I heard that deputies have come up with the idea of canceling the mandatory NMT in mathematics.
It’s hard for me to understand what logic they are following: a short-term one, so that children do not go abroad and stay here in a pit of imitation universities, or if it’s actually a gentle plan to disarm the country.
Playing fools with expressions like “what’s the matter?”
It has become clear to even a deer that modern wars are high-tech, where these technologies must rely on our OWN intellectual potential and OWN production base.
All these fairy tales for shortcomings about the “service sector,” “everything can be bought,” and “what’s the use of logarithms” are harshly shattered by the reality where countries are once again fighting for a place in the sun, and former regulatory international documents become just ashes in the ruins of the rights and freedoms of weak nations.
My comrade, physicist Vadym Zinchuk, recently gave an interview, which definitely deserves attention and clearly describes the spirit of the times, where all this mess is leading us.
The interview is entirely about the level of education in the country.
Here, in the Defense Forces, as perhaps nowhere else, the value and worth of knowledge become clear.
The war has changed a lot.
Society finds it difficult to realize that current battles require not so much digging a trench for shooting from a standing horse, but having, interacting, and skillfully using extremely complex means.
And it’s not just about the fact that a mobilized soldier must understand which keys to press on a $700,000 radar, not only to avoid breaking it and provide target indication calculations, but also more straightforward things concerning frequency compatibility, harmonics, and basic concepts about the propagation of electromagnetic waves in space. This is school physics.
So, the value of ordinary fundamental natural knowledge is in solving small but relevant technological tasks, without which no confrontation with the enemy can do today. From the sea surface and the delivery of supplies to positions to the destruction of enemy drones and ballistic missiles.
The worth of this knowledge is measured in the presence/absence of losses among the enemy. And among our own people.
Technologies protect. But they need to be understood and used skillfully.
The pace of war simply does not allow time to fill educational gaps (whether in training centers or positions), because someone once thought that cosines will not be needed anywhere. That mathematics on the NMT emotionally oppresses those who have decided to live life in the status of a Human.
This ends with mass graves. And that’s it.
As Vadim rightly noted in the interview, education now is not a service. It’s not even a public good. Education is a societal demand.
Children must learn and be taught.
Knowledge must be instilled in their heads despite their resistance (and the resistance of their immature parents), because the enemy across the border doesn’t care about the rosy ponies who believed there would be no more wars on the planet, and thought they could only write paintings and poems (I have nothing against either the first or the second).
The hostile electronic warfare or reconnaissance, drones, and targeting systems don’t care about the mathematical or non-mathematical (this division is nonsense for lazy and incompetent teachers and parents) mindset of a child who will be forced to take weapons and military equipment in hand and, unfortunately, will be powerless to use them because it was decided for them that conditional mathematics was not timely.
Understanding elementary things in electronics or thermodynamics, the ability to count, analyze, and think abstractly will only come through regular mechanical drilling “I equals U divided by R, and lambda equals V divided by F.”
A separate aspect is the defense industry.
It is suffocating without qualified personnel. Plenty of dull personnel who are good at reels and stories, retreats and “finding themselves.”
But the queue for decent radars is years long. The demand for working developments from the military is unmet due to a lack of engineers.
Chemical technology of native Ukrainian explosives is just a dream.
Overall, I too have some grievances.
I recommend reading Vadim.
I hope the time will come when parents will grow up and find the courage to face the reality of the world, which is already formed.
Once again – the world doesn’t care.
The battle of mathematics, physics, chemistry, and economics has begun (which is also entirely based on mathematics, not this notion of who knows what).
As I like to say lately, in our country, parents can thoroughly ensure two things for a child: vaccination and education. Everything else the children will take themselves.
Have a quiet night and support the Defense Forces.
P. S. The only thing that irks me about Vadim is blaming everything on NUSH. I think there is still insufficient data to draw such a direct correlation, but I might be wrong. Moreover, NUSH seems to me an overtly weak approach to preparing future masters of the country.
Everything else is spot on.
P. P. S. In the photo below: my Mark was solving examples that I wrote out from my head. I only helped in the places that were crossed out. Didn’t prompt but just asked to think again. The child is 5 years and 10 months old.
Yes, I am proud. Damn proud. Because I’m not at home, I don’t work with him, and how my wife still manages to handle this, I have no idea.
And what doesn’t work out for these grown-up deputies in life I can’t understand. Why they stubbornly drag the country into the abyss is a rhetorical question.
Strategic thinking – in the office of simple solutions, they haven’t heard of this.
How can one shout about the development of the defense industry while destroying engineering specialties, and now also mathematical education in secondary school? How can you think about defense and not care about who will work there… In an era of rapid AI development, voluntarily abandoning a generation that will understand not only chats and pictures but algorithms and formulas.
Yes, the Ukrainian school mathematics program is much more complex and demanding than in most European countries. This is its uniqueness; it is indeed difficult for children, especially under conditions of remote learning and lessons in bomb shelters and sleepless nights.
But instead of considering a possible review of the program and perhaps even temporarily simplifying the tests, to cancel the mathematics external assessment.
The authors – the club “I Have the Right to Make Mistakes” in full force. This is not even populism; it is in a competitive world taking away any prospects and chances for competitiveness from Ukrainian children.
Recently, an email arrived at the ZN.UA editorial office, whose author knows this from personal experience. His name is well-known in educational circles — Vadym Zinchuk, a physics teacher and deputy director for scientific work at one of Kyiv’s strongest lyceums. He signed the email succinctly: teacher of the 145th lyceum, now a senior sergeant of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, a specialist in electronic warfare, a volunteer since 24.02.2022.
