“A child who has no rights within their family won’t stand up for their rights anywhere.” Educator Asya Shtein on children growing up amid the war in Ukraine

A mask of conformity

— Children who are eight or nine years old today barely remember life before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They are growing up, going to school, making friends, and playing, all against the backdrop of the war. For them, this has already become the world they know. How can we understand what this kind of childhood is doing to them if they have never known anything else?

— This is a completely new and strange experience. And it’s not just about the war, but also about the ideological pressure, which, by and large, didn’t exist even in the late Soviet period that I lived through.

A lot depends on the family’s position, although things are difficult for parents now. Even if they oppose the authorities, they are unlikely to risk expressing their views in front of their child. It was the same in Soviet times. Even in dissident families, [adults] did not discuss their opposition views in front of children, primarily because the children went to school and might say something they shouldn’t. But if a family tries to soften the situation, does not reinforce these conversations [from a propaganda perspective], and offers alternative, more interesting subjects to discuss, things become easier.

It was much the same in Soviet times. Not only in the families of professors or members of the intelligentsia, but also in perfectly ordinary families, people didn’t talk much about the party line. They discussed everyday things, celebrated holidays with their children, and played ordinary games. And that was quite enough to outweigh and neutralize everything the children were hearing outside the home.

— The war is a different experience for every child: some see it only on television, while others have family members who have joined the Armed Forces. Is there any kind of shared experience among children?

— There is an enormous difference between families that are trying to resist [the war and propaganda] and families in major cities, where people have largely been left alone so far, including when it comes to being sent to war. In small towns, people sign military contracts, while in affluent major cities, this happens far less often.

There is also much less visual propaganda in big cities. The authorities in Moscow, St. Petersburg, and Yekaterinburg are trying to create the illusion that nothing is happening: people can go to restaurants, concerts, and exhibitions as though none of this [what is happening in Ukraine] concerns them.

It is one thing for a child to grow up in a relatively peaceful and prosperous region, and quite another to grow up in a small town or village where three quarters of the men have gone to the front. These are completely different experiences and ways of perceiving reality. So there can be no talk of any shared experience.

This is where an enormous problem lies. On top of the existing social divisions and disparities in access to education, another wedge has emerged, widening the gap between the capitals, cities with populations of over a million, and the rest of Russia. And this divide will only continue to grow.

— What does the Russian school system teach children today besides academic subjects?

— It depends on the school. Schools have enough room for maneuver to neutralize information about the war and keep ideological pressure to a minimum. The same Conversations About Important Things [classes demonstrate this]: in some places, [students] watch films about Russian history and culture; elsewhere, [teachers] simply hold regular homeroom sessions. There is no strict oversight of this yet. If a school is not trying to curry favor with the authorities, it has plenty of ways to avoid all of this [ideological pressure].

But I’m afraid that as time goes on, there will be fewer and fewer opportunities to do so. Teachers are afraid, and those with opposition views are leaving, especially men. Some cannot tolerate the doublethink and leave the profession altogether. Salaries are also falling, so experienced teachers are moving either to private schools or to online projects, where they can avoid involvement in ideological work.

But there are, of course, schools, especially in small towns where everyone knows what everyone else is doing, where teachers either genuinely support the official agenda and engage in propaganda or do so because they have little choice: they have nowhere else to go and cannot find another job.

— According to a recent VTsIOM poll, more than 70% of teenagers say they enjoy taking part in flag-raising ceremonies and singing the national anthem. How do school rituals work?

— It varied across different periods of Soviet history. The 1920s and 1930s were one thing, while the late 1970s and 1980s were quite another, when no one was particularly interested in any of this [these rituals]. It was a formality you had to go through so that people would leave you alone. Although, of course, there were also those who used it to build their careers, became Komsomol leaders, and gained admission to universities through quotas.

Teenagers aren’t stupid. They know perfectly well what pollsters want to hear from them. If you want to understand what they actually think, you need to look at online communities for teenagers, not VTsIOM poll results. Teenagers are generally fairly apolitical, and one of the developmental tasks of adolescence is to question the values adults present to them.

Children aged 11 to 13 may genuinely enjoy playing Zarnitsa (a military-themed team game — 7x7), singing the national anthem, and chanting slogans because it suits their age and feels like a fun, unifying activity. But by the age of 15 or 16, teenagers usually begin distancing themselves from the values of their school and family and creating their own subcultures. And that is, of course, a good thing.

On the other hand, we have to understand that for teenagers who remain in this new Russia, with its post-truth and doublethink, the desire to move up the career ladder or secure a state-funded place at a prestigious university will push them toward that same doublethink. And doublethink shapes a person’s character. Over time, the mask fuses with the face, and a person can no longer always distinguish between what they actually think and what they present to the outside world.

In totalitarian societies, there are always people who resist the regime. Even now, we see many cases of teenagers taking part in protests. Teenagers also retreat into a kind of internal emigration that exists on their laptops and phones, in their games and on TikTok. And that is a very good thing: this alternative reality prevents a child from becoming fully absorbed into a reality that is deeply traumatizing and damaging. Naturally, families that have traditionally instilled humanistic and liberal values in their children are not going anywhere either. But there is very little hope to be placed in schools here.

Islands of freedom

— Where is the line between adaptation as a normal coping mechanism and doublethink? Can a child eventually lose track of what they actually believe?

— Propaganda today is very sophisticated and adept at manipulating people’s minds. People, including adults, really do lose track of which opinions are their own and which have been imposed on them by propaganda.

The only way to counter this is by developing critical thinking. Core school subjects such as mathematics, physics, languages, and literature give people the ability to analyze, structure, and verify information.

Since mainstream schools are generally of little help in this regard, we need to create alternative spaces where people can come together. Teenagers today really value intimate, in-person settings, where they can communicate face to face rather than online.

Incidentally, in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 1970s, specialized mathematics schools and clubs at Pioneers’ Palaces served as precisely these kinds of spaces of freedom. They attracted teachers and scientists who were unable to work at universities or research institutes because of their political views. These classes created unique spaces that in many ways became precursors to the protest movements that emerged later. If you look at the liberals of the 1990s and 2000s, you will find many graduates of these mathematics schools among them.

Any formally permitted group can become a space of freedom: a hiking club, a theater group. Nor does it have to be led by a professor from Moscow State University. A good teacher who can teach young people to think for themselves and analyze facts is enough.

Today, for example, more and more book clubs are emerging. These are not traditional literature classes where students analyze literary works, but spaces for conversation where an adult acts as a moderator, giving teenagers an opportunity to discuss what truly matters to them. I teach literature myself, and every year I see many young people who feel the need to talk about serious books. They are eager to read, debate, and make their case. This face-to-face interaction becomes an essential means of self-preservation for them.

— How inclined are teenagers to organize themselves? Do they need an adult’s help to set up groups around shared interests, or do they find one another on their own these days?

— If children have been taught from an early age how to create a community around themselves, they are capable of doing it. This usually happens in good schools that foster a creative environment and use an activity-based approach, where children are taught: “You have agency. You can bring a group together and create your own project.”

By adolescence, a young person is capable of forming all kinds of groups around themselves. Essentially, they just need to be taught how to plan and organize activities and how to keep everyone from falling out with one another. These are really the two things schools should teach: critical thinking and the ability to build horizontal relationships.

Obviously, mainstream schools tend to focus on regimentation, and not so much for ideological reasons as because creating a different kind of environment requires far more time and effort from adults. It is easier to seat everyone in rows and say, “Skip three squares and write ‘Classwork,’” so that everyone does the same thing in the same way. Creating an environment where children organize themselves and interact with one another is demanding and noisy, and with younger children, it is messy as well. It requires consensus within the school and enormous resources, both in terms of time and staff. That is why very few schools work this way. But if children develop these skills early on, by the time they reach the upper grades, they are perfectly capable of organizing themselves around whatever they want to do.

Real conversations about important things

— Do children today read less? It sometimes seems as though this issue is used to overshadow everything else: social media has supposedly taken up all their time, and this is the last generation that will ever open a paper book.

— Yes, children are reading less, and that’s normal. When I was growing up, books were the only source of information. If you wanted to find something out, you had to pick up an encyclopedia or a dictionary. Today, books are no longer the only source of knowledge. They are one of many forms of enjoyment.

Those who enjoyed reading, who used to devour entire shelves of books, are still reading today. And those who had to be forced to read aren’t reading now either. They simply have the opportunity to succeed without it.

As for this being the last generation to read paper books, I disagree. There are quite a lot of teenagers who read, and they love paper books, unlike the 40-plus generation. I often see young people buying inexpensive editions: their books are full of bookmarks and notes, with passages highlighted in marker. They engage very actively with the text. For them, it is even a form of protest. If you suggest downloading a book from the internet, they say, “No, I ordered a paper copy. I want all my little bookmarks and notes.”

Those who don’t enjoy reading now have other ways of working with information. Our job as educators is not to ban devices but to teach children how to use modern tools, including the internet and artificial intelligence. It is important to show them how to verify, structure, and process the information they receive. After all, getting an answer from ChatGPT is not enough; you need to understand what to do with it next. Adults and parents should learn how to do this themselves first. Bans are pointless. You just have to take charge of this whole “madness.” Reading is far from the only way to obtain information or spend your free time, and that is a very good thing.

— I liked the way you started your answer: yes, children are reading less, and that’s normal. How important is it for us to look at ourselves first? It seems to me that we project many of our own fears and uncertainties onto children and present them as problems of childhood. But in reality, they are our problems because we ourselves are encountering something new and unfamiliar.

— When parents come to me and say, “I have a problem: my child doesn’t read. What should I do?” I ask them, “Tell me, when was the last time you read a book yourself?” Most of them reply, “Oh, I have a dissertation to finish, relocation, deadlines, I don’t have time for anything. But when I was their age, I read!” Or they say, “Of course I read, just not paper books. I listen to audiobooks on my way to work.”

But your child doesn’t see you reading! They don’t even know that reading is something people are supposed to do.

We live in a hellish world where we constantly have to go from one institution to another, prove our right to live in a country, open bank accounts, write papers, apply for grants, somehow provide for our children, and keep the household running. Quite often, we simply don’t have the time. By the time we drag ourselves to bed, we barely have enough energy left to watch a TV show. And all of that is perfectly understandable. But then we shouldn’t complain that children don’t read. Children model their behavior on the world they see around them.

— What do you use to get children interested? What books? What can actually capture a child’s interest?

— Anything at all, as long as you find it interesting yourself! If you don’t, you won’t get them interested either.

I love reading and talking about books. I love young adult literature, Harry Potter, adventure stories, and Russian literature. I swear, Pushkin is my favorite writer! I think Pushkin is an incredibly cool, funny author whom the school curriculum has turned into a bore and a moralizer. I tell the kids, “No, that’s not what he’s like at all. He’s hilarious and really cool!”

And Dostoyevsky was basically a crime reporter. You could say he worked the homicide beat, writing crime stories. That’s some killer reading right there! I tell them, “Now let’s look at how he took those crime stories and turned them into a great novel about a guy who read a bunch of anarchists and radicals on social media and decided to take an axe to an old lady who ran a microloan business, a respectable woman supporting her disabled sister.” And they’re like, “Wow, yeah!”

— Many 7x7 readers live in Russia, and their children and grandchildren go to school every day. Ordinary citizens cannot cancel Conversations About Important Things or change the education system. So how can they help a child maintain trust in themselves, the ability to question things, and the right to their own opinion?

— Give them that right! All a child hears at home is, “I’m the one in charge here, so keep quiet and listen! Nobody cares about your opinion.” Why should that person expect their views to be taken seriously anywhere else if they have been taught the opposite at home?

Often, this happens not because parents don’t love their child, but because life is hard, especially in poorer regions, where people are struggling to survive and don’t have the resources to build healthy parent-child relationships. But a child who has no rights within their family won’t stand up for their rights anywhere else. Or they will do so in ways their parents definitely won’t like. Teenage rebellion can take particularly extreme forms when a child has been disregarded from an early age.

To give children the ability to resist propaganda at school, you shouldn’t order them around or trot out familiar parental clichés like, “If everyone else jumped off a roof, would you do it too?”

The official Conversations About Important Things can only be countered with real conversations about important things. And those need to happen every day. That doesn’t mean sitting your child down at the table and saying, “My dear son, now I’m going to tell you why it’s so great to be a liberal.” These conversations happen naturally whenever we encounter the world together.

Someone once told me about asking a teacher they knew in Russia whether she held Conversations About Important Things. She said, “Yes, of course.” The person was surprised because she was an intellectual. “What do you talk about?” they asked. “Things that are actually important. Tatyana’s letter to Onegin, for example.”

If you talk to your child about what matters to you here and now, it doesn’t have to be anything profound. It could be about a kitten they brought home from the street: “You brought it home, so take it to the vet. Here’s a bowl, here’s some bedding. Now make sure it has everything it needs.” That is a real conversation: a conversation about responsibility, a conversation about love. Not about telling your child to go out to the square tomorrow and end up with a 15-year prison sentence.

That is where trust and inner freedom begin. If we don’t give children that freedom at home, how will they learn what it means? The only way to teach someone to be free is by giving them freedom.

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