most of the teachers of Russian universities have switched to distance learning. How do you assess your own experience of online teaching?
Alexey Kozyrev: We are not prepared to the war! Long and exhausting succeeded each other educational standards. GEF, GEF 3 GEF 3+, GEF 3++… Faster than it did brand iPhones. For each new standard pererisovyvali educational-methodical complexes. Teachers are taught to play competencies, they were at loggerheads from the template did not speak to heart and soul words, educational institutions have got special people who for a bribe tried to fill these huge sheets for teachers. Especially hard all this was felt in the provinces, where any expert of the Ministry of education had grown to the extent of Gogol’s the inspector General, only addition is endowed with real powers, until the withdrawal of the universities accreditation. And it turned out that all this to anything. What to prepare for was quite different. And teachers using laptops and smartphones, bought with the savings from the modest wages savings, began to download software zoom and skype, frantically to figure out how not to lose his job, giving the appearance of the educational process in distant format. No one even thought about the fact that distant learning is not just lecturing in front of the camera, where the image can be of any quality, the sound may be too quiet, and the picture may freeze, making the process in the torments of hell, distant learning is developed by the educational platform, developed and run, this is the Internet, installed in every home not only cities but also remote villages, this is special training to work on these platforms, it is pre-developed and tested teaching materials, questionnaires, tests, other forms of remote control and more. It was not invested any special tools. I know that the students of many universities gave a history of Russian philosophy in my course on the portal “Postnauka”. Before the quarantine, I had written dozens, maybe even hundreds of lectures in various online lectures. It was a full-fledged University lectures and a 10-15 minute clips, and even entire online courses. So, I did it purely voluntarily, without receiving any money or while getting the symbolic alms. Activities to create an educational video was before the pandemic personal matter between each of us, something of a hobby.
comfortable for you Personally online?
Alexey Kozyrev: the Word “comfortable” is not very suitable. “Comfortable” does the teacher in the pulpit? Or for the party leader of the seminar? It’s a job. Like it or not, you are in the mood or not, whether joyful events in your life or sadnessnye, you have to get up and read so that students did not notice. I know that this work has a truly therapeutic effect, is tired, normal pressure, and even illness often goes, when the day of the lecture. Lecture or a conversation online is also mobilized. But to a lesser extent. A change here means a lot. Communication after the lecture. The ability to answer questions. To exchange with colleagues, share the news in the cafeteria. At the time you chose your path, denying myself some of the temptations and even the dividends not to Drudge online.
And depends on how many online. We at MSU are not overloaded with “throat” for hours in contrast to private universities, where the maximum permissible load on the teacher (like the maximum permissible dose of radiation) immediately becomes minimal. It sometimes happens that this morning you spend two online classes, then any meeting or participate in an online conference, then in the evening to record lectures on digital media so that students could listen to it not only in the hours of study as scheduled, but at any time convenient for them. After that, do not feel not only lonely, but even the desire of normal human communication is lost.
How to understand online education? This mechanical transfer of forms and practices of classical education in “udalenka” or fundamentally new forms of learning that have yet to be developed? On Soviet television there was a special genre – drama, which worked brilliant Directors, for example, Anatoly Efros. It was a special genre of television art, and not a recorded performance of any theatre. Online learning is also a special “genre” that has yet to create and master?
Alexey Kozyrev: the Drama is a lovely genre. He didn’t cancel the need to go to the theater. But he could, for example, to immortalize Plyatt and Ranevskaya in “And then silence…”. Alas, to us and our children on the stage they will not see. And then there is the audiobook. Also a genre. For everybody. Sometimes there are good readers, and not necessarily the actors. It is important insight into the spirit of the book and the coincidence that she heard inside of you, with what you hear from the speakers of the stereo. Online education even more specific. My daughter is studying to be a tailor. Her practice in the Studio broke. The Atelier was closed because of quarantine shortly before practice time. The state exam she will take online. Can a person learn to sew online? And treat teeth? And sharpen details on the machine? And to do surgery on high-tech equipment? And to learn acting or becoming a musician? Maybe a liberal arts education is to a lesser extent the victims. But the problem is t��m that the higher the educational level, the greater the need for independent, creative research work. And it is impossible without archives and libraries. It is impossible to digitize everything. If only because history does not stand still. And if we don’t get students in a real, not a digital library, teach them to pore over folios and flip through mountains of books, new acquisitions to the archives will not. Come in the best era of conceited scribblers. And the problem here did not start with the coronavirus. A few years ago I was in the Library of Sainte Genevieve in Paris. It is publicly available. But there are students of the Sorbonne. To get into a huge two thousand places hall, I had an hour to stand in line. There was no availability. Our enormous, like a Palace the new Moscow state University Scientific library is empty. Students have not developed requirements to work there. They are accustomed to the fact that everything you need is on the Internet.
Online Supplement to the traditional form of teaching or its replacement in the near future?
Alexey Kozyrev: Future to some extent is a reflection of our inner world. Some live to be sure that the Apocalypse will come the day after tomorrow. Then online education is no need. It was thought that online education will be cheap and mass. For the rich will remain traditional offline education. But then we learn that Cambridge has announced that next academic year the classes will take place online, in the classroom students will not return. In Cambridge employs smart people and maybe they know something we don’t know, about our future. Maybe someone put in front of them such a task? As an experiment? We now stand at a certain threshold. Epidemics and pandemics in the history of mankind was not the first time, and universities have closed. Nova is not a pandemic, and the attitude of mankind, and expressed on a planetary scale. And here, perhaps, we should not immediately update the conspiracy theory. Previous pandemics have occurred in fundamentally different circumstances of communication. Humanity was not so flexible, and people are less circulated from country to country. The USSR was not a mass foreign tourism, for example. In docorating era, we have become accustomed to the format of online conferences. Although still often dealt with one or several online reports, typically pre-recorded, to avoid overlapping with the connection that brings in the most unsuitable moment. The transition in some universities to a new system of protection also allowed the participation of one or several members or opponents on Skype. But even in my memory of online lectures was not. Or not, I read, at the invitation of colleagues from Bordeaux. But the opportunity in remote universities to listen to video lectures or watch videos of recognized experts, and it has been used successfully. But it didn’t cancel the need for reading in their courses. Go to the online means to make a confident step towards the abolition of classes in General. As it is trying to do now with the University philosophy.
Online this is not full time and not part-time, and probably some other form of training. To master it, probably will have everything, not only the teachers but also the students? Will change and the forms of educational control and management of the educational process?
Alexey Kozyrev: Is a form of learning – “part-time”. What it is, nobody knows. Just less contact hours. As if student full-time tuition spends all his time at the Institute! In order to expand the system of training online, of course, the teacher will have to work hard. The question here is not about forwarding assignments and reading tests, which implies the correspondence form of training, and constant contact with the student, the existence of complex virtual grounds, where there are more or less uniform requirements, standards have been developed, a special kind of control and measuring materials, as it refers to our educational power. Education here becomes obsessive quest, from which you cannot exit. Because in real time you can go to the student meet, to allow them to delay the delivery of the project, to rewrite a poorly written essay. E-learning part, in my vision, and will be more harsh and merciless to the student. She will accustom him to the conveyor belt, but now is not factory, and digital.
Distant teaching is not just lecturing on the “distance” is a specialized platform that allows you to train systematically, assess the degree of mastering of a course, become a place of interaction of the teacher and the student. The result of such training should be the development of student curriculum, professional development or basic education. Therefore, we should provide reports of examinations and tests. Long before the coronavirus we were asked to evaluate the possibility risks of integrating foreign educational platforms in the system of Russian education. On the instructions of the government of the Russian Federation, our faculty conducted a study was a clear need for the development of their own platforms, like Coursera. MSU was involved in this work, launched the platform “University without borders”. Some steps in this direction were made by some Federal universities, for example, Baltic Federal University of Immanuel Kant. But the main motive behind the creation of such platforms was considered economization of education. We are not able yet to establish an effective national system of cifrovoj�� education, and even to approach her.
Online education, online trade, online work is, in your opinion, start in the future or trying to adjust to nasty real? The pandemic will end and we will be back to the usual routine of life?
Alexey Kozyrev: we Have no reason yet to think otherwise. So I think those who think the pandemic is hand made and designed for some inconceivable cunning conspiratorial purposes. If humanity decided to destroy itself, the online life is the best step to online immortality in the vastness of Facebook or some other virtual columbarium. But if we proceed from the fact that throughout the history of the trials of war, epidemics, invasions of the lands – were followed by relatively stable periods of development, and the ending of a pandemic is not predicted us losing our human form and human nature. We should appreciate what we’ve lost in these days and months of quarantine. Perhaps more important will be for us the value of communication, art, religion, education, families having their homes and their shelter from the external storms. Maybe the government will mainly have to think about the culture, not doomed to half-starved existence of the actors, librarians, musicians, teachers of music colleges and theatre schools. Maybe would think that the transition to grant system of financing science is not the optimal form of its existence, and the banal cut the already meager budget on this science allocated. The scientists ‘ work on English-language publications in the databases, representing someone’s private business projects, there is nothing like a veiled, and sometimes open betrayal of national interests.
If this is a new reality in which we now have to live, how you treat her? She pleases you? Scary? Catch? Makes you change? Are you ready to go meet her, or will resist as much?
Alexey Kozyrev: Well, it is clear that the forest will not run away. The forest is our native element. We came out of the Woods. And we, philosophers, and even Aristotle from the forest. So he called the first matter of all. Have bibihin was a lecture course “Forest”. Except that hide in the digital forest, a forest of digital technology. There are different people. Every single person has the right to choose. Someone will say: go to work as a taxi driver. Someone will retire. The experience of past months shows that not all teachers were able to harness distant lectures in Zoom. And not only talking about the elderly. What to say about the teachers! We noticed that many students do not include the camera, when listening to lectures, and go online often under nicknames. Not worth CPA��have to accuse them of tactlessness or breach of ethics. The fact of the matter is that any sustainable ethics in this field is still not formed. Young people used to refer to virtual reality as entertainment and games, where you can hide text, dominated by the principle of anonymity. Hence counter-trend “gamification”, the turning of education into a series of games. The game not only allows in a lightweight form to learn academic material, but also creates values, plastic and imperceptibly altering them, arranged under the optimum specified by the author of the game. So from education services, we are moving towards education and entertainment. Even the term arose – “pop-education” is akin to “pop culture”. However, it is not necessary to go to the Internet. One of our local universities told us that the course of philosophy is read in mass audience and for the entire course in this form – to solve the crosswords, put theatrical performances. Well, maybe in a similar theatrical education and have some sense. But at a basic level in the first year, the student again has the option to return to the preparatory group of the preschool. Peaks in the profession he thus unlikely to reach. But it will increase self-esteem – how easy it is, you can “pass” and “pass” philosophy.
what do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of contactless communication in different spheres of our life?
Alexey Kozyrev: Communication is a kind of communication. The word “fellowship” involves the search for a common among people. Hence “communion”, “communion” something important and meaningful to humans. Communication could be the transfer of something, such as information. It can be single-sided, letter in one direction without waiting for a response. Often we get in our email distribution, including from the government authorities and banks, with a mark “on this letter do not need to answer”. Therefore, in cases where I need something to transmit or receive, noncontact suits me perfectly. The salary listed on a map “Peace,” makes you forget about those times when we were standing in line in a stuffy hallway, and money even before you and ended! But it happened in the 90-ies. And almost always! But agree that there is a difference in buying milk from a “friend” of the cow, when even cough once refused to talk, and the acquisition of a plastic bag with milk in the supermarket. Children, they say, is now also possible to have contactless, and not even necessarily for medical reasons.
getting Rid of the need to “go to work” will have a number of consequences. Disappear such concepts as “working atmosphere”, “office dress code” and even “office romance”… Production space in something “calculations��will omicida”. How to treat this? Be glad that there will be no “meeting of the labor collective”, the lunch breaks with colleagues rumor-bones and “hanky from accounting”?
Alexey Kozyrev: Of the following could be likely to regret about “the service novel” than “town hall meetings” and “dress code”. But anything, anything in return, for example, a collection of new romantic stickers, bonus gigabytes to the cloud, or access free online cinema for special labor achievements. It will remain the same old movies. Let the children show and tell what it was. Unless, of course, without the “office romances” will still be possible children. Oh, I forgot, there are still non-contact methods!
Live communication is not only speech, but also facial expressions, gestures, intonation… It’s a sad smile, and a surprised, raised eyebrow… the nuances of online is not in demand, moreover, he bad reports. And again the question: how to treat this? To adopt a standardization of human communication as the inevitable? To agree that a “conversation”, “conversation” will be replaced (apart from the dictionary – style of life) “communication”?
Alexey Kozyrev: I think that conversation already replaced the interview. Or at least an interview. The conversation with the expected end. But conversations and interviews – they are completely different genres. The interviewer already knows everything about his companion. And the answer is predictable. The loss of culture associated with loss of sensitivity of communication is immeasurable. Even the population of smiles, in all their diversity and beschislennoe subspecies has declined considerably. So we don’t have to say that there will be something radically new in our communication. In our personal conversations, the word more is replaced with a smiley face. With the help of emoticons, sophisticated and experienced users can write the whole text without resorting to verbal language or to a minimum reducing the number of characters.
Ivan Ilyin said that there is the talent of communication. In this sense, there are people more talented and less talented. There are introverts and extroverts. There are those who need to build a great company, to celebrate his birthday, and those who spend the holiday in the company of one close person. Communication is impossible unification. Finally, the style of the email or correspondence in the messenger too, you can learn a lot about the nature and characteristics of the person. Someone noticed that digitalization connected to the process of communication a huge number of people who have never communicated in writing. A letter for them to write impossible task. In Soviet times it was customary to send cards for the holidays for all family members, close relatives and significant friends. The meaning of this card was not in the text, wrote, as a rule, sune is almost the same. The point was that I didn’t forget about you, that you are! And here. But I fear that social distance, the oxymoron, consisting of conflicting concepts may be extended if delayed quarantine. People can grow out of communication. The animal is pulled out of its natural environment and placed in a cage of zoo, loses part of its skills and habits. It is difficult, and even dangerous, to return back. So it can happen with “graduirovannam beast”, which Karl Popper predicted the loneliness inside the “open society”. But you need to destroy not only education. For this you need to destroy religion, to abolish the remnants of the traditional family, to destroy theatres, museums, libraries. I would not want to live up to the blasphemer, who dares to do it!
