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BOLONSKY PROCESS AND NATIONAL EDUCATION SYSTEMS IN A CONTEXT OF FORMATION OF GLOBAL SYSTEM OF CONTINUOUS FORMATION. EXAMINATION OF QUALITY AND LEGAL GUARANTEES OF CONTINUOUS FORMATION
CHARACTERISTICS OF STUDENT LEARNING IN THE CONTEXT OF LIFELONG EDUCATION
A. M. Novikov
Pedagogy has traditionally been constructed in relation to the age of learners: preschool pedagogy, school pedagogy, etc. Amidst development of the idea of lifelong education - "learning throughout one’s whole life” - it is necessary to overcome these barriers and establish "cross-cutting” systems. In particular, it is possible to try to distinguish the following unified, "cross-cutting” characteristics of student learning, independent of age:
1. In contrast to the overwhelming majority of other forms of human activity - practical, scientific, artistic, etc., where the activity is directed at obtainment of a result that is "exterior” to the actor- be it material or psychological, the learning activity of the actor is directed “at oneself”, at obtainment of a result that is "interior” to the actor - the mastery of an experience that is new for the learner in the form of knowledge, abilities and skills, development of the intellect and value relationships, etc. Of course, in any human activity there are reflexive components directed "at oneself”. But these are just components, whereas on the whole, activity - practical, scientific, etc. is directed "without” - at the exterior result, whereas learning is fully directed "within”.
2. Learning is always innovative and productive for the learner. Continuously. Therefore it is exceedingly difficult for learners. Even in such forms of creative activity like the work of a scientist, an artist or actor, or the work of a pedagogue, etc., there are always a multitude of routine, repetitive components that were mastered long ago and do not require particular effort for their reproduction. Whereas the work of a student is constant, from hour to hour and from day to day directed at the mastery of life experience that is new for the student.
It is surprising how quickly adults - parents, teachers, etc., forget how difficult it was for they themselves to learn when they were children. For
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example, parents’ attitude to their child’s study is most often expressed as: "After all, I slave away at work every day and tire myself out..., and what do you have to do? Just study, without another care in the world.
3. The paradoxical nature of learning consists in the fact that, although it is constantly innovative, its aims are more often than not set externally - by a curriculum, program, pedagogue, etc. That is, to speak generally, by representatives of older generations. After all, suppose a student should learn arithmetic. But, he or she will understand what this means only in the end, upon having finished the course of study. A student wants to obtain a high school education - but he or she will only understand what this means 11 years later, having gained maturity. And so on. Perhaps the only exception is adult students whose learning is generally consciously directed at solution of the specific problems they encounter in everyday life.
It is exactly the same with a student’s freedom of choice. At an early age, this is limited and gradually expands in the process of maturation: until completion of his or her basic schooling, a schoolchild can only select elective courses or educational programs in the framework of supplementary education - music school, art school, a group for airplane models, etc. and only upon completion of middle school can he or she choose a further educational trajectory: professional school, college, specialized courses in secondary school, etc.
This paradox - the innovation of learning and its concurrent limitation of free will and the absence or limitation of a learner’s ability to set the objectives within it - is difficult to solve. Nonetheless, it constitutes one of the most pressing problems of modern psychology and pedagogy: after all, a student accustomed to acting "on command”, in the future, upon completion of one or another level of education and transition to the workplace, is often at a loss in the context of freedom of choice; he or she is dependent and lacking initiative. After all, it is known that as a rule, straight A students and gold medal winners grow up to be mediocre, with the exceptions of a few truly talented young people.
4. The influence of age-related sensitivity on learning - optimum periods of development for certain psychological and physiological characteristics and individual qualities pertaining to a particular age. Premature instruction or instruction past the period of age-related sensitivity can be insufficiently effective. Thus, the brain of a child under three and the brain of an adult differ fundamentally. The fact is that in a child’s brain, the neurons are not covered with myelin membranes, which act as electrical
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insulators, and this brain is essentially full of "short circuits”. It is known that later, at the age of approximately 5 years, children are especially sensitive to the development of a phonetic sense of hearing, and at the end of this period the sensitivity declines. At the age of 5-6 years, children master foreign languages most successfully. At the age of 10-12, the most effective sensorimotor development takes place - formation of precise visual and kinaesthetic control, development of precise movements, etc.
Moreover, a significant influence on learning is created by age crises that designate the limits of stable ages: the crisis of a newborn (up to 1 month), the crisis of one year, the crisis of 3 years, the crisis of 7 years, the teenage crisis (11-12 years), adolescent crisis, and right up through the age crises of adults, for example, the crisis of 40 years. It is known that after 40 a person’s ability to comprehend any new learning material declines sharply. Unfortunately, as a rule, during the organization of the educational process in schools, in professional educational institutions, and in institutions of postgraduate education, neither periods of age-related sensitivity, nor age crises, are considered, perhaps with the single exception of preschool education.
5. In the course of ontogeny, the learner consecutively masters methods of activity characteristic of organizational types of culture that have been formed through genealogy1 in the process of humanity’s social and historical development: traditional, artisanal, professional, and project engineering. Indeed:
The methods for transmission of culture in its traditional organization are ritual, customs, traditions, and myths. While still in prenatal (predelivery) development, which is now beginning to be paid serious attention, the communication of a human embryo with other people, primarily its mother, is realized by means of ritual: the mother wakes up and sings the same ritual song every day. Going on a walk, she sings another song, again the same one every day, she goes to bed - and sings a third song, etc. After birth, the newborn’s communication with adults is built upon the invariability of the same actions and words (also rituals): "mama’s here”, "mama will feed you now”, etc. Thus, on account of the invariability of these situations, the newborn forms an image of mother, father, grandmother, etc. The daily regime for a baby functions as tradition and customs. Games with 1
1 Ontogeny is the process of development of separate plant, a separate animal, or an individual from birth to death. Genealogy is the historical process of the development of all populations, including all of humanity.
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children of this age - not yet children’s games with imagined situations -appear in the form of rituals: "patty-cake, patty-cake”, repeated many times. Fairy tales emerge as their own form of myths. Children of a young age may hear the same fairy tale tens or hundreds of time, and they still do not tire of it. In this manner, by means of rituals, traditions, and myths, a child assimilates elements of human culture - images, manipulating actions, conditional expressions, etc.;
the next historical type of organizational culture is artisanal. The method of transmission is by pattern and formulas for their reproduction. At a certain age, around 3 years, a child begins to copy the actions of adults -either directly (manipulation of objects), or vicariously in the form of children’s play, creating for oneself an imagined "grown-up life”. The child plays "mother and child”, "doctor”, etc., copying the behavior and actions of adults;
the child at the age of 6-7 years enters school (or has already learned to read and write in kindergarten). The primary method of assimilating human culture for the child becomes text - an attribute of the scientific type of organizational culture, the carriers of which are primarily textbooks, as well as dictionaries, reference books, workbooks, etc.;
finally, at an older age the child, teenager, etc., begins to assimilate the characteristics of the modern project engineering type of organizational culture: elements of problem solving and educational projects are introduced into the educational process, in particular, in vocational training and professional education there are term papers, degree projects, etc.
Moreover, it is important to stress that these types of organizational culture are not substituted one for the other, but are present simultaneously and in parallel. Thus, rituals, customs, and traditions are preserved in adult life (for example, daily regime, holidays, observance of folk customs, etc.). New types are added to previously assimilated types of organizational culture.
6. Learners who are fundamentally different live and have lived in different historical periods: the "child” of K. D. Ushinsky’s 19th century is a completely different child from that of the 20th century, let along the 21st century. Each new generation reflects and assimilates the historical moment into which it was born and lives, and corresponds to it in terms of worldview, behavior, lifestyle, etc.
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Fig. Learning in the system of relationships “ontogeny - genealogy”
7. Learning is inevitably linked with the eternal problem of “fathers and sons". After all, parents, teachers, caregivers, instructors, etc., nurture, teach, and develop children and young people as they were nurtured, taught and developed in their own upbringing - as they say, “in their image and likeness”, even though the era has changed completely! That age-old generation gap arises- “well in our time water was wetter and the waves higher!” In general, this is also an age-old problem for pedagogy as a science. After all, pedagogy develops to a significant degree due to the consolidation of a broad experience of learning. Its study and consolidation requires time. While this takes place, the next generation has already come to the fore! Therefore, for pedagogy, the creation of a methodological forecasting mechanism is necessary as a means of “predicting the future” in the construction of a pedagogical system.
These seven characteristics of learning are placed into a classification on the basis of a dialectic pair of categories “ontogeny and genealogy” (see fig.). Just as an embryo in its mother’s womb repeats the entire evolution of life on earth over the course of billions of years in a
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fantastically accelerated time scale, thus a growing person must assimilate the culture humanity created over 4 million years within 20 years. It must be assimilated and he or she must "catch up” in order to then occupy a place in its further development.
Naturally, the learner reflects, assimilates, and "absorbs” the fundamentals of culture (p. 1 of characteristics, arrow 1 in the figure). For him or her, "everything is a novelty” (p. 2, arrow 2). He or she cannot imagine or dimly imagines what he or she should assimilate, and the program of development of his or her life experience is determined by representatives of older generations (p. 3, arrow 3). Development of his or her experience proceeds accordingly, "in sync” with the anatomical, physiological, and psychophysiological development of his or her body (p. 4, arrow 4 in the fig.). In the course of development, he or she repeats and "passes” the phylogenetic course of the development of humanity in a compressed time scale (p. 5, arrow 5 in the fig.). He or she lives in his or her own period, in his or her own historical time, and absorbs the lifestyle of this period (p. 6, arrow 6 in the fig.), in a sense surpassing the still living generations of "fathers” and "grandfathers” who grew and developed in other historical moments (p. 7, arrow 7 in the fig.).
In the opinion of the author, such are the fundamental characteristics of student learning in the context of lifelong education.
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