Moscow State School 57

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]

Moscow School 57
New logo of The Moscow School 57, redesigned in 2019
Address
7/10 Maly Znamensky Lane

Moscow
119019

Russia
Coordinates55.748616°N 37.605134°E / 55.748616; 37.605134
Information
TypeState school
Established1877
PrincipalMikhail Sluch
Faculty123.3 (on FTE basis)....[1]
Grades1st–11th
Enrollment1,100 (as of 2014–15)[2]
Websitesch57.ru

History

Founding and School 4 (1877–1968)
The school circa 1877.

In 1877, Karl Masing, a Russian engineer and educator, founded a realschule in Maly Znamensky 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, in conformity with the 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 Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics of 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 Faculty 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
Classical logo of The Moscow School 57, designed in 1984 by students

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 Uchitelskaya Gazeta (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 George Soros' Open Society Foundations and the American Mathematical Society.[25] In 2016, fifteen students of the school received awards of the All-Russian Mathematical Olympiad.[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 Maly Znamensky 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]

Open Oral Maths Olympiad

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]

Summer Мath Сamp

Since 2012,[33] 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 Мath Сamp is jointly organized by the school, the Higher School of Economics and Yandex. In 2016, the Summer Мath Сamp 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.[34]

Collection of graduation pins and badges of Moscow School 57 from 1970s to 2018

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.[35] 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.

Classical School 57 logo contains a mathematical root symbol hidden in its counterform. While the idea of the square root in the school icon existed before, the classical logo was originally designed by the school's students within a logo tender, organized by students in 1984 without the administration involvement. The final classical logo contains elements of work of Misha Ovchinnikov, Nikolai Grigoriev, and Alexander Kulakov. It was used with minor modifications in school collateral materials and graduation pins over decades.

The new logo was designed in 2019 as a part of school style update project.

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.[36]

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 the Moscow Center for Continuous Mathematical Education, head of development of Unified State Exam Ivan Yashchenko.

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.

gollark: We need this in a library; people can't implement this on their own without being professional developers.
gollark: And, well, `x % 2 === 0` is also astoundingly complex. I mean, look at that weird squiggly confusing thing that very senior, experienced developers call "modulus"!
gollark: As we all know, `typeof x === "number"` is so very complicated that to ensure people can do it easily - without getting it wrong by falling into one of many, many pitfalls - it has to be in a library.
gollark: There will be 32-core AMD processors soon. Madness.
gollark: Fun fact: Wojbie's facts are not fun.

References
  1. "School 57 - Teachers" (in Russian). Moscow Department for Education. Archived from the original on 2016-10-17. Retrieved 2016-10-26.
  2. "School 57 - Information" (in Russian). Moscow Department for Education. Archived from the original on 2016-10-19. Retrieved 2016-10-26.
  3. Vogeli, Bruce (2015). Special Secondary Schools for the Mathematically Talented. World Scientific. ISBN 9789814667487.
  4. "Karl Masing". Discover Moscow. Retrieved 2016-10-26.
  5. "Успех учеников - успех школы" [The success of pupils is the success of schools]. Uchitelskaya Gazeta Moskva (in Russian) (34). 26 August 2014. Retrieved 2018-11-07.
  6. ""Познавательный фильм": Школа №57 -- братство умников и умниц" ["Educational film": School No. 57 -- the brotherhood of brainies] (in Russian). Moscow 24. 11 March 2014. Retrieved 2016-10-27 – via YouTube.
  7. "Сергей Менделевич: Я - «пятидесятисемит»" [Sergey Mendelevich: I am a "fiftysemite"] (Interview) (in Russian). Interviewed by Leonid Kleyn. polit.ru. 31 August 2005. Retrieved 2016-10-27.
  8. Gerovitch, Slava. "Parallel Worlds: Formal Structures and Informal Mechanisms of Postwar Soviet Mathematics" (PDF). Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  9. "Положение о порядке приема обучающихся в Государственное бюджетное образовательное учреждение города Москвы центр образования № 57 "Пятьдесят седьмая школа"" [Admission regulations] (PDF). sch57.ru (in Russian).
  10. "Группы развивающего обучения" [Preparatory classes]. sch57.ru (in Russian).
  11. Shapiro, Natalia. "Гуманитарные классы" [Humanities classes]. sch57.ru (in Russian).
  12. "Биологический класс 57-й школы г. Москвы" [Biology classes at Moscow's School 57] (in Russian). Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics, Lomonosov Moscow State University.
  13. "Faculty of Bioengineering and Bioinformatics". Moscow State University.
  14. "Приём в школу" [Admission to the school]. sch57.ru (in Russian).
  15. Collier, Sabrina (25 July 2016). "Top 10 Universities in Russia 2016". TopUniversities.
  16. Vityuk, Kseniya; Gofman, Anna; Ivanova-Gladilshchikova, Natalia; Ivanova, Anastasia; Stulikova, Alina (22 April 2013). "Лучшие школы Москвы. Топ-20" [The best schools of Moscow. Top 20]. Bolshoy Gorod (in Russian).
  17. Yurkevich, Victoria; Davidovich, Boris (2009). "Russian strategies for talent development: stimulating comfort and discomfort". In Balchin, Tom; Hymer, Barry; Matthews, Dona J. (eds.). The Routledge International Companion to Gifted Education. Routledge. ISBN 9781136028861.
  18. Davidovich, Boris; Pushkar, Pyotr; Chekanov, Yuri (2008). Математический анализ в 57-й школе. Четырехгодичный курс [Calculus at School 57: A Forty-Year Course] (PDF) (in Russian). Moscow: MCCME Publishing House. ISBN 978-5-94057-360-9.
  19. Yashchenko, Ivan; et al. (2010). Элементы математики в задачах [Elements of Mathematics in Problems] (PDF) (in Russian). I. Moscow: MCCME Publishing House. ISBN 978-5-94057-579-5.
  20. Sergeyev, Pyotr (2008). Математика в спецклассах 57-й школы. Математический анализ [Mathematics in Specialized Classes of School 57: Calculus] (PDF) (in Russian). Moscow: MCCME Publishing House. ISBN 978-5-94057-359-3.
  21. "School 57 Results" (PDF) (in Russian). Moscow State Department of Education.
  22. "Рейтинг вклада школ в качественное образование московских школьников" [Moscow Schools Rating] (in Russian). Moscow Department for Education. Retrieved 2016-10-26.
  23. "Топ-25 лучших школ России. 2016 год" [Top 25 Best Schools of Russia. 2016]. Uchitelskaya Gazeta (in Russian). 5 October 2016. Retrieved 2016-10-27.
  24. "Support Program for Math and Science Teachers". Dynasty Foundation.
  25. "Homepage". sch57.ru.
  26. "XLII Всероссийская олимпиада школьников по математике (Заключительный этап)" [XLII All-Russian Mathematical Olympiad (Final Round)] (in Russian). MCCME.
  27. "Наши кружки" [Our circles]. sch57.ru (in Russian).
  28. Dorichenko, Sergey (2011). A Moscow Math Circle: Week-by-week Problem Sets. Translated by Shubin, Tatiana. MSRI. p. xi. ISBN 978-0-8218-6874-4.
  29. Pronina, Margarita; Fomin, Dmitry (10 August 2016). "20 лет на Маячном полуострове Севастополя "Гераклейская экспедиция" ведет раскопки "Страбонова Херсонеса"" [Digs in Chersonesus] (in Russian). Independent Television of Sevastopol.
  30. Sedikova, Larisa (30 September 2015). "Зачем гражданину Путину нужна присяга граждан Херсонеса?" [Why Citizen Putin needs an oath from the citizens of Chersonesus] (Interview) (in Russian). National News Agency. Retrieved 2015-09-30.
  31. "Открытая устная олимпиада 57-ой школы по математике" [School 57's Open Oral Maths Olympiad] (in Russian). Olimpiada.ru.
  32. "The Open Oral Maths Olympiad at School 57". sch57.ru. Retrieved 2018-11-07.
  33. "School 57's Summer Мath Сamp". sch57.ru. Retrieved 2018-11-07.
  34. "Addmision rules document" (PDF) (in Russian). Higher School of Economics.
  35. "Лекторий 57" [Lectorium 57] (in Russian). Retrieved 10 October 2017 – via Facebook.
  36. Litvinova, Daria (7 September 2016). "Sexual Assault Scandal Hits Elite Moscow School, Rocks Russian Intelligentsia". The Moscow Times. Retrieved 2018-11-07.
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