ABSTRACT
I was struck again and again on visiting Russian classrooms by the fact that they seemed as much “European” as “communist”. The attitude to work, the present concept of what is academically respectable, the use of well-hallowed academic terminology – all these appeared to me, an outside observer, reminiscent, to put it mildly, of French and German classroom practice. Before getting to Russia I had hoped, as a result of my visit, to write an impressionistic account of the feel of the classroom, including such things as the teacher-child relationship, the attitude to marks, and anything else which would have conveyed, if the word be allowed in this context, the general “spirit”. My reason for this pre-occupation was that what many people and countries say tallies only slightly with what they do, even when they have fully developed ideologies. However, although I made very careful observations and notes about what one might call the phenomenology of the classroom, I was so often involved with Russian teachers and officials in arguments and discussions about the selection and “streaming” of students that I have been asked to contribute this present chapter.
