To be a school principal is a complicated task that demands strength and commitment, especially if this is such a famous school as Moscow “School of Self-Determination.” The author, who is the head of this school, shares with the reader a number of primary ideas and principles of how to build a truly educational and democratic environment for students and teachers, how to involve everyone in the process of co-management, and how to make dialogue an essential part of school communication. The article provides challenges for educators interested in creating a genuine school oriented towards students’ academic achievements and their personality and character formation.

The author raises serious questions of the connections between the present economic crisis and the current quality of education in the world. She challenges the reader with an analysis of three modern threats, and finally presents the concept of the Center of Education No. 1804 in Moscow and its achievements. A technology of value-orientated self-management is also introduced to the reader.

While I read the article with admiration for the author’s courage at tackling such an ambitious and complicated topic, I was also skeptical of what seem like simplistic educational solutions to multi-layered, global economic dilemmas. I couch my response with a desire to know more about the content and experience of this educational model in action. As a “first responder”, (what in the United States we call the first group of helpers on the scene of a crisis), I am also mindful that some of my reactions may or may not be to the words chosen for the translation. We may have similar meanings that trigger different emotions in me, as the reader, because of the particular words chosen to explain them. In this case the article has been translated to English from the original Russian. I acknowledge that words are merely symbols for our mental models, and that as such they can trigger personal, emotional and culturally laden responses.