Behavior in the diary or whether schools will be able to correct the discipline with assessments

Will or will not be introduced in schools everywhere assessment for behavior, the question is likely no longer worth it. This opinion is inclined by almost all experts who accepted the panel discussion of the forum of primary school teachers. The main thing is now to understand whether the approbation will help make this tool really effective or will lay a fair share of formalism in it, which can negate all efforts. Many disputes around this issue arise due to the fact that if the older generation has in their baggage the Soviet experience of using this system (with its pros and cons), the younger people in principle do not understand what kind of “beast” is such – assessment for behavior.

“Of course, the system, which is now being tested in schools, already has the evaluation criteria themselves, the levels are somewhat different,” says Irina Leonidovna Kachuro, Deputy Chairman of the Committee for Education of the city of Chelyabinsk, Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences. Although it is difficult to say that it has a large number of innovations. Pedagogy is a classical science in which healthy conservatism allows the education system not only to preserve itself, but also to do everything to develop the child. So the system proposed today is not entirely new, but with elements of adaptation to modern conditions. I very much hope that the approbation will give serious analytical materials, will make it possible to draw serious conclusions, and those who conduct it have all the necessary tools for such analysis.”.

According to the director of the gymnasium No. 1 in Chelyabinsk, Damir Timerkhanov, the issue of introducing assessments for behavior is complex, largely because their need is completely different perceived by teachers, parents and students. “We do not need to contrast the pedagogical community with the parent and the child,” says Damir Galikhanovich. This approbation is more positive for teachers, because they think that this system, perhaps, among other things, will protect the microclimate, discipline in the classroom, will help the teacher to provide everyone who wants to receive knowledge. But the parent and children’s community, which for the past few decades lived without banks, rules and restrictions, has a lot of questions. I have them, too. One of them is that, in my opinion, you need to decide on the rules of the game before you start playing. So far, many of its rules, including for me as a director, are unclear. If this issue is not resolved before all by-laws are adopted, it will not reduce conflicts, but perhaps even increase them.”.

Another concern expressed by the panellists was the question of how the assessment would be presented in principle and the criteria for determining it. Anxiety to make a mistake in this matter is understandable, schoolchildren are not robots that act according to the established program, everyone has their own characteristics, their temperament, their level of psychological stability and much more of their own, not like their neighbor on the desk.

“I agree that there can be no unified assessment,” says Natalia Kutepova, chairman of the regional branch of the All-Russian Organization of Parents of Disabled Children and Disabled People over 18 years old, candidate of psychological sciences. For one child, just sitting and clearly following instructions is very easy, and for someone it is very difficult. In my opinion, the whole system should assess the child’s desire to self-regulate his behavior and the desire to go in the direction of universal traditional values. Children who are non-standard, of course, will be very difficult. But most of all, it will be difficult not for them, but for teachers, who must suddenly take a coordinate system as a basis and explain to the child what is happening. The risk group will be those guys who are very active, personally mature, who already have very clear value orientations, who have a very strong family, where they have their own values and norms. It will be impossible to break them, we must understand this. But that's not the purpose of the evaluation. The goal is to convey to the child that you enter a certain social group, and there is a system of coordinates, rules, traditions. And you need to know if you can do them or if you need help to navigate them.”.

At the same time, almost all the participants in the discussion had an understanding that there was a request for the appearance of assessments for behavior, and the system came to the test, pushing not from an empty place, there are serious reasons that pushed the education system, the government and society to move in this direction. The more important it is to approach the system extremely scrupulously, to identify all its weaknesses and strengths, to twist the tool to the desired level of efficiency.

“It is very important that the pedagogical and parental communities have a conscious attitude towards this approbation,” says Liana Mlkeyan, architect of the Presidential Project “Club of Directors”, lecturer of the Department of General Psychology, Psychodiagnostics and Psychological Counseling at SUSU. We are talking specifically about the fact that we do not evaluate the personality of the child, but evaluate a specific action in a particular situation, in order to identify some moments for building further work, to understand whether or not some pedagogical or psychological impact is necessary. This system should allow creating comfortable psychological conditions in the educational organization not only for the pedagogical community, but also for the students themselves.”.

However, there were participants in the discussion who were generally opposed to evaluation for behavior and in general as such evaluations in schools. “Being in the field of humane pedagogy, I believe that any assessment is somewhat contrary to the nature of any person,” says Alexey Lavrik, who created a Montessori school in Chelyabinsk. Everyone has their own pace of development, their own destiny, everyone has something that will one day be revealed. Pedagogy is a marathon, and if we begin to adjust everything to some norms and standards, we immediately close a huge number of opportunities in a child.

As a conclusion, it is worth reminding readers that the approbation of the evaluation system of student behavior in educational institutions has only just begun, two months have passed since the start of this work. Now all the positive and negative signals coming from schools are being collected, at the same time explanatory work is being carried out both among the pedagogical community, and among parents and, of course, students. The participants of the discussion do not exclude that if the system begins to fail catastrophically during testing, it can be abandoned, but they believe that, most likely, it will simply be refined and improved. So the “five” and “two” for behavior are likely to return to our schools in the near future, but they will be an effective tool or just an annoying factor depending on how qualitatively and informally all participants in the process will now test this new and old system.

The All-Russian Forum of Primary School Teachers this time gathered more than five hundred participants in Chelyabinsk. They came from different regions to be able not only to discuss the problems of their work, but also to share their experience. The initiator of the forum for the fourth year in a row is the gymnasium No. 1 of the city of Chelyabinsk.

Photo report from the forum of primary school teachers “In the beginning!”.