Student Union

UNION OF SCHOOL STUDENT SURFACES

By Stephen Wilson

"I'm convinced that teachers themselves are on our side of the barricades.

In the future I want to be a teacher of History and Social Knowledge or a

technical engineer in the Food Industry. .... We have a minimum program

and a maximum program. The minimum program contains the demands

that there be no more than three tests a day for school students, students

should have the right to dye their own hair, not wear a school uniform and

the maximum program is to abolish the Unitary State Exam, " declared a

a highly confident, cheerful and optimistic founder of Russia's first Union

of School students, Leonid Shaidurov. Shaidurov even claimed he was

prepared to organize a strike of school students to achieve his aims. The

seventeen-year-old school student, from school number 622 in Saint

Petersburg, has managed to organize a union. At first a school meeting drew

a crowd of 25 students who expressed interest in joining the Union . However,

alleged threats by the headmistress to put him in a psychiatric hospital or

report him to the procurator, as well as a huge wave of publicity, boosted the

membership of his union to 170, as well as 600 members in other schools.

It has now become 'cool' to be a member of the School Union.

The reaction of the authorities has been one of anxiety, anger and bemusement.

They don't know how to quite handle this unexpected event. Shaidurov has not

even been expelled from  school. Attempts by the Headmistress to persuade

him to join a patriotic Youth Movement fell on deaf ears. In fact, Shaidurov states

that he is inspired by the works of Lenin as well as the example of American

school students who won the right to free food in canteens.When my colleague,

Anna Kogteva heard that there was a teenage follower of Lenin  organizing

a protest movement she expressed astonishment. "I did not know there were

any such young people who were still into Lenin. I thought it was a thing of the

past." Elena Orlova, a Professor of Linguistics at Saint Petersburg University, told

me: "Our present day school children are not afraid of anything. They are fearless.

They are not afraid to express their opinions about anything. They have freedom

of speech whereas my generation kept silent ".

This movement represents a direct challenge to the authorities who are seeking

to foster an atmosphere of fear where school students do what they are told and

accept the authority of the  state. Many teachers don't think that children

are entitled to an opinion of their own. The idea that children have the right to

express different views has never crossed some of their minds.So far, teachers

don't seem to be joining the students at the barricades. But their presence has

been so conspicuous at mass demonstrations against corruption that the state

has passed draconian laws where the parents of minors will be subject to huge

fines should their children attend unsanctioned rallies.

School students, like teachers, have a lot to be deeply dissatisfied with. They

have told me again and again, how on, say one day, they might have to sit 5

to eight tests and of the needless stress this is creating. Officials of the Ministry

of Education actually replied to Shaidurov, chiding him for being too

confrontational and not constructive. They defended the Unitary State Exam

system arguing that it offered more opportunities to school students to enter a

far wider number of further Education institutions. It was therefore much fairer

than the old Soviet system. But this answer won't console both school students

and teachers worn out by endless testing and heaps of paperwork. It seems

highly likely that more and more young people will not hesitate to take part in

protest movements. Threatened fines, imprisonment, or psychiatric examinations

won't deter them.You can expect more protests. A lot of children are just fearless!