Do Not Bounce Your Head Around And Smile!

The state makes enormous efforts to be ready for September 1.

You may think that our state does not care about our children. Big mistake: you look only on the surface and this is an optical illusion. Of course, when we learn that in August many European countries allocate money to parents for their children to be prepared for an academic year, we have something on our mind.

The situation here is just the opposite - astronomical sums of money which force parents to take out loans, and it's getting more and more expensive to send your child to school, and the cost of domestic clothes is rather higher than in London or Milan. And you start thinking that the state does not care. No way, it's just too busy. The state makes enormous efforts to be ready for September 1. It conceives and builds while we are looking for an outline drawing. It does its best to make this holiday unforgettable.

In mid-August all schools of the Minsk region received instructions on September 1. Officials of the regional department of education strictly ordered to comply with instructions and provide scenarios of the First Bell. I guess the best minds worked on these instructions.

"A presenter should avoid such phrases as "short summer vacation", "last years", and do not use much poetry and get rid of fairy-tale characters." And that's right, I like it. Talks of vacation is restricted, because the state can't control school children duting this period, and it's hazardous. Don't be a hobbyist in fairy-tale characters. Bogeywoman will be breed in the collective.

And then comes the best instruction which is worth of all the money we pay to officials in the form of taxes. Now I know that we invest in future of our children. Well, here are instructions regarding first-graders:

"It should be a classical melody or a song. Children follow the route marked earlier, smile and do not look around. If they bring flowers, they should be as high as children.

That's it; children follow the fixed route not looking around. Can you imagine first-graders behaving like this? I can't. But the state believes that six year old citizens who bounce their heads around in a foreign place and march in step are incomplete. However, it does not specify the direction children should look at. The only obvious response is to look at the floor.

And in the end there is the First Bell. Officials say it should be like that: "A presenter should describe the holiday with one phrase and to announce the First Bell. Children are ready and march in step with the music on perimeter." I immediately come with the picture of a small prison yard and calling turnkey: "Arms behind back, move in a circle!" I could not but wonder how it was possible, because the school yard was square. The turnkey answered: "Walk on perimeter then!"

This is the same prison yard but at schools now. Walk on perimeter, do not turn your head around, march in step. Perfect prisoner of six years old is the greatest achievement of the state. Even flowers should be as high as first graders. There may be a person at the entrance to measure stems and height of a child. And the adopted proportion "flowers-child" will be sent out by the courier service.

We've got used to laugh at barrenness of intellect. We laugh at comrade Ogurtsov (The Carnival Night) and his numerous reincarnations. We laugh at newspeak of guidance notes and instructions. We laugh at those who come up with these guidance notes. But this degree of barrenness of intellect is not funny at all. It's unbearable. You try to laugh by force of habit and you realize you are tired. You have no strength to laugh. It's simplier to do for children, they have not lived under it for decades. Though the system affirms "these children are ready." They will be slow-cooked for 11 years.

And it starts right after marching on perimeter. Following the scenario, then children have a lesson "I'm lucky to be born here". That's the best way to say it.

Iryna Khalip, especially for Charter97.org