Boris Pavlovich Nikitin is a popular domestic teacher. He is considered one of the founders of the early development methodology in the country, a scientist who researched and implemented the pedagogy of cooperation. He wrote dozens of books on pedagogy, several films were shot about his family and methods of education.
Teacher Biography
Boris Pavlovich Nikitin was born in 1916. He was born in the Stavropol Territory in the small village of Suvorovskaya. His father was a Kuban Cossack.
In 1941, he received a diploma from the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy, and served in fighter aircraft. He left the army in 1949, starting teaching and research activities at the Ministry of Labor Reserves. Over time, when he was seriously interested in ideas and methods, he was hired by the Institute of History and Theory of Pedagogy, the Research Institute of Psychology, and the Institute of Career Guidance and Labor Training.
In 1958, Boris Pavlovich Nikitin assembled a group of teachers to repeat the experience of Makarenko with them. It is noteworthy that in the same year I met my future wife, whose name was Elena Alekseevna. At that time he was 42 years old. Boris Pavlovich Nikitin and his wife raised and raised seven children.
Pedagogical principles of Nikitin
The experience of raising children, which was used by Nikitin and his wife, aroused genuine interest among many, he was taken into service. The hero of our article wrote several books about this, he paid special attention to intellectual educational games, some of which he himself developed. In his writings, teacher Boris Pavlovich Nikitin confirmed hypotheses on the conditions for the formation of a child’s creative abilities.
He actively popularized his experience; this aroused great interest among Soviet parents in the 60-80s. With interest in him reacted in Japan and Germany. In the Nikitins' house there were always many visitors who wanted to see with their own eyes how this is being implemented in practice, they wanted to get good advice. From 1963 to the present, the books of Boris Pavlovich Nikitin have been published with a total circulation of more than seven million copies. They have been translated into ten languages.
The basic principles of education "according to the Nikitins" are maximum dedication and great parental awareness. Nikitins themselves identified three main principles, which were formulated as follows:
- creation of favorable conditions for the mental and physical development of the child. These include: light clothing, sports atmosphere in the house, a large number of educational games and manuals;
- free choice by the children themselves of activities for creativity;
- parental indifference.
In many respects, their principles echoed the so-called pedagogy of cooperation, in a sense they are connected with the ideas of the great Soviet teacher Makarenko. The Nikitins' principles were the result of understanding the practice of living in a family with their own children, which is why they are so valued by many generations of young parents.
The opinion of the Nikitins' children is interesting. They believe that this approach to education greatly facilitates the lives of children and parents, promotes their mutual understanding, makes childhood more complete and interesting, giving the child an excellent start for future development and growth.
Methodology Basics
Boris Pavlovich Nikitin, whose biography is given in this article, noted that special attention should be paid to early development. In his opinion, it begins for the baby from the moment his parents enter into marriage, conception, and childbirth. Nikitin and his wife were convinced that the sooner this development begins, the better.
They developed their own educational methods and developing intellectual games. Many of them are still popularized by various authors. Also, sports simulators were actively used in the family so that the child developed fully, not only mentally, but also physically. The hero of our article in education used a very radical method of hardening, which allowed to minimize any colds. And if the children nevertheless picked up the ailment, then they coped with it without drugs.
Nikitin himself introduced the term NUVERS into pedagogical science. This is an abbreviation that means “the irreversible extinction of the possibilities for the effective development of abilities. According to his hypothesis, with age, each person loses the ability to develop themselves, and the possibility of effective development is completely lost forever.
At the same time, there are certain conditions and a time when it is possible to develop most effectively. It is noteworthy that each person they are strictly individual. Nikitin considered the NUVERS measure to be the time gap between the so-called “ripening” moment and the immediate onset of the child’s development. The basic abilities, according to the teacher, are laid in the preschool age.
Interest in the work of Nikitin
Nikitin's works aroused great public interest. After the release of his very first book, “Are we Right?”, Which was published in 1963, the position of the teacher began to be actively discussed. Many criticized her, as it directly suggested deviating from existing and established medical and pedagogical norms.
The right of Nikitin to his own vision and approach was recognized by the Soviet mathematician and founder of cybernetics, Alexei Lyapunov. Scientists Ilya Arshavsky and Nikolai Amosov spoke positively about his methods. The fact is that medical studies that were conducted regularly did not reveal any deviations in the Nikitins' children, which once again proved them right.
Criticism of the Nikitins in modern Russia
Already in 1988, the German journalist Marianne Butenshen published a book in which conversations with grown-up Nikitin children were collected. In Russia, her translation appeared 12 years later, after the death of the teacher himself.
Moreover, the book was done very ugly, using the information in a distorted form and presenting it as a fresh interview in 2000, without reference to the source and indication of real dates when the interview was recorded. Nikitin himself died shortly before that - on January 30, 1999, he was 83.
Largely because of this publication on the Russian Internet, a large number of negative responses to Nikitin methods appeared, based mainly on this book. But there was no serious criticism of their experience. Since 2011, there has been a website for the Nikitins family where the children of the teacher convince that they positively evaluate the experience of their parents and are satisfied with the upbringing they received in childhood. And now they themselves are actively developing these traditions with their own children.
Interestingly, by 2002, Nikitin had 27 grandchildren and already three great-grandchildren.
Learn ahead of schedule
One of the peculiarities of the education of the Nikitins' children was that they tried to send them to high school immediately. This became possible due to the fact that much attention was paid from the first years of life to intellectual development.
When the children were already at school, they were also not allowed to stay in one place, they were transferred from class to class ahead of schedule, when it became obvious that they were ahead of their peers in terms of development. All the children of the Nikitins really never had practically any problems with their studies.
Cons of the Nikitin technique
But there was a negative point. Due to the age difference with classmates, it ranged from one to three years, a certain psychological tension developed between them, this affected communication, making friends and acquaintances outside the family was very problematic.
Additional pressure that interfered with a quiet life and study was created by the growing fame of a unique family. Close attention from scientists, journalists and ordinary curious people did not allow them to grow quietly.
Five children of the Nikitins after 8th grade went to secondary schools, two - after the tenth grade. At the same time, five graduated with honors.
At universities, Nikitins studied already with their peers.
Mind games
Boris Pavlovich Nikitin paid special attention to the development of creative abilities. Many he developed for his children, made them by hand. In an industrial way, they were first released in Japan and Germany, where "Nikitinsky" societies and kindergartens still exist. In Russia, these games are popular not only in families, but also in schools and kindergartens.
In 1981, the book "Educational Games" by Boris Pavlovich Nikitin was published at the Pedagogy Publishing House. An example is the game "Fold Pattern". She needs 16 identical cubes. Moreover, all the faces of each of them are painted differently in four colors. This allows you to make patterns from them in a huge number of options. This is the best game for children 4 years old, which helps them to develop.
To play Bricks, you need a set of eight bars of the same size. This is a kind of gymnastics for the mind, which introduces the kids to the basics of drawing, as well as spatial thinking. Using these bricks, you need to build models according to 30 drawing assignments. The tasks are arranged in order of complexity, this is a game for children 4 years old, as well as older children.
Unicub
The game of Nikitin "Unicub" gained great fame. These are universal cubes that immerse kids in three-dimensional space. The teacher noted that the earliest development of spatial thinking significantly increases the child's capabilities, making him intellectually more developed.
Unicub will require 27 wooden cubes marked out in a special way. They need to be folded temporarily by color. It is believed that if an adult manages to do this on the first try in two minutes, then this is an excellent result, which means that spatial thinking is well developed.
The secret of “Unicub” is that, at first glance, it seems that there are no equally colored cubes, as if all 27 are different. Although, only three colors are used, and the cube has six faces. The fact is that, in addition to plain faces, there are eight more triads. So this game teaches not only spatial thinking, but also accuracy, accuracy and forethought.
1994 edition
In 1994, the Nikitins' book “Intellectual Games” was published, in which you can find even more options on how to keep your child busy and contribute to his development.
For example, authors often propose to beat models with well-known objects. For the game “Clock”, the so-called “children’s clocks” are used, in which there is no mechanism, while the child has to turn the hands and set the time.
A thermometer with a movable scale is often used instead of the usual mercury column, and the Nodules game consists of two frames connected to each other. Moreover, each has a rod. In the upper part there were sample nodes, which are located according to the degree of growth of task complexity, and in the lower part there were pieces of cord, so that the child was trained to copy the nodes from the first part.
Games of other authors
Often Nikitin used popular games of other authors in his techniques. For example, the three-dimensional analogue of the Pentamino “Cubes for All”, the liners and Montessori frames, the Pythagorean table.
The last game required three sheets of plywood. The main one was marked out into 100 squares, and in the center of each they drew a circle with a number taken from the Pythagorean table. On the second sheet, the circles were drilled, and the third was brightly colored to freely move between the first two sheets. The main task was to count as quickly as possible how many circles are currently painted.