On February 16, the Russian authorities announced that lessons from the state-designed patriotic curriculum called “Conversations about What’s Important” would air on Channel One. The lessons are already mandatory in schools, and the television programming is designed to reach “students who stayed home from school for any reason.”
Now, the Ministry of Education says the patriotic programming will be aimed not only at schoolchildren, but also at their parents. Sergey Kravtsov, the head of the education ministry, said that the format is still being worked out. “We’re discussing a format that will be really interesting, including for parents,” he said.
Kravtsov also announced that public higher education institutions would start each week with a flag-raising ceremony and “Conversations about What’s Important.”
When the school year started in September 2022, Russian public school students discovered that each week would begin with a flag-raising ceremony and the Russian national anthem, followed by lessons from a new state-sponsored curriculum called “Conversations about What’s Important.” The lessons deal with the Russian-Ukrainian war, among other things.
