Moscow State School 57

Moscow School 57
Address
7/10 Maliy Znamenskiy per. Moscow 119019 Russia
Coordinates	55°44′55″N 37°36′18″E / 55.748616°N 37.605134°E / 55.748616; 37.605134Coordinates: 55°44′55″N 37°36′18″E / 55.748616°N 37.605134°E / 55.748616; 37.605134
Information
Type	Public School
Established	1877
Principal	Alexandr Tverskoy
Faculty	123.3 (on FTE basis)....[1]
Grades	1st–11th
Enrollment	1,100 (as of 2014–15)[2]
Website	sch57.ru/index.en.html

Moscow State School 57 (Russian: Пятьдесят седьмая школа) is a public school located in the Khamovniki District of Moscow, Russia. The school was founded in 1877 and is best known for its specialized secondary program in mathematics and its alumni.^[3]

History

Founding and School 4 (1877 — 1968)

The school circa 1877.

In 1877, Karl Masing, a Russian engineer and educator, founded a realschule in Maliy Znamenskiy lane,^[4] which soon became one of the most progressive vocational schools in Russia.^[5]

After the October Revolution, the realschule was converted into a boarding school with courses in aesthetic arts and renamed to School 4. It became popular with the Soviet establishment, with top government officials sending their children there.^[6]

In 1936, the school was transformed again, converting back to a vocational school and acquiring the number 57 in Moscow's educational system.^[7]

Math classes and New Campuses (1968 — present)

School 57 today

In 1968, Nikolay Konstantinov, a leading Russian educator in Mathematics, established specialized Math classes at the school. Konstantinov's teaching methodology still is used in these classes to this day and has been shared with other educational centers.^[8] The school started gaining prestige due to the quality of education it provided.

As of 2016, School 57 is a highly selective school with a competitive admission process. The high school offers specializations in humanities, Biology, and Mathematics, as well as a general track. In 2008 — 2013, the school merged with two other schools in different locations of the Khamovniki district of Moscow, satisfying the requirements of recent reforms in educational policy.

Enrollment

The school has a total enrollment of over a thousand students, entering first, eighth and ninth grade.

Admission^[9] to elementary school is competitive and based on test results of the students previously enrolled in the school's tuition-based mandatory preschool program.^[10] In 2015, the admission committee considered over a thousand applicants for 130 positions. By maintaining good standing the students can guarantee their further education in the school's general track middle and high school. As is the tradition in many Russian schools, incoming students are split into a number of groups of 20–30 which each have their own curricula and teachers.

School 57 has general track classes along with its specialized programs and holds a separate admission process for specialized classes in mathematics, humanities^[11] and biology, a joint project^[12] of the school and the Department of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics of the Moscow State University.^[13] The admission committee considers a few hundred applicants for 20–25 places in each class.^[14]

School 57 launches two Math classes each year, with four- and three-year curriculums, each admitting around 20–25 students who have demonstrated the best problem-solving abilities during the application process. The school organizes free preparatory courses that help interested students to develop said abilities. A portfolio that includes prizes from Math competitions can strengthen an application.^[3]

Academics

Students in the specialized classes receive extensive training in their areas of expertise, often covering college-level material in their junior and senior years. Graduates of the specialized classes often go on to pursue college degrees in Russia's best universities,^[15] including the Higher School of Economics, Moscow State University, and the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.^[16]

Mathematics Classes

Individual approach lies in the core of the specialized math classes' educational process. Teaching the specialized math classes isn't limited to faculty staff - additional instructors, many of whom are volunteering alumni, are involved in order to give every student necessary attention. Rather than having to learn the material from a textbook, students discover it through solving sequences of problems. Solutions are presented by the students to the instructors in one-on-one discussions.^[17] This method, introduced by Konstantinov, proved to be effective and was adopted by other educational institutions in both Russia and abroad, including School 179, the Independent University of Moscow and the department of Mathematics at Higher School of Economics. Several School 57 teachers have also written textbooks^[18][19][20] that follow the method. The specialized curriculum includes introductory topics in linear algebra, calculus, set theory, and probability theory.

Awards and recognition

The school is consistently ranked among the top 10 Russian schools.^[21] In 2016, school 57 was ranked fourth in Moscow by the Moscow Department of Education^[22] and fifth in Russia by the Teacher's Newspaper, the leading educational periodical in Russia.^[23] Several teachers from the school received honorary awards, including the President's award.^[24] The school was also awarded grants by the Soros foundation and the American Mathematical Society.^[25] In 2016, fifteen students of the school received awards of the All-Russian Mathematical Olympics.^[26]

Extracurricular activities

School 57 offers a number of free courses for middle schoolers preparing students who intend to apply to the Mathematics, Humanities and Biology classes.^[27] The Math program includes weekly problem solving sets for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders, some of the courses are published.^[28] The Biology track includes lectures in Math, Biology and Chemistry for eighth graders, and future Humanities students study Literature and History. All of the courses take place in the first, historical building of the school on Maliy Znamenskiy lane. The school also offers a number of clubs for students of each of its three buildings, including a chess club, film club, ceramics club, theater club (both puppet theater and drama) and a course preparing for TOEFL and IELTS standardized English tests.

Class vacations, including those involving intense work (lectures, presentations, field trips), are popular in the school, though not mandated by the administration. Math classes usually tend to have mountain hiking journeys, while humanities classes organize urban trips, focusing on cultural and historical studies. Since 1996 the school worked together with the Tauric Chersonese museum to organize volunteers from the number of students and alumni to work and learn on different archaeological sites in the area.^[29][30]

Math Competition

School 57 holds an annual Math competition for sixth and seventh graders from Moscow schools, sometimes accommodating more than 300 students.^[31] During the competition, students interact with professors, as well as mathematics graduate and postgraduate students of Moscow universities. The competition consists of two rounds and a series of lectures on various subjects by school teachers and alumni professors.^[32]

Math Summer Camp

Since 2012, the school has been hosting a mathematical summer camp for high school students, where university professors offer a number of introductory courses in different areas of college level mathematics. School 57 students are admitted automatically, students of other Moscow schools receive a spot in the camp based on results of a competition. The summer camp is jointly organized by the school, the Higher School of Economics and Yandex. In 2016, the summer camp had 15 courses and 80 students. The topics covered in the camp's course include the Young tableau, knot invariants and Schubert polynomials. Students who have the School 57 Math camp's honors certificate have a better chance at getting into the Higher School of Economics.^[33]

Lectorium

In September 2016, a series of lectures by notable alumni was launched in a joint effort by the school's alumni and students’ parents.^[34] Lectures take place in all three buildings of the school, the speakers include Alexander Barulin and Anatoly Starostin. Lectures vary in format from oral presentations to interactive master classes.

Traditions

School 57 has a tradition of keeping in touch with its alumni. Every 1st Saturday of February, the school celebrates its birthday, and current students arrange entertainment for the alumni, including refreshments, skits, and games, including The Hat game. The alumni, in turn, come up with intellectual contests for students.

Controversies

In August 2016, several school graduates publicly accused two school teachers of sexual misconduct and the school administration of deliberate concealment of these misconducts. This scandal led to the retirement of the Principal Sergey Mendelevich. The school is still undergoing legal investigation as of November 2016.^[35]

Notable people

Alumni

Among the notable alumni, most work in the field of mathematics. However, the list also contains well-known scholars in other disciplines, as well as politicians, businessmen, and public figures.

Faculty

The schools faculty includes a mathematician and professor Alexander Shen, an educator, geometer, author of several geometry textbooks Rafail Gordin, director of Moscow Center for Continuous Mathematical Education, head of development of Unified State Exam Ivan Yashenko.

Former faculty includes poet and novelist Igor Vishnevetsky, mathematician and Soviet dissident Tatyana Velikanova, biologist, founder of the biological classes at School 57 and other Moscow schools Galina Sokolova.

References

External links

• Moscow State School 57