http://www.saasmar.ru/english/index2.html
It was a very educational day learning about the educational system in Moscow--repetition intended of course. We met with a member of the Moscow Duma (legislative body) who is in charge of education for the city, and we met students and teachers eager to share. There are many differences between the Russian system of education and the American system, but the two that I will take with me are that students grade 1-11 are all in the same building, and that administrators also have to teach at least 12 hours a week.
Since my essential question is that of relationships, I asked the teachers about their relationships with their students. I certainly grow to love and care about my students even though I have many of them for only one year. I cannot even imagine how invested I would become if I could see all my students grow up. The teacher I spoke with was in agreement, and said that you get very attached to the students and want to help them in any way possible to ensue their success. Their story and your story become one and the same during the 11 years they spend with you at the school. I think this sounds like a wonderful idea in many ways because one of our goals this year as educators at Belleville West is to reach out to students and get to know them as people. If we had the students for multiple years, we would know them, invest in them and care more deeply about their success of failure. Sometimes I get students for one semester at the end of their senior year, and only know them for a few months. How much of a relationship can I develop in this amount of time? But on the other hand, while this sounds great, what if there are several problem students in the same class? That would mean you will have those same students year in and year out, and unless you can help with their problems, you will be with those students for quite a long time. That thought, quite frankly, makes me shudder.
The other aspect I found incredibly intriguing is the fact that all school-level administrators must teach 12 hour a week. I asked a teacher what was best and worst about this and she nailed my concerns exactly. She said it is truly great in one way because if administrators are teaching, they know what it is like. They are in the classroom, dealing with the same issues as all other teachers. How often in the American education system have we lamented the fact that our administrators are removed from the classroom, and they cannot relate to us as a result of it. If all administrators were in the classroom, they might respect and appreciate us a bit more. On the other hand, said the Russian teacher, the principal is still your boss. She mentioned that she might mark a student as excellent, only to be questioned about it by the administrator who also teaches the same student. The administrator marked the student lower and questioned her excellent mark. The teacher said that this sometimes is a source of relationship friction--authority versus individual. I could not have agreed more with her. It would be great to have your principal teach, but you truly would always be worried because that person is not your equal. That person is your boss, and you must respect the power structure.
So even though we have different policies, our goals as Russian and American teachers is the same--look out for our students and do what we can to help them improve.