LETTERS OF TEACHERS TO THE EDITORIAL OFFICE OF THE NEWSPAPER «SOVIET EDUCATION» AS A REFLECTION OF THEIR ATTITUDE TO SCHOOL LIFE (SECOND HALF OF THE 1940S – 1990)

Abstract

The article describes the letters to the editorial board of the newspaper "Soviet Education" from the second half of the 1940s–1990, the purpose of which was to reflect the school life of this period. Coverage of the main problems in the letters of teachers in the pages of the newspaper "Soviet Education" was out of the attention of researchers and requires an in-depth description of them in the context of school life. The example of the letters clarifies the main elements of educational activities, areas of interaction with the public, their attitude to current issues of the time. In the columns of periodicals, readers and contributors could not only get acquainted with the main events of life in the country and industry, which represented the publication, but also to express their own point of view on a particular issue. The newspaper "Soviet Education" was a body of the Ministry of Education of the USSR and the Ukrainian Republican Committee of the Trade Union of Educators, Higher Education, Higher Education and Scientific Institutions and during the period under study, presented the relevant content. The letters, in fact, reflected the policies of the Soviet government and covered issues ranging from school reform to the daily lives of teachers. The latter could ridicule the Soviet reality through their own creative writings: adventure, poems, fables, stories. The authors, as a rule, openly wrote about what hurt, or need to decide, expressing their own attitude to reality. Confirmation of this was the indication of their data, place of work. On the other hand, such openness allowed the authorities to control the school sphere in the USSR. However, most educators presented official views on school life, although some exceptions were practiced.