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Notes -
Before I am tempted to make snarky comments about American schooling vis a vis the Soviet system, would you care to elaborate on what school life was like in those days? I'm curious what the experience was like.
To be quite honest - I forgot. I blame it never being the bad/horrible expirience.
Of course there was always outstanding moments(both good and bad).
I remember the subjects that I loved and teachers that were receptive to my zeal. Damn, history was my jam. Mathematics too, until we got to integrals in the last year(?) and I just couldn't grasp that and that hit me pretty hard with some sort of "imposter syndrome" that only got away in university. Some extracurricular clubs like a radio one that I joined for a year. Participated in a few competitions between schools that my teachers took seriously and we got a lot of knowledge to cram on a short notice.
Some pranks on a teachers, and getting punished in return. Gym class that everyone hated except of few people(like this guy) that thought "hey running 1.5km timed seems like a good idea". Even though you didn't have the time for shower afterwards and wet towel was the only thing saving you for next few lessons.
Overall I would describe my time in school as "busy". There was just enough time before the next thing and after that some activities and bus home took me like 30min, some homework and I spend the rest of the day outside with the neighborhood friends that mostly were going to different schools than me. I remember being absorbed quite frequently with a fantasy book that usually kept me awake till 2am, and then I realize that I can't get back to sleep anyway so might as well read until my eyes will close themselves.
The only regret I guess is that I didn't get a girlfriend during that time, so no romance stories. And then I learned that a few of girls were hitting on me but I was too thick to notice.
Edit: But I guess I'm glossing over your question so let me try to remember and describe my schedule on a weekday.
->waking at 7:30, light breakfast
->travel to school on a bus -30min
->arrive sometime before first lesson, have a chat in classroom with whoever in at the time, grab books/notes for next three lessons and leave the rest as to not drag the heavy backpack around.
->8:30 class start 45min long with 15min break between. Usually chatting amongst the classmates/friends from same age or 1year higher/lower form other classrooms nearby. Or talking to teachers while they are preparing for the lesson.
->11:30 long break for 30min (I think). Replace books/notes for next 2-3 lessons. Can get grub from cafeteria (I usually had sandwich from home for this time). Good time to go outside if weather permits.
->12 another 2-3 lessons in a row.
->about 15 do afterschool stuff if needed. Go to swimming pool for a practice on tue/thu. Or spend around 1 hour talking with friends that live near the school. Occasionally spent near a huge metal contraption that looked like two-story pyramid. Yes....we did have a game to try a knock each other off it.
->17 at home for quick homework and dinner
->18:30 outside time (unsupervised, heh)
->usually at 21 at home doing maybe other homework, reading books, pc time. (mostly because sun is down)
->22-23 go to sleep
I think your response is actually a good way to illustrate why school shooting makes sense in an American context and why it doesn't in a Russian/rest of the world context. Your summary of school is pretty unemotional, including a list of daily routines and focusing on the drudgeries of your daily life. You just mention girls for one line. When Americans are asked about their highschool experience, especially young men online, you're likely to get a lot more of an emotional response, with a more bombastic tone and a litany of perceived injustices that they experienced. Americans generally want to be the most successful and well liked and popular person in the school and they often can't stand accepting their place somewhere else on the totem pole. Young American men are driven to externalizing their problems, blaming the social situation rather than on themselves or something outside of everyone's control, so to punish the externalized enemies is more logical in the American context than in most countries. Any time the weak are able to be armed it's really no surprise that sometimes they will take the opportunity to try to claw back some dignity through violence.
Is that because American high schools are vastly different or is it American culture? The big difference I see between American culture in general is the sense of focus on indignities suffered, things that are lacking, or the bad feelings these things engender.
I think a large measure of violence, especially the spree-shooting type of violence is caused by the way Americans are taught to expect things and to focus on feelings of indignity, failure, and other negatives. There’s a pervading meme of entitlement in America, and as others have said, finding fault with the outside world when the promised good life fails to materialize. If there were a profile of the spree-shooter, it would go something like this:
A child of middle class parents, [shooter] had drifted in life, ending up with very few friends, a low wage job, often had failed out of college or trade school. He/she (most often a he) spent most of his time online, and had very few friends and no significant other. He/she often still lives at home.
The child has a problem of failure to launch or at least successfully launch. He’s been sold on the idea of the American dream, where he’s supposed to have a good job, a girlfriend, lots of friends, and their own place. They have none of that, they’re supposed to, but they don’t. And the other part of this is because of the growth of esteem culture (the idea that everyone is just naturally good and worthy without the need for growth and change), and therapeutic culture (the idea that all feelings are valid and true and you should fully welcome them and dwell on them) creates a toxic stew in people who for various reasons don’t have what they were promised, aren’t ever going to get it, and are doing exactly what society says to do — stew in the negative energy and negative feelings.
Now other cultures have done much better. Confucians believe in enjoying the moment, in looking to self-cultivation, and in fulfilling social obligation. Traditional religions say “this is God’s will”. Stoicism and Buddhism say that clinging to things is bad and makes you miserable. In any other system, the idea is not “rage against the world and the people who have wronged you,” that’s American culture where we see not getting our way less as a common part of the human experience, but as a sign of great injustice that must be fixed. Shooting people, essentially, is the equivalent of the child who throws a tantrum because mom wouldn’t buy him a toy at Walmart.
Yes. I agree with everything you said, but you put it more eloquently than I did. Thank you. The entitlement and immaturity of American people is really shocking after you've spent time away from it for a while, from my experience as an American.
When I was in Europe recently, people kept asking me about Karens in America. I didn't understand why everyone was so hung up on Karens, surely Europeans have Karens too? But then I realized that they really don't have the same culture of entitlement that America has, so they largely don't have Karens either. School shooters are basically operating with the same mindset as Karens but with guns instead of screaming at an Apple store employee. People in Europe also seem more secure in their place in society, it would be ridiculous for a rich Frenchwoman to scream at a clerk for example, it's just not done because people have internalized their own class and status in a way that America has yet to solidify.
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This is all interesting, thank you. Doesn't seem too radically different in terms of structure and substance from the Western way (at least, on the surface).
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I have somehow never really considered what schooling was like in the USSR, so if you ever care to write more about it, I'd be happy to read it!
The problem is that one would be comparing their memories of a Soviet school with the synthesized version of the generic American school from the media, which isn't what American schools are really like. You would want someone who went to both schools to compare their lived experiences.
And even then it wouldn't be fair. Russian designer Artemij Lebedev loves to mention how he spent the school year of 1990-1991 in the US and returned to what was still the USSR in August 1991 because the American school was terrible. The caveat is that he went to School 57 in Moscow, one of the best if not the best school in the country (think Thomas Jefferson High), and to Parkville High in the US, which is far from being the best school in Baltimore.
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Oh nooo..... I'm only in my 40s, so you can definitely say I embellished the time period, my life was disturbed by the USSR fall. Although I cannot even remember those times outside of watching some tv of Moscow Parliament being shelled from a tank.
Yet the mundane life at the time didn't change much. We went the next day and sat at our desks.
There were reforms targeted for schooling in the end, but we got them in "waves" as to not the rock the boat too much and teachers we're not changed....at all. I know my younger brother got caught between a few of them as the primary language was changing from russian to ukrainian.
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