The world is changing, and our ideas about what our children should know and be able to do (and most importantly, at what age) are with it. Will high loads deprive children of their childhood? Or is this the wrong question?
A student of my master class at a literary institute has been spending her last years in South Korea, in Pohang, where she earns extra money by teaching Russian to Korean children. When I asked how Korean children differ from Moscow ones, she answered: they have practically no childhood.
What does no mean?
The goal of an advanced Korean family, she explained, is to raise a super child. It should become the first in the system of global competition. And she gave an example. A five-year-old girl whom she gives Russian lessons, in addition, she already knows English, French, learns Japanese in parallel, besides she studies music, is fluent in computers, studies at a ballet school, attends housekeeping courses and a breathing school (and something, something else).
The purpose of such a rigid system is superiority in future competition. In short, a small country, a country devoid of raw materials, a country that has become an Asian tiger (one Samsung is worth something!), has relied on the intellect and the absolute victory of the Koreans in all areas of world rivalry.
– Does this robot have even a drop of freedom? I asked.
“This is not a robot at all, but a lovely harmonious creature,” the narrator answered me, “the girl copes well with stress. Our schoolchildren and students are no match for today’s young Koreans in terms of the level of intelligence, the depth of education, the scale of tasks, and psychological flexibility. We are unable to compete with them.
Hmm … If this is just an exaggeration of a young soul who has long been in love with the East and has learned the Korean language, then God is her judge, but if she is right? It turns out that our children, without even taking a step into the future, have been outsiders since the age of five?
It is impossible to say that we do not see dangerous opponents.
Our elite is also concerned about the level of training of children and invests serious funds in the upbringing and education of their offspring. So, the three daughters of my television producer study in elite schools in Switzerland, and the daughter of our acquaintances received a generally crazy offer: to live for three years on a yacht that will circle the globe, doing only education, manners, reading books and giving home lessons to the young offspring of dad -millionaire. The whole yacht is equipped as a private floating school for five rich kids, where teachers from all over the world will replace each other …
The project has been postponed for now, but what a swing!
Modernity has deprived our children of the last right, the right to childhood
But here’s the problem: modernity has deprived our children of the last right, the right to childhood. In my adolescence, the word “competition” was unknown to anyone. From morning to evening, we disappeared either in the yard, or on the banks of the Kama, or on the beach, and in winter at the skating rink. Everyone studied poorly, everyone messed up school and everyone stretched out a blissful childhood almost up to 15 years. We were the ones about whom Fellini made his brilliant film “Vitellone”, which means “calves” in Italian, and in our country it is more likely translated as “varmints” or “rake”.
Has the phase of idleness affected our destinies?
Of course it did. Half of the peers from my yard went to the factory, only I entered the university. To my shame, I don’t know English, Japanese, or Chinese, and I can only speak French with a dictionary. Meanwhile, traveling on business, I do not feel much discomfort, there has always been and is an interpreter nearby, both in Paris and in China.
I don’t know how to cook shark fin soup, I don’t drive a single car and, of course, I never flew a private jet, finally, among my acquaintances there is only one person with a million fortune, and when I asked him which was better: childhood or competitiveness since childhood, he replied that neither training nor the level of claims in business compete. One thing I know for sure: never bet for sure, said Roosevelt, the rebound is guaranteed.
At the same time, he was engaged in the fact that for almost three hours in a huge kitchen in a country mansion he was preparing an Uzbek lagman, enjoying the savory preparation of food and removing his personal chef from business. And conjured over the stove, like an adult child. That is, he enjoyed his own dilettantism.
Perhaps an oriental parable will judge us?
One day, in a school of perfection on the banks of the Ganges, a young student rebelled against a sage teacher, accusing him of the fact that his knowledge was useless, that his lessons were of no practical use. He said and left the school. Ten years passed, and the rebel returned to the teacher. The mentor was still alive and well and still sat surrounded by adepts. “Look!” – said the student and easily walked through the water through the Ganges to the other side and just as easily returned back.
“And you spent ten years on this? the sage was surprised. “I pay one rupee to the boatman and he takes me back and forth.”
The disciples of the sage began to laugh, and the rebel left shamed.
In a word, I will prefer a boatman, or a cook, or an interpreter, or a driver, I am hopelessly outdated and will lose the Olympiad to any young Korean woman. Alas, in the 8th grade I had deuces in all subjects except history and literature.
But on the other hand, my wonderful boobie friends and I had a childhood of 12 years, we swam across the flooded garage on the boards, skimped on lessons, loafed, flew a kite, played football on the sand on the beach behind Kama, and that golden sun of my memory is all still flooded with sun.