Word: classroom
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Just one year ago, such dialogue would have seemed pure heresy anywhere in the Soviet Union, let alone in a classroom, where doctrine has reigned and dissidence has been risky. Yet in the era of glasnost, talk like this is now allowed in schools all over the country. The stunning change came upon the insistence of Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev for rapid reform in the education system. "We pin hopes for the future largely on the work of our schools," he told a meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee five months ago. The Soviet people, he said in another...
...teachers of history glean material from glasnost-era news articles telling long-repressed tales, such as that of Nikolai Bukharin, whose free-market economics (presaging Gorbachev's) helped get him executed by Stalin. The impact of these makeshift texts is already apparent in the discussions in Yamburg's Moscow classroom, where 15- year-olds recently debated Stalin's role in Soviet history. "He had a lot to do with the industrialization and collectivization of our country," asserted one blond-haired boy. But a classmate countered, "Some consider him a criminal because he ruined our country's industrial system...
...after sweltering day in an early summer heat wave, nearly 5,000 delegates met in the Kremlin's vast Palace of Congresses to debate their country's political future, and specifically the fate of Gorbachev's three-year-old program of perestroika (restructuring). A combination political convention, town meeting, classroom lecture and gripe session, the gathering turned into an astonishing exercise in Gorbachev's second-favorite buzz word, glasnost (openness). More than 70 delegates spoke their minds by week's end, and many others wanted to do so. But Gorbachev finally cut short discussion to hold a series of votes...
...inside the classroom in Brentwood, Long Island, about 90 muggy degrees. Nearly 300 men and women, clad in shorts, T shirts, jogging shoes and jeans -- a few with service revolvers in ankle holsters -- hunch against tables piled with books. Some affect a jaunty air, but most wear the look of the condemned. These are New York City police officers battling through a seven-hour cram session that covers everything from the penal code to traffic regulations. They are preparing for exams to determine who will be promoted and who will...
...among them. A teacher in the Bronx was stabbed more than a dozen times by a mugger in an elementary school bathroom last month; another was savagely beaten with a bat after confronting a playground intruder; a third was badly injured by a powerful firecracker thrown into her classroom; a fourth was slugged by a student who objected to being asked to put out his cigarette...