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Alexander Katsev: Initiatives that Doctor Live conducts are extremely important.

26.03.2013

 Academician of the Russian Academy of Pedagogical and Social Sciences, Head of the Department of International Journalism at Kyrgyz-Russian Slavic University, Alexander Katsev shared with the World League "Mind Free of Drugs" his views on drug prevention in Kyrgyzstan.

- Alexander, how do you think the problem of drug addiction is the severe issue among the youth in Kyrgyzstan, and what kind of methods should be used to prevent it in educational institutions?

- This problem is especially acute in the country, because there are no prevention programs for young people. School and the parents are not able to watch out after teens. There is a critical age when they listen to neither parents nor teachers. Here those bosses with a criminal past or future appear. To counter this, we need to go back to the forms of work with young people, which were used during the Soviet Union that is to involve young people, give them opportunity for the initiatives, so teens do not have time for drugs. First, we need a new structure of the school. Now one goes to school by force, he does not like school. Second, the person goes to school, doing the things, as a rule, he is not interested in. Thirdly, our schools are not educating but bringing up. To bring up a person in his 13-15 is too late. That’s why we have to create school programs based on such principles when child could get things he wants.

I was not outstanding school boy too. I got so much information that I have never needed in. I still do not know why I needed these huge formulas in chemistry, but the correct use of household chemicals I have not been taught, and I still have to read the label every time, which can often be written in a foreign language. We had a tremendous number of hours dedicated to the study of a foreign language, but my level of knowledge of foreign languages is still remained low, because it was not possible to go somewhere abroad, and no one even expect it. The knowledge obtained in school should be practically useful. We must not reduce the number of hours as it is done now, but to introduce new techniques in order one wants to learn. When he wants to learn, then there is no drug problem, because there no time and desire for this. Creativity helps to fight against drug addiction.

- What do you think of the exhibition «MayaPlanet: World Against Drug Addiction"? How much, in your opinion, it is effective as a way to prevent drug addiction?

- Prevention work among young people - a question of paramount importance. It can be realized by shock methods as Doctor Life does. There are also more commonplace, all known approaches. If a child is taught from childhood that taking someone else's things is not good, he won’t do it. So it is here. The child becomes an alcoholic or a drug addict in two cases: either by analogy of parents, or vice versa - in contrast. Either by imitation, or in contrast. Nazaraliyev’s initiatives are extremely important, but it is necessary that such ideological work be done not only as a part of particular projects, but also in everyday life.

- How much effective, in your opinion, the work in this direction held by Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health?

- If among young people the level of drug addiction is raising, it means that the work of government parties is not effective. Relationship between government and students in our country remind me of Krylov's fable "Quartet" - "You, my friends, however, take your sits, are not fit as musicians." Our teachers are those who do not love kids. In the literature, everything is written scientifically, but no one says about the fact that textbooks should be interesting and no one cares about the comfort of learning. They are trying to learn by force, but it is not the right approach. Try to force a man to do something - he will do the opposite. When we say to him, "Do not use drugs!" , he begins to use it, because there is a contradiction. But if we set a tendency that the drug  it is not pretty, one will not be interested in it no longer.

Take as an example the attitude toward Aitmatov’s literature in Kyrgyzstan's - revered, but not reading. Everyone says that he is a planetary writer, which means that I have to wear a coat and tie to sit down to read him, because before the bedtime it is not fit to read planetary writer. Thus discourages me to read and to empathize to boy from the "White Ship" before my bedtime. But we need instead to set a tendency of reading his works through influential people. The same is with drugs. If you create the conditions in society where it would just not be fashionable to use drugs, then of course, there is a number of people who go against the fashion, but the others will not do it. It's like a cell phone. It can work well, but if it went out of fashion, the 70 percent will seek to buy a new model. Only in this way we can provide a truly effective anti-drug prevention.

 

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