One thing that struck me as very different in classroom scenes is that we* were always to avoid giving each other help, but I get the impression soviets were su

One thing that struck me as very different in classroom scenes is that we* were always to avoid giving each other help, but I get the impression soviets were supposed to aid each other. Punchline 1: (little Johnny sent to the principal after making a comment about physical attributes of the teacher instead of Pushkin's next line, says to the visiting teacher evaluators) "Next time, sirs, when you don't know, don't prompt!" Punchline 2: (a former maths prof turned shipbuilder, trying to coast, read literature, and earn some extra cash in "maths for the proletariat" evening school, is stuck at the brownboard having calculated a negative circumference of a circle = -2πr; his classmate helps) "Psst, colleague, swap order of integration!" Lagniappe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VogwWGEO1-c&t=10574s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VogwWGEO1-c&t=10574s * I distinctly remember being taught the "right" way to raise hands in 4th grade, and in particular placing one's elbow on the desk and putting a forearm perpendicular to it was "wrong". Imagine my surprise upon discovering, many decades later, that they for sure didn't want us somehow (despite the iron curtain — as if we'd had had a clue anyway) copying soviet classroom protocol.