Reactions of the Establishment

Abstract

Reactions from the Establishment to the proposals of the teacher innovators were varied. With the advent of Gorbachev to power there had been changes in the leadership of the organizations concerned, but there were still many conservatives in the education ministries and in the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, as well as among the senior teaching staff who were against any radical reforms.

I think that reproaching the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences for the fact that it was created forty-five years ago on Stalin’s personal directive is a forbidden tactic. The reproach lies elsewhere. It is that once created by Stalin, the Academy loyally served the consolidation of Stalinist pedagogy and even now is trying to preserve the shattered fragments of this pedagogy, which suppresses children and attempts to shape them to a common standard.

V.A. Karakovsky¹