Municipal Secondary School No. 141 in Nizhniy Novgorod has been engaged in problems of the spiritual and moral development of its pupils since 2008. We believe the formation of moral guidelines in children is an important component of their harmonious development and successful socialization as well as prevention of asocial behavior.

In academic year 2010-2011, an experimental platform on Integration of Traditional Folk Culture in Educational Process as Factor of Spiritual and Moral Education was opened in our school.

In the system of optional education, the task to form spiritual and moral guidelines is fulfilled in folklore, culture and psychology hobby groups involving 160 schoolchildren. In grades 10 and 11, this task is fulfilled through an optional course on Basic Psychological Knowledge for Senior Pupils. The classes are conducted in accordance with the Ladya program. In academic year 2009-2010, this program was tested in the eleventh grade. Qualitative changes in the behavior of the teenagers who participated in the program were observed.

In academic year 2010-2011, the Ladya program embraced the ninth-graders in Class A and Class B and the tenth-graders in Class A. The supervising teachers, parents and students themselves believe the program helps teenagers to find the right way in life, to find a way out of difficult situations and to analyze themselves. Kids enjoy this fascinating educational journey in harmony with good and peace.

We tried to conduct classes for the eighth-graders but realized that the stormy hormonal rebuilding at this age manifested in extreme character accentuation leads them to reject proposed spiritual values and standards of life. For this reason we decided that the Ladya program will be used beginning from the ninth-graders or better with the tenth-graders.

When I was trained under the Ladya program for the primary prevention of HIV/AIDS and risk behaviours among teenagers in 2010 in Moscow, I was given additional practical tools for work and did not wait to use them in practice.

I held a motivation class during which children themselves, speaking on behalf of a teacher, priest, policeman, medical doctor and parents, proposed ways of protecting youth against drugs and HIV/AIDS. This class has shown that teenagers are willing to discuss all the issues proposed by the Ladya program. The result of this work is seen in the essays written by the eleventh-graders who have taken the full Ladya course. If in the beginning of the academic year the most important values for many were material wealth, prosperity, richness, prestigious job, career and physical pleasure, in the course of the classes the teenagers reconsidered their views to reflect now on the place they give to spiritual values in their life and therefore to realize the need for spiritual progress, for spiritual life.

The experience of work according to the Ladya program has led to the following conclusions:

• Schoolchildren are interested most of all in making collages and drawings and then in discussing them. Children like this task very much. There are no indifferent children in this kind of work: the collages created by them present their vital values. Collages are a good psychological and diagnostic material. They also contribute to the group’s solidarity and reflection on their guidelines in life.
• An assessment of ninth-graders’ awareness of HIV infection has shown that the level of their knowledge of this subject is rather low; there is an urgent need for information in this regard.
• The use of parables in the motivation part of the class is a godsend to the program from its authors as its enables students to get easily involved in a discussion.
• The game classes on particular problems have proved very effective in educating teenagers for spirituality.
• The children did their homework well (in the form of writing down their opinions). They made progress in reasonableness and analysis of their own behavior and actions
• The classes revealed a high emotional involvement of almost all the pupils.

The moral principles held by children in our school are not stable enough, and the Ladya program has proved very helpful in their work to reconsider their spiritual needs.

Panteleeva E.A.
Municipal Secondary School No. 141
Nizhniy Novgorod

Below are several responses to the Ladya program:

‘The program has given me very much. There were so many exciting themes which made one think over the meaning of life, helped to find out something new for oneself and possibly to change one’s view in some respects and one’s worldview. During classes we talked about such important things as happiness in the commonly accepted sense and what it is for each of us, about the world of emotions, relationships and friendship, loneliness, etc. We read sincere and instructive parables and played games. I believe we have learned very much!

Yulia Auzarova

‘In this year, the psychology classes have given me grounds for thinking about myself and for soul-searching. I have reconsidered my views of happiness, friendship, love, relations and many other things. It has happened thanks to the parables and what I learnt during classes. And the new knowledge also makes it easier to find an approach to people around us and to understand my loved ones. For this reason, now I am less prone to conflicts

V.Sizova

‘In 2010-2011 academic year, I liked the psychology discipline very much, especially parables, discussions on them, drawings (we ourselves made), all having a special hidden meaning. We also dealt with such serious themes as HIV and AIDS (there is a point in talking about it in our time). We also talked about how to protect ourselves from infection. All this is very instructive and interesting. We also spent some time discussing family, loneliness, friendship, love… All this makes me see that people have different points of view on the subject, and these topics make one think over many actions – were they right or were they necessary at all!

D. Zalamov