The problems raised in the story The Sandy Teacher. Andrey Platonov. The story "The Sandy Teacher". Several interesting essays
Outline
Literature lesson.
Topic: “The idea of kindness and responsiveness in the story of A.P. Platonov “The Sandy Teacher”
6th grade
Teacher: Mochalova T.N.
The purpose of the lesson: 1) continue working on the story (read and analyze chapters 4 and 5); 2) to develop students’ coherent speech skills, seeking a detailed answer to the questions posed, and continue to work on developing the ability to work with text; 3) identify the main character traits of the heroine; 4) cultivate feelings of empathy, the desire to be kind and responsive to others.
Equipment: poster with a saying, explanatory dictionary of the Russian language, cards.
During the classes.
1. Organizational moment.
2. Report the topic of the lesson .
Guys, today we will continue working on A.P.’s story. Platonov’s “The Sandy Teacher”, let us dwell on how the author expressed the idea of kindness and responsiveness.
3. Checking homework.
A) Cards (2 people work on site)
B) Conversation with the class on questions.
1) Why is A.P.’s personality interesting? Platonov?
2) What did we learn about Maria Nikiforovna, what did the heroine say from the chapters we read? (She is 20 years old. She was born in a small town in the Astrakhan province. Her father is a teacher. When she turned 16, he took her to Astrakhan for pedagogical courses. After graduation, Maria Nikiforovna was appointed as a teacher in the village of Khoshutovo, which was located on the border with the dead Central Asian desert).
3) Read what Maria Nikiforovna saw when she arrived in Khoshutovo? (2 chapters)
4) How was the training? (p.128)
5) Why were the residents of Khoshutov indifferent to the school? Find the answer in the text. (page 129)
6) What could Maria Nikiforovna do in this situation? (Give up everything and go home. Or stay and teach those who come to school. Or try to convince the peasants that their children need to study at school)
7) What decision did she make? (end of chapter 3, p. 129)
8) How does this decision characterize her? (She is a caring, active person who strives to help others)
4. Record the topic of the lesson.
So, we will continue to work on the story, find out how the author solves the problem of the idea of kindness and responsiveness. To understand this well, you need to look carefully at each word of the topic, think about what it means.
1) Individual task. Interpretation of the meaning of words a) idea (polysemantic word) – the main, main idea of the work; b) kindness - emotional disposition towards people, responsiveness, desire to do good to others; c) responsiveness - a property according to the adjective “responsive” (multiple meanings) - quickly, easily responding to other people’s needs, requests, always ready to help another, i.e. Responsiveness – willingness to help others.
This means that the main idea of the story is Maria Nikiforovna’s desire and willingness to help others.
5. Learning new material
1) Individual task.
- Let's follow the text by reading chapter 4 how Platonov reveals the idea of his story.
- Conversation based on the content of what was read.
1) How has the appearance of the village, the life of the peasants, their attitude towards school and each other changed after 2 years?
2) Thanks to what qualities of Maria Nikiforovna did this happen?
(thanks to kindness, knowledge, perseverance, perseverance, dedication, hard work, faith in people)
2) Individual task.
-Read chapter 5.
- Conversation based on the content of what was read .
1) What conversation happened in Khoshutov in the 3rd year of Maria Nikiforovna’s life there? Read how the steppe began to look three days after the arrival of the nomads? (page 131)
2) What made Maria Nikiforovna go to the leader of the nomads? (The work of 3 years was destroyed)
3) Let's reread (person by person) the dispute between Maria Nikiforovna and the leader of the nomads. Which one is right in this dispute?
Teacher's conclusion: Indeed, everyone in this dispute is right in their own way. The inhabitants of Khoshutov have a difficult life, and just as they began to settle down, the nomads came and destroyed everything. But the life of nomads living in the steppe is no less difficult. Let's remember the story of the creation of the world, which we talked about in the elective “Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture.”
A) Who created the Earth (God)
B) Did God create a desert unsuitable for life? (God created the Earth as a paradise, i.e. everyone should have been equally happy)
Q) Where did the desert come from, where it is impossible to live? (This is punishment for a sin that a person will commit many years later.)
Teacher's conclusion: The leader of the nomads is smart and arouses our sympathy. Probably, many generations of nomads have almost atoned for their sin, and the time is not far off when their life will become much easier.
4) Why did Zavokrono suddenly tell Maria Nikiforovna that now in Khoshutov they would manage without her? (She had many friends - helpers. The peasants learned that they could live much better than they lived before)
5) Why did he offer Maria Nikiforovna the opportunity to go to Safuta immediately? (She wanted to help people, achieved her goal, wanted to change life in the desert)
6) Read what Maria Nikiforovna thought about after the words zavokrono. What life choice did she face? (Live among settled nomads in the desert or start a family)
7) Find Maria Nikiforovna’s answer. How did you understand her words: “I will arrive not along the sand, but along a forest road?” (She will do her best to make the desert greener)
8) Her words surprised him a little, and he said: “I somehow feel sorry for you...” Is it necessary to feel sorry for the heroine of the story? (No.) How does it make you feel? (Feelings of admiration, admiration)
9) Can the heroine be called a happy person? Why? (Yes. She dedicated her life to making her dream come true.)
10) What did she dream of in her youth? (To be needed and useful to people, that’s why I decided to become a teacher, like her father.)
11) We are accustomed to consider someone who has a job they love and a strong family to be a truly happy person. Maria Nikiforovna has a favorite job, but the author says nothing about her family. Do you think she will have a family? (Probably yes, because she is very young.)
12) With whose creativity can the creative one be compared, i.e. creating something, the work of Maria Nikiforovna? (Her creative work can be compared with the creativity of God in creating the world. Only man can create. He creates according to the model given by God. Just as God equipped the Earth for man, so Maria Nikiforovna tried to equip the desert for people. She puts her soul into it, and people respond for her kindness. Just as Jesus Christ had disciples, she also had friends in Khoshutov, as the author writes, “real prophets of the new faith in the desert”).
6. Lesson summary.
Why is the story called “The Sandy Teacher” (It’s about a teacher who taught how to fight sand)
What does this story teach? (Hard work, kindness, responsiveness)
How did the idea of kindness and compassion manifest itself in this story? (Maria Nikiforovna helps people fight the sand, agreeing to live even further in the desert, because she is kind and sympathetic.)
Who was the first to call for kindness? (Jesus Christ)
Look at the saying: “It is good for him who does good, and even better for him who remembers good.” How does it resonate with the content of the story? (Maria Nikiforovna brings goodness, that is, good, useful, to people. They remember her, therefore they themselves become better, trying to imitate her in everything)
Let's turn once again to the epigraph - the words of A.P. Platonov on page 133. How does it help to understand the meaning of the story? (True happiness is only when it can be shared with other people.)
Do you think there are people now like Maria Nikiforovna, who are ready to sacrifice their interests for the sake of others? (A person must choose good for himself.)
Teacher: I would like to end the lesson with the call of Alexander Yashin: “Hurry to do good deeds!”
7. Commenting on ratings.
8. D/Z
Page 133; Questions for chapters 4-5; illustrations (optional); read the story by A.P. Platonov "Cow".
Card No. 1
Find in the text of Chapter 2 the most vivid words that depict the hostile appearance of the desert where the village of Khoshutovo is lost.
Card No. 2
Find 2 chapters in the text, as shown in the story, the confrontation between people and the desert.
Composition
Andrei Platonov became known to readers in 1927, when his first collection of stories and short stories, “Epiphanian Gateways,” was published. Previously, Platonov tried his hand at poetry, appearing on the pages of newspapers and magazines with essays and articles. But the first book of his fiction showed that a creative individuality, bright and unusual, had appeared in literature. The writer's style, his world and, of course, his hero were unusual.
Platonov was very fond of all his characters: a machinist, a worker, a soldier or an old man. Each one is beautiful to him in its own way. It is not for nothing that one of Plato’s heroes said: “It only seems from above, only from above one can see that there is a mass below, but in fact, individual people live below, have their own inclinations, and one is smarter than the other.”
And from all this mass I would like to single out not even a hero, but one heroine of the story “The Sandy Teacher”.
This story was written in 1927, at a time not yet so far from the hot revolutionary times. Memories of this time are still alive, its echoes in “The Sandy Teacher” are still alive.
But Maria Nikiforovna Naryshkina herself was not affected by these changes of the era. Both her father and her hometown, “dead, abandoned by the sands of the Astrakhan province,” which stood “away from the marching roads of the Red and White armies,” saved her from this trauma. Since childhood, Maria has been very interested in geography. This love determined her future profession.
The entire first chapter of the story is devoted to her dreams, ideas, and her growing up during her studies. But at this time, Maria was not protected from life’s anxieties as much as in childhood. We read the author’s digression on this matter: “It is strange that no one ever helps a young man at this age to overcome the anxieties that torment him; no one will support the thin trunk, which is torn by the wind of doubt and shaken by the earthquake of growth.” In a figurative, metaphorical form, the writer reflects on youth and its defenselessness. There is an undoubted connection with the historical, contemporary period, which is not capable of helping a person entering life. Plato's hopes for changes in the situation are associated with thoughts about the future: “Someday youth will not be defenseless.”
Both love and the suffering of youth were not alien to Mary. But we feel that everything in this girl’s life will be completely different from how she saw it in her youth.
In a word, Maria Naryshkina could not even guess about her fate. Yes, everything turned out to be difficult for her: setting up the school, working with the children, who in the end completely abandoned school, since there was no time for it during the hungry winter. “Naryshkina’s strong, cheerful, courageous nature began to get lost and extinguish.” Cold, hunger and grief could not bring any other results. But the mind brought Maria Naryshkina out of her stupor. She realized that it was necessary to help people fight the desert. And this woman, an ordinary rural teacher, goes to the district department of public education to be taught how to teach “sand science.” But they gave her only books, treated her sympathetically and advised her to seek help from the local agronomist, who “lived one and a half hundred miles away and had never been to Khoshutov.” That's what they did.
Here we see that even in real difficulties, the government of the twenties did nothing to help people, even such initiators and activists as Maria Nikiforovna.
But this woman did not lose all her strength and resilience and still achieved her goal on her own. True, she also had friends in the village - Nikita Gavkin, Ermolai Kobzev and many others. However, the restoration of life in Khoshutov is entirely the merit of the “sandy” teacher. She was born in the desert, but she also had to fight with her. And everything came together: “The settlers... became calmer and more well-fed,” “the school was always full not only of children, but also of adults,” even “the desert gradually turned greener and became more welcoming.”
But Maria Nikiforovna’s main test lay ahead. It was sad and painful for her to realize that the nomads were about to arrive, although she did not yet know what to expect from them. The old people said: “There will be trouble.” And so it happened. Hordes of nomads came on August 25 and drank all the water in the wells, trampled all the greenery, gnawed everything. This was “the first real sadness in Maria Nikiforovna’s life.” And again she tries to correct the situation. This time she goes to the leader of the nomads. With “young anger” in her soul, she accuses the leader of inhumanity and evil. But he is wise and intelligent, which is what Maria notices for herself. And she has a completely different opinion about Zavukrono, who suggested leaving Khoshutovo and going to another place, Safuta.
This smart woman decided to sacrifice herself, her life, to save her village. Isn't it strength of character to give not just your youth, but your whole life to serving people, voluntarily giving up excellent happiness? Isn't it strength of character to help those who destroyed your achievements and victories?
Even this short-sighted boss recognized her amazing courage: “You, Maria Nikiforovna, could manage a whole people, and not a school.” Is it a woman’s job to “lead the people”? But it turned out that she, a simple teacher, and most importantly, a strong woman, could do it.
How much she has already achieved! But how many victories she still has to win... It seems like a lot. You involuntarily believe in such a person. One can only be proud of him.
And Maria Nikiforovna Naryshkina herself, I think, will never have to say about herself as Zavokrono said: “For some reason I’m ashamed.” He, a man, has not accomplished such a feat in his life as the simple “sandy teacher” has accomplished and continues to accomplish.
The story “The Sandy Teacher” was written by Platonov in 1926 and published in the collection “Epiphanian Gateways” (1927), as well as in the newspaper “Literary Environments” No. 21 for 1927. The prototype of Maria Naryshkina was Platonov’s wife Maria Kashintseva. In 1921, Platonov’s bride eliminated illiteracy in a village 60 km from Voronezh, running away from her relationship with her future husband.
In 1931, the film “Aina” was created based on the story.
Literary direction and genre
The work belongs to the direction of realism. In the second edition, Platonov worked precisely on a realistic explanation of how the Russians appeared in Khoshutov. He calls them settlers, suggesting that they could have settled there during the period of Stolypin's agrarian reform. For realism, Platonov changes the interval of appearance of nomads from 5 years to 15, but the settlement could hardly have arisen and stayed on the path of the nomads.
Another thing is the story of the taming of the sands. Indeed, there are known cases when villages and villages were resettled due to advancing sands. Platonov in his white autograph defines the genre of the work as an essay, since it conveys practical knowledge for fighting the sands. The story forms the plot of an entire educational novel, telling about the formation of the hero.
Topic and issues
The theme of the story is the formation of personality, the problem of choice. The main idea is that to achieve life goals you need not only determination, but also wisdom and humility in the face of life's circumstances. In addition, in Chapter 5 Platonov solves the philosophical question of the coexistence of two ways of life - sedentary and nomadic. The heroine understands the plan of the Soviet employee and voluntarily, even joyfully, accepts the lifelong role of a sandy teacher.
Social problems are also raised related to the disregard of the authorities for people (Maria is listened to politely, shakes hands as a sign of the end of the conversation, but helps only with advice). But they ask you to devote your whole life to a public cause. The philosophical problems of sacrifice and retribution, gratitude, inspiration, wisdom and short-sightedness are relevant in the story.
Plot and composition
The short story consists of 5 chapters. The first chapter retrospectively mentions the main character’s childhood and studies and characterizes her father. The present in the story begins with the fact that the young teacher Maria Nikiforovna Naryshkina is sent to the distant village of Khoshutovo on the border with the Central Asian desert. The second part is about how, 3 days later, having arrived in a small village, Maria Naryshkina was faced with the meaningless hard work of the peasants who were clearing the courtyards that were again covered with sand.
The third part is about trying to teach literacy to children. The peasants were so poor that the children had nothing to wear; they were starving. When two children died in winter, the teacher guessed that the peasants did not need any science other than the science of fighting the sands and conquering the desert.
Maria Nikiforovna turned to the district with a request to send a sand science teacher. But she was advised to teach the peasants herself with the help of books.
The fourth part tells how the village has changed in 2 years. Only six months later, the peasants agreed to do public works for landscaping Khoshutov twice a year for a month. After 2 years, the shelyuga (a half-meter-tall shrub of the red shrub) was already protecting vegetable gardens and wells, and pine trees were growing in the village.
The last part is the climax. After 3 years, all the fruits of the labor of the teacher and peasants were destroyed. When the nomads passed through the village (which happened every 15 years), their animals gnawed and trampled the plants, drank water from the wells, the teacher went to the leader of the nomads, then to the district with a report. Zavokrono suggested that Maria Nikiforovna go to the even more distant village of Safutu, where settled nomads lived, in order to teach them how to fight the sands. Maria Nikiforovna resigned herself and agreed.
Thus, compositionally, the story is divided into several stages in the process of personality development: study and dreams about the future use of one’s skills, a difficult start to activity, success, disappointment and disappointment, awareness through sacrifice of one’s true destiny and humble acceptance of one’s own fate.
Heroes and images
The main character is Maria Naryshkina, who is described in the second sentence in the masculine gender: “He was a young, healthy man.” The heroine's appearance emphasizes her resemblance to a young man, strong muscles and solid legs. That is, the heroine is strong and resilient. The author seems to be specially preparing her for physical tests.
Maria experiences mental suffering while studying at pedagogical courses, from 16 to 20 years old, when “both love and a thirst for suicide” happened in her life. These shocks prepared her for an independent life in a distant village on the border with the desert. Self-confidence and a calm character were brought up by my father, who did not explain the events of the revolution and civil war.
Maria also fell in love with her desert homeland from childhood, and learned to see its poetry, similar to the tales of the Arabian Nights: tanned merchants, camel caravans, distant Persia and the Pamir plateaus, from where the sand flew.
For the first time, Maria encountered the elements of the killing desert on the road to Khoshutovo, having survived a sandstorm. The forces of the desert did not break the young teacher as they did the peasants. The death of two out of 20 students from hunger and disease made Naryshkina think. Her “strong, cheerful and courageous nature” found a way out: she learned the sand business herself and taught others.
For the peasants, the teacher became almost a god. She even had “prophets of the new faith” and many friends.
The first sadness in the teacher’s life was associated with the collapse of her new faith in victory over the elements. The new element - the hunger of the nomadic tribes - also did not break the girl. She knows how to objectively judge people. Both the leader’s answer and the answer turned out to be wise, which at first seemed unreasonable to the girl.
Maria Naryshkina’s choice to go to an even greater wilderness is not a sacrifice, as a result of which Maria allowed herself to be buried in the sands, but a conscious life goal.
The leader of the nomads in the story is contrasted with Zavokrono. The leader is wise, he understands the hopelessness of the struggle of nomads with sedentary Russians for grass. Zavokrono at first seems narrow-minded to Maria, but then she catches his precise calculation: when the nomads switch to a sedentary lifestyle, they will stop destroying the greenery in the villages.
The story shows how myth and fairy tale shape a person’s personality, and a person then transforms space, turning it into a fairy tale. Geography, a story about distant countries, was the heroine's poetry. The thirst for conquering space, mixed with love for her homeland, prompted Maria to go to remote villages to make the myth of the green spaces of the former desert come true.
Artistic originality
The story contrasts the deadness of the Central Asian desert and the liveliness of the heroine herself and her ideas of landscaping, “the art of turning the desert into living land.” The dead is conveyed by metaphorical epithets and metaphors deserted sands, sandy shifting graves, a hot wind for dead children, the steppe has exhausted itself, the steppe has long died, a half-dead tree.
At the climactic moment of decision-making, Maria Naryshkina sees her youth buried in the sandy desert, and herself dead in the shell bush. But she replaces this dead picture with a living picture, imagining herself as an old woman driving along a forest road from the former desert.
Landscapes in the story form an important part of the idea, realizing the antithesis of the living and the dead.
The short story is full of aphorisms: “Someday youth will not be defenseless,” “Someone dies and swears,” “Whoever is hungry and eats the grass of his homeland is not a criminal.”
The main character of Andrei Platonov’s story “The Sandy Teacher” is a young teacher Maria Naryshkina. After completing her teaching courses, she was sent to work in the village of Khoshutovo, which was located on the border of the steppe and the Asian desert.
In the village, Maria Nikiforovna saw how people were struggling with the sands of the desert, which methodically covered all the fruits of their labor. In winter, snowstorms were added to the sand drifts, and then life in the village came to a standstill.
Children went to school irregularly. Their parents were indifferent to the knowledge taught by the young teacher. This knowledge did not help them survive in the desert.
And then Maria Nikiforovna decided to teach the villagers to fight the sands and turn the desert into a flourishing land. She gathered the peasants at school and talked about her idea. The peasants approved of her ideas, but did not believe in the success of this business.
Then the teacher went to the district and began to demand help in her endeavors. She was advised to take on this difficult task herself and was helped only with books. But Maria Nikiforovna turned out to be a persistent person and convinced the peasants to take up public works to plant trees around the surrounding lands.
Over the course of two years, windbreaks made of shrubs called shelyuga grew around the village. These stripes blocked the path of the sands. Shelyuga also provided the village residents with work. Bush branches were used as fuel, and villagers learned to weave baskets, boxes, and even furniture from them. They began to live much better.
But in the third year disaster struck. Nomads came to the village area, leading numerous herds of animals. In three days, these animals destroyed all the vegetation around the village and drank all the water from the wells.
The angry teacher went to the leader of the nomads with a demand to leave these lands. But the leader said that if his people went into the desert, they would die of hunger. Then Maria Nikiforovna went to complain to the district.
In the district, she was offered an unexpected solution - to go to work in the distant village of Safutovo, where nomads settled who decided to lead a settled life. Maria Nikiforovna was offered to train nomads to fight the sands the way the residents of Khoshutovo did.
It was explained to her that the nomads who destroy green plantings can only be fought by attracting them to a settled life. And only by going to Safutovo, Maria Nikifirovna could help those peasants who suffered from the nomads.
After thinking, the young teacher agreed to go to Safutovo, and promised to return in fifty years not along the sands, but along the forest road.
This is the summary of the story.
The main idea of Platonov’s story “The Sandy Teacher” is that for a responsible person, duty to society, to other people, is more important than anything else. Maria Naryshkina was a responsible and proactive person. She taught people to fight the sands, and when trouble came to these people in the form of nomads, Maria Nikiforovna decided to sacrifice her personal life for the good of those whom she helped.
The story teaches you to be persistent and persistent in achieving your goal. The heroine of the story, teacher Maria Naryshkina, helped illiterate peasants turn the desert into fertile land in two years.
I liked the story because of its positive attitude. The teacher especially stands out in the story - a person who loves life and people, who knows how to make life better.
What proverbs fit Platonov’s story “The Sandy Teacher”?
Don't be hasty, but be persistent.
Patience and a little effort.
Lesson plan
Lesson topic: Andrey Platonov. The story "The Sandy Teacher".
Learning Objective: acquaintance with the work of A. Platonov, analysis of the story “The Sandy Teacher”.
Developmental goal: development of skills in analyzing a work of art.
Educational task: show a person’s struggle with a natural disaster, victory over it, the strength of a woman’s character in the fight against the elements.
During the classes
1. Survey on the works of A. Platonov
Born on August 20 (September 1, new year) in Voronezh in the family of Klimentov, a mechanic at railway workshops. (In the 1920s he changed his surname Klimentov to the surname Platonov). He studied at a parish school, then at a city school. As the eldest son, at the age of 15 he began working to support the family.
He worked “in many places, for many owners,” then at a steam locomotive repair plant. He studied at the Railway Polytechnic.
The October Revolution radically changes Platonov's whole life; For him, a working person, intensely comprehending life and his place in it, a new era is coming. He collaborates in the editorial offices of various newspapers and magazines in Voronezh, acts as a publicist, reviewer, tries his hand at prose, and writes poetry.
In 1919 he participated in the civil war in the Red Army. After the end of the war, he returned to Voronezh and entered the Polytechnic Institute, which he graduated in 1926.
Platonov's first book of essays, Electrification, was published in 1921.
In 1922, the second book “Blue Depth” was published - a collection of poems.
In 1923 - 26 Platonov worked as a provincial ameliorator and was in charge of work on the electrification of agriculture.
In 1927 he moved to Moscow, in the same year his book “Epiphanian Gateways” (a collection of stories) appeared, which made him famous. Success inspired the writer, and already in 1928 he published two collections, “Meadow Masters” and “The Hidden Man.”
In 1929 he published the story “The Origin of the Master” (the first chapters of the novel about the revolution “Chevengur”). The story causes a barrage of harsh criticism and attacks, and the writer’s next book will appear only eight years later.
Since 1928 he has been collaborating in the magazines “Krasnaya Nov”, “New World”, “October” and others. He continues to work on new prose works “The Pit” and “The Juvenile Sea”. Tries himself in drama ("High Voltage", "Pushkin at the Lyceum").
In 1937, the book of short stories “The Potudan River” was published.
With the beginning of the Patriotic War, he was evacuated to Ufa, where he published a collection of war stories, “Under the Skies of the Motherland.”
In 1942 he went to the front as a special correspondent for the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper.
In 1946 he was demobilized and devoted himself entirely to literary work. Three prose collections are being published: “Stories about the Motherland”, “Armor”, “Towards the Sunset”. In the same year he wrote one of his most famous stories, “Return”. However, the appearance of “The Ivanov Family” in Novy Mir was met with extreme hostility, and the story was declared “slanderous.” Platonov was no longer published.
In the late 1940s, deprived of the opportunity to earn a living through literary work, the writer turned to retellings of Russian and Bashkir fairy tales, which some children's magazines accepted from him. Despite abject poverty, the writer continued his work.
After his death, a large handwritten legacy remained, including the novels “The Pit” and “Chevengur” that shocked everyone. A. Platonov died on January 5, 1951 in Moscow.
2. New topic. A.Platonov. The story "The Sandy Teacher".
3. Identification of the topic: nature and man, the struggle for survival.
4. Main idea: show the energy, fearlessness, confidence of the heroine in the fight against the natural elements; the strength of female character, faith in a bright future, faith in a person who, with great difficulty, turns lifeless earth into a green garden.
5. The teacher's word.
Epigraph: “...But the desert is the future world, you have nothing to fear,
and people will be grateful when a tree grows in the desert..."
Platonov was very fond of all his characters: a machinist, a worker, a soldier or an old man. Each one is beautiful to him in its own way. It is not for nothing that one of Plato’s heroes said: “It is only from above, it seems, only from above that one can see that below there is a mass, but in fact, below individual people live, have their own inclinations, and one is smarter than the other.”
And from all this mass I would like to single out not even a hero, but one heroine of the story “The Sandy Teacher”.
This story was written in 1927, at a time not yet so far from the hot revolutionary times. Memories of this time are still alive, its echoes in “The Sandy Teacher” are still alive.
But Maria Nikiforovna Naryshkina herself was not affected by these changes of the era. Both her father and her hometown, “dead, abandoned by the sands of the Astrakhan province,” which stood “away from the marching roads of the Red and White armies,” saved her from this trauma. Since childhood, Maria has been very interested in geography. This love determined her future profession.
The entire first chapter of the story is devoted to her dreams, ideas, and her growing up during her studies. But at this time, Maria was not protected from life’s anxieties as much as in childhood. We read the author’s digression on this matter: “It is strange that no one ever helps a young man at this age to overcome the anxieties that torment him; no one will support the thin trunk, which is torn by the wind of doubt and shaken by the earthquake of growth.” In a figurative, metaphorical form, the writer reflects on youth and its defenselessness. There is an undoubted connection with the historical, contemporary period, which is not capable of helping a person entering life. Plato's hopes for changes in the situation are associated with thoughts about the future: “Someday youth will not be defenseless.”
Both love and the suffering of youth were not alien to Mary. But we feel that everything in this girl’s life will be completely different from how she saw it in her youth.
In a word, Maria Naryshkina could not even guess about her fate. Yes, everything turned out to be difficult for her: setting up the school, working with the children, who in the end completely abandoned school, since there was no time for it during the hungry winter. “Naryshkina’s strong, cheerful, courageous nature began to get lost and extinguish.” Cold, hunger and grief could not bring any other results. But the mind brought Maria Naryshkina out of her stupor. She realized that it was necessary to help people fight the desert. And this woman, an ordinary rural teacher, goes to the district department of public education to be taught how to teach “sand science.” But they only gave her books, treated her sympathetically and advised her to seek help from the local agronomist, who “lived one and a half hundred miles away and had never been to Khoshuta versts and had never been to Khoshutov.” That's what they did.
Here we see that even in real difficulties, the government of the twenties did nothing to help people, even such initiators and activists as Maria Nikiforovna.
But this woman did not lose all her strength and resilience and still achieved her goal on her own. True, she also had friends in the village - Nikita Gavkin, Ermolai Kobzev and many others. However, the restoration of life in Khoshutov is entirely the merit of the “sandy” teacher. She was born in the desert, but she also had to fight with her. And everything came together: “The settlers... became calmer and more well-fed,” “the school was always full not only of children, but also of adults,” even “the desert gradually turned greener and became more welcoming.”
But Maria Nikiforovna’s main test lay ahead. It was sad and painful for her to realize that the nomads were about to arrive, although she did not yet know what to expect from them. The old people said: “There will be trouble.” And so it happened. Hordes of nomads came on August 25 and drank all the water in the wells, trampled all the greenery, gnawed everything. This was “the first real sadness in Maria Nikiforovna’s life.” And again she tries to correct the situation. This time she goes to the leader of the nomads. With “young anger” in her soul, she accuses the leader of inhumanity and evil. But he is wise and intelligent, which is what Maria notices for herself. And she has a completely different opinion about Zavukrono, who suggested leaving Khoshutovo and going to another place, Safuta.
This smart woman decided to sacrifice herself, her life, to save her village. Isn't it strength of character to give not just your youth, but your whole life to serving people, voluntarily giving up excellent happiness? Isn't it strength of character to help those who destroyed your achievements and victories?
Even this short-sighted boss recognized her amazing courage: “You, Maria Nikiforovna, could manage a whole people, and not a school.” Is it a woman’s job to “lead the people”? But it turned out that she, a simple teacher, and most importantly, a strong woman, could do it.
How much she has already achieved! But how many victories she still has to win... It seems like a lot. You involuntarily believe in such a person. One can only be proud of him.
And Maria Nikiforovna Naryshkina herself, I think, will never have to say about herself as Zavokrono said: “For some reason I’m ashamed.” He, a man, has not accomplished such a feat in his life as the simple “sandy teacher” has accomplished and continues to accomplish.
Vocabulary work:
1. Irrigate - water, soak with moisture.
2. Shelyuga - species of trees and shrubs of the willow genus.
3. Foul - emitting a disgusting odor.
4. Gnaw - gnaw, eat.
5. Extorted from herself - gave birth, raised.
6. Soddy - abundant with the roots of herbaceous plants.
Assignments: Answering questions
1. What personality trait of Maria Naryshkina is, in your opinion, the main one?
2. Which words or episodes reveal Mary’s understanding of the meaning of life more clearly than others?
3. Why did Maria decide that “at school the main subject should be training in fighting sand, learning the art of turning the desert into living land”? How do you understand the following words: “The desert is the future world...”?
4. Read the dialogue between Mary and the leader of the nomads. Why did Maria “secretly think that the leader was smart...”?
5. What do you think is the main idea of the story “The Sandy Teacher”? Determine the theme, ideological and artistic content of the story.
Plan:
1. Studying at pedagogical courses
2. Arrival in Khoshutovo
3. The decision to fight the sands. National struggle
4. Harm caused by nomads
5. A life dedicated to the struggle to transform the desert into the future world
Homework: retelling the content of the story “The Sandy Teacher”, reading other stories by the writer Platonov.
