By: Benjamin He
In Russia, starting just from first grade, students will take weekly classes that feature war movies and virtual tours through Crimea. In addition, they will also receive lectures on topics like “the geopolitical situation” and “traditional values,” a regular flag-raising ceremony, and lessons that celebrate Russia’s rebirth under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia.
On Thursday, President Putin signed legislation into law that encourages Russian children to join a patriotic youth movement in the likeness of the Soviet Union’s red-cravatted “Pioneers” — presided over by the president himself.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Russian government tried to impart a state ideology to schoolchildren. They were unsuccessful. However, with the war going on, Putin has made a point that this needs to change.
The war in Ukraine has raged for 5 months now, and whilst that is happening, Putin’s plan has come to the spotlight: to end the 30 years of openness Russia has had to the West.
The Kremlin (the Russian government) has jailed or exiled practically everyone speaking out against the war. They’ve also begun to crack down on what was left of Russia’s independent journalism such as academics, bloggers, and even sports players.
But despite that, the government has figured out that the children are the next generation, and having an entire generation of supporters is probably better than the generation that isn’t. And what better way to raise a this kind of generation than by controlling their education in Russia’s 40,000 public schools?
The new education initiatives would start in September to inject children’s minds with Mr. Putin’s militarized and anti-Western version of patriotism. And even before this starts, the propaganda is starting to sway people.
According to ninth-grader Irina, in Moscow, a computer class was replaced by the viewing of a state television report on Ukrainians surrendering to Russian troops, which was followed by a lecture about how you could only trust news from official Russian sources.
Irina had also noticed some changes in her friends who had been scared or confused by the war. “They suddenly started repeating everything after the television,” Irina said in a phone interview alongside her mother, Lyubov Ten. “They suddenly started saying that this is all deserved, that this had to happen. They couldn’t even attempt to explain this to me.” The Ten family moved to Poland, driven by their refusal to let their children grow up in a “militarized environment.”
It’s not just happening at home, however. Teachers have also noticed the same sort of things happening in their classrooms. In the city of Pskov, an English teacher, Irina Milyutina, said that before, the children in the school had had intense arguments over whether it was right or wrong to invade Ukraine, and sometimes even broke out scuffles. But none of that is happening anymore. The schoolchildren have begun to write Z’s and V’s—symbols of support for the war— on places like chalkboards and desks. During recess, says Milyutina, the older kids pretend to be Russian soldiers, “and those whom they don’t like very much they call Ukrainians.”
Mr. Novikov, the head of the Kremlin’s “public projects” directorate, also had something to say about the students. “While everything is more or less controllable with the younger ones, the older students receive information through a wide variety of channels,” he said, acknowledging the government’s fears about the internet swaying young people’s views. A poll last month by the independent Levada Center found that 36 percent of Russians aged 18 to 24 opposed the war in Ukraine, compared with just 20 percent of all adults.
In one of the classes, the topic is “hybrid conflicts being carried out against Russia.” It included a BBC report which contained a Russian attack in Ukraine and a statement from President Volodymyr Zelensky (president of Ukraine), which were presented as “fakes.”
The Kremlin is already working on its next “educational” ambitions. The education ministry published a proposed agreement last month revealed that Mr. Putin’s 20 years in power would make the standard curriculum a turning point while history classes will feature new subjects such as “the rebirth of Russia as a great power in the 21st century,” “reunification with Crimea,” and “the special military operation in Ukraine.” As government employees, teachers had little choice but to comply with these rules.
However, there is some resistance to these new rules. Dozens of teachers have refused to teach this spring’s propaganda classes. In some cases, principals who knew the classes were unpopular simply canceled them. “You just need to find the moral strength not to facilitate evil,” Sergei Chernyshov runs a private high school in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and has resisted promoting government propaganda, he said in a phone interview. “If you can’t protest against it, at least don’t help it.”
Some people have also used logic to fight back. For example, it is much harder to explain the concept of war to children than to grown adults. “A 10-year-old child is much more of a humanist than the typical Russian citizen,” says Mr. Chernyshov, the Novosibirsk school director. “It’s simply impossible to explain to a child in plain language why, right now, some people are killing others.”
The New York Times
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