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DEVELOPMENT OF CIVIL COMPETENCE OF COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOL STUDENTS
M. D. Abdullayeva
The article considers pedagogical and methodical conditions for rising personalities' socialization, and for their entrance into civil legal society through developing their relations to the world and to themselves in it.
Key words: civil education, primary school pupils, moral and legal notions, standards of the human communication, socialization.
The Law “On Education” of the Republic of Kazakhstan defines the main objective of school education: development of a person as a citizen integrated in contemporary society, and aimed at improving society. The law highlights the top priorities of education: inculcate in students civic responsibility and love for their country, respect for human rights and freedoms, industriousness, love of nature and one’s family. The main aim of civil education is preparing a citizen for life in democratic society. Such a citizen must have a certain amount of knowledge and skills, a developed system of democratic values, and be prepared to participate in the social life of the school and local community. The topicality of civil education is defined by the present state of modern society’s development, and its problems and tasks. The purpose of civil education in school is to create conditions for a growing person’s socialization, and adoption of society by developing an attitude toward the world and the person’s place in it.
The question of the legal education of schoolchildren began to rise periodically in the magazine Uchitel magazine in 1997, and in the Nachalnaya Shkola newspaper (appendix to 1 Sentyabrya) in 1998. This was a conversation about the need for a systematic, not episodic, way of conducting a conversation with students about their rights.
The UN General Assembly adopted the “Convention on the Rights of the Child” in 1989. Much time has passed since its ratification by Uzbekistan (13th June 1990), but its text and principles went almost unnoticed by the press. Teachers, parents and pupils seldom know its content, or even about its existence, though one of the main principles of the Convention is the obligation of state authorities to inform both adults and children extensively of the rights contained therein. Studying these documents at school, children will develop self-respect and respect for others.
The “Your rights!” textbook with workbook has a target of attracting society’s attention to the problem of children’s rights. It abounds in illustrations from familiar fairy tales and literary works, which facilitate the discussion of moral and legal notions, and standards of human communication. The textbook invites pupils to go on a travelling role-play. Each lesson allows the teacher to discuss all possible options of solving moral and legal problems. The textbook reflects the paramount role of the family and parents in caring for and protecting the child. The authors present proverbs and sayings about children’s respect and gratitude to their relatives and other people for their attention and care, reflecting the adults’ care of the children, and the desire to raise them as kind, honest, brave, educated, industrious people. The study of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child shall not
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be confined to learning its content. The aim is to organize the life of the children’s community and each schoolchild according to the principles of the document.
One of the main principles of the Declaration is the humanization principle, the basis for which is the person’s importance, human rights, freedom and dignity. The textbook reflects this as a set of the following ideas: (a) the idea of collaboration, whereupon a joint interconnected activity of pupils, teachers and parents is organized; (b) the idea of developing teaching (the gist being the development of the child as a subject of learning and other activities); (c) the culturological principle is aimed at students’ familiarization with the cultural achievements of various nations and countries and understanding their national culture as a part of the global one; (d) an integrated approach and establishment of interdisciplinary connections with other subjects taught in the primary school as a basis for formation of an integral world picture; (e) the integrity of the educational process is manifested in the unity of education and instruction, interaction with extracurricular work and family upbringing, etc.
The fact that a person has rights is learned at the first lessons of law. Pupils must be exposed to the content of all the chapters of the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in an understandable form. Children learn that from birth each person has various rights; moreover, he also has duties to other people - close and distant relatives, neighbours and even strangers, as well as to the state. The civil education of junior pupils is organized in the form of a quest in a fairy tale environment, their characters being the guides in the sphere of legal knowledge and education. The fairy-tale situations make the content of civil education easily understandable, the lessons acquires the form of a game, and the corresponding pictures are in the textbook. The first lessons are dedicated to a discussion of man through understanding of the attitude of the pupils to themselves as representatives of the humanity. Then we start talking about the family as the primary and most important social environment, necessary for complete development of one’s personality. The next discussion subject is relations with peers, which helps influence the formation of tolerant, equal relations, the ability to behave in conflict situations, and come to a mutual understanding through an agreement. The next several lessons deal with some typical and most striking instances of the unlawful attitude toward children on the part of adults.
An indispensable aid, in our opinion, to understanding and adopting the teaching material is the creative task. Creative tasks not only help to understand the material, but make it emotionally coloured.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translastions Bureas
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