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ESTABLISHMENT OF HARMONY AS THE AIM
OF A UNIVERSITY LECTURER’S LIFELONG EDUCATION
O. E. Shafranova
The fact that the value standard in the context of sustainable development should become the eidos of harmony based on the idea of harmonious co-existence and co-development of the biosphere, society and man determines the significance of understanding a person’s ability to achieve harmony. The point expressed by axicological ontologism [4] that harmonious relations between a person and the world indicate a person’s achievement of the highest level of the development of his/her own world causes the necessity of taking into account the main positions of the theory for their further interpretation.
Regarding value as an intellectual form reflecting a person’s pursuit of the most suitable attitude towards reality, the representatives of this school of axiology emphasize value subject characteristics [3]. The subject of pursuit can be qualities and characteristics of a person, the object of the relationship, the form of the relationship, the relationship itself (activity, behavior). The character of a person’s attitude towards reality is based on culture, and determines that the value subject characteristics are registered with the help of different kinds of cultural means (specific and general notions, ideas and categories). Mastering of cultural means is the most intensive in the educational process. In this context being educated is a measure of a person’s learning about the world and knowledge of different types of cultural means.
Providing a high level of education is traditionally a prerogative of the university. According to UNESCO materials, it is regarded as a part of a general system or an educational current ensuring among others a) the creation, expansion and distribution of knowledge by means of research in the scientific, technological, and social spheres, the humanities and arts; and b) the understanding, maintenance, and strengthening of local, international and historic cultures in the context of cultural pluralism [1]. This allows us to agree with the suggestions of N. N. Moiseyev that the role of higher education will become more and more significant as the power of
The present report is made as a part of The Innovation Mechanisms of Research and Education Integration in the System of Educating New Scientific Staff of University and Postgraduate Development of Lecturers Project that is implemented under the analytical Development of the Scientific Potential of the University Task Program (2009-2010).
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civilization will increase [2] and regard the university as one of the key resources to cope with the task of introducing the civilization to a new level of sustainable development.
One of the major conditions of optimizing higher education is improving the efficiency of the teacher’s professional activity. This, in its turn, becomes possible when the content and process of lifelong professional education of a lecturer is re-thought.
First and foremost, the new understanding of the essence of education is connected with the reconsideration of its role in the minimization of contradictions a person experiences in his/her relations with the world, including his/her professional sphere. The value conditionality of all relations of a human sees the significance of professionals’ particular efforts to control their own professional development by managing the development of their value world. The very possibility of this management depends on how well a person is aware of the value characteristics. Thus, a full component of a lecturer’s lifelong education should be task-oriented professional activity aimed at recognition of different components of the value structure, including: (a) a person as a subject of pursuit; (b) an object of pursuit; (c) an object-oriented image of a person’s life attitude identifying his/her pursuit to this or that form of attitude towards reality; (d) an image of an object of person’s pursuit tinged with his/her expectations of the positive emotional reaction; and (e) person’s value [5].
The most obvious and easy to understand are the value subject characteristics. Such a value element as an image of an object of pursuit actualizes lecturers’ task to comprehend the content of their own world as the subject reality defining the professional vision of the world on the whole and some of its manifestations particularly. This determines the necessity of a professional’s analysis of this value characteristic by means of reflection of his/her own world view in large and peculiarities of the individual interpretation of the isolated object of pursuit that is fixed in the image of the object.
A lecturer is a person whose level of education defines his/her ability to interpret his/her own life taken as a whole and his/her professional life in particular, not only by means of general knowledge but also using such cultural means as notions and categories that are very abstract and allow to fix the maximum number of relation characteristics. This, in its turn, defines the degree of value universality. That means that the more abstract is the designation of value subject characteristics, the more significant they seem to a person. For instance, the competence approach to education that lecturers are nowadays intensively mastering can become a professional
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value of a lecturer. A high level of abstraction of this educational category, however, gives rise to large variety when this value is realized in professional activity. Besides this, if a lecturer uses cultural means of the category level expertly, he/she will need no prescriptions in his/her professional activity. He/she will be guided by the very ideal, but not by its interpretation (a concrete image of realization of the ideal). This allows lecturers to develop themselves as a subject of their professional activity; and to master a role of an active doer, but not of an executor; to be directed by their own professional intention that corresponds to this or that value, but not by someone’s operationalist aim.
Leaving the particularities of lecturers’ awareness of the content of their own value world, the system of their own ego-images as value structural elements, beyond the framework of this report, we shall look closer at the professional’s work with an image of desired relations.
Relation image as a component of the value structure determines a person’s pursuit of a form of his/her relation with the reality. This value characteristic especially clearly shows a value regulating function. Depending on the level of the value world development, lecturers in their relations with a specialized area of reality can treat any of the sides of this relation as a priority one. At the stage of social significance, the priority is given to the display of the qualities of the World as a relation side (for example, objective requirements of the profession, traditions of the professional society, norms of professional activity, etc.). At the stage of the individual significance, professionals fully understand the special importance of their role in relations with the world. This makes for the high rate of professional self-development. As an indicator of a higher level of professional development, the exceptional focus on the mastering of a professional’s ego is not an essential condition to achieve professional heights. The achievement of real professional and personal heights is possible only at the last stage of the development of the person’s value world, when the high assessment of one’s ego in relations gives place to the understanding of the same importance of all sides of relations. This stage provides understanding of the importance of the very form of harmonious relations which is characterized by the professional’s deep concern of the universal problems and his/her attempts to take part in their solution.
It is obvious that in compliance with the nature of the profession, lecturers’ achievement of the highest level of development of their value world cannot but influence the improvement of their professional activity, and as a consequence the optimization of higher education as their professional field.
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References
1. Higher Education in XXI Century: Approaches and Practical Measures (UNESCO, Paris, 5-9 October, 1998). // Higher School Bulletin, 1998, №11, p. З-9.
2. N. N. Moiseyev. Civilization of XXI Century - Role of Universities // Alma Mater, 1994, № 6, p. 2-7.
3. A. B. Nevelev. Human Value Existence / A. B. Nevelev, V. P. Potekhin, N. L. Khudyakova, Chelyabinsk State Univ. - Chelyabinsk, 2002. - 135 p.
4. V. I. Plotnikov. Human Value World and Destiny / Twelve Lectures on Philosophy. - Yekaterinburg: Yekaterinburg Law Academy Publishing House, 1996, p. 193-224.
5. N. L. Khudyakova. General Premises of Development of Human Value World / N. L. Khudyakova - Chelyabinsk State Univ. - Chelyabinsk, 2004. - 32 p. - Manuscript is kept in the INION RAS (Moscow). - № 58782 of 19.07.04.
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