School of life: 5 lessons of Anton Makarenko

The son of a railway worker, Anton Makarenko had neither the time nor the opportunity to get a pedagogical education. Nevertheless, UNESCO included him in the list of four outstanding teachers of the twentieth century. His work in a labor colony for homeless children with a criminal past – there were thieves and murderers among the pupils – became “reconnaissance in battle.” Makarenko’s main idea is that life is the best school.

1. Not book formulas work, but immediate action

Makarenko’s pedagogy is a pedagogy of storm and onslaught, when even impulsive action, if it is timely, is more valuable than long work that is carried out after the moment has passed. In his Pedagogical Poem, Anton Semenovich even describes several cases of unintentional assault on his part, which had an important educational effect.

For example, when the students refused to go into the forest to cut firewood for the school, instead starting to break the roof of the shed into firewood, Makarenko went to negotiate with the main buzzer – Zadorov. Hearing a rude answer: “Go cut it yourself, there are a lot of you here!”, The teacher lost control of himself and, in violation of all pedagogical principles, began – for the first time in his life – to beat the pupil. “My anger was so wild and immoderate that I felt: if someone said a word against me, I would throw myself at everyone, I would strive to kill, to destroy this pack of bandits,” writes Makarenko. However, to his own surprise, this dubious “method” worked: in half an hour the pupils were sawing logs together. “During the break, we embarrassedly lit a cigarette from my supply of shag, and, blowing smoke to the top of the pines, Zadorov suddenly burst out laughing:“ Great! Ha-ha-ha-ha! ..” It was nice to see his laughing ruddy face, and I could not help answering him with a smile: “What – great? Work?” “Work itself. No, but this is how you drove me!” Makarenko specially notes in the book: “It should be noted, however, that I did not think for a single minute that I had found some kind of omnipotent pedagogical tool in violence. The case with Zadorov got me more than Zadorov himself.

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2. You must be able to believe in a person

The issue of trust in a teenager, according to Makarenko, is one of the most important in the process of education: he feels the lack of trust especially sharply and, as a result, begins to “fight” against teachers. On the contrary, even undeserved trust can change a lot in a person’s soul. Makarenko describes the case when a pupil Semyon Karabanov returned to the colony, having previously run away several times to join the gang. Makarenko entrusted him with the most important task – to carry the money that the financial department issued to the colony. “Two thousand? What if I don’t bring money? Karabanov asked. “I jumped out of my seat and yelled at him: “Please, no idiotic talk! You are given a task, go and do it. There is nothing to play “psychology”! – Anton Semenovich recalls.

When the pupil returned with the money, he almost begged Makarenko to count the money, but he refused. Karabanov could not stand it: “You are mocking me! You can’t possibly trust me like that. Can not be! Can you feel it? Can not be! You risk on purpose, I know, on purpose…” “No trick. I am not afraid of anything. I know that you are a man as honest as I am,” Makarenko explained to him, and the trust of the teacher, which touched the teenager so much, further kept him from wanting to leave the colony again. In the future, Karabanov himself became a teacher, more than 15 thousand teenagers passed through the orphanages, the director of which he worked.

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3. The teacher must know his subject well

Then you will be respected and obeyed, even if you are a harsh person. But no matter how kind you are, even if you feed them sweets, if you don’t know your subject, they won’t appreciate you for a penny. As an example, Makarenko cites the agronomist of the school, Eduard Shere, “a creature positively incomprehensible to the unaccustomed colonial gaze.” “Cheret was relatively young, but nevertheless he knew how to bring the colonists to a stun with his constant confidence and inhuman efficiency. It seemed to the colonists that Shere never went to bed. The colony wakes up, and Eduard Nikolaevich is already measuring the field with long, slightly awkward legs, like those of a thoroughbred young dog. Shera managed to make the pupils, many of whom would not stop until recently to shoot a person or stab him with a knife, almost cry with tenderness when a foal was born to the mare Zorka – the awareness of the value of someone else’s life came to the guys with an understanding of the joy of work .

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4. Attitude is the main object of pedagogical work

Long before many Western colleagues, Makarenko realized that the main task was to change the attitude of a difficult teenager towards himself. True, he solved this problem in a Marxist, collectivist spirit: not to change the attitude towards his talents and abilities, but to make him feel that you are a full member of society. To achieve this feeling even among former thieves, Anton Semenovich appointed them to perform a socially useful task – to patrol the road on which travelers were often attacked by robbers, as well as the forest where poachers stole trees.

As a result, the former criminals not only felt for the first time on the side of a law-abiding society, but also recognized themselves as a single team. “Not so much moral convictions and anger, but this interesting and real business struggle gave the first sprouts of a good collective tone. In the evenings, we argued, and laughed, and fantasized about the topics of our adventures, became related in separate catchy cases, strayed into a single whole … ”writes Makarenko.

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5. It is important to develop a sense of collective responsibility – one for all and all for one

When gambling for money spread among the pupils, Makarenko managed to convince some of the colonists that, by beating others, they were actually committing an act unworthy even by thieves’ concepts – “robbing a comrade.” “In our colony, many colonists are starving, they do not eat sugar, bread. Ovcharenko (one of the pupils. – Approx. ed.) Because of these same cards, he left the colony, now he walks – cries, disappears in the flea market. As a result, some of the pupils, on their own initiative, took on the role of defenders of the colonists offended by cheaters: “There is nothing to beat comrades. You at least be offended, at least that, I will be against the cards. So you know: I won’t fall asleep in anything, but I’ll fall asleep for the cards, otherwise I’ll take the elms myself, I’ll hold the trochs.

Anton Semenovich Makarenko (1888–1939) completed a one-year pedagogical course. After several years of teaching at railway schools, he received an order from the Poltava Governorate to create a labor colony for homeless children with a criminal record. He led the colony from 1920 to 1928, during the years of the Civil War and subsequent devastation. In his commune, Makarenko actually practiced occupational therapy – teenagers independently solved all the economic problems of the colony, from harvesting firewood to protecting the economy from robbers. One of the foundations of Makarenko’s pedagogy was the “principle of parallel action” – the influence on the pupil comes not only from the side of teachers, but also from the peer group in which he lives.

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