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One day, Sam showed me a bulletin board covered with paintings of snowmen. All were identical, except for one. That picture, he explained, was "wrong." As with most things at kindergarten 1671, there was a right way and a wrong way to draw, with very little room for individual expression. When a child was not able to draw a perfect circle, Sam explained, the teacher usually drew them instead. Teachers also demanded that Sam have the "right" slippers for school and that he bring only one kind of paint (Russian-produced, never foreign-made).

The stubborn right-mindedness culminated for me in the New Year's show, Rodnik's biggest event of the year. While Russia is no longer an atheist state, all the trappings of Christmas -- trees, parties, presents brought by the magical, blue-robed Grandfather Frost -- remain relegated to New Year's celebrations. And at every kindergarten, or "dyetsky sad" in Russian, the children put on a show and have a party.

In Sam's class, all the boys were rabbits and all the girls were snow maidens, a character akin to a young Mrs. Claus. Diana, Sam's beautiful and athletic classmate, wanted to be a rabbit, not a maiden. When she refused to put on her white dress and instead sat sobbing on a couch, she was taken home and missed the celebration. By the next assembly, in the spring, she sat with her hands in her lap, dressed in a pretty dress with a pale blue satin ribbon tied around her neck. I ached for her.

Rodnik children learned to recite poetry and sing songs in front of their parents and teachers. But they were played for their strengths, not their interests, in order to avoid the possibility of much-dreaded mistakes. The same kids always got the biggest parts; the best singers always sang; the prettiest girls always played the girliest roles. On "health day" it hit home again. For this, a day full of athletic contests, Sam, being the smallest child in his class, was chosen to compete at the well-known sport of singing. The taller, stronger kids were chosen for running, jumping and other sports.

Life at Rodnik turned out to be a strange mix of indulgence and demand. When the children weren't being coddled they were being pushed from the nest. Teachers would routinely help 5-year-olds dress each day but expected them to learn fractions, memorize long passages and master relatively complex grammar.

To learn early-reading skills, the children would say a word, the number of letters it contained, the number of sounds, the number of vowels and the number of consonants. That was the way, the only way. The reading teacher worked from a national manual; you could imagine millions of little 5-year-olds reciting, in Russian: "dom," which means house: "three letters, three sounds, one vowel, two consonants."

We grownups were treated as oversized children. At parents' meetings, teachers would openly criticize their pupils -- this one doesn't pay attention, that one eats poorly, this one is not doing well in math -- and blame the parents. I was scolded on more than one morning for not dressing Sam warmly enough or for being late. Parents were welcome in school only when invited, their opinions were never sought, and they were usually wrong if they ventured a thought. At first I assumed I was being singled out because I was an American whose Russian was rather poor. But soon I learned that every parent is assumed to know less about raising their children than the school.

So how could we let Sam go to school there for two years? He thrived at Rodnik. He took learning seriously and worked with pride. He was truly loved and cared for in a class of 10 children and two teachers. He cross-country skied at recess and danced in the afternoon. There was homemade soup with freshly baked rolls at lunch.

Sam graduated from Rodnik in May, certified ready for first grade. Over the summer, we moved to Los Angeles. Here, his class is racially and ethnically diverse, the school makes an effort to include parents and the curriculum allows some freedom of expression. Then again, his first-grade class has twice as many children as Rodnik and half as many teachers. There is not enough art or music, nowhere near as much as in Russia.

I fully expected to feel nostalgic about Rodnik and I do. We all do. The experience was hard and foreign but it was also warm, even comforting. It was tempering. And we are healthier for it.
salon.com | Oct. 11, 1999

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