Minister of Education: I do not perceive tutors at all
"If there is a great teacher in school, then no tutor is needed at all," stated Andrei Ivanets in an interview with Onliner.by.
"I organically don't perceive them, from the word 'at all'. Still. No, absolutely not. Every person has their own potential, including intellectual. What does a tutor do? In a short period of time, they try to inflate a rubber balloon to the size of a car tire. But a balloon cannot be a tire — perhaps only for the duration of exams.
But you pass the exam, and then the tutor leaves, and life begins. The first session, the realization that you know nothing of what you thought you knew. Because your intellectual potential absolutely did not match what others wanted. Therefore, there must be good teachers — this is condition number one for admission. If there is a great teacher in school, then no tutor is needed at all," the Minister of Education stated.
Onliner asked what to do if there are questions for the teacher?
"I am convinced: our modern school curriculum is so simple that, in principle, any parent should sit down, remember, and be able to explain it to their child. If a dad or mom cannot solve a fourth-grade math problem, it means something went wrong with the parents.
Therefore, I see no point in tutors. For parents, it's a safety net; they decide for themselves: 'I've done everything: I got you a tutor, I paid for it.' But maybe mom or dad should have sat down with the child and explained the topic in simple words?
And then the student himself would take the textbook and, even with not the most capable teacher and without parents, would figure it out: reread it ten times, came and said: 'Dad, I understand. Do you want me to tell you?'
If only a tutor works with the child, the child thinks: 'My parents bought me off' — there's no psychological engagement. Then the student gets another thought: 'If I don't do very well on exams, my parents will pay again — I'll go to a paid program, or they'll come up with something else.' Later, he might realize that he didn't want to study at university, become an economist or something else, but dreamed of working with his hands. And for that, he should have gone to college, gotten a good profession, worked, and then entered university, doing it consciously. I absolutely do not accept an artificial trajectory in anything.
My deep conviction: there is not a single tenth or eleventh grade where additional classes in specialized subjects are not held.
Therefore, if you attended all lessons, went to two additional ones, and something is still not working, perhaps it's not for you. You have to come to terms with this: maybe mathematics isn't interesting, but something else is? You always need to soberly correlate 'I can' and 'I want'," believes Andrei Ivanets.