They’re trying to turn kids into some kind of prodigies. What did we write in first grade? First little strokes, then letters, and only a few months later did we get as far as "Mom washed the frame" (a classic simple sentence used in Russian primers). My daughter’s primer comes with a special workbook. They start doing the exercises in it on the second day of first grade. The first word a first-grader is supposed to write is "animal." The second is "plant." Unbelievable—I only recently got it through my own head that the Russian word for "animal" isn’t spelled with a different vowel, and they’re expected to know this on day two. The idea that a child might come to first grade not yet knowing how to write or sound out words syllable by syllable is apparently not even considered. There’s also a special textbook for drawing (!!!). It’s called "Visual Arts." But fine, that’s not even the worst of it. There’s a textbook for shop class/labor studies. It’s called "Textbook of Labor Technologies." Thank God it’s not called "nano." I guess that comes in second grade, right after the course on string theory. There’s a very clear feeling that no prodigies are going to come out of this. The only thing it’s going to produce is nervous breakdowns—for both children and parents.
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