The Older Teaches the Younger

We ended our discussion at the age of thirteen. We also touched a little on an older age when we spoke about relationships between the sexes. Now let us talk about a subject relevant to any age. As I understand it, an important aspect of your method is an upbringing in which the older children raise the younger ones. Could you explain where this idea comes from?

From the structure of Nature! What is an older brother to a younger one? I remember myself in first grade. I would look at the older students and think: is this even possible?! This is the pinnacle of all of life! I did not notice the adults, the teachers, but the older students!.. And yet they were too big for me. What can you do — I am in first grade and they are in tenth! In that sense, second, third, and fourth graders were much closer. I naturally regard them with respect because they are older; I am ready to listen to them, to take them in, to understand them. They are within my field of vision.

Before putting anything into practice, we need to check how it works in Nature — all the laws come from it. In Nature, everything is divided into levels and degrees. The lower has no connection except with the one directly above it, and through it with the one still higher, and so on up the chain. I cannot be connected with someone who is two degrees above me, only with the nearest degree, which is slightly higher than I am. With the most correct approach and preparation, children from the second grade should teach the first graders. Naturally, I am not talking about academic subjects. But if we give everyone the right upbringing, then a child who has grown up by one year will already be able to help and care for the younger ones.

The question is whether such a method suits all ages.

It suits all ages, and we must adapt this approach to our lives.

Is the connection you speak of dynamic? Can children from nine to thirteen years old work with six-to-nine-year-olds? Or must the difference be exactly one year?

It all depends on the study programs and the degree of maturity we reach at each particular age.

What are the advantages of such a connection?

It is natural! The little ones want to learn something from the older ones because they respect them, value them, and want to be like them. The younger ones love it when the older ones treat them as friends rather than with disdain.

It instills in them a sense of dignity.

In truth, it is we, the adults, who fail to see that an older child can teach a younger one something. But if we set the direction, then the children will be able to teach one another all the school subjects.

Should the children be part of the teaching staff? Do they work together with the teacher? How can this be arranged correctly?

Naturally, a teacher should be assigned to the children, but right now I am speaking mainly about upbringing, about setting an example, about caring — not about academic subjects.

Is the children's role primarily one of upbringing?

Yes, upbringing. But if we let the older children be teachers to the younger ones, this will become a good incentive for them to study! They will strive for it, because pride, envy, and the desire for honor are all involved here, and these help achieve great results.

Does each "educator" work with several children or with one?

I suppose with several. One on one, improper relationships can arise.

We said that in each class of ten it is recommended to include two teachers and one psychologist. When a child is an educator in a class, should the class be the same size or smaller?

This has to be tested in practice, case by case. We must see an incentive in it — both for the children and for the adults.

So not everyone can, or not everyone should, teach?

It is desirable to develop such an ability in every child.

And what if a child does not want to?

It cannot be that he does not want to. There is always something that will arouse this desire in him. In every person there is envy, a striving for glory, for respect, some sort of reckoning with others: "I am better than they are" or "I am worse." With their help we will be able to raise and "correct" anyone without exception, to give each one an excellent motive for learning and for teaching others.

To the extent that it matters to us that everyone speaks up, does it matter to us that everyone takes part in raising the younger ones?

Yes. I say to a child who is not doing very well, who is lazy: you can prepare and present to the others, give a lesson, and set an example.

The child gains motivation. But it may happen that the child will be afraid?

That is fine too.

By overcoming fear, can we instill in the child the ability to bestow?

Yes. And in general, in working with children in the class — when, for instance, they sing, each one alone and all together — there are many conventions that we must break.

As little embarrassment and as much confidence as possible.

Today everyone hides, is afraid, is embarrassed to behave naturally and openly.

Under conditions of fierce competition and criticism, it is completely illogical to put yourself on display. And how should we properly prepare the children who will be doing the upbringing? What should we tell them so that they understand their responsibility for another child, but without it turning into "moralizing"? Or should we not prepare them at all? Just say: talk about such and such a topic, explain it as best you can.

No, the child must be prepared! Every teacher prepares the lesson in advance. He has studied, he has mastered the method, he knows how much time to allot for the explanation, for questions and answers, for exercises, and so on. The child is to be a teacher, and he needs to be taught this. Then he will understand what he needs to draw from his own teacher's lessons.

Perhaps he will begin to respect his teacher, since he will know what the teacher feels?

Naturally. He will get to know the profession. In order to learn yourself, you have to know how to teach others.

In reality, the material you teach is the material you absorb best. First, you study it inside and out. And second, you think about the other person you will be teaching. Children are capable of this already at six or seven years old. Do you recommend starting at this age?

Yes, with the very youngest. And in doing so we are not pursuing the goal of arranging a game or stimulating the children to study.

To teach them to act for real?

Yes. The goal, after all, is to develop in the child the right desire and the right approach to learning and to teaching. To develop this in everyone. If a person does not know how to teach, he cannot learn either.

Is there a connection?

He is not able to absorb the material properly, to structure it, to take notes. This is something you have to be able to do. Self-organization is essential.

Is there room here for the child's creativity? Suppose I give him a certain plan. Can he propose his own way of presenting the material?

By deciding how to conduct the lesson, the child builds himself.

So we should give him freedom? I can tell him how to explain the topic, and he can choose the examples and the approach that seem suitable to him, without going beyond the established framework.

Yes, that is right. And then, perhaps, he will break your framework. But by then he will already have his own approach.

The most important thing I took away from such experiences of children working with children is that a child who teaches others requires feedback. Besides the preparation stage, there is also a concluding stage: to discuss what worked and what did not.

Let the teachers be present at the lesson and write down remarks, and afterward they can praise the child.

The teachers in this case must be very, very tactful. And the child should draw from his lesson what he still needs to work on.

Is it worth filming the lesson on video and then reviewing it?

Yes, that is exactly what we recommend.

This way we get a double result: we film a video of the one teaching and the one learning.

If a child is engaged in teaching others from an early age, this forms something greater in him: he is no longer just a child — in relation to a younger one he is already an adult. It turns out that in this way we are developing the child.

And will this be effective in adolescence, at thirteen or fourteen? Perhaps it will help develop the ability to think about another person?

Having gone through the path of upbringing up to adolescence, these children will no longer have any problems. Long before this age they will already understand all the aspects of relationships and of life. They will receive explanations about everything that is happening, as well as about what is to happen to them at an older age. That is why I do not foresee difficulties for a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old adolescent if he has previously received everything he needs — the upbringing, the preparation, the ability to see himself from the outside, an explanation of what happens in life.

Will such children be able to be teachers?

Not only teachers. They will relate correctly to life, and that is the most important thing. I believe that sufficiently prepared people will then be able to build social connections among themselves correctly. And who knows what else this will develop into. After all, we stand on the threshold of a great qualitative leap in the development of humanity.

And something new is bound to appear?

It is no accident that we find ourselves in depression and emptiness.

And can a younger child teach an older one?

I do not think so, since it contradicts Nature. But he can, by asking questions, correctly guide the older one.

Make him an even better teacher?

Let me ask this: to what extent did your daughters influence one another as they grew up?

Very much so. A clear hierarchy establishes itself among brothers and sisters. Psychological theorists, in particular Alfred Adler, say that an older child can always teach a younger one something, and not only quarrel with him. It turns out that the roles we assign to children allow them to show respect, to value one another, and perhaps even to consult one another. For the interaction in the process of learning gives rise to a special connection. The child feels that he receives from an older companion not only kicks! This can be applied at home as well, not only within the framework of school.

If children are accustomed to such behavior at school, they will easily transfer it to relationships at home. After all, everything they are told at home they perceive as a burden.

But this process must be supervised. We often see that children do not have the patience to help their younger siblings, and they simply do the homework for them. And we are striving for something entirely different!

We must begin the direct implementation of this subject, and then we will be able to develop it further. If we follow this path, we will succeed, because it corresponds to Nature, and any example taken from Nature is successful.

In implementing the upbringing of "the older teaches the younger," what percentage of the total lesson time should be allotted to it — twenty, ten, five? Once a day or once a week?

What do we want to achieve by having the little ones learn from the older ones?

That the younger one respects the older one, wants to be like him, wants also to be a teacher and to teach the younger ones — to take the older one as an example and pass it on to the younger ones. For when he receives an example, he wants to embody it. And what does the older one gain from this? Pride, self-respect, since he can teach the younger one, be like a teacher, feel that he is respected. In other words, we achieve many results.

We must weigh how much of an impact these results will have, how much time out of the total educational process in school to allot to achieving them. I suppose that half an hour twice a week will be enough for a child. This already creates a favorable impression. For the child has to prepare, to plan the lesson: how to keep to the time, what will come at the beginning, what at the end, what questions to ask at the conclusion of the lesson. The teacher, together with the child, must draw up a plan. That is why I do not think it needs to be more than twice a week.

I can only add that in my own observations I have noticed that adolescents of thirteen to fifteen very much love to care for the little ones, to teach them, and they do it, as it were, from the height of their own maturity. They love to fuss over the little ones, to teach them something. The older ones see that it is not easy. That is, the processes we are talking about occur even with a greater age difference. But in this case what takes place is not teaching in its pure form, but a certain practice of relationships.

This already resembles the relationship between parents and children.

An attempt to find out what it is like to be parents.

Here there is a completely different task: how to give children aged fourteen to sixteen an example of what it means to be parents. I am still afraid to open up this subject, but it is far from simple. For we must demonstrate to them what obligations at work and in daily life are, teach them to deal with banks, doctors, and insurance companies.

Do you think this should be done as early as possible?

At fifteen or sixteen it is not too early. Soon they will be living lives of their own! Today's children need to know how a bank works, how an insurance company works. Each one should have his own small notional bank account, and he is obliged to learn to handle it properly. Say, over the last two years in school they should study, through their own experience, all the aspects of adult life, family relationships not excluded. Everything must be taught. They must delve into the explanations, judge what is right and what is wrong. It is necessary to acquaint adolescents with the surrounding world in such a way that they prepare for life under the conditions that society provides them. We must instill in them the right reactions and examples of behavior for the future.