My Observations of the Russian Education System

All parents and especially students seem to value education. The children feel that an education will help them have a better life. There are many academic competitions and the students pursue the prestigious awards through hard work and dedication.

The teachers must teach from a national curriculum for their regular classes. Every student should be on the same topic, on the same day and receive a mark for that exercise. The rest of the classes are extra curricular or electives. These classes are more creative and offer students a variety of options. These classes may only meet once a week.

The number of students in a class seems to be in the teens. Often schools run a morning shift and an afternoon shift as the school is not large enough to hold all of the students. The students attend school six days a week.

Students seem very happy in school. There is a ten minute break between classes, where students run, dance and play games in the hallways. They also spend time on their cell phones, no matter what the age is. I never saw students in lines in the hallways. In all of the schools that I visited, students were wearing uniforms. Many of the older boys wore suits with a shirt and tie.

The teachers have very few supplies to work with. They create amazing materials with few supplies.

The students know so much about the United States and we know so little about Russia. They talk about the US and British authors that they read.

I did not observe education for children with special needs. Even though the Superintendent talked about classes for children with disabilities, I never observed any and none of the other teachers did either. I question whether there are classes available for these kids.

Children start studying English at a very young age. As a result, they are very fluent. I think we wait too long to study a foreign language.