Evgeny Bunimovich: “The root of the problems is dislike”

Psychologies:

What does it take for a child to grow up happy?

Always be on the side of your child, next to him. Even if he did something wrong, never break into “you are such rubbish” or something stronger, but “you did something bad”, “let’s figure it out together”. So that the child does not have a terrible feeling “I am bad, I am useless, nobody needs me”, so that he feels that no matter what happens, he will always be the most beloved, the most important for mom-dad, grandfather-grandmother (whoever has someone nearby), then everything else is easier for him to survive, understand, overcome. Of course, love should not be confused with constant indulgence, which leads to wild egoism and spoilage — this is how parents often pay off their children or realize their other complexes. Now, in my work, plunging into difficult things, I see a lot of such parents who scream, who cry bitterly that “yes, I did everything for him (for her), dressed / and put shoes on”, but this because not all. The main root of the problems is dislike.

What if there are several children in the family?

What’s the difference? Let two, three — and all three are the most important, there is no contradiction in this, and for a child there is nothing strange in this. And nothing can replace this love, nothing can block it.

There seem to be a lot of people right now who feel like they have been little loved or misunderstood. What do you think about this?

Sad. But sometimes it seems to me that those who were actually loved are still much more than those who remember this and know for whom this remains a support for life. I have often come across the fact that many have a grudge against their parents. Problems appeared in life, something didn’t work out — and they turn their discontent into a family, blame mom or dad, and this explains their failures, and thus form in themselves the feeling of an unhappy childhood. It must be admitted that some psychologists also contribute to the formation of such ideas. But conflicts do not mean that you are not loved: maybe short temper or isolation is a property of your parent’s character.

I am not a great gardener, but I know that those flowers grow and bloom that are best watered. And if you cultivate conflicts, tell yourself all the time: “Mom or dad didn’t understand me, didn’t love me, that’s why everything doesn’t work out for me,” nothing good will come of it. It is also the instinct of self-preservation — to water other flowers in the garden of memories, to remember the bright, bright, wonderful moments that happened in the lives of many people. It seems to me that they were.

• Francoise Dolto: «A child is not at all what adults think of him»

And what moments of the lesson do you appreciate the most as a teacher?

For me, the most precious moments at school are when the bell rings from the lesson, I leave the class, and the guys stay at their desks, sit, think, solve the problem. There is no teacher, the lesson is over, and they solve the problem. They are interested! And it is not so important whether they later become mathematicians or not, it is important that they are passionate about the search, they work, they are together. Many of the students now working at the school are no longer teachers, but coaches. And all teachers are certified, tested today as coaches, as in sports — according to the results of competitions, according to the Unified State Examination, the GIA, and so on. But all the same, a real teacher will remain a teacher — although he is not paid a salary for this, he is awarded awards and prizes, but for coaching.

You were engaged in very different things — poetry and mathematics textbooks, teaching at school and deputy, public service and human rights …

From the outside, it probably really seems so, but in fact, since my student days, if not earlier, I have been doing, in general, the same thing — what was important and interesting to me, what my soul was: poetry , literature, school, mathematics, teaching, child protection. It may be called differently, but the essence is the same. It turns out, in fact, even too conservatively: for almost all my life, I taught at the same school for more than thirty years, I did not change wives, friends, countries, cities …

Today, after almost half a century has passed since I left school, I have my own criterion for being myself: when we meet with classmates, I do not need any effort to return to my own childhood. I don’t need to unbutton my jacket and loosen my tie knot, I don’t need anything to enter this environment — I didn’t leave it …

• Julia Gippenreiter: “What is really needed? To see a personality in a child, accept it and love it”

Why did you take up memories?

This is another way to respond to the same need – to be yourself. And perhaps this is a form of selfishness — such a pleasure to live the happy parts of your life again! my turned coat, and the very word “turn”… This is history, and for me all these details express the time much more accurately than what they write about in textbooks, the most unified and correct.

What task did you set for yourself in the book «A Life in Brief»?

My task was to share the happiness that fell to me. First there was a book about the legendary Second High School where I studied. I wanted to recreate the atmosphere that reigned there. And it must be said that of the many responses and reviews that have appeared since the publication of this first part of the memoirs, the most delightful was a bewildered letter from one of our well-known educational legislators. He wrote: how is it, a legendary school, and the teachers, based on the current schemes, do not seem to be the most optimal: one does not know how to conduct a survey, the other does something else wrong. But these were unique personalities — and this is much more important!

I wanted to convey the special state that we experienced when we came to this school. Now there are all kinds of ratings, but they cannot catch, translate into numbers and percentages the main thing: the aura, the atmosphere of the school, they cannot measure the most important thing — whether the child wants to go to this school or not. It cannot be measured in points. And high academic performance can be achieved in other ways, strict barracks discipline, when «a step to the side — execution.» And this, we admit, also works, sometimes even quite effectively, but the essence is different. Unfortunately, not all teachers and not all parents understand that there is a difference between education and training. The difference is simple: you can be a brilliant trainer, but you will never turn your back on a lion or a tiger, because he will rush at you and bite you. So, education and upbringing is not training, not something that students crammed in the classroom under a harsh teacher’s gaze, but what happens to them outside the classroom when the teacher is not around. What remains is education and upbringing.