Nikolai Kryschuk read for us the book «Education: returning to the original meanings.»
“In the epigraph to this book, there are the words of Janusz Korczak: “One of the grossest mistakes is to think that pedagogy is a science about a child, and not about a person.” Here lies the key to understanding the anthology of texts about pedagogy, how the genre of the book is defined. This explains, in particular, the fact that among the forty-two authors there are not so many teachers themselves, but philosophers, psychologists, writers and poets are represented. Nietzsche and Fr. Alexander Men, Kafka and Tsvetaeva, Chesterfield and Krishnamurti…
The principle by which authors who have been thinking about the upbringing and nature of human relations for more than three centuries are collected under one cover is very close to me personally: this is the consonance of texts, the co-direction of thought, a departure from what is due only to the era. The editor-compiler Sergei Lebedev writes: «We tried to identify, to bring together what is unconditional in pedagogy.»
If we recall the epigraph at the same time, it will become clear that we are talking not just about the unconditional in pedagogy, but about a single field of human values and meanings, in which today, sometimes without suspecting it, a person needs, confused from the rapid change of ideas and illusions. . But this book is not a collection of recipes. As well as not another collection of wise thoughts. Because with all the breadth and variety of reasoning about a person, the subject of these reflections is the same: education.
Depending on the temperament, the inclination of the mind and our own experience, in the same paragraph we can see an impeccable maxim, useful advice, or only a statement of the problem. Here is an example from Kafka’s letter to his father: «In essence, you are a kind and gentle person, but not every child is able to patiently and fearlessly pursue hidden kindness.» Or from “Speech at the Stadium” by Joseph Brodsky: “If you want to become rich or famous or both, good luck, but don’t give yourself over to it completely. To crave something that someone else has means losing one’s own individuality.
The book will be of interest to any thinking person, it’s true. But still — so that the main readers do not pass it by — «Education» is addressed primarily to teachers, parents and those young people who will become parents.