‘Makarenko system’: education through the collective.

Very little has been written on Makarenko in the West. In England, W.L. Goodman wrote in 1949 a simple account of Makarenko’s work which he based mainly on quotations taken from “The Road to Life.” In France, in 1954, Irène Lézine undertook a more systematic study of Makarenko’s pedagogical work, selecting a wide range of topical questions from his writings, and unified them into a whole with her own comments and descriptions. Although she stated that Makarenko’s educational thought is “indissolubly interwoven into the economic structure of the socialist society and reflects its ideology,” she nevertheless maintained that Makarenko’s teachings could very profitably be put to use by Western “educators and parents of good will,” who are sincerely desirous of creating a sane and happy childhood for the youth of today