Russian social media regularly features posts and short videos in which authors compare modern school textbooks with editions from the 1930s to 1950s and argue that Soviet materials were better.
In one such video, a teacher from one of the so-called “Soviet schools” flips through a Soviet-era primer and says that if a child knows the letters, they can already read simple words such as “mama” and “rama.” She then shows a modern state teaching method and says it contains too much text, which, in her view, prevents children from learning to read.
According to the woman, the modern materials have “everything written out, but it is unclear for whom,” and this was allegedly done so that children would “get confused and become dull.”
The text says that such materials are most often published by employees of these schools or by parents whose children study there.
According to the article, several dozen “Soviet schools” are currently operating in Moscow and the Moscow region alone. The total number of such projects across Russia is difficult to determine.
Most of the schools whose administrators spoke with journalists from Novaya-Europe are not registered as non-state educational institutions, the format in which ordinary private schools usually operate. Instead, they prefer the model of family classes.
One of the outlet’s interlocutors said that parents are offered several ways to legalize their children’s education in such classes.