What's a Name?

'WHAT"S IN A NAME?'

By Stephen Wilson

 

'We are not servants but teachers,' declared a Russian school teacher to President Putin at a recently held video conference of teachers, parents, and school students held on the 25th August to discuss issues of Education on the eve of the new academic year which commences on 1st September. 

However, much more pressing issues such as unfair dismissal, low pay, excessive paperwork and illegal political intervention to force some teachers to vote for the government party were barely addressed never mind acknowledged.

 

'What's in a name?' That which we call a rose by any other name would never smell as sweet,' laments Juliet to her beloved Romeo, in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. A name should not really matter, should it? But that is not how some Russian school teachers see things. For them names do matter. How you name the profession of a teacher can exert a profound impact on how the public perceives and actually relates to them. Zhanna Torkhova of School No. 26 in Yaroslavya  told Putin, "Concerning our work as teachers they call us servants. In my opinion and that of my colleagues this is incorrect. I am a winner of an All Russian competition 'Big Change', and don't consider myself a servant. On the contrary, I am proud of the fact that I'm a teacher. I insist that I teach, help, we befriend, and I believe in what is the main thing, to be a friend of children ...  I am certain that there is a necessity to promote a positive image of a teacher through the creation of mass culture, in the cinema, in the theater, in literature! It is funny to observe the image of Snezhania Denisovni, in 'Our Russia' {a popular Russian comedy shown on television showing a foolish and corrupt Russian school teacher}, but this destroys the image of school teachers. We understand what powerful attractive images existed in Soviet Literature and the Cinema in the films 'Until Monday' and 'Big Change'. 

After listening to this sermon, Putin responded by claiming he himself works in the sphere of services and is a servant to his people, but he understood that teachers had their own kind of pride where they can't afford to be seen as 'servants'. But the President did not at first seem to agree with the teacher saying "I'd think you'd agree with me that there is nothing offensive about the word 'Servant'. I often hear the word used to identify others who work in the areas of work such as medics and doctors. Are they also offended when people call them servants? 

But he ended up agreeing that may be it is better not to call teachers servants in order not to offend the sensitivity of the teacher on the eve of elections. The President also thought it would not be a bad idea to introduce into schools the custom in other countries where the national flag of a country is raised every day. He also cited a sociological survey which indicated that 96% of school teachers value and love their profession and that such an attitude ought to be supported and encouraged. Their work should not be seen as a mere service, but a mission.

 

What are we to make of this statement by Zhanna Torkhova? Does changing the name of a profession really make a difference? The government renamed the militia the police, but it's repressive role has hardly changed if you observe how they continue to detain and arrest a person for simply holding up a placard in the streets. Would Torkhova be offended by the spokesman of the Union Teacher who called teachers 'slaves ' without practically any rights? After all, the word slave actually does depict the sad reality of a school teacher who works long hours and can be unfairly fired for petty reasons such as posting a photo of themselves lying on the beach! As if calling a teacher a teacher can conjure away the problems which teachers face like a magic spell. And why should literature and films be under obligation to always promote 'positive images' of school teachers? How would the state go about doing this? Ban certain films that don't do this? Given the history of Russia such future censorship can't be ruled out. Such censorship is already hampering stand up comedians in Russia and the West. You would have to ban the plays and short stories of Chekhov because he often portrays school teachers in an unflattering light.

 

In fact it is even questionable whether the cited films by Torkhova promote a completely positive image of school teachers. They present complex and ambiguous images which can be interpreted in different ways. For instance, take the classic film 'Until Monday' {1968} directed by Stanislaw Rostolsky. It is a wonderful film, but how might we view the role of the history teacher Ilya Melnikov, played by Vyaleslav Tikhonov? Should school teachers attempt to emulate him? Is he a real role model? For example, Melnikov walks into a staff room and scolds a Russian teacher for speaking in a common and vulgar way like a vendor in the market in a humiliating way and at first refuses to help a young novice school teacher having a problem in class because ' my work has finished'. In fact, the film shows a disenchanted and disillusioned teacher who wants to quit his job because he feels he is not up to it. I think any young teacher beginning their career would be put off taking up the profession of teaching rather than embracing it after watching this film. The film's merit is that it more honestly and artistically presents teachers as vulnerable human beings. And the film 'Big Change', {1972} directed by Aleksi Korenev, shows a bitter teacher who hasn't much of a clue on how to communicate with his students never mind teachers, lacks a lot of empathy and is also rude to many people. The latter film should be viewed mainly as a brilliant comedy held together by the cream of a legendary cast of excellent Soviet actors. But as for promoting a completely positive image of teachers we can express reasonable reservations.

 

Where does the President obtain the figure that 96% of school teachers value and love their profession? No reliable source was provided of this sociological study. Indeed such a Russian sociological study exists, but the figure of 96% was not from the Russian survey but an American survey of American teachers the Russian sociologists were citing! {see 2020 survey by R.A. Bilkov and Vlasov, from Tomsk,} Of course, maybe most teachers do like and value their profession, but it does not logically imply that they are content with their work and conditions. Such a finding does not seem convincing to school students who constantly tell me how their school teachers look unhappy, shout loudly and look at the clock to see how long their lesson has to continue for.

 

Zhanna Torkhova is right to assert that a teacher ought at least to be viewed as a teacher with authority. This is because in the West and Russia we have witnessed the rise of popular methodologies where the authority of the teacher is negated on the grounds that students are customers who have paid a fee so we believe they have a right to order a teacher around as if he or she is a servant. Instead of the teacher instructing the pupil, the pupil tells the teacher what to do because he pays the money. So you have an absurd situation where school teachers are ordered to 'entertain ' pupils because that is what the pupils want. So teachers end up attempting to emulate stand up comedians rather than teaching their subject. This might be good news for teachers who want to become stand up comedians, but bad news for teachers who take their profession seriously. The fact is that there will always be a degree of tension between the teacher and student. And a teacher can't exactly be like a friend of a pupil in the same way as the pupil's classmate. They can be friendly, but not too familiar in the way he or she is like a fellow pupil.

 

At this video conference, children were present, but nobody asked their opinions about what they thought. There again, many people don't think children have a right to an opinion. So this video conference was to quote Shakespeare again 'Much a do about Nothing'. All the very important issues which affect school teachers, such as low pay, poor conditions, overwork, unfair dismissal, lack of academic freedom, too much paperwork and teachers being told that unless they vote for United Russia they can lose their jobs were not even touched upon. It was all a carefully scripted and controlled video conference to prevent provocations. You can call a teacher a teacher, but he is still a slave. Nothing can conceal the fact that we are indeed treated like slaves, whatever we are called!