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Philanthropist Boris Zimin Shares His Perspective On Modern Education

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The Zimin Foundation is a non-profit organization established by the Zimin family to aid education and science. The Foundation partners with distinguished universities and funds research and educational projects that combine academic excellence with high potential for positive, real-world impact. Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Zimin Foundation has been supporting researchers and students affected by the war. I spoke with philanthropist Boris Zimin, the head of the Zimin Foundation, about his perspective on modern education.

Julia Brodsky: From your experience working with various educational funds and organizations, what do you think should be the emphasis of modern education?

Boris Zimin: While most of the world is prioritizing STEM these days, I have been contemplating the necessity of a comprehensive humanitarian and ethical emphasis in education. Consider the example of education in Soviet Russia, which was well-known around the world for providing a solid STEM background. The goal of Soviet education was to raise workers and soldiers ready for building the “communist future,” and the questions of good and evil never arose — the pre-made answers to those questions were the prerogative of the ruling communist party. Such education produces savvy technical specialists and “effective managers” who are not used to questioning the social and humanitarian consequences of their actions. And that hasn’t changed in the modern, post-Soviet period, as demonstrated by the brutality of Russian forces in Ukraine. In my opinion, education should first and foremost focus on ethics. In the early 2000s, when we first launched our philanthropic foundation, “Dynasty,” we primarily focused on fundamental sciences but failed to include literature, history, or social sciences. Fourteen years later, we realized that our focus was short-sighted. Math is important, but ethics is fundamental. Without reflecting on the value of human life, advanced math skills may bring us toward destruction.

JB: You’ve mentioned the problem of teaching children sciences at the expense of humanities. The emphasis on the success of each child conditions children to think that prestige is all that matters. What do you think are the best ways of encouraging parents and society as a whole to put more emphasis on ethics and big-picture thinking in education?

BZ: The best approach is diversity. We cannot anticipate societal needs in advance since everything, including education, is growing more complex. Hence, there should be many different schools, just as there should be many different businesses. But we do need to remind parents about the goals of education. Parents often project their insecurities onto their children and aim for narrowly understood “success” without realizing that children have their own interests and preferences. They forget that the primary goal of education is to raise decent and happy people who recognize that the future depends on them.

JB: The modern public school system requires students to follow strict rules. It appears natural that people raised by such a system would be more inclined to accept authoritarian power. What do you think?

BZ: I think the root of the problem is not authoritarianism but the increase in complexity. For example, modern aviation has many strict rules to improve flight safety. We would not say that aviation has become more authoritarian over time, but rather that it has become more complex. The schools respond to the growing complexity by introducing more and more regulations. While such rules may seem overwhelming for students and teachers, we should consider the pros and cons of these regulations in light of the system as a whole.

JB: As you said, the world is becoming very complex, yet the school curriculum appears fragmented. Should education help students develop a big-picture understanding of the rapidly changing world?

BZ: While many people have expressed this concern, I am reassured by the parallel with biological evolution. When life began on Earth, more complex life forms evolved when single-celled organisms successfully specialized to exist symbiotically with other cells. In our body, there are plenty of bacterial cells that have lost their independence. Similarly, prehistoric humans had to know much more than we do now because they had to be able to do everything in order to survive. This is no longer the case. Many of us can only live in the cities and have no idea how to approach a horse. Humanity as a whole is becoming a much more complex organism, even though each of its members may possess less versatility and independence. And this reflection comforts me.

JB: What are the unique qualities of the educational projects you support?

BZ: In addition to the emphasis on ethics, we believe that motivation is essential for learning. What is the fundamental difference between “instruction” and “learning”? For instruction, the teacher manages the educational process regardless of a student's preferences. The student may or may not actually learn the subject. In contrast, deep authentic learning almost always requires a self-motivated student. We choose to focus on learning.

JB: Given your emphasis on human-focused education, do you support any educational programs that help refugee students?

BZ: The Zimin Foundation, in collaboration with the Razom Foundation, supports the Center for Ukrainian refugees in Wroclaw by providing tuition for more than 200 students to study the Ukrainian language following the curriculum of the National Ukrainian School. Along with the Boris Nemtsov Foundation, we sponsor several scholarship programs for Ukrainian refugee students in the Czech Republic, including the Prague University of Economics, Charles University, and Prague’s Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design. Besides that, we sponsor the Feodor Stepun program at the Ruhr University Bochum in Germany, supporting Ukrainian researchers, as well as Russian scientists who fled Putin’s criminal regime. We sponsored Ukrainian pre-teens to attend the Le Sallay Academy this academic year and are proud to have helped provide thousands of books in Ukrainian to refugee accommodation centers in ten European cities.

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