Malaysia, kids in Russia, kids in Karinskoye, kids in Moscow, kids in England, kids in India — they’re all kids, and they all need our attention.

Next year, I’m staying with the program: I’ll be working as a supervisor and as a teacher. It’s my dream to see my fifth graders graduate from the school, and I might very well stay here teaching until that moment. But I’m afraid to make plans. Right now, I’ve got a stipend, but without it I’d have to solve some very basic living issues, like how to afford rent, how to find money for my hobbies, how to afford new clothes, and how to afford to travel anywhere. These basic joys in life are often out of reach on a teacher’s salary.