a long time at the “Complex Method”, we passed over to the “Dalton
Plan”... and had nearly put it into practice, but here the peasants inter-
vened and demanded “that the children should be really taught something”.
At present I try to “pluralize’” all these methods; the children grow more
developed, they discusss about all kinds of subjects... but unfortunately
with all these methods they do not learn to read or write.... But I dare
not teach them in the old manner, and nothing comes out of the new
methods. When the inspector visits our school he sees that there are neither
s00ks, nor paper, nor pencils; and yet he asks: “Do you teach according to
the Complex Method? Do you organize excursions?’
We have heard the same complaints from the lady-teachers of Petro-
grad. All of them are over-burdened and worn out by orders that cannot
se carried out, and no time is left to teach the children to read and to
write. Both the physical and mental standard of the children is much lower
‘han it used to be before the Revolution.
In the second-grade schools we find the same “Complex Method”, still
more high-flown themes, and quite accidental scraps of information.
Not a single normal subject, such as languages, mathematics, history, or
zeography. Everything is a hopeless jumble of separate scraps of infor-
mation, quite artificially tacked on the theme. For example: the theme is
‘Lenin; the geography of Switzerland and the description of the economic
life of Simbirsk are passed in review. The connection between these
subjects is that Lenin lived in Switzerland when he was an emigrant and
‘hat he was born in Simbirsk.
History is taught without any dates being given (because we begin our
chronology from the year one — Anno Domini) and the whole of it is
really reduced to the history of revolutionary movements.
The “labour” element is totally absent from these schools; no manual
occupation whatever is taught. But countless compositions are given on all
themes connected with the ideology of Marx.
We shall give the scheme according to which the “Complex Method” is
applied in the 3rd years course of a second-grade school, so that our readers
can judge for themselves what kind of instruction has replaced the former
normal programs.
Nature
The structure of the
Universe.
Astronomic informa-
tion and the corres-
ponding chapters of
physics and chemistry.
Labour
The chaos which
existed in the social
organization of labour
during the capitalistic
regime,
Society
The development of
capitalism. The markets
of the world. Impe-
rialism. The Imperial-
istic war of 1g14.
'R8