Schooling, if that`s a word

Thanks to my work I have visited the special school recently. Special in the sense of just not the most typical. Jewish school and quite progressive (no, I was not suggesting that those were antonyms).

Anyway, the whole idea of such schools is international now. Originally they were created to give education – and more practical than theoretical, meaning useful in life – for Jewish kids, basically from low-income families.

Nowadays they are well equipped with IT tools, they have lovely (and playful) recreation halls and nice classrooms. There are lockers for pupils! (so easy and convenient, and so rare in other schools in Russia.)

All the signs are three-lingual, which looks just great. For some reason I made photos of only the doors, and not the general view.


The exhibition of Hebrew language manuals – retro and modern. Funny, but even knowing about the special letters and system (perhaps it can`t be even called "alphabet", because there are no alphas nor betas in Semitic languages), anyway I have never visualized the actual book in Hebrew, which in reality should be read from the other side, from the end to my sight of a person with the Indo-European languages family background.

Patch of spring sunlight on the glass



The smiling star on the photo congratulates everybody with the Teachers Day, which is actually celebrated in the beginning of October, but the star managed to survive till spring and is still giving us a smile.


Once there, I saw three under-teenage boys playing with the big toy-cars, you know, those with the controllers. That was pretty noisy, and though it was Friday afternoon and the boys were already free from their lessons, but it was still learning time for others. And as they were “racing’ with their cars in the large recreation hall close to classrooms, one of the teachers came to them and started to speak. I was not at any school for already many years of my life, but deep memories about my specialized grammar school in a provincial town are obviously still with me. And in my mind the possible conversation with such boys would be quick and resolved in a certain way from the beginning. I mean, the teacher would say pretty sharply something like “Stop it now!”, and the other side would obey with the deep feeling of guilt.

But here… I was watching it from my corner and totally enjoying the situation. They – both the teacher and the boys – started to speak! The teacher was explaining them about the others lessons, the boys were apparently complaining that there is no other place for these cars to be fully enjoyed. Then the teacher had to suggest them where to go, offering the keys from some bigger but free space, and they were just discussing the whole thing… She was also suggesting to stay with them them, so they definitely could use this opportunity. And that`s it, they made an agreement. I was sort of glad to see those boys, who were ready to protect their right to use the school space for some fun, and also to see this teacher speaking – and discussing! – things with the boys of like twelve years old… I never though I was so traumatized by my school experience, and I mean it in a positive way now.

Okay, here is about the whole ORT thing (you may click on the pink-ish words). As far as I understood, the name is based on the Russian abbreviation of the “Organization of Manual Labour (or handwork)” (remembering the original idea of such schools), and in Russian the actual words making this phrase are started with O, R and T, pronounced as “Organizatsyya Rutchnogo Truda”, for those who accepted the challenge to pronounce it in Russian :)

And here is the school. Situated in a typical old-school building, and numbered as 1299 (Moscow is really huge, there are like three thousand schools here). By the way I always determine the size of the town by finding out how many schools the town has. For example, my native Vladimir has approximately 40 schools (can be 41 now), and it is for the population of almost 350 thousand.

And now am finishing here, because actually am at work now (yes, sunny spring Sunday) - facilitating on the seminar organized in the office during the weekend. Some teachers from around the town, advancing thier IT skills for further tutoring work. My job today is simple, just organizing room, food and equipment for them, and doing whatever I want in between. Lunch soon and all is fine :)