The review about the book «The Training-treatment games», 2001

The review about the book

А.С.Валявского, А.С.Яковис

Оздоравливающие учебные игры.

Часть первая: Практикум.

Информация к действию для практичных родителей.

СПб.: ТЕССА, 2001

of I.A. Kolesnikova

Doctor of Pedagogics, Professor

Full member of Academy of Humanities

Deputy Director of Institute of Adults' Education

under Russian Academy of Science

A present to parents, children and teachers!

It is really a great luck that apart from specialists inventing all kinds of tests aimed to expose a child's inability to learn, which means, defective state of mind, there exist some people in Russia deeply convinced that if one comprehends the nature of child's difficulties in his interaction with the world, the people and himself – it would be possible to help him.

One of such persons is Andrey Stepanovich Valyavsky. All of his works lie within the author's system of professional/personal purports and values, within ethical pedagogics. I would call it differently – the pedagogics of real humanism, effectual humanism directed towards not a human being only, but a particular child, teenager, adult, with his particular problems and difficulties in education and upbringing.

Andrey Stepanovich's previous book was entitled "How to understand a child". This name has much in common with the well-known Ya. Korchak's book "How to love a child", for the science of love to children supposes, in the first place, teaching the adult to understand the child and the processes shaping and forming his development from within.

The book is universal to a great extent as it is based on the knowledge of fundamental properties of human brain connected with perception and processing of information. It is written, like the other author's publications, in a perfect, figurative Russian language. Andrey Stepanovich has the ability to talk so simply about extremely complicated things not only because he reflected profoundly for many years as a pedagogue and philosopher on the problems of person's development and upbringing, but also because he managed to verify experimentally as a brilliant practitioner the authenticity of his pedagogical conjectures and insight recoveries. Many teachers, parents and children in different regions of Russia recollect the meetings with him, his lectures, seminars, classes.

I have no doubt that the new book being a practical aid will be interesting to a broad audience, in the first place to those who comprehend what is implied beyond the text, that is, to specialists handling human problems. It is these people who will be able to see beyond the shell of very simple - on the face of it - games an extremely complicated system launching the mechanisms of development and recovery of the child's organism and will be pleasantly surprised by subtle methodical stratagem that the author was able to conceive.

The book will be not less interesting and useful to the parents who do not understand many things so far, in particular, why their child is not so talented and successful as they would like to see.

It would be very useful if the teachers who would like to understand the reasons of their professional failures in the work with some (or even with many) children trusted the author and realised what things should or may be corrected, when facing the children's or teenagers' inability, ignorance, lack of understanding.

Finally, the practical aid will be an excellent present to those who feel they are not always understood by parents and teachers, namely, to children. It is for them that the authors compiled under one cover over 80 games that will be of interest to those who realise that playing the games will help them to solve their own problems which can not sometimes be conveyed to adults.

The acquaintance with the materials collected in the book must convince the reader that the results of development diagnostics gained through some dispatcher programme is not a verdict at all, but just a reference point for joint application of adult's and child's efforts aimed at self-correction, being the change in which the recovery (physical, mental, intellectual, social) is coupled with learning, in the first place, self-actualisation and self-perfection. It is important that this book represents collected "recipes" for teaching and physical rehabilitation not only of a child, but of an adult as well, for each of the taken steps will favour relax of psychic strain that many people have, not understanding the causes of failures of their offsprings, without being able to help him.

There are so many opportunities for creative cooperation of all family members if they work over every part offered by the author. The variety of routes is numerous… Good luck!

I.A. Kolesnikova

Doctor of Pedagogics, Professor

Full member of Academy of Humanities

Deputy Director of Institute of Adults' Education

under Russian Academy of Science