Ministry of Education brings Soviet “Summer Lightning” back to schools
The patriots of which country are we supposed to raise?
Starting from next year, the Ministry of Education, Science, Youth and Sports, in cooperation with the Ministry of Defense, is establishing an all-Ukrainian military-patriotic sport game “Summer Lightning” for fifth to ninth grade students. As the ministry’s report reads, its main goals are preparation for service in the armed forces, mastering military professions, preparing for extreme situations and patriotic education and propaganda of a healthy lifestyle. What is worrying is that this was a popular game in Soviet times, and the idea of returning it to the schools was prompted by the Organization of Veterans of Ukraine. Its representatives became members of the committee for preparation and realization of “Summer Lightning.”
If we want to educate our youth in the spirit of patriotism and love to the fatherland, then why not develop the scout movement, which has a century-old history and is now very popular among Ukrainian children? Or the “Trumpets of Victory” festival, which is somewhat younger (it has been held for 12 years at the initiative of public organizations from Lviv region), but still has the same patriotic and educational spirit. However, taking into account the politics of education ministry, the organizers are not sure if their festival will continue to exist. As the director of the festival Volodymyr Stepanyshyn told Radio Freedom, children from all regions of Ukraine sing praises to the Ukrainian national struggle for liberation during the contest, especially to the UPA.
In the opinion of the famous professor, doctor of historical sciences Stanislav Kulchytsky, there should be a patriotic game in schools. Another question is which name and meaning it should be given. “One (scouts) comes from Austro-Hungarian times, and other (‘Summer Lightning’) from the Soviet ones. The prevalence of the second is a return to Soviet times, though a little one,” explains Kulchytsky, “The patriotic education of students should be based on the Constitution of Ukraine. It gives some foundations based on which you can design anything that concerns both content and form of such patriotic education. For example, the scouts are an organization that has existed since the 19th century. It wasn’t popular in Soviet times, because it was considered a bourgeois organization. If we move toward communism, then it should be ‘Summer Lightning,’ but if we move toward capitalism, then why should we avoid the word ‘bourgeois?’
These petty facts demonstrate a tendency that brings us back to the past. The resistance should be very careful, because during the last years of independence we have been driven forward, saying that we had to catch up with the West, borrowing that which was offered by the Ukrainian Diaspora. Then it worked. And now it doesn’t.”
The reason for the return of the activity is easy to guess: it is totally in keeping with the slow offensive on everything Ukrainian, with Ukrainian-language schools being closed, new history schoolbooks being written, the Petro Jacyk competition on Ukrainian language expertise being abolished. Instead, the ministry is introducing a contest of Russian language and literature, which has already started in schools. What next?
COMMENTARIES
Andrii KURKOV, writer:
“I don’t think there should be military-patriotic education in school. It is appropriate for North Korea, not Ukraine. For example, those scouts were much more widespread in Europe and America, but now this movement is practically gone, a thing of the past. We should occupy ourselves more with making children believe in their own strength rather than engaging in such patriotic education. When Petro Symonenko suggests in the parliament that Yakutia join Ukraine, that is when politicians are occupied with such nonsense without producing anything new, it turns out that all they can do is to get something from the trunk of the past and try to bring it back to Ukraine. Now we need to emphasize parental education, as it is much more important than school education, because the school, with its miserable financing, is unable to raise children.”
Vasyl HALIABAR, child psychiatrist, Rivne:
“There are organizations all around the world which are engaged in, for example, the protection of animals. This is quite normal — it appeals to morality, not to shooting. Children will be definitely interested in playing war. After all, they are doing it anyway. Another question is which stars are hooked to the cockade. It is also important which purpose is being followed. One can compete in who is the first to plant a tree on Hoverla, not in who is the first to kill a person. Conducting such measures requires common sense, and, moreover, the knowledge of child psychology.”
