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DON'T OVERLOAD SCHOOLKIDS, CALLS Mrs. PUTIN
MOSCOW, April 7 (RIA Novosti) - Overloads are Russian schoolchildren's scourge, said Ludmilla Putin, the Russian President's wife, as she called to protect the kids.
"Today's secondary school students are badly overworked. They are tired, even exhausted, as the result. They can't cope with their curricula, and come under bad stress," the First Lady said to Schooling Without Stress, a Russian-German seminar held in Moscow today to get together schoolteachers, Russian practicing psychologists, their colleagues from the German Psychological League, and parents of school-age boys and girls.
Arranging the seminar were the Russian Language Development Center regional public foundation, and the Moscow City University of Psychology and Pedagogy.
To last two days, the seminar aims to show there is a chance for the school to provide pupils the best possible psychological atmosphere, say the organizers.
"Though contemporary Russian school provides excellent tuition, it all too often suppresses students' independence and awareness of selfhood," Mrs. Putin pointed out in her opening address.
"Streaming starts with the very first tuition days to divide kids into excellent pupils and utter failures. That, too, accounts for psychological stress. We must put an end to it," she emphasized.
"The school is, of late, endangering children's health and progress," Rector Vladimir Rubtsov of the Moscow City University of Psychology and Pedagogy warned, in his turn.
He quoted alarming Age Physiology Institute statistics to prove the point. Roughly 20 per cent of children enrolled in primary school have diverse borderline psychological disorders. The percentage skyrockets by the time they finish primary school.
Schoolchildren are desperately pressed for time. That is one of the principal causes of overloads and psychological stress. Constant hurry is due to loads increasing with every passing day, and to inefficient tuition methods with marks for chief yardstick of a student's progress-it is judged by quantitative indices, and never mind the qualitative, said Mr. Rubtsov.
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