Universities for parents

Title

Language

English

Source

Volume XV (Issue No.7) July 1963

Year

1963

Subject

Parenting education

Parenting

Family life education

Attitudes toward child rearing

Parent-child relationship

Child rearing

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Abstract

Mums and dads learn how to rear children for citizenship in a Soviet state.

Fulltext

■ Mums and dads learn how to rear children for citizenship in a Soviet state. UNIVERSITIES FOR PARENTS! And now its Parent’s Uni versities in the Soviet Union! These institutions of learn ing or mums and dads have sprung up in Moscow and Leningrad, in the Ukraine, and elsewhere. They offer one-and-two-year courses, de signed to make sure that the USSR’S expanding network of boarding schools and pre school establishments is back ed up by understanding and cooperation at home. Soviet mums and -dads take kiddy culture seriously. Studies include: school, child psychology by age groups, pedagogy in the home, read ing guidance, this last with much information about li terature. Additionally, elect ive courses cover domestic science, the cutting and sew ing of clothes, and so on. Courses in child hygiene equip parents with essential knowledge to “grow healthy and happy children.” The psychology courses acquaints them with psychic develop ment and its characteristics in different age groups. This information is held to be “necessary to parents for re solving their educational problems.” Heightened interest i n parents education at this time is due to the decisions of the 22nd Congress of the Soviet Communist Party, calling for completion by the year 1980 of transition from the socialist to the com munist society. A broad ex pansion has been projected in the system of pre-school facilities and boarding school, which gives the state an even greater control over the dev elopment and indoctrination of children. Making sure that the home does not un do the work of the school, parents are thoroughly in structed in the aims and techniques of Soviet educat ion in schools of their own — Parent’s Universities. In this connection, Pre mier Khrushchev’s demand at the 22nd Congress is quot 46 Panorama ed: "The generation of Com munism must be formed from childhood on, it must be nurtured and made hardy in youth; we must watch at tentively, Jest we have mo ral cripples, victims of im proper upbringing, and bad example.” It is made clear that no matter how much of the child’s rearing is taken over by the state, the parents are not relieved of their share of responsibility. In fact, any undesirable non-school in fluence is apt to be blamed on parental degree than ever before. Parents who attend their university for a special one year course take up child hygiene, psychology, ,and pe dagogy in the family. The two-year students grapple with reading guidance at home, and with advanced courses in psychology, peda gogy, and history of peda gogyAttending lectures and participating in seminars, they receive factual histories of child rearing at home, cases close to their own daily experience. The examples are analyzed in the light of the dominant educational theory. This initiates pa rents into applying the pedaggogical approach explain ing the cause-and-effect link between parental influence and child behavi'or, the atti tude of children to school work, to their contempora ries and elders. The Parent’s University at the Moscow State Univer sity has found especially use ful the written reports of parent students who tell of concrete changes on the fa mily scene, thanks to their study of psychology and pe dagogy. Soviet authors strongly advise provision within the Parent’s University frame work for individual and group consultations. It is recognized that parents feel the need to consult with the expert instructors. Ideally talks which are held bn days free of lectures and seminars have become extremely po pular. Parent education includes excursions to the Houses of Pioneers, sitting, in on les sons in their children’s schools, familiarization with the long-day schools (these do not return children to their homes until the adults July 47 of the family are back from work) and with children’s numerous clubs. Admission to Parent’s Uni versities. now is much easier than it was in some cases at the beginning. At the Mos cow State University any parent wishing to attend is allowed to do so even with out a written application. In fact, Parent’s Universi ties are a channel for effi cient and extensive propa gation of the principles of child rearing for citizenship in the communist state. Simplicity is the keynote in organizing Parent’s Uni versities. They may be at tached to such diverse or ganizations as Palaces of Culture, clubs, libraries, re sidential-complex administra tions, schools, teacher-train ing institutes, Homes of Pio neers, and others. Often one eager person sets up a small committee, which finds a qualified leader. Together they examine the likely pro grams of study, recruit lec turers, assist in research and preparation of materials, and attend to other organization matters. At Parent’s Universities, students are shown how their sons’ and daughters’ reading will evolve from year to year and they are introduced not only to extensive, carefully compiled book lists but also to independent orientation in the midst of a steady stream of new juvenile liter a t u r e. Reading-guidance lectures and seminars are often foljowed by "literary concerts” where school boys and girls read, recite, and dramatize works under re view. — London Express Service. CIRCUMSTANCE Earth wages open war against her children, and under her softest touch hides treacherous claws. The cool waters invite us in to drown; the domestic hearth bums up in the hour of sleep, and makes an end of all. Everything is good or bad, helpful or deadly, not in itself, but by its circumstances. — Robert Louis Stevenson. Panorama

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