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Humane Pedagogy 2.0: From Anton Makarenko to Lyudmila Petranovskaya and Dima Zitser

Alexey Semyonichev

DOI 10.55140/2782–5817–2022–2-S1–30–39

Close-to-life education, personalized approach to the child, having fun while learning instead of being scared to go to school — these are just a few ideas of humane pedagogy. Alexey Semyonichev, alternative education researcher, discusses how humane pedagogy can help build the education of the future.

Alexey Semyonichev

Founder of the "Alternative Education in Russia" project, author of books on family education, writer, publicist

What do I see the pedagogy of the future like? Humane. I believe that the education of the 21st century will be largely based on the ideas of Anton Makarenko, Janusz Korczak, Genrikh Altshuller, Shalva Amonashvili and other innovative teachers. I will try to outline in general terms and name the main directions education will follow in the near future.

AN INNOVATOR AND A DEMOCRAT

Let’s start with the well-known, yet little-read Anton Makarenko. Everyone heard the name at least once. He opened a school for homeless children, ran it for a long time, wrote many books based on the experience of his school and personal reflections.

In 1921, in the first year of the school’s existence, it was named after Maxim Gorky. In 1927, Makarenko joined the Dzerzhinsky Labor Commune. In the same year, Nadezhda Krupskaya criticized his approach to the education of homeless children. Admittedly, many of our teachers, who supported reforms in education, did not have particularly good relations with the state, as we will see later. But gradually they managed to get along with the authorities.

Makarenko, for one, would make peace with Krupskaya later, and would happily deliver lectures, write books, and live in the famous Writers’ House in Lavrushinsky Lane, Moscow. His ideas received development, and other commune schools began to open in the USSR. The most renowned of them, the Bolshevo Labor Commune named after Genrikh Yagoda, worked near Moscow.

In 1939, at the age of 51, Makarenko died of a heart attack while on a train. The legacy he left is so important that even now, a hundred years later, he is considered one of the most prominent teachers of the 20th century.

Curiously, Makarenko never wrote in his books about how to teach mathematics or literature. His main ideas were how to create an atmosphere of cooperation and mutual understanding between teachers and students at school. It is a great challenge, but with homeless children, the task becomes even more challenging. Makarenko talks about things that sound terribly strange for the Soviet government — about self-governance, about fair elections (the school had a governing board elected by voting), about the need to listen to the students’ opinions. Through these generally simple mechanisms, a scenario is created when school becomes not only a place for a child to gain knowledge, but also a place of emotional well-being, where the child could fulfill oneself. It is interesting that, according to Makarenko, teachers are not dictators who exercise their right of the strongest, but rather people you can and should negotiate and argue with. Makarenko says that the environment, the positive atmosphere at school, the team (for him this is the most important thing) influence the child’s education and upbringing.

Makarenko’s students mastered many specialties. School workshops made products which were in high demand in the country. They even made photo cameras. This is an important point: it’s not just making something to present it to parents later so they would feel good; not just banging things with a hammer at arts and crafts lessons. It’s actual work that brings real benefits and motivates us to refine ourselves.