An Education Post

An education post. The hottest topic on board. The post and readers’ comments from the social networks Facebook and VK We are now into the second week of heated debate aboard our vessel about our teenage daughter’s education. In three years—or four, if we drag our feet—it will be time for her to finish school and apply to university. That is if we take the traditional route, which I, the mother of the young sailors, support within our crew. If you overlook the fact that our young sailors are receiving their secondary education aboard a yacht bobbing about the oceans on a circumnavigation, in every other respect I am a staunch conservative. I believe that one of a parent’s responsibilities is to ensure that their child finishes school—distance school, in our case—and is ready by then to apply to a university, whether ours or a foreign one, or wherever she chooses. I have no intention of paying for her education in Russia while state-funded places still exist, unless some divine spark known as a thirst for knowledge is blazing within my offspring but, by some cruel twist of fate, is not backed up by the required admissions score. That is why I am now insisting that, from 1 September, as she should, Nastya begin the next grade at a Moscow online school, in the format of “once a month you download an assignment and send your work to the teacher in exchange for feedback.” You study regularly, receive marks for tests and for the year, and ultimately get a state-standard secondary-school certificate. The position of the father, husband, and captain into the bargain Most of the secondary-school curriculum is a waste of time, cluttering the mind with knowledge that will never be useful in life. Instead of doing the things she loves, a child is forced to spend days sitting over subjects she dislikes and finds hard to grasp—for example, mathematics. There is no chronological, historical, or logical connection between the subjects studied at school: instead of studying the world in all its diversity, children study separate disciplines detached from reality. That impedes learning and demands more time spent cramming. On that point, I basically agree with the captain. But... I want to continue the futile slog through the school curriculum in order to pass the final exams, train body and spirit to work, exercise memory and attention, and fill that little head with assorted knowledge. And I want this process to happen with minimal involvement from me. . A Paradigm Shift Andrey proposes changing the entire educational paradigm and studying subjects through the prism of the history of civilisation. In other words, we take the period 4.5 billion years ago, when planet Earth was formed as a result of the Big Bang, and study chemical and biological processes, astronomy, and physics in the context of the Big Bang itself. Then we move on... and reach, say, the boundary between the Common Era and what came before it; we study who ruled where, which countries and islands were discovered, what was devised in chemistry and physics..., what various scientists discovered, writers wrote, composers created, and artists fashioned. And so on, right up to the present day. And all of it applied to wherever on the map we happen to be at the time. The principle is clear. And it is a wonderful principle. A pupil’s whole education would probably be far more effective if it were structured exactly this way. But, clinging to the possibility of offloading part of the educational process onto the online school, I say to the captain: “You’re trying to reinvent the wheel, but will the two of us have the discipline and diligence to follow this path and study with our young sailor every day?” He replies that he sees no benefit in mindlessly memorising things that will immediately be forgotten, at the expense of what is necessary and interesting. Let her develop her talents, he says, improve her English, learn French, play music and cook, read books, and snorkel, because she has abandoned these activities she loves in favour of sitting over algebra and biology. I agree with that too. But what about the school certificate and the Unified State Exam? The captain thinks we should do nothing about them. If she wants to apply to a Russian university at eighteen, she can come home and cram for the Unified State Exam for three months, pass it, and move on. (My aside: Will she manage to cram for it if she has not been following the school curriculum?) So what do you, dear public, think about all this? Please do not pelt us with rotten tomatoes; stick to the substance of the matter. The first of September is nearly here. We still have not reached a final decision aboard our vessel... Respectfully, the first mate . Other articles about education aboard a yacht: Homeschooling Aboard a Yacht Homeschooling. Children Aboard a Yacht. 2015 Children Aboard a Yacht: Socialisation and Safety Readers’ Comments and Messages VKontakte: . Polina Goncharenko Hello, Marina, Andrey, Nastya, and Lada!)))) Education is a very live issue for me—higher education, that is. But first, of course, you have to resolve the question of secondary education. What Andrey says makes sense! I can’t imagine what anguish I’ll face over my own children’s education, but that is still a long way off. To the point: the Unified State Exam has very little to do with the school curriculum. It means tutors, memorising, cramming, drilling problem-solving algorithms; some of the biology questions I happened to read in the exam papers either defied logic altogether or were simply funny. They teach differently now: they drill children to produce the expected answers. Three months may not be enough preparation after all, because the tasks are extensive and there is a lot of information, but I think additional resources will be required in any case. And Marina, I unquestionably support your view: “But... I want to continue the futile (crossed out) slog through the school curriculum in order to pass the final exams, train body and spirit to work, exercise memory and attention, and fill that little head with assorted knowledge.” That is essential. And yes, all this work will ultimately fall to you, the parents, because a person just starting out in life (hello, Nastya ) cannot always understand in time how to act in a given situation, what the most effective course would be, where to find information, and so on. Losing a year after school is not as terrible as conservative mothers think))) provided that the child knows what she wants and needs extra time. It is better to prepare without rushing than to fray everyone’s nerves and rely on luck in the exam. But I repeat: by that time the child should have made up her mind, rather than still be searching... otherwise it won’t be just one year( I think your family will cope brilliantly! . Nikolai Perov I would do this: choose a university in advance and prepare only the subjects required for admission. Alongside that, you could study subjects using the innovative historical programme, dropping some things—such as countless problems on electromagnetic induction or calculating the amount of a chemical substance—in favour of experiments with an induction coil or additional material on history or art. The Unified State Exam is not so much difficult as baffling: it sometimes includes questions that are NOT in the curriculum of an average school, which would seem to contradict claims that the exam is straightforward. So even if she follows the school curriculum, it still won’t drill her for the exams. Apart from the ill-fated Unified State Exam, there may also be the State Final Examination, assessed essays, and entrance examinations administered by the institution itself, depending on where you apply. Preparing—especially on your own—takes a great deal of time and effort, far more than it does for a school pupil who has all that essential knowledge chewed up and spoon-fed into their bright little head. So it is better to prepare diligently and unhurriedly in advance, rather than two weeks before the exam, as I did 🤓 followed by a nerve-racking wait for the results. The curriculum for Years 10 and 11—and, to some extent, Year 9—consists of revising everything already covered and adding a few new topics which, frankly speaking, are useless in everyday life—and in not-so-everyday life too. This is the opinion of a 2017 school leaver, so you should not expect it to be especially informative or objective—I don’t have enough experience yet) With enormous respect, Nikolai. 😀 P.S. To get a good exam score, you will have to sweat blood in any case. Radical changes to the paradigm will not substantially reduce the workload; a mountain of time, effort, and nerves will still go into it. What can you do? It’s just one of those phases) . Danil Maltsev Greetings from the Maltsev family to all of you! This subject is very close to me because I am going into Year 11 and facing all this myself right now. I agree with the captain that schools teach a huuuge amount of unnecessary stuff, and we waste the most precious years, when our brains soak up like sponges everything offered to them, when everything is so easy to remember and absorb. That time should be spent on genuinely useful knowledge—languages and so on; on your circumnavigation, that is exactly what you need. To get into university you must: a) pass the Unified State Exam and sit an entrance examination in one subject, if there is one; b) win a Level 1, 2, or 3 academic Olympiad—check the university website, which lists the Olympiads that entitle applicants to benefits at that university, including free tuition. So you do not have to study the entire school curriculum to get into university; it is enough to prepare for the Unified State Exam and the entrance examinations in the subjects required by your chosen university and faculty. You can prepare online for the Unified State Exam from scratch and start now: there are masses of free practice tests, videos, and materials on every exam topic—in short, everything is freely available. Plus a tutor if needed. For the university entrance exam, it is best to attend preparatory courses at that university; they will prepare you properly. 2) The Olympiad. That is the surest way to get where you want to go. Naturally, you have to prepare, but everything is possible online plus a tutor. So I think that is exactly what you should focus on—preparing only for the Unified State Exam, entrance examinations, and Olympiads—and not clutter the brain with all the other irrelevant subjects. If you ever need that material, watch a few half-hour YouTube videos and you’ll know it better than a school pupil who spent several months studying it from a textbook. And in the time freed up, study our fascinating world exactly as Andrey suggests: it really is more interesting, it will stick better, and you will not have that muddle in your head caused by our “excellent” textbooks, according to which, incidentally, Prince Oleg lived for about 160 years 😂😂😂😂 . Alyona Kartseva On the subject, though not quite so globally: have you tried studying mathematics and other subjects through Khan Academy? It is an international educational project, very convenient and accessible, with topics, practice exercises, and your own pace. I think it can also be used offline. I personally used it to restore my school knowledge of algebra when I needed it)), and my children enjoy studying at the beginner levels. . Elena Yakovets Marina, my daughter in Year 9 has a muddle in her head: yesterday she wanted to be a chemist, and today she says she is a humanities person. We tried withdrawing her for family-based education in the final term of the 2016/2017 school year, but she did not get enough social interaction and emotional engagement, discipline was shaky, and I also gave her a few household chores. Here in Voronezh, even children in family-based education must be examined in every subject, including PE. If they could take the State Final Examination and the Unified State Exam only in their chosen subjects and merely read the rest for general knowledge, without tests or assessments, I would choose that option. But unfortunately that is not allowed here. . Facebook: Yuliya Callahan I spent a long time wondering whether to reply or, as usual, just read in silence :) I’ll share my experience. I have lived in America for a long time, but I grew up and went to school in the Soviet Union. My children have been educated at home from the very beginning. It is very common here. Parents are given a choice and complete freedom over how they wish to educate their children, and 99% of homeschooled children go on to college, etc. Until this year, my system was this: interest-led learning, with the exception of mathematics. What does that mean? The child is given the opportunity to ask questions, and my task as the teacher is to answer them fully. For example, my son asks who took part in the First World War. We go to the library—the libraries here are magnificent—and borrow books and videos on those questions, then study it all in depth and with great interest because the question came from the child. At the end of the year I always test the children, although that is not compulsory, and their average score is always higher than the average in conventional schools. Of course I cannot advise you what to do because we live in different countries and things are somewhat different here, but I would like to say that I see many homeschooled children, and they grow into wonderful, educated people who, above all, know how to think for themselves—and that is the most important thing. ...This year my children entered seventh grade. Until now we studied everything according to their interests. This year we began a programme supporting parents who homeschool older pupils. We work with professors twice a week, and for the rest of the week they provide us with a detailed programme. There are many homeschooling options in the States because it is very widespread. I know mothers who continue interest-led learning throughout all the school years. Good luck! Anastasia Savos Good post. Although I am a fan of education, with your unconventional life I think conventional education is completely beside the point. Especially since you can now earn a university degree online too. Actually, let her learn different languages; of course she needs to know mathematics as well, and all the basic information about biology, physics, and chemistry. But trying to stuff her brain with information she will never need in life is a waste of time and energy. You are citizens of the world—why is it so important to you that she get her education specifically in Russia? She could study in America, for example, where they would snap her up after she wrote an essay about her life on a circumnavigation! That’s brilliant! Let her improve her English; enrol her in an online school somewhere in America. Alya Pekina Marina, there is a Facebook community called the Family Education Support Club. It has lots of information and parents asking themselves the same questions. Write to them. There is also a great deal of information there, as well as links to online resources and all sorts of things. Valery Shklovskiy I like Andrey’s approach. It is very similar to Montessori education. As far as I’ve heard, graduates of those schools pass the Unified State Exam without difficulty. Irina Poddubnaya My eleven-year-old son and I also spend half the school year sailing the oceans aboard a yacht. I am grateful to the system for allowing us to study remotely without difficulty, which works excellently for us. In six months he has gained more than others learn in five years. I consider nature the best teacher. Traditional school is the merciless murder of time and the clogging of the brain. Life will assess her knowledge, not a bunch of frustrated women from a post-Soviet box who claim universal wisdom. In short, I fully support the captain. Full speed ahead. Our school allowed us to be absent for five months, from December 2016 through April 2017. His form teacher sent assignments online. Whenever possible, we also sent our huge tomes of work to the teachers, but there was no system to it. When we returned, my son took all the tests and that was it. From January 2018 through December 2018, we will be aboard the yacht again, making our way slowly from Malaysia to South Africa. My question now is how we will handle school this time. I will see the head teacher in September. If we cannot reach an agreement, I will transfer him to an official distance school, where he will communicate with teachers via Skype. Sergey Goncharenko Nature is the best teacher if you want to raise Mowgli. 🙂 It will not be life that assesses her knowledge, but specific people, including some of those frustrated women, if the goal is education and higher education. But that is not the only path. You can prepare for the Unified State Exam for two years, studying every day, and score 80–90 points—provided you have the foundation. If you do not, you will first have to learn the fundamentals. What the captain proposes is studying history alone. That is too one-sided for a child’s development. But what matters here is how you see your children’s future. Will they spend their entire lives sailing on your yacht at your expense, amusing themselves with snorkelling and studying the history of the places you visit? Or will they have to earn money at some point? What will they do, and how much will they earn, without an education? Julia Novikova A little off topic: I saw someone recommending Khan Academy lectures somewhere. They take a more practical approach, exactly as the captain wants)), though they are overly Americanised. There are even some lectures in Russian, but I can’t vouch for their quality: https://ru.khanacademy.org/ Elena Surikova You would probably be interested in watching all the lectures by Simon Elyevich Shnol: biochemistry and biophysics through the people involved and the history of their discoveries. Without a foundation in biochemistry, though, it would probably be unbearably boring. Sergey Dylyuk Studying a broad range of subjects broadens one’s horizons on the one hand, and on the other trains specific skills for solving different types of problems, which can later be applied outside those disciplines as well. Larisa Lukianovets Good afternoon. Andrey’s approach is excellent. Our child now attends an alternative school with similar principles. At our school, children study one particular topic for a week—for example, France. They read about the country, draw, write, prepare presentations, play games, bake croissants with a visiting professional chef, and so on. In other words, for one week they are completely immersed in the subject and examine it from different angles. At the same time, all the children are registered as external pupils at a state school, which comes twice a year to conduct the required assessments. According to last year’s results, all the children mastered the year’s material and passed with very high marks. The children study the programme required by the Ministry of Education and Science for their grade, but they learn it in connection with the topic of the week. For example, if they have to write a dictation practising certain rules, the dictation text also contains information about something French. Mathematics is taught in the same way: what difference does it make whether you add kilograms of apples or kilograms of lavender harvested in Provence? I would also add that I consider this form of education more applicable to life than standard schooling—by which I mean the old Soviet school system. This year we went to the seaside in Greece, and while in Greece our child studied ancient Greek myths and legends. It sinks in many times better than it does while sitting at a desk in a classroom. On the way there, while driving through the Romanian and Bulgarian mountains, our six-year-old understood in three seconds, from real examples, the difference between coniferous, mixed, and deciduous forests. Travely-Family. A Family Circumnavigation on a Sailing Yacht Larisa, thank you! What year is your child in? In the past, the only similar educational system available in Russia was V. V. Stepanova’s method. But it only went up to Year 4. After that, everyone went to an ordinary secondary school. Nastya attended nursery school under that method. It’s wonderful that you have a school like that! But it is easier for you: you are on land and, formally, studying like normal people. Our choice is no choice at all: either an online school—a good one, with wonderful teachers and no one-size-fits-all approach—or no school, no curriculum, and so on. Year 8. Chemistry and physics have already begun, along with algebra and geometry... And our daughter has, one way or another, been in distance education since Year 1, and she studies history and so on right where it happened, in the field. Larisa Lukianovets Travely-Family. A Family Circumnavigation on a Sailing Yacht, we are from Ukraine. Our child has finished Year 1 and moved into Year 2. Alternative schools are new here, and I cannot yet say what my child’s education will look like in secondary school. I can only add that alternative schools are currently gaining momentum in our country. Many such schools are opening both for primary pupils and for older students. Many take the Finnish education system as their basis, then add their own special features and develop their own curricula. One alternative secondary school uses project-based learning, TRIZ methods, and Kandibur’s system. There is also a school for older pupils that uses tutoring and coaching. Larisa Lukianovets Marina Travely-Family, but your children’s school is truly something else 👍 👍 —you can only envy them, in a good way :)!!! My daughter sometimes looks at your posts with me and dreams of a circumnavigation too 😉 👍 👍 I hope you find the most successful educational option, and the one that suits you best. IMHO, it would be wonderful to combine your system and Andrey’s into one whole, while continuing to sit assessments online. Ilya Kravtsov I believe that one very important skill conventional school can give us is a drive towards self-education and self-discipline. A child can develop these abilities with the help of their parents. Cramming itself is less important than the ability to memorise large amounts of information easily; for that, you need to know the techniques and practise the skill. Mathematics leads to an ability to reason logically, and you do not have to sit in a classroom for that. With proper attention, all these skills can be developed in a child while travelling. Maxim Orlov Well, the point is that the child has already been living and studying while travelling for a long time. The question is whether to give up distance school and teach her ourselves according to our own programmes... We don’t want to make the wrong call. Elena Surikova University may still offer that, but school is pointless cramming. Ilya Kravtsov I think such advanced parents undoubtedly know more than schoolteachers. You could take the school curriculum as a foundation, remove everything unnecessary, and add your own material—most importantly, things with practical value that will definitely be useful in the real world. Katia Bassenko Your own approach to learning certainly sounds more interesting. Does Nastya like it? Judging by people I know, the first year of your own programme is usually the hardest: surveying everything you want to study, finding materials, drawing up a detailed programme, deciding how and whether to test, setting deadlines, and so on. Most likely, the time you now spend on articles and the blog, and Andrey spends on the boat, will go into the details of teaching for the next few months—two or three, perhaps. At least it will give you something to do during hurricane season 😉 Perhaps the most important thing is to foster an interest in the exact sciences—that is, to teach scientific and mathematical thinking? That does not mean merely working through a curriculum, but finding a good tutor who can show her how to approach, say, algebra. Nadya T Another question is whether higher education is even necessary at that age. My son enrolled in Helsinki and said that Russians and Ukrainians are the youngest students in Finland. The average age of first-year students is twenty-five. So, although the future is difficult to predict, you have to decide on the direction of further development, the child’s own wishes, and the place of future study. Higher education truly is no longer a guarantee of high earnings. At the same time, this is the age of bloggers, consultants, and coaches, whose success and popularity sometimes have nothing whatsoever to do with education. But what will things be like in ten years? 🤔 Yulia Orlova If the child plans only to keep travelling, why does she need further education or the Unified State Exam? What does she want herself? In reality, children don’t want anything. Studying is work. Parents have to guide them. For future reference, here is a good official website with online tests, updates, and video lessons: http://4ege.ru/testi/ Snezhana Medvedkova You increasingly encounter children who step aside whenever anything requires effort. They do not want to do what they dislike, immediately feel tired, switch to something else—and then the same thing happens there. But I think many people know that even when you are doing what you love, not everything will be easy and smooth. To grow in a beloved pursuit, you need professionalism, and that may require effort and overcoming yourself. Later, though, overcoming it gives you a real high. And I do not doubt for a second that both you, Marina, and Andrey had to work very hard in your time to reach where you are now and to keep moving forward. In my opinion, parents should give their child so much that later they have a wealth of choices. And education is very important in our time. We are not living in the Stone Age. There is nothing bad about a child having to exercise their brain. It is essential. Especially when they have the opportunity not to sit within concrete walls, but to admire the beauty of different countries. She can study history as her father says. And languages. And simultaneously prepare for exams under another system. If something turns out not to be useful in the future, so be it. But what if it is useful? What if some new interest suddenly awakens and the child finds her path? Children will not remain under their parents’ wing for ever. Aleksandra Lewandowski Well, I am, of course, in favour of school, at least in a sense. You need to know history and geography, speak and write correctly, know at least three languages, and mathematics... well, you need to know the difference between addition and multiplication and be able to perform those simple operations. If that can be achieved outside school—excellent, fantastic—but be prepared for the fact that your child will most likely be unable to work as an employee as a result 🙂 In other words, if there is an opportunity, why not? School provides minimal knowledge; it only teaches you how to learn. University teaches you how to wriggle out of situations and find the information you need. My physics-and-mathematics school exhausted me, but it gave me stamina for the rest of my life. Now I am a shark everywhere, both in business and in sport. But! There is no guarantee the result would have been worse without school!!! Sergey Goncharenko An ordinary, normal child will always choose entertainment. Yuri Bagaev Allow me to add my two cents. I don’t think anyone would deny that the overwhelming majority of the school curriculum is useless, pointless, and not particularly truthful. Memorising dates, formulae, and rules is not education. Your captain is right, and his idea is interesting and far better than the school curriculum. The only “attraction” of official education is that it gives you a piece of paper, which can later be exchanged for another piece of paper certifying the next stage of education. But if the child has an interest and talent for something that could become their future profession or their own business, perhaps it would be better to develop that, leaving only a certain minimum and the basic principles of each discipline to orthodox schooling. For example, language ability: if you speak English, French, and Spanish fluently, no one will ask for your diploma from a foreign-languages institute. If you are drawn to writing articles, stories, or something larger, an editorial office will not ask for your Massolit membership card if the material is interesting. In the modern world, skills and professionalism beat certificates saying you completed this or that. Spielberg did not go to university—or rather, he went when he was already over fifty. Many people who achieved enormous success in modern technology once dropped out of colleges and universities because the time spent on them was useless. And studying what you like, acquiring knowledge for yourself—that is something every normal person does throughout their life. Sergey Goncharenko That is not true about the certificates. All proper companies have internal standards. Without a diploma, even with three languages, they will not hire you for anything above cleaner. So those who did not study have only one option: self-employment. Not everyone is ready to be self-employed. Yuri Bagaev Standards of what counts as “proper” differ. I think almost any modern company would hire them. Gazprom, Rosneft, the prosecutor’s office, and so on obviously would not; their standards were laid down many decades ago. But neither Facebook nor Google will ask for a diploma from, say, an eighteen-year-old programmer ranked in the world’s top ten thousand. Alexey Mikhailov We are at exactly your stage now—thinking about abandoning homeschooling. I do not understand who needs unsystematic textbook knowledge or why. We constantly quarrel because we make our daughter do tests that are uninteresting and useless to her. Our relationship suffers, and so do her interests. These days you can acquire a profession in three to six months. Both my wife and I change careers radically every two or three years. We will most likely give up distance education and later drill our daughter for the Unified State Exam. Maxim Orlov An interesting thought... I agree with you on many points and am at a crossroads myself... but my wife is against it. I know that many people care about a person’s supposed “level”: whether they have a university education or are merely a tradesperson. How do you feel about that? Does status matter—whether you belong to the “intelligentsia,” which educated people with university degrees count themselves part of—or is that unimportant, provided you have a trade? Alexey Mikhailov I have a university degree, but I do not work in my field. I learn new things easily and have mastered more than five professions since university. My wife is in the same situation. In my view, school is mostly child storage. University teaches you to search for information extremely well. I think being an intellectual is more about knowing how to think. There were many people in our university group who had the diploma, but it did not affect the way they thought) The only thing that frightens us is how quickly everything is changing now. Some new law may bring a lot of “surprises” for people whose children are not officially enrolled in school. Nadya T Getting a school certificate is not a problem now, regardless of the form of education. Thank God there are now many private schools willing to accommodate people on this issue. The Unified State Exam and admission to a state-funded place are another matter. That depends on the required score at the university you choose. At prestigious universities in St Petersburg and Moscow, the threshold is over 90! Those are children who are practically gifted or obsessed with studying. I have not heard of state-funded places with thresholds below 70–75, while the average school score is 60–65. So take a realistic look at the situation—the scores—and weigh up your capabilities 😉 Maxim Orlov As I understand it, the captain is thinking that perhaps there is no need to go to university at all, but rather to learn a profession she likes—and not necessarily in Russia. Elena Krapivenko I agree with the male side about all the unnecessary things at school, but... there is a big “but.” You cannot cram for the Unified State Exam in a couple of months. Modern schools do not teach subjects now; they spend the entire school day drilling pupils specifically for the exam. It is not teaching knowledge, but training, just like in sport. The Unified State Exam questions are convoluted and full of subtleties. Sergey Sochnev In general, nothing is clear-cut. I cannot say the captain is mistaken, but the solution as stated is a bad idea. You cannot encompass the unembraceable. Forget the Big Bang and everything that comes with it—the problem of baryon asymmetry and the like. You can leave the formation of the Earth alone too and avoid delving into geological subtleties. You can drop palaeontology from the plans and begin directly with Homo erectus. But even then... everyone educated understands that methodology is the main thing: organising information, the interconnections not merely between subjects, but also the consistent increase in the complexity of knowledge. In any case, you must base it on existing educational programmes, merely adapting them to your own needs and your pace and mode of study. And you do not have to use the standard school curriculum: there are interesting projects in which children are given the entire body of school knowledge in a few years... But you will not invent anything like that yourselves. You should not experiment on your own children. Andrey is unequivocally right that modern school is primarily not a source of knowledge but a factory producing socially competent people. Children learn about life, communication, and situations. They develop together; it is always easier as a group. A circumnavigation cuts all that out entirely. Therefore, the main thing is this: She needs a solid foundation in the exact sciences and the humanities. The basic education must be thoroughly mastered. In essence, that means Years 8–9—not much at all. I wrote before that the ENTIRE school curriculum can be mastered in a few years, because the only constructive educational content before Year 7 is spelling, reading, the multiplication table, and arithmetic. Everything else develops the child’s mind and prepares it to learn; it creates context, but no more. Another widespread misconception, incidentally, is that school teaches you how to learn. It does not—not at all. Here again I support the captain: instead of memorising adverbial-participial phrases, it would be more relevant to browse through methodology: the theory of learning as a process. That includes general principles of working with information and the relevant branches of psychology and computer science. Speed-reading, memory-training techniques... school pupils have never even heard such words. Nastya will be able to choose and prepare for any university herself if she possesses the foundation. In a year she can master the Unified State Exam and catch up on any missing disciplines. But she cannot master algebra by herself if she does not even have the minimum nine years of schooling in her head. So Andrey’s criticism of the school curriculum is correct. Eighty per cent of that curriculum misses the mark because Nastya is not a school pupil who spends most of her life at a desk and in a group. Accordingly, you should abandon it and switch to more relevant programmes and approaches. But do not invent them yourselves; use ready-made ones, so that during those two years there is plenty of free time for necessary and interesting pursuits, and she can specialise in what she likes. Yet the child must retain the option of applying anywhere in the future. Marina, in answer to your last question, there are not many ready-made experimental programmes... I contacted some old acquaintances, and it turned out that everything obtainable or usable as a foundation is a gamble to some degree. I can suggest gathering information about the Shchetinin school method. I do not know; I have not tested it myself, and the information is contradictory. Many people criticise the school and its approach. But the fact that the criticism comes from representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church gives some grounds for hope. Perhaps everything there is wonderful after all. In any event, its methodological approach is exactly what you need. And I am sure Andrey will like it. You can simply set aside its personal obsessions with certain pseudoscientific subjects and all that Agni Yoga. In any case, the competition for admission to that school is extremely fierce every year—which is a dubious indicator, but an indicator nonetheless. And you do not need to study there, only adopt the approach. Look for various information online and collect it all in one place. I will describe their approach to the school curriculum in just a few words: the study of any subject—and any particular topic—begins immediately at the level required to pass the Unified State Exam in Year 11. So take any book on any subject used by Year 11 pupils to prepare for the Unified State Exam, then see which topics are studied in which years. We need to identify the sequence of topics and the necessary depth; if I am not a physics teacher, I simply do not know why one topic is studied before another, so logically the easiest thing is to look it up. Then take the topic, at the required depth, with which study of the subject begins. If that topic uses any terms or formulae from a related discipline, study them within that topic too. Physics and mathematics are usually closely interlinked, with chemistry and biology joining them. Running somewhat parallel are Russian, literature, geography, and history, including local history, then social studies and law join them, followed by singing, drawing, cultural studies and art, and choreography alongside physical education. In short, the basic division into technical subjects and the humanities remains, but whenever they overlap, you bring in whatever else connects to them. First, you study what amounts to the SKELETON of the whole subject: the terminology, definitions, and formulae. That is the first day. After that, you take one complete topic after another, in order. The topic is studied for three days; on the fourth there is an assessment; on the fifth, the pupils explain that topic to other pupils who have just arrived for their first day on that topic in that subject. They give their explanation in the presence of their teacher, who helps if they are unsure or get stuck. On the sixth day, either there is a new first lesson on the next logical topic in the same subject, or, if the subject has reached a logical stopping point—for example, mechanics and electricity in physics may be studied with a break between them—study begins on the other subject that overlapped with the one just completed. Then the cycle repeats. That is the principle itself. And it is essentially sound, provided you do not fill children’s heads with nonsense, which this school is guilty of. The standard general-education school is no better, mind you. In essence, this approach separates the actual educational component from the school curriculum’s many years of repetition. That is a good thing. And for you, it is practically a ready-made programme. Essentially the general school curriculum, but compressed from nine to eleven years into one. Respectfully.