American Values in Russia

“Education for a Better World” is probably the most humane idea that unites teachers all over the planet. Although humankind did not become “a global community” as social romantics had hoped when the Cold War was over, there exists inter-relatedness among individuals, peoples, and nations, and creating harmonious relations among them is one of education’s goal. That is the focus of our “Round-table”; we are concerned with the problems of values in education.

The participants are: Gennady Belyaev, a lecturer; Valeria Veselova, a researcher; Alyona Gromushkina, an editor; Stephen L. Lapeyrouse, a culturologist; Tatyana Morozova, a literary researcher.

S.L.: The American image of good life, or American idea of personality, . . . how you’re supposed to live, what you’re supposed to do . . . well, the contrasting Soviet idea has disappeared, and not everyone is willing to go back to the pre-revolutionary [Russian] ideal of society, values, and so on. So where is an articulated image that presents a realistic alternative for the Russians, aside from copying American culture?

V.V.: I think it’s possible to find some middle way, something “in between”. I hope it will be a synthesis of methodology, of the store of knowledge from both sides. At the dawn of the 21 st century there is a process of integration in all fields of science, and in pedagogics, in education as well. It’s part of globalisation. This process raises a problem of American influence on the world, on the other countries and nations, and on the youth, the students we teach. We can’t stay passive while there is an aggressive “attack” of American mass culture with the active help from our mass media. The situation of transforming the whole system, the foundations of a great country is unique. People in the totalitarian state used to believe every word spoken over the radio, TV, written in a newspaper. And now they still think: “That’s the truth, that’s the aim we should aspire to, that’s the pattern we should follow . . .” It’s very dangerous for young people, who have no critical thinking, who can’t compare things objectively, they can’t know yet that this is a delusion.

S.L.: The American ideal of the sweet life . . .

T.M.: The main thing is the goal of education. If we know for what we educate children, it determines everything else. I think the main feature of American education is certainly its practical, pragmatic operation. Every American student knows why he studies in college, because before entering it he got, say, $20.000, and after it – $80.000. So, that’s the aim, that’s the goal. This system is narrow, pragmatic, but successful in attaining a very practical aim. The Russian system, at least, was diametrically opposite to this system. I’m just now collecting material about an American professor of Russian literature at one of the most prestigious American colleges, and I asked him why he had chosen to major in Russian literature. He said that at the age of sixteen he had read some Russian literature and had been so overwhelmed minds that he decided to major in Russian literature. So he started learning the Russian language, became a specialist in Russian literature, and now he is quite a distinguished person in his field. But he also told me that he was rather unique in this aspect. he was, maybe, one out of ten, and the other nine of his classmates had quite practical goals: there was a great demand for Sovietologists, Communologists. there were institutes working for the destruction of “the Evil Empire”, of the Soviet Union. And now nobody wants those nine, they’re jobless now. Now there is no demand because there is nothing to destroy any more. There are few students of Russian in America, and just in that period of Gorbachyovian Russian-American honey-moon, when we invited many students from America here to Moscow to study, the classes were full. Now every year there are fewer and fewer, and now if they have some four students from the United States at big and good Moscow University, they’re happy to have even them, because there is no practical demand for such specialists.

V.V. Remember that President Clinton in his speech named the goals of the American system of education: to make American students the best in the world, and the aim of the United States of America is to win the world’s competition in economics. That’s the aim of the whole system of American education. Was this system of education created for such petty aims? It’s not a petty aim, it’s a great aim of the Pax Americana.

A.G. Yeah, I’d say our students think that this is really a great goal, great aim. They consider the economic reasons to be the most important, they don’t think about the general culture. they’re English-practical users, and they’re thinking about studying Business English, because they can make practical use of it, make money, get good jobs. so we’re coming to a similar situation as they have come to in America.

T.M. It’s a good example of the influence of American values in our consciousness . . . you remember that last Thursday when we had the discussion at the Anglia bookshop and one girl said, “Pushkin is dust?” I think that if a monkey in a zoo were offered a volume of Pushkin’s poetry, and if this monkey could speak, it would say, “Well, I can’t eat it; I can’t drink it; I can’t have sex with it; I can’t enjoy it; so what’s the use of it? Just throw it away”. By the way, it’s just occurred to me, but in the spirit of American values, one famous Pushkin’s poem, The Prophet (“Пророк”) could be changed the following way:

Валюты жаждою томим,
У Центробанка я крутился,
И шестисотый мерседес
На перекрестке мне явился.

A.G. Well, it would be funny if it’s not so sad.

V.V. So, is it really sad?

G.B. I think it’s not so sad, because in general I believe every culture, every nation is so multi-sided, multi-spectral that when we grasp some raisins that we think smell well, smells badly. After a long period of stagnation, we searched for understanding other nations, other people; now we have the chance to actualize this search. But perhaps we can’t leave old American level, old American values and American values as they are, perhaps we’re looking not in the right direction, perhaps we see really the dust, the very primitive examples of mass culture, instead of what real values of other cultures are. And the lack of understanding these culture’s spiritual values – we don’t know a lot of them, as Americans don’t know a lot of Russian spiritual values. And knowing spiritual values is a social strategy. Actually, education is a social strategy, a social strategy for changes for many-many decades into the future.

We should better understand each other, know languages, know what is beyond the language, the culture, and know the language of culture as it is, because the culture and education as a whole are really the tool for change. Who takes this tool first, will get some good points in score, between developing the economy, and society as well. Both pragmatical and spiritual tasks of education should go hand in hand because knowledge is the tool for activities. This is the task for educators.

A.G. Could you think of any tool, or any instrument, or anything which you can advise to motivate students’s approach to spiritual values?

G. B. Even economic interests, why not? Spiritual and economic interests, both, they go hand in hand. actually every culture, it is the Marxist approach . . .

A. G. They would say the smarter you are, the less you are paid.

G. B. I don’t think that there is a pure absolute spirituality not connected with everyday needs. For many decades, we haven’t paid any attention to everyday needs: proper lodgings, proper family life, and the percent of divorces, the percent of alcoholism, the percent of those that go to the streets as they do now, the percent of former pioneers and comsomol members that are thieves nowadays – these are our problems as well as the problems of the American system of education. It could not prevent narcotics in schools as a serious social illness that influences the mentality of future generations. So I think that education is the tool for change only when it could be taken in co-operation – in an absolutely pragmatic way. Taking social changes step by step, with the environment, and it’s the same with spirituality.

V.V. Gennady, your words reminded me of Dewey’s theory, he also thought that the system of education is a tool to change any society, but it’s a pure idealistic position, to my mind. It did prove to be unrealistic. But as to the practical methods about which Alyona asked, what could we do?

T. M. To keep children in schools, and not let them make debauchery in the streets.

V.V. I think that one of the methods, probably is for the educators to teach students the skills of critical thinking. They are quite necessary in the situation nowadays here. I’ve already spoken about it, we were so naive in all those innovations and “new” ideas: they sounded very attractive and very inspiring: freedom, democracy, and so on and so forth. We wanted to be “up to world standards”. But the thing is over, and to analyze that foundation, the roots of these fine slogans and “the other side of the Moon” – it’s very important for our young generations, to see all the contradictions.

G.B. This is the role of education: to shape critical thinking, to shape understanding what is beyond all ideological . . . formulas and so on and so forth. We’re going further to a more individual, personally shaped approach in education, really. If not critical, why education . . .?

A.G. Well, we should start from early childhood, I think. Maybe the most dangerous part of society is those kids who’re five, six, now. I think it is a very important thing for educators, for teachers, because I think we have to make a distinction between educators and teachers, (because educators are also people who think about the theory, theoretical approach for the practical needs of teachers). And well, we have two words in Russian: образование and просвещение.

V.V. And воспитание.

G.B. I would like to pause on this question, probably rhetorical, how could it happen that so many former pioneers and former Comsomol members became elementary thieves? Where was the theory of the well-rounded, harmonious education? How could it happen?

S.L. I remember hearing about one of the groups of Russian youths who were fans of Spartak or CSKA. It was very interesting because their leader said, “Well, we used to cheer for our team, but then we learned that in order to really support your team you have to be able to fight with the other teams afterwards, to have a great big brawl, and so on.” This young leader, of one of these groups, basically said that they realized that British and Danish counterparts would have big fights, and so they weren’t being hooligans enough . . . they weren’t up to world standards.

If you don’t have a social substitute, then the kids will do drugs, thievery, and just basically social chaos. So in the US they always try to combat this with sports, clubs, associations . . . and when you don’t have that, what are the kids going to do? The saying is: “idleness is the devil’s workshop.” And you know it’s a social principle, it’s clear that this happens all over the USA, and not only at the adolescent, but also at the higher levels of society.

G.B. Just for example, Salman Raduev was a very prominent comsomol leader, he was an activist. And one more: when I spoke of the school, I saw these examples of lyubera, punks, and all these youth gangs that used to beat, savagely beat each other in the ‘80s, I told myself: “That was the germs of fascism, really”. I could see the faces in the region of Sokol, all these fans propagating Spartak or Dynamo. They clashed, really, and they were very brutal despite all the school education, all the noble goals of education.

V. V. So, it’s not the education . . .

G. B. It’s something I call environment, real environment. It was the school which was lagging behind. It’s something that should be taken very seriously.

V. V. Indeed. Thanks, but our time is up now for the our discussion.

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We do understand that there exist a lot of world-views as to wealth, happiness, styles of life and life-goals. But we also do understand that we live on the same planet and at the same time, and our future depends on our actions and thoughts.

The value of individualism in the USA (when a man is equated to His Majesty God) and the value of collectivism in the USSR (when an individualist was totally suppressed by the state and it was considered a norm) do not guide to harmony. Nowadays the American society is in search of common values, unity, empathy and common Good. Russia, on the contnery tries to master values of individualism and market economy. Don’t you think, colleagues, we have a lot of work to do to help our students know and understand each other better than we did, to get rid of stereotypes, and create a more humane world?

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Dear readers,

We want to continue the discussion about problems of values in education and invite you to participate by submissions of your comments and ideas. The most interesting opinions will be published.