History of success

What distinguishes strong personalities and true managers? The crisis phenomena that they encounter on their way only move them to growth and new victories.

Our dear and respected leader Guldzhamal Dzhusupbekovna met different situations on her way. Many of them were not simple, but she coped with them and became stronger. She decided to share this in a series of her own articles.

Part one

Now, when a systemic crisis suddenly appeared in the world, all coaches offer their solutions to get out of it. I thought about it. Which of our experiences has allowed us to stay afloat?

The quarantine situation challenges us. And I, being the head of one of the largest and most successful educational institutions of the republic, remember the times when situations and people beat us very hard so that, as I think today, we have become stable!

Educational complex "Ilim" is 27 years old. Over the years we have gone through so many economic and political crises; what did we feel at the same time, how we suffered and survived, what helped us, and what toppled over and over again?

On September 27, 1993, for the first time, we opened the doors of our school in the premises of school No. 62 rented for several classes and in one of the kindergartens in 3rd microdistrict. Surprisingly, we scored 95 children in the first year, and it was great!

Before we had time to rejoice, after two weeks, the head of the kindergarten announced to us that she would open a private kindergarten and that we should vacate the premises by October 16!

That was a blow! Her statement shocked us! How? Where? After all, we have already taken responsibility for 95 children! Imagine, almost 190 people entrusted their children to us, and so what? What do we say to children, parents? What to do?

So we, we just "tightened our belts" and went ahead!

Probably, our own difficult and very responsible childhood affected here, when our mother, a war veteran, anti-aircraft gunner, was forced to take care of us, three little girls. I, the youngest one, was 2.5 years old, and the eldest one 9 years old. Mom worked around the clock and never complained about her fate, that the system deprived her of her husband, who died early due to political repressions and labor camps, the system that deprived her of her home, she never allowed us to become limp and complain.

In childhood, we were responsible for each other, for academic successes, for keeping the house clean and for cooking when mom is at work.

Therefore, we didn’t even think of dropping it! "Whiners don't win, and winners don't brag!"

What have we done? How did we win this situation?

At the time of the beginning of perestroika and the destruction of the economy, there were many closed kindergartens in Bishkek, all the ruined plants and factories dreamed of freeing themselves from this ballast. My sister Gaisha ran around all day in search of a building looked for more or less suitable ones and then showed them to me. And so, she brought me to kindergarten No. 80, owned by the Fizpribory factory. It was the largest kindergarten in the republic, consisted of two buildings, as it seemed to us then it was huge. When I first saw this, I was horrified: "Why do we need such a huge one? How will we keep it? Who and what will we fill it with?"

But Gaisha answered me: "You will see, the time will come when we will be crowded here." And so it happened!

For two days off we washed everything, moved our school and kindergarten here and on Monday started classes!

Today, thinking about why we did not abandon the idea of creating a school and kindergarten, resisted difficulties and turned our dream into reality, I can say that:

1. Our strength was in the belief that we are doing a noble cause, our children and parents need it. After all, we created a new type of school! And, as Coelho said - when you want something very much, the whole universe helps you in this!
2. Our strength was in faith, and faith inspires and makes us eloquent and makes it possible to inspire others!
3. We believed that difficulties only temper us and offer to measure our strength!
4. The team that we have gathered! People washed and equipped a building for two days off, which was closed for several years.
5. The faith of parents, children and employees - associates in us! Apparently we were able to present our idea about a new school very well and sincerely!
6. Gaisha’s talent to see and clearly understand which school she wants to create and her leadership talent - to capture with an idea, inspire and lead!

This was our first test, the first experience, and what happened next …

And then we made all the mistakes that could have been made by a Soviet person, far from the laws of business. And every time we remembered our parents who worthily stood the test of war, repression, betrayal and at the same time remained responsive, honest, and strong Personalities.

Part two

I will continue my story and the history of Ilim.

After we cleaned the kindergarten, we found that we have nothing of the property. In the school and in the previous kindergarten, we worked in rented classrooms with furniture, but here was nothing! Imagine 1993, a continuous shortage, nothing in stores!

I had to go to schools urgently and ask them to sell us decommissioned furniture. Fortunately, the school principals turned out to be very sincere people and they practically refused me nothing. I bought everything that was decommissioned and had a more decent appearance, and delivered to Ilim.

And another great information came in and I don’t remember where it came from. School desks for elementary school were brought to Balykchi, but nobody needs them. Gaisha went to Balykchi in one day and brought brand new desks for our kids! We were happy! Ask at what price did she buy these desks? For 5, 50 soms! School desks were bought for rubles, and Kyrgyzstan at that time had had just introduced som and in terms of soms, there was such a price!

There was a kitchen in the kindergarten, even two, but there was no dining room! Our children ate in the classrooms! Now it’s even hard to imagine, but at that time it was normal! Parents were pleased that the children were under our supervision all day, and they did their homework with teachers. There was no such experience anywhere!

If you remember, these were the "gangsters’ 90s" when people quickly began to lose the main values: work, a great country, ethical and moral ideals. Children have lost a landmark, a goal, a leader! High school students dropped out of school, dreamed of becoming bandits! Yes, yes, they wrote in their writings about their future: "I will become a banker, collect money from everyone, then I will give up and leave to live in America!" These were their dreams!

We were the first to open a full-day school so that children would be under our influence as much as possible, rather than wandering around on the street and talking with precarious ones. The school day began at seven in the morning and until five in the evening, the academic year consisted of two half-year periods, the children had hollidays only two weeks in winter and then in summer. And everyone endured such a regime! Because this has never happened anywhere else! True, sometimes, I slowly asked Gaisha to move the time even a little, it was so hard to get to work with children early in the morning. My eldest son was in eighth grade, and the youngest was only four years old. Public transport worked very poorly and we had to walk! Well, the truth is, we talked well along the way. There was a lot of joy in these conversations! Now I miss it so much!

What lessons have we learned from this time and what saved us?

1. The noble goal and inspiration of the whole team from this!
2. Again, strength of mind and willpower!
3. Viability!
4. The ability to inspire people. Gaisha is a born leader, ideologist! It was enough for both children and staff! In those days and now she sees only a beautiful future and inspires everyone around her with this! Then we called her Danko!

I’ll write about the lessons in the next story! These were lessons that we never dreamed of when we decided to open a private school!

Part three

Today I want to talk about a new school, about a dream, about a vision, and how it was created.

If someone does not know, I want to say that I am not a teacher by education, I am a merchandiser! I never dreamed of working at school, with children, although I always loved children, and as a child I nursed all the neighboring children.

Due to my poor health, everyone in the family and neighbors (in Soviet times, the neighbors were very friendly and knew everything about each other), wanted me to become a doctor. And I agreed. I additionally studied chemistry and biology to enter the medical institute.

But at the end of the tenth grade, I was chickened and decided not to go to medical school. I am a fidget by nature and could never grind. I imagined that I had to learn a lot of things by heart there, I just got scared and decided that I wouldn’t master it. In general, I always had a not very good opinion of myself. I did not see any talents and abilities in me! I went to study commodity science on the advice of my sister, who studied at the Faculty of Economics.

But life has put everything in its place. If you are destined to work with people, the curve of life will take you there anyway.

I always say that the professions of a teacher and a doctor are similar. One deals with the soul, the other with the body. Mistakes in these professions are equivalent and their impact on human life is enormous!

When Gaisha offered to open a school, I agreed as a younger sister (obedient, by the way). I just asked why the school, because there were so many schools and how ours will differ from others. She replied that it would be another school, a school where children are value! Where they would have a voice in! Where they would be friends with teachers! Where they help to reveal the talents that the Almighty has awarded! Children, like flowers, if they are well looked after, they will always bloom gratefully and delight others. That's what my soul responded to and I went after my sister.

So, we opened a school, I was engaged in household affairs, and Gaisha was engaged in the maintenance of education. It was not difficult to hire good teachers for us at all, unlike today's realities. We gathered good, talented, strong teachers, those who were not afraid to leave public school and go to an incomprehensible and new one. These were brave people! Teachers from other schools are now afraid to come to us; they say that it is difficult to work in our school. They just do not know how to take risks and try. I say with confidence that those who decided to come to us did not regret!

First of all, we opened the teaching room on Thursdays. At tea parties, after work we dreamed, we decided how to make this school the one we dreamed about. Sometimes our meetings could not do without arguments, screams, and even insults. When the teacher was asked the question - why was his subject needed, what did it study, how would it be useful for children, would it be used throughout their life? The teachers were offended, because everyone considered their subject to be necessary and important. And we just wanted everyone to look at it from the other side. I was not interested in these gatherings at all, I had my own stereotypes and complete indifference to their disputes. For several more years I was telling Gaisha - "I’m not a teacher, I don’t understand anything about it and I’m not interested." Until one day she told me: "If you say it again, I will kill you!"

A year later, we invited Alevtina Zhelonkina, a psychologist and the wife of the famous Aaron Brudny, to Ilim. She conducted some kind of test for us, members of the administration, and delivered me the verdict - "To teach, only to spoil! Gift from Above - Work with Children!" I believed her, although I was very surprised. After that I stopped saying that I’m not a teacher.

A lot of work was carried out to change the paradigm, namely the content and views on education! Many thanks in this work to Vladimir Korotenko and his "Likey of cultural policy"! We took all our teachers to Kashka-Suu to the ski base on weekends, to Issyk-Kul to the "Kyrgyzskoe vzmorye" on vacation and we just "blew their brains". Old stereotypes of thinking, perceptions of the goal of education were removed from people, and they had to fill themselves with new ones together. People could not sleep at night, because there were many thoughts and the brain could not turn off! Since then, we have such expressions that only Ilimians understand: "I’m a mugalim in Ilim" (caricature of an Ilim teacher with disheveled hair) or a desperate cry of a teacher to the training leader who silently waited: "sam durak (you are a fool)"!

So Ilim was born! we also took out children and their parents to out-of-town picnics, we all dreamed about a new type of school, about new relationships.

Thus was born the "Program of the Three Forces. Teacher - Pupil - Parent".

Part four

I wrote about school and forgot to write, it seems to me, about the most important thing. We studied the experience of many prominent philosophers and educators.

"If I saw further, it was only because I stood on the shoulders of giants" (Isaac Newton, physicist, mathematician, mechanic and astronomer).

We started with Shchedrovitsky Georgy Petrovich - the creator of the system-thinking-methodology, thanks to which we "made the brain" to our teachers when the old structure was destroyed and a new one was born. After that, for many years the word "methodologist" was intimidating in "Ilim"!

Then there was Amonashvili Shalva Aleksandrovich - the author of humane pedagogy, which we use to this day. In 2001, we invited him and his wife to Bishkek and held a republican conference for teachers and students of pedagogical specialties. At that time he was 70 years old, he felt bad, but for five days he stood on the stage and shared his methodology, conducted master classes with Ilim students on the stage! Last year we met him again and he impressed us with how he looked, how young and energetic he was! I testify, working with children really rejuvenates! This is a good recipe for those who want to keep themselves young longer, but only children need to be loved!

We were also fond of the ideas of Mikhail Petrovich Shchetinin and were delighted with his courage and foresight. We did not have the financial ability to go to him to study his experience, but really wanted to! We talked with him on the phone, bought a lot of video material about his lyceum. We use his method of immersion in the subject in our practice to this day. Of course not in the same form as that of Shchetinin, but we try!

Gaisha flew to Moscow for all conferences of the Association of Non-State Education of Russia. But we wanted to create something of our own, something that is acceptable and will find its response in our country, without rejecting the best world practices.

I remember how Gaisha spoke in a popular language about a meta-subject. The prefix meta - comes from the Greek μετά - "over". Usually its presence indicates that we are talking about a higher level of the concept.

She said: "Dividing the world into separate objects, we break a single picture of the world in the head of a child. By putting physics, mathematics, and biology separately in the child’s head, we hope that everything will mix up in his head and a single picture of the world will form. But this does not happen! Knowledge must be applied! It’s the same as sitting under the table, seeing one leg of the table — physics, the other — literature, the third — history, the fourth — mathematics. But we don’t see that this is a table, that it has a completely different look and purpose, and we don’t know how to use it in our daily lives. How should children sew it all in their head?". It was so simple and clear that even I became interested in this vision!

What have we learned:

1. We are very grateful to all the Teachers! There were many in our lives!
2. Lessons must be learned from all situations! If you do not learn a lesson, life will present it to you again and again, and so on until you learn it!
3. You can never say that you are a star, because there are so many stars in life, and a lot of what we have not yet seen, learned, applied. By the way, we don’t hire those who say that he is a star and, like Alla Pugacheva "I came and I say", they have "the ceiling on their head"!
4. We always need to learn, this is the command of the time and the area of activity that we have chosen is education!

Part five

Today I want to talk about our first financial crisis.

Of course, we did not come out of the capitalist world, but from the USSR. Everyone was equal there. If a person wanted to satisfy other people's needs and earn money on this, then he was put in prison, and sometimes shot. We grew up on this ideology and on fear. After all, our repressed parents were in prison not only with political prisoners, so their sad experience was reflected in our relationship with money.

We opened Ilim without money. Now no one will believe it! At the end of 1992, a government decree was issued that allowed private activities in the field of education and on April 6, 1993, we registered our Ilim.

In April, we opened a school of secretaries of referents, it was relevant and in demand. Indeed, at that time there were secretaries who were armed with a telephone and a typewriter. And in some wealthy private organizations, a fax and a computer have already appeared. We agreed with the owners of these companies and trained our secretaries to work on these complex machines. Again, the computer was mainly used as a typewriter.

Having earned some money at the school of secretaries of referents, at the end of May we opened a summer boarding school for children in that same kindergarten. Fortunately, the material base was from kindergarten, our task was to find some missing employees.

After, when we moved to kindergarten No. 80, the problems that I already wrote about began. Then a tape recorder left the house and the first mop in Ilim was also from my house. Sons told me: "Mom, before you used to bring everything home, but now you take everything away, you even took our tape recorder".

In Soviet times, people always kept their word and did not allow themselves not to repay their debts. And we, out of habit, trusted all parents with a word. Of course, we concluded contracts with parents, but this was not an obligation for everyone. This was the biggest difficulty, because we had obligations to employees, we had to pay them a salary, and our students had to be fed three times a day. We remained the first school year.

In the summer it was necessary to make repairs at the school, but we had absolutely no money, because in the summer there is no income. Fortunately, the Danes came to us; I don’t even remember what kind of people they were and why they came to us. It was a group of parents with children. They brought a huge amount of cargo: paint for walls, outlandish stationery for those times, and a lot of twenty-liter buckets with dried peaches. We made compote from these peaches for several more years. And the buckets were so strong, high-quality that we gladly used them in the household.

So the Danes started doing repairs in Ilim with their own hands! Of course, it was just a cosmetic repair, but it was a significant help for us. We did not know how to thank them! There was also a problem with the language, none of us spoke English or German, except for teachers. But in summer teachers are on vacation. We bought them our simple cookies. They praised them so much, but we couldn’t understand why they liked it so much, it was so ordinary ones. Only a few years later we realized that it was just natural, without any chemical additives and baking powder.

So we started the second school year. Our parents relaxed, and someone had problems in business and by February 1995 we had a financial crisis, there was no money. Children had to be fed, salaries and taxes had to be paid. The salary was detained no more than a month, and the husbands of some teachers came to us to deal with the "scammers". They did not hesitate to shout at us, insult, and threaten. It was terrible, I still remember my condition! We endured this period steadily, continued to work, teach and feed children. Fortunately for us, there were only a few such husbands, and the rest of the staff stood by and suffered all these hardships with us. It never occurred to us to close the school!

We had one more happiness, they were good friends, good people whom we met on our way at that moment. It was Asya Tokbaevna Taranchieva, she was familiar with many wealthy businessmen and asked them for a loan for us just like that. And there were people who borrowed us money without interest. Our middle sister Sagyn worked for us in accounting for a short time then. She began her morning with calls to people who promised to help: "Ivan Ivanovich, well, did the money appear?" and it was not one day or two. Friends are power!

We could not "knock out" money from parents; pedagogical ethics and maternal instinct did not allow us to do this. Children cannot be held responsible for their parents! How not to let a child come in the school or feed him because of the debt of his parents? We only hoped for their conscience!

Part six

Friends, I’m sure that my friends read me. Today I want to talk about an incident that would now have the effect of an exploding bomb, but 27 years ago the reaction to it was completely different.

In the summer of 1994, our kindergarten worked, and at school, as I said, the Danes and we did repairs. Our fence was flimsy, there was no protection, only the old Seyitbek bayke walked around the territory at night. The gate was always open and we were in the public domain.

Two boys of five years old were offended by the teacher on a walk, because she did not allow them to continue playing, but led everyone to the group for lunch and then to sleep. Entering the group, everyone went to wash their hands, prepare for dinner, the educator and nanny were naturally with the children in the restroom. These two tomboys gathered and left the kindergarten. Their loss was revealed when all the children sat in their places, but these two were nowhere to be found.

It is hard to imagine how we felt when we heard about it! We heard about this only after the educator and the nanny went around the whole territory and didn’t find them! It was a nightmare! Horror! Panic! Fear for the children! They were very small, and the time was dangerous!

The whole administration rushed in all directions along all the streets, they even reached the Druzhba Park, but there were no boys anywhere! They were gone!

We reported to the police and the parents of the boys. We were sitting and waiting for the verdict, we did not leave the phone, expecting that suddenly someone would call, someone would see or find them! Someone cried, wailed, someone prayed that the children would be alive!

Evening came, and they disappeared at twelve! About five o'clock a relative of one of the boys called us and said that they were found in the Vostok 5 microdistrict! Can you imagine where Ilim is and where Vostok 5 is? Children came to his house on foot, alone, no one helped them!

After some time, they were brought to Ilim. Cried, dirty, drips of tears on their faces! We rushed to kiss and hug them! It was an indescribable happiness, to see them safe!

We asked the boys how they got there and how they found their uncle? It turns out that they went along the river behind our fence and walked a very long time! Then they realized that they got lost and got excited, they cried for a long time, and did not know where to go at all. They did not decide where they would go, but simply fled! The boys walked along the river and one suddenly recognized his uncle's house, and they went to him! It was in the Vostok 5 microdistrict. The happiness is that the uncle was at home and he was aware that the children were wanted!

Today, parents would sue us! It would be a great scandal! But at that time, the parents apologized very much for the fact that the children ran away and were grateful to us that we were very worried and suffered too and did not scold the children, but passed them from hand to hand and kissed and cried!

All the children of the kindergarten went out to meet these "heroes"! And when we squeezed and kissed their tearful faces, one of their classmates approached them and said very strictly: "Elya cried because of you! Go and apologize to her! If you do this again, you will deal with me!" At first we giggled when we heard such a speech from a five-year-old child, but then we saw how seriously this was said and supported by the whole group! It should be noted that Elya was their favorite educator, who was only eighteen years old at that time. The children loved her very much and did not want to call her by official name and patronymic. She still works at Ilim and manages the department.

We often recall this story and say how difficult time it was, but people were humane! Nobody scolded us, threatened us, scared us with complaints to the ministry, and so on. Now parents can write complaints to the ministry, to the police for any reason. Two fifth graders, two friends, argued whose forehead was stronger and bumped into each other. As a result, bumps appeared on their foreheads. So the mother of one of them wrote complaints wherever possible. Then, because of this, they called us to the police and the ministry. Parents do not want to understand now that boys are growing up, arguing, fighting, and that there is no tragedy.

I am still grateful to those first of our parents for adequately evaluating the situation and not making us enemies! Thank you very much!

What a joy to work with parents who do one thing with us, do not relieve themselves of responsibility and are true partners!