How to Teach

WE NEED TO CHANGE THE WAY WE TEACH HISTORY

INTERVIEW WITH RUSSIAN HISTORY TEACHER

By Stephen Wilson

Second City Teacher interviewed 26 year old Russian History teacher Pauline

Malashina on her role as a history teacher. The warm, lively and sharply

perceptive teacher stands out even in an over crowded restaurant . She has

a curiously  intelligent face which immediately arrests your attention when

seen. She comes across as what one might expect to be a history teacher.

For   she seems authoritative, articulate and very caring.

That is, she does not simply assume anything she reads but is dying to know

the full facts : lock, stock and barrel. Pauline teaches history at a private

Gymnasium which often prepares students to become doctors, and historians.

The teaching of history is not an easy job. In recent years the government

prefers a history based on nostalgia and myth, rather than objective facts.

They only choose to hear what they want to hear. They follow Napoleon's

cynical   dictum that "History is a fable invented by others."

Second City Teacher

What do you think? Has the prestige of school teachers increased over the

last ten years ?

Pauline

I do not really know. The older teachers I work with tell me it is not as high

as it was during the Soviet Union. They tell me that if a pupil  got a

bad mark in the Soviet era the parents would scold them. But now if a pupil

gets a bad mark they come to school and complain to the teacher asking :

"Why is my child getting bad mark?" Instead of it being the problem of the pupil

it is now the problem of the teacher.

Second City Teacher

How on earth do you manage to prepare pupils for such a difficult exam as

the Unitary State Exam ? I mean the area covered is so enormous and

encompasses the earliest Medieval period to modern times.  Pupils are expected

to know so many dates, kings  and events .They even have to know World

history. When I did my final history exam in Scotland we covered only two

topics : The First World war and the Russian Revolution !

Pauline

I think there are a lot of things that the pupil does not need to know. The main

point is to understand the process of events and not all those dates.A lot of

those facts they have to learn are available on the internet. What I think is

important is that pupils should be able to understand that there are many errors

in those internet sites.

Second City Teacher

Is there agreed standard History book where pupils can prepare for exams?

Pauline

Well we rely on many different books and also ask students to read important

articles. As for the World history books there is not a single or accepted one.

But History can be taught in different ways. For example I was surprised to hear

from another teacher that some schools teach history from an Orthodox religious

view.I read a book titled : How History is Taught to Children from different countries

by Mark Ferro . In this book he mentions how  the history of events in

India are taught differently in England and India. When my pupils visited Budapest

they were astonished to find a memorial to those Hungarians who fell during the

uprising of 1956. Whereas my pupils had been taught that the Red army were

liberators , they saw them as an occupation force. The Hungarians saw the Red

army in a different light.

I do wish that there was less political intervention in the teaching of history. We

have to tell pupils the truth about history. Pupils have to know that what happened

to the 28 Panfilov heroes was not as heroic as the legend maintains. I knew the

historian and archivist Sergei Mironenko who was fired for challenging the myth.

He was one of my teachers.{editor's note,Sergei Mironenko was fired from his

post as the Director of State archives in 2016 simply for questioning many of the

lies that were invented by Journalists who covered 28 heroes who fought against

the Germans. The Russian Minister of Culture stated "A head archivist should

confine himself to handling archives and leave the interpretation to historians."

Yet Mironenko is a respected historian ! } Pupils have to know that the legend was

partly invented to raise the morale of the Russians . And of course , raising the

morale was a component of victory. The Great Patriotic War plays a great part

in our history because it is the one event that unites Russians.

Second City Teacher

Is not doing well in the Unitary State exam like doing the Lottery? I mean you

can never guess what questions are going to come up and a lot might depend

on luck? How do you prepare students for the exam ?

Pauline

Pupils need to know some facts from history books, read specific articles

on topics and be acquainted with the different views of historians on the

events themselves. You need to know what they thought. It usually takes us

two years to prepare pupils for the exam. And yes, you can't be sure what

comes up in the exams. I can give one example. I had a great student who

was expected to get 92 points but instead got 80. What came up in the exams

did not always correspond with what we had to prepare students in our

text books. For example, there was one odd question which asked pupils :

To what extent did Loris Melikov's policies following the death of Alexander 2nd

represent a continuation of his reforms ? Provide two reasons for and against.

A pupil can hardly be expected to answer this question as there were only two

lines about this hero of the Russian-Turkish war 1877-1878 in the school Text

book. It is just ridiculous to expect school pupils to answer such a question.

I think this question may be the result of the Soviet era where pupils were

expected to know their subject very well. Now you can just google this answer

in seconds. I think that pupils don't need to learn so much by heart but should

learn to distinguish truth from falsehood and how to select information.

Another problem with preparing pupils is that while many of them know Latin,

they don't know English very well. And a knowledge of English is important for

Historians.

I was glad to meet people from all over the World to practice my English. I

recall meeting Argentinians in Moscow who invited me to dance the Tango.

The World Cup came as a wakening up sign on the importance of learning

English  as we had to speak it to many visitors.

But I began to understand that I needed to improve my English more so I

could communicate better.

Second City Teacher

Have you ever taught in State Schools ?

I prefer to teach in the Private gymnasium. I had a colleague who had been

teaching in a State school for a year . She told me the experience was hell.

The pupils were not interested and you needed to make a great show to draw

their interest. So I suggested that she come and teach at our school. She was

surprised to find that many pupils were interested in her topic. In fact she regards

our school as being paradise in comparison. The advantages of working in this

school is we can draw up our own teaching program and don't have so much paper

work so we can devote more time to teaching the pupils.

In some teaching situations the teacher spends much of the time just preparing

the class and asking them to bring notebooks, take notes and do their homework.

Some pupils turn up without a pen !

Second City Teacher

Is it the role of a teacher to help bring up pupils ?

Pauline

Well I know some teachers might not think it is their job to bring up children and

think the parents should do this.

I think that teachers, if they see one pupil teasing another they have to intervene

to stop it. They have to teach the pupil that such behavior is not normal in a polite

way.