“Everyone went to the front”: a scandal broke out in St. Petersburg due to a strange school assignment

Public response and a storm of indignation caused a school assignment in St. Petersburg. There the teachers asked the students write letters to dad to the front.

The mother of one of the fourth-graders of the northern capital filed a complaint with the prosecutor’s office, since most parents did not support the authors of the curriculum for the course “Literary reading”.

Many parents became indignant and asked the children not to carry out such an assignment; some wrote such letters to the fictional fathers to the front themselves. But all, without exception, agree that the task was extremely flawed and traumatic childish psyche.

From the city committee on education demanded clarification. The officials answered that the topic under discussion is very difficult, but it should be studied at least for the “all-round intellectual and moral development of children”.

The officials compared this task with stories about the Great Patriotic War, the blockade of Leningrad, the Battle of Stalingrad and other milestones in the history of Russia, stressing that their students should know and “feel” with all their hearts.

The law on education, to which schools are subordinate, implies that any educational program approved at the state level can choose a school, but for each specific teacher the right to give or not to give these or other exercises or tasks from the textbook.

The Ministry of Education stressed that teachers should offer alternative tasks to children - if a particular task cannot be completed for a number of reasons, it is necessary to offer options that will suit everyone.

In the "creative" network, the creators of textbooks and teachers of the northern capital also did not find understanding. Many users expressed the opinion that the compiler of the textbook and the teacher who assigns the task simply do not want to go into the subtleties of ethics and child psychology.