Valery Matytsin / TASS / Vida Press

A new school year has come to children across Russia, and students in the Krasnodar region are in for a special treat this fall: “five-minute information sessions,” where they have to watch TV news and report back to class what they learned. These “information sessions“ were popular in Soviet schools, as well, when they were known as “political information sessions.” This new weekly exercise in contemporary civics is mandatory for all grade school students in Krasnodar, from first to 11th grade.

💡 The “five-minute information sessions” at schools are the brainchild of the Krasnodar region’s local Education, Science, and Youth Policy Ministry. “Considering the challenges and threats of modern society, this year’s entire education system needs to be updated in terms of content and work quality,” the ministry wrote in a letter to Meduza. “One of the priorities is patriotic education.” In its letter, the ministry stated that Krasnodar Governor Veniamin Kondratyev also approved the idea of introducing “information sessions.” Younger pupils won’t begin their sessions until November, but the rest of Krasnodar’s students have already started these exercises. The topics for these discussions include some of the following themes: “Glory to Russia,” “News of the Week,” and “We Live in the Kuban.” Children will be required to watch the news on television and describe the reports to their class.

👍 Principals at Krasnodar schools have generally welcomed the new initiative. Anna Tkachenko, a locally celebrated teacher and principal, wrote a blog post about the “information sessions,” where she added a photograph of Soviet Youth Scouts reading a copy of Pionerskaya Pravda. Local principal Alla Ragozina told Meduza that such “information sessions” have been a regular part of the curriculum at her school and will continue to be part of class instruction. Svetlana Chernyavskaya, another Krasnodar principal, told Meduza that such lessons are needed because “children don’t like watching [the state news program] ‘Vesti’ and they don’t like absorbing information.”

💩 Some kids in Krasnodar say the “information sessions” are “bullshit,” but they’re preparing for them, anyway. “The teacher asked us if we know what’s going on in the world. And everybody called something out,” a senior named Nina at a school in Tuapse told Meduza. “We talked about the atomic bomb set off by North Korea, about the construction of the bridge to Crimea, and about the [2012] flooding in Crimea. And the teacher talked about how dangerous the atomic bomb is. I didn’t like it. The lessons are over in five minutes. It’s weird. Maybe the principal did the right thing by introducing them, but many don’t need it.” “They told us that we should watch some kind of TV channel in the evening, and later tell the class about it… I don’t get it. We’ve never had to deal with this kind of bullshit before!” another Tuapse senior named Pavel complained to Meduza. “We’ve been discussing the latest news in sports, politics, weather, holidays, and a lot more. This week, we talked about boxing matches and politics. I like these five-minute exercises, and my classmates like them, too. We get the news from newspapers and TV,” a Krasnodar student named Vasilisa told Meduza.

The information sessions have concerned many parents. “It looks like we’ll have to go to the principal first and explain that we don’t want them trying to turn our kids into zombies,” one parent wrote on Twitter. In a conversation with Meduza, the father of a senior at Tuapse (who asked not to be named) said that many parents fear their children “will be pressured or harassed at school,” if they ignore the controversial new exercise.

👮 Russian education law directly prohibits teachers from political agitation in the classroom and forbids them from trying to instill certain political beliefs in their students. Education Ministry officials in Krasnodar, however, say the new information sessions aren’t a form of propaganda. “The child should play the lead role in this information-educational exercise,” the ministry said in its letter to Meduza.

☭ Soviet schools conducted similar exercises as lessons in “political information.” In Soviet “information sessions,” older students typically described political events to younger pupils, usually focusing on international news. The only other area in Russia today that also has these structured “five-minute information sessions” is the Ulyanovsk region, where Governor Sergey Morozov helped launch the “For Soviet School” movement in 2013, which “monitors the best Soviet and foreign education practices” and seeks to “revive the traditions of Soviet general education,” including political “information sessions.”

Russian text by Marina Solntseva, translation by Kevin Rothrock