Shanraq School: Free Lessons for Children and Parents

A child can faithfully memorize rules, complete homework, and still say one day, “I do not understand mathematics.” The real problem often began long before the difficult topic. One step went unnoticed: the meaning of a fraction, the connection between a percent and one hundredth, the order of operations, or the move from a picture to a formula. The class continues, the gap grows, and an ordinary difficulty gradually becomes a conviction: “This is not for me.”

We want to break that chain. Shanraq is therefore launching School, an open space with free lessons in school subjects. It is our practical contribution to parents and to the future of their children. We are beginning with a complete mathematics course and will expand the program carefully from there.

Why begin now

Access to information has never been wider, but information alone does not create understanding. A child can find a formula in seconds or ask AI for a finished answer. It is much harder to see why a solution works, where an error began, and how to carry the idea into a new problem.

Parents face their own difficulty. Some must relearn the school curriculum. Others search for tutors, compare dozens of courses, and pay for an explanation of a topic their child once missed in class. We want to give families another route: calm, structured, and free.

International assessments also show the need for this support. According to OECD PISA 2025, 44% of Kazakhstan’s fifteen-year-old students reached at least the baseline Level 2 in mathematics, while about 1% reached the highest levels. These figures do not mean that the other children are “incapable.” They describe performance at a particular moment and show how many learners could benefit from a clear route back through the foundations.

A map of knowledge instead of a grade label

Mathematics is built like a structure. Algebra stands on arithmetic, percentages stand on fractions, and equations stand on the meaning of equality. If one support is missing, climbing faster to the next floor does not solve the problem.

Our course is therefore organized around connections between ideas, not only school grade numbers. A short diagnostic first identifies the earliest unstable step. The learner returns to that exact point, explores its meaning through a visual model, solves a guided problem, explains the reasoning in their own words, and then applies the same principle in a new situation.

The first path is already available: whole numbers, fractions, equivalent fractions, comparison and operations, ratios, percentages, and proportions. It is one connected chain in which every new step rests on the previous one.

What we learn from Viktor Shatalov

The initiative is inspired by the educational legacy of Viktor Shatalov. He presented a topic as a whole, compressed long explanations into systems of support signals, returned learners to the material several times, and preserved their right to improve a result. His approach rested on trust in a child’s ability and clear organization of knowledge.

We do not reproduce his historical notes word for word. We bring their strongest principles into a modern digital setting:

• show the full map first, so learners can see where they are going;
• support long explanations with memorable images, color, diagrams, and short connections;
• ask learners to reconstruct the reasoning instead of only watching a solution;
• provide quick feedback and another attempt;
• revisit an important idea later so it becomes durable;
• finish with a new context in which memorization alone is insufficient.

An analysis of Shatalov’s method published in the journal Voprosy Psikhologii highlighted the role of a complete view of the material, support signals, and systematic recall. His book Pedagogical Prose is listed in the Russian State Library catalogue. Modern learning research adds self-monitoring, explanation of strategy, and deliberate error analysis to this foundation.

What a School lesson looks like

Each lesson leads a learner by the hand without doing the work for them. A new term receives a plain explanation immediately. A fraction first appears as part of a whole and as a point on a number line; only then does it become a numerator over a denominator. A percentage becomes one square out of a hundred before it becomes the % symbol.

Visual maps, tables, and dimensional illustrations appear where they help reveal a relationship. After a worked example, hints gradually fade. The learner solves, explains, finds an error, and checks the result. For signed-in users, a checking model can point to the first faulty step without replacing the work with a finished answer.

This helps parents as well as children. A parent can see the same route, understand where the difficulty began, and ask one precise question instead of saying, “Try harder.”

Free, with no meaningless certificates

School lessons are open and free. We do not sell a promise of top grades or issue a diploma merely because someone scrolled to the bottom of a page.

The best evidence of knowledge is the ability to solve a problem, explain the solution to another person, notice one’s own mistake, and use the same idea in a new situation a week later. A learner should leave with a working tool, not an attractive document without the skill behind it.

What comes next

Mathematics is the first School subject. We will develop it from rebuilding basic concepts through algebra, geometry, probability, statistics, and the foundations of higher mathematics. More school subjects will follow when each has the same precise map of concepts, practice, and checks for understanding.

The project will grow with feedback from children, parents, and teachers. Our measure is not the number of pages published. It is the moment when a learner who used to fear a problem can say, “Now I understand where this comes from.”

You can begin today: open the Shanraq mathematics course, take the short diagnostic, and find the first foundation worth strengthening.