Greetings friends, how was your weekend?
I often see posts by my compatriots berating Soviet education and praising European education. I immediately realise that these people have never lived abroad and are completely ignorant of information.
I used to criticize our education for too many exercises. Maybe there is no point to study some subjects at school, where they are supposed to be useful in life.
But... coming to Italy 9 years ago, I realized that here education was only available to the children of very wealthy parents. All universities were always fee-paying. Lawyers, lawyers, doctors, notaries, engineers are the privileged class of the European community. Only the children of parents who worked in such positions could go to university and study there. There were no free faculties.
It was absolutely wild to me that when I arrived in Italy, there was no compulsory secondary education law there. Which meant that children could leave school at their own or their parents' request at 10 y.o. They worked as apprentices, earning a penny, but gaining skills as a shoemaker, seamstress, postal work, sales agent....
It was only two years ago that schools began requiring all teachers to have a university degree. Before that, teachers who had graduated from a special pedagogical school taught primary schools.
I studied with Italians at night school. I studied Italian and other subjects. Almost none of them had graduated from school nor did they know maths.
And I came to understand why this was so? Because there was and is capitalism. And that means that public schools were always scarce, but there were public schools. And public schools were only for a fee. And parents with money could pay.
For example, my husband could not go to university, his parents had no money, he graduated from a technical college. He worked all his life for a big company, which provided petrol for petrol stations. Yes, his lack of education did not prevent him from earning decent money, but there are problems with logic and intelligence.
Sometimes I read how people write. Well, why do we need to learn complicated mathematics, enough to learn how to count and certainly algebra with its trigonometric functions and equations do not need to know?
But it turns out maths - a single subject through which we learn to think logically and this logic helps us at the household level to make the right decisions, rather than run for nothing to a psychologist to solve our problems. This is the conclusion came to American scientists, who conducted a study on why Americans cannot solve some domestic problems on their own, and resorted to the help of psychologists. And all because they didn't learn maths at school.
The Soviet Union allowed students from China and India to study at the best Soviet universities. Graduated a huge number of students who were mathematics teachers. And now who are the best students in American universities? That's right - the Chinese and Indians, thanks to the fact that in China and India the first place in school is mathematics!
In Italy, England, Spain, France and West Germany, populations my age - only a few have higher education. The entire Eastern Europe, like in Soviet times, is ahead of Western Europe in terms of education. Northern European countries: Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland have a good level of education. Apparently because of their small population and the possibility for the state to allocate money for education and high salaries, which allow parents to pay for school and university education for their children.
Only higher European education (university education) differs from Russian higher education. It is very expensive, so students have to take out a loan and pay it back after they finish their studies. And once you have paid, study. They orient most training towards students working independently and being able to work in groups to develop various projects. Our university students, unfortunately, are not used to sitting up at night doing their homework every day, and there is no such practice - to work in a group.
In Europe and America it is prestigious to have an education and a "red diploma" - it is a pass to a better life and to a serious career. Only those who understand this achieve splendid success. European students have only rarely studied for 5 years and usually they have studied for 6-8 years because they do not have the skills we have to study and study and study.
My friend's daughter from Russia could enter an American college for free because of her high test scores in maths, American history, and English. She studied there for 4 years and was awarded the title - best student at the college with a red diploma.
This allowed her to go to law school at D. Washington University in Washington, DC and receive a tuition grant of $20,000 a year instead of $50,000. Graduated with honours and a red diploma and a job offer at one of the most serious auditing firms in New York.
Her employer gave her a work visa and proved that there was no one like her expertise among the American population. Paid for a one year auditing course and now she is the head of a department in this company after only 3 years there. Her salary level exceeds $250,000 a year, only a small fraction of Americans have such a salary level. But for 8 years she has been writing essays every day at night so that she could get only the top grade in all subjects.
So friends, let's appreciate what we have and what our school has given us. If you want to be in demand as a professional, study better than anyone else!
Thank you for reading my post.
786.478 SRY