First graders and their school environment
as depicted in German and Russian primers since the 1970s
by Wendelin Sroka, Bonn (Germany)
Introducation
Reading primers (azbuki, bukvary, Fibeln), designed as school textbooksfor grade 1, often contain illustrations and texts depicting school life. In certain instances, pictures in these books stand alone, covering one or two pages, construed as inducements for teacher-class dialogue. Such pictures also accompany short texts, and againthese units provide opportunities for classroom talk. This paper presents a comparative analysis of portrayals of school life – primarily the life of first graders at school – in primers published in Germany and Russia from the 1970s to present.
What can be achieved with such an analysis? An article in aGerman exhibition catalogue on “Primers from all over the world” summarizes findings about the representation of the school in primers as follows:
Worldwide, the school is depicted in the primer with nearly the same characteristics (blackboard, school desks etc.); even the simplest building still emanates institutionalisation, and cultural peculiarities appear only rarely. A closer look reveals nuances of school reality – from cooperative-informal to disciplinary.[1]
Are such propositions based on a thorough analysis of the material and on a well-grounded understanding of the school and its historical variations? In contrast to the quoted statement, the basic assumption of the overview presented here is that the primerin its capacity as the first schoolbookis designed as a tool to socialise children at the beginning of their school career according to very specific values of the institution. In particular, representations of the school and children at school as presented in primers a) may shed some light on how school culture and the role of the child are construed by representatives of the educational authorities under given political and cultural circumstances, b) are decisively normative in that they try to convince children at the beginning of their school career about both the desirability and the normality of very specific social patterns of school life, and c) reveal, compared over time and across countries, a considerable variance as to how school life and the role of the child are defined. Due to changes which societies in both Germany and Russia have undergone since the 1970s, the comparison of primers in the perspective of school life and children at school seems particularly rewarding.[2]
Representations of school life and children in educational texts can be analysed from a broad range of angles. This paper focuses on two perspectives: The first perspective is on the interaction between the child and the teacher. Here, more traditional models conceive learning primarily as a process in which the pupil receives knowledge by a knowledgeable person, resulting in teacher-led instruction. Constructivist models, on the other hand, characterise learning as a mainly self-directed and active process, with instructional designs facilitating individualised learning, including e.g. learning in small groups. The second perspective is the school as children’s living space. Again, older models tend to confine the school as the place for the provision of classroom instruction, with the end of the school day often at lunchtime. Other concepts, not least those of all-day schooling, see the school as children’s ordinary whereabouts during daytime, and well beyond the hours of classroom instruction.
The primers used as sources for this overview – school textbooks for initial mother tongue reading instruction in grade 1 of the primary school – are:
- primers in German language published in the Federal Republic of Germany,
- primers in Russian language published in the RussianSovietFederativeSocialistRepublic and in the Russian Federation.
The school textbooks consulted here – and this is especially true for the German primers – are selected by random sample. Also, this brief overview does not include primers published and used in the German Democratic Republic or for Russia’s national minorities – two other types of text which would certainly deliver a broader picture of the theme. In this sense, this overview has to be classified as a first, explorative study, which may later be resumed to provide more systematic and in-depth analyses.
Pupils at school in German primers
In the Federal Republic of Germany, schools and/or teachers can by tradition choose from a variety of school textbooks available on the market. This section focuses on three primers: Meine Fibel [My primer], a school textbook published since the 1960s and for decades with ever revised versions, Die Fibel mit dem Luftballon [The primer with the balloon], published in the 1990s and Piri 1, a primer published since 2008.
The 1972 version of Meine Fibel starts with a two-page colour picture of a classroom scene (Thiele 1972, p. 2f.). The front of the room is dominated by the blackboard and the teacher’s desk, with pupil’s desks for two children each in rows and directed towards the front of the room.The picture presents a female teacher and pupils at the beginning of a lesson. Most of the pupils sit at their desks, preparing their papers; two neighbours talk with each other, and a boy knees on his chair trying to reach his schoolbag which is hanging besides his desk. The teacher in the centre of the room, elegant in her short dress and high heels, is pointing to the floor, encouraging a pupil to raise an apple which has fallen from his desk. While this scene does not display interaction during classroom work, but rather its preparation, the arrangement makes it very clear that it is the teacher who directs what is going on in the classroom.
A newpicture of classroominteraction is presented in Die Fibel mit dem Luftballon, published in 1992 (Wölker 1992, p. 10f.). It is again a scene with a female teacher and pupils, now addressing classroom work. The teacher’s desk is still in the front of the room, but pupils’desks are arranged now basically in a semicircle, with some of the desks assembled in pairs, facilitating work in small groups. Actors in the centre are two pupils, one of them a boy with a blindfold, the other a blind girl, both trying to touch and feel certain kinds of fruit. All other pupils sit at their desks. Some of them watch this scene, and so does the teacher, dressed with a green pullover, standing as an observer in the last row, whereas other pupils are busy with other work.
The concept of individualised learning and behaviour is further developed in the picture of a classroom scene in the Piri primer, published in 2008 (Donth-Schäffer 2008, p. 6f.). Pupils’ desks are arranged here in sets of three, with six pupils each forming a group. Other children sit on a big carpet in a corner of the room, but there is no teacher’s desk any more. A girl is busy at the blackboard writing names, observed both by the teacher standing besides her and by some of the pupils sitting at their desks. Other pupils do writing exercises on paper or – this applies especially to the members of the carpet group – cut names written on cardboards into syllables. Yet there are also two boys showing some sort of deviant behaviour: Ole, just entering the classroom, is apparently late, while hungry little Max turns away from classroom activities to eat his sandwich.
In sum, the analysis of the pictures in primers selected here reveals a certain development from teacher centred instruction to individualised learning. At the same time, the pictures suggest that this development is not absolute. While already the 1972 primer presents pupils as individuals and with individual behaviour, the 2008 primer gives the teacher a role which is in fact more than that of a mere spectator.
As regards the school as children’s living space, this aspect is described in Meine liebe Fibel (1972) only in a limited way. A picture in this book illustrates a small town with a number of prominent buildings and sites, among them town hall, marketplace, church, post office, train station, hospital and school (ibid., p. 86 f.). The diversity of situations with children presented in this primer suggests that the real living space of the children is the family environment on the one hand and the town where they live on the other hand. This basic observation also applies for Die Fibel mit dem Luftballon(1992), where, apart from the classroom scene, the only other reference to school life is the provision of school milk by a machine (Wölker 1992, p. 122). In contrast,Piri 1(2008) devotes many pages to the topic of the school as children’s living space, with a focus on the class as a social unit and social behaviour at school. For example, the section “This is how I wish my class” (p. 56 f.) has six sub-themes with pictures, accompanied by headings like “All are silent”, “Sometimes we are allowed to whisper”, “I listen as long as others are speaking” or “Nobody hustles” (Donth-Schäffer 2008, p. 56 f.). In a diachronic perspective, the school plays a growing role as a theme in primers, especially in that it is presented as a place of children’s social and moral learning.
Pupils at school in Russian primers
This section considers Russian primers, published in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and in the Russian Federation. The selection includes the bukvar’ prepared by the Academy of Arts of the USSR and by researchers of the Academy of Educational Sciences of the USSR (Archangel’skaja1972),the 1981 and 1993 editions of the bukvar’ compiled by V. G. Goreckij et al. and the bukvar’ by L. E. Zhurova and A. O. Evdokitova, published in 2008.[3]
The 1972 bukvar’ presents a number of pictures and texts related to children’s school life, but it is remarkable that definite classroom situationsare not incorporated as a theme in this book. Yet in the 1981 edition of the primer by Goretskij, two text-picture units address classroom scenes. The first unit is about “SSSR – the country of the Soviets”, with the heading displayed both in the text and in the picture, in the latter case written on the blackboard (Goretskij 1981, p. 54). The picture presentsfirst graders in school uniformssittingin rows at their desks. They listen to the teacher who stands in front of the class, upholding a copy of the Soviet Constitution. The second unit is entitled “in class” (ibid., p. 61). The text describes a teacher-pupil interaction, with the teacher encouraging a boy to write on the blackboard. This situation is illustrated in the picture: the teacher sits at her desk, handing over chalk to the boy, who is about to write the words “mama”, “peace” and “Moskva”. In the 1993 edition of this primer, the first unit on “SSSR – the country of the Soviets” has been replaced by an exercise not related to school life. In contrast, the second unit has survived, with a new illustration depicting the same situation.
The bukvar’ by L. E. Zhurova and A. O. Evdokitova (2008) starts with a series of illustrations depicting the first day at school, with two pictures displaying classroom scenes (Zhurova/Evdokitova 2008, p. 5), one of them without and the other with a teacher. The basic arrangement in the classroom – with pupils sitting in rows, expecting teacher’s action – is very similar to the one known since decades. However, pupils seem to communicate in an atmosphere of tense curiosity.
In the 1972 primer, the school as children’s living space is addressed in a number of pictures, some of them art work, by illustrating e.g. groups of Octobrists, the school choir or pupils at physical education (Archangel’skaja 1972, pp. 37, 38, 58 f.). However, much more attention is paid to this theme in the 1981 primer, where the school is presented primarily as a place of political education: When first graders are welcomed by the teacher on September 1, the backgrounds holds ready a map with the inscription “Our motherland – SSSR” (Goretskij 1981, p. 3), and a picture illustrating the ceremony of Octobrist enrolment is accompanied by a text stating “Earlier we only were pupils …” (ibid., p. 89). These elements of political education have all disappeared in the 1993 edition of Goretskij’s primer.
Psychological issues related to children’s experience at school are brought up in the 2008 primer in a number of reading passages. They include stories about a pupil who is sad, missing his parents, and about a boy who wants to give up learning in favour of real work, later to be taught by experience that attending school is better for him (Zhurova / Evdokitova 2008, p. 67 f.).
Summary
Representations of social aspects in primers, including those of school life, will as a rule have to be seen rather as pedagogical ideals than as reproductions of social reality. In addition, the consideration of a limited number of textbooks does not allow comprehensive conclusions on general trends of such ideals. Nevertheless the pictures of school life as identified here informs us about certain preferences of views on the subject, and under conditions of a textbook market these views will be shared at least by groups of teachers. On this basis, the comparative overview supports two hypotheses:
The German and the Russian primer of the 1970s have in common that they describethe interaction between the child and the teacher primarily as teacher-led instruction. Whereas this approach is still reflected in the contemporary Russian primer, their German counterparts tend to display more characteristics of child-centred learning in the classroom.
The school as children’s living space is not really considered in the German primers of the 1970s and 1990s, but very much so in their Soviet-Russian counterparts, not least in that the school is explicitly presented there as a place of political education. In both countries, modern primers consulted for this overview pay considerable attention to the school as a place of children’s social learning and psychological development. It is not least in the responsibilityof teachers if and how they deal with these themes during their work with the primer, encouraging first grader’s thinking about their life in a new social environment.
Sources (Germany):
Donth-Schäffer, Cornelia (2008): Piri 1. Silbenfibel. Stuttgart/Leipzig: Klett Verlag
Thiele, Ruth et al. (1972): Meine liebe Fibel. Bochum: Kamp Verlag
Wölker, Isolde et al. (1992): Die Fibel mitdem Luftballon. München: Bayerischer Schulbuch-Verlag
Sources (Russia):
Archangel’skaja, N. et al. (1972): Bukvar‘. Moskva: Prosveshchenije, izdanie sedmoje
Goreckij, Vseslav Gavrilovich et al. (1981): Bukvar‘. Moskva: Prosveshchenije
Goreckij, Vseslav Gavrilovich et al. (1993): Bukvar‘. Uchebnik dlja 1 klassa trekhletnej nachal’noj shkoly. Moskva: Prosveshchenije, 13-e izdanie
Zhurova, L. E.; Evdokitova, A. O. (2008): Bukvar’. Uchebnik dlja uchashichsja obsheobrazovatel’nych uchrezhdenij. V trekh chastjakh. Chast’ pervaja. Moskva: Ventana-Graf
[1] Schweitzer, Robert (1985): Kinder lernen lesen: Fibeln aus aller Welt. Ausstellungskatalog [Children learn to read: Primers from all over the world. Exhibition catalogue]. Nürtingen, p. 71.
[2] For an overview of the picture of the school in German primers from the 17th century to the 1990s see Grömminger, Arnold (2001): Das Bild der Schule in der Fibel [The picture of the school in the primer]. In: Idem (ed.): Geschichte der Fibel. Frankfurt am Main, pp. 99-108.
[3] Context information on schooling in the RSFSR in the perspective of the history of childhood is provided in Kelly, Catriona (2008): Children’s World. Growing up in Russia 1890-1991. New Haven and London, pp. 495-569.