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Mental development in the upbringing system of the Abkhazian national pedagogy
Section 9. Pedagogy
Ankvab Marina Fedorovna, Candidate of Pedagogical Science, Associate Professor Abkhazian State University, Sukhum E-mail: ankvab.marina@yandex.ru
Mental development in the upbringing system of the Abkhazian national pedagogy
Abstract: Interpretation ofthe upbringing system and peculiarities of the Abkhazian national pedagogy in the point ofview of younger generations’ intellectual development is examined in the article. The author is sure that it is possible to raise training quality of future successors on the level of modern requirements only by the critical analysis and creative development of the best educational models and upbringing experience of the Abkhazians. That is why there is an urgent need of use for student teaching, along with innovations, the educational and upbringing practice of Abkhazians imprinted in the accumulated and concentrated principles of the Abkhazian national pedagogy. In this regard the school has to make use actively and skillfully ofthis experience in the activity for improvement ofall educational process.
Keywords: Abkhazia, the Republic of Abkhazia, Abkhazians, Abkhazian people, Abkhazian national pedagogy, intellectual upbringing, mental development, principles of upbringing.
Abkhazia is the country having difficult centuries-old history. The peculiarities of socio-economic, political and historical conditions of its development, lifestyle, and culture determined the formation of typical traits, and features of social, national and psychological temper of representatives of the nation. This fact had a considerable impact on the Abkhazian national pedagogy.
“It is quite obvious that national educational systems ... have accurately expressed peculiarities determined by distinctions in culture, mental features, its national interests, values, an ethnic self-assessment and consciousness of identity with the ethnos” [8, 134]. Ethnic consciousness of the people grows from day to day and substantial increase of interest in native heritage is presently noted. In this regard, purposeful familiarizing of younger generation with cultural and spiritual values becomes one of the priority directions. Today development support of national cultures and ethnic educational models are recognized actual at world level. Use of traditional forms of education and training is implemented on the basis of their adaptation to modern realities. National cultures are integrated into uniform cultural and civilization space. Any school teacher has to head this process; however, he is not prepared for it. That is why today in pedagogical educational institutions it is necessary to assign a worthy place for studying of national pedagogical legacy by future teachers. For this purpose it is necessary to organize studying of special courses like “Ethnopedagogy of the Abkhazians”, “Pedagogical culture of the Abkhazians”, etc. Besides the question of intellectual upbringing in the Abkhazian national pedagogy must be included as the separate section.
It is possible to raise quality of training and upbringing of younger generations on the level of modern requirements only by the critical analysis and creative development of the best educational models and upbringing experience of the Abkhazians. That is why there is an urgent need of use for student teaching, along with innovations, the educational and upbringing practice of Abkhazians imprinted in the accumulated and concentrated principles of the Abkhazian national pedagogy. In this regard the school has to make use actively and skillfully of this experience in the activity for improvement of all educational process.
The idea of intellectual upbringing and training of the Abkhazian national pedagogy is its fundamental principle. It is aimed at comprehensive and harmonious preparation of children for life and labour and occupies one of the leading places in the Abkhazian pedagogy. Here the learning process is considered to be the way of enrichment by useful knowledge, and intelligence to be the erudition tool.
Representatives of the republic understood that the education defines, eventually, position of the person in society. It was considered that all acts and deeds of a man are connected with his knowledge or ignorance of life, his awareness (or incomprehension) of himself and surrounding world.
Popular wisdom considered the process of learning as continuous act of intellectual enrichment and abilities gaining, while the wit itselfwas perceived as the tool of knowledge and transformation of surrounding reality.
The analysis of the Abkhazian pedagogical culture sources affords ground for concluding that the content of intellectual education ofyounger generation included knowledge acquisi-
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Section 9. Pedagogy
tion of the native language, history data of the people, geography, natural sciences, mathematics, astronomy. In the course of obtaining information the youth developed memory and observation skills, thinking, became inured to constant mental activity.
For intellectual upbringing the people used the following methods: conversation, story, explanation, examples and testing. Personal experience of children was highly motivated in knowledge assimilation. Adults tried to develop their inner-directedness, abilities to make proper conclusions and use the acquired material practically, to solve dubious situations.
Practice and drills taking into consideration salience and age features of children figure prominently in the Abkhazian national pedagogy as an effective method of intellectual training. Tongue twisters, riddles were widely used for development of the speech. Children independently and under the control of adults competed in inventing and guessing of riddles, in speed of a pronunciation of tongue twisters, etc.
In intellectual upbringing the national pedagogy aimed to develop children’s observation. The people considered that the person has to be able to observe life independently and to obtain knowledge from this supervision. The considerable place in the Abkhazian folklore is taken also by such a method as examination of knowledge and abilities. The illustrative example of this can be the fairy tale “Judge and Poor’s Daughter" [1, 245-247]. National teachers considered that knowledge control promotes consolidation of skills and development of mental capacities.
The Abkhazians in intellectual education attached great importance to the conditions stimulating informative activity of the person. In works of folklore problematic situations are described, where need of the solution of the arisen vital tasks forces heroes to look for knowledge, to address for a clever council.
It is important to mention personal experience in intellectual education and role of mentors as conductors of social influence on the younger generation. In the Abkhazian society mental qualities were obtained in a family and promoted in public places under the leadership of old people, grown wise by long experience of life. Therefore the idea about a role of mentors and teachers is expressed in national creativity through the relation to wisdom, mind and carriers of these skills — to clever people. In all statements (and there is a lot of them in materials of the Abkhazian pedagogy) it is emphasized that a human being is the imitating creature, therefore good tutors and parents teach their pupils examples, suggest to watch their work.
Research of materials on the Abkhazian pedagogy showed that the most effective means of intellectual education is the national folklore. It was passed in centuries from father to son. Therefore the most successful according to the content and form methods of mental training were recorded in it. The figurative, rhymed, easily memorable texts, finger-type games were well-known and with pleasure were performed by both adults, and children.
Since birth a child listened to lullabies tunes. “A baby that could not understand the speech yet already reacted to a quiet voice and tender singing of its mother. “This was encouraged by perceiving of quiet lull rhythms, melodies and traditional intonation” [5, 35-40]. Therefore it is clear that maternal caress and tenderness in combination with the melody became the most effective method of intellectual and esthetic education of children during the infantile period.
In Abkhazian lullabies songs a mother expresses the ideal vision of her child’s future. The pedagogical value of songs consists in training for gradual knowledge of environment. They awakened children’s interest in careful attitude to the nature, people and animals [7, 489-490]. Song caress fascinated children, helped them to perceive better mother’s voice, the native language and surrounding world in general. They developed need for communication and knowledge, to show thus activity. Mother encouraged her kid with words about his luck, about his cleverness. It inspired confidence that when he becomes grownup he will be able to resolve all difficulties and life tasks.
Along with songs, fairy tales played an important role in the Abkhazian national pedagogy. They promoted intellectual development of children. Listening to stories of old men, children passed a peculiar home education, acquired heritage of national creativity, got acquainted with history and family genealogy, tribe [2, 57].
The Abkhazian fauna is rich and therefore its representatives often become heroes of national fairy tales. The wolf most often acts as a predatory being, resourceful, angry and silly. Weak animals, thanks to the mind, cunning, resourcefulness easily deceive it. The important place is given to the image of a fox. It is one of the most careful and crafty animals. The fairy fox is endowed with poetically exaggerated lines of finesse and wins a victory over eternal enemies of man, i. e. a wolf, a bear and others.
Proceeding from the above-stated, it is possible to tell that fairy tales and legends, being the most important means of intellectual, moral upbringing formed a positive outlook of youth, expanded and deepened its attitude, cultivated feelings and beliefs. By means ofAbkhazian fairy tales any person had a unique opportunity to compare biographies of heroes with life and behavior of common people.
In intellectual education of children legends, one of main types of folklore, play an important role. Unlike the legend-ry in the basis of legends is the “miracle” narrating about the past, and sometimes and about the present [6, 25].
In Abkhazia there exist different types of folklore legends. They are cosmogonic, toponymic, religious, historical and others. Cosmogonic ones usually tell about changes in the Universe and various heavenly phenomena. Toponymic legends are devoted to an origin of names of districts, mountains, lakes, rivers and so on. As characteristic for this cycle the history of tragic love, connected with the certain district which received the name on behalf of the main characters. The example of this can be the town in the Republic of Abkhazia named Gudauta.
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Mental development in the upbringing system of the Abkhazian national pedagogy
Legends, as well as legendaries, have historical and informative educational value. Universal and moral qualities are reflected in them: truthfulness, dedication, devotion to the people. In legends are condemned: avidity, perfidy, deception, treason, greed, self-interest and other negative qualities of people.
In the parables, defined as an educational and allegorical genre of literature, the narration is under construction on any moral didactic problem. The pedagogical importance of this genre for intellectual education is that national teachers or storytellers by disclosure of the content of negative and positive categories seek to inspire in the interlocutor importance of certain ethical standards of behavior [3, 83].
Thus, fairy tales, legends and parables bear important semantic intellectual value. They incorporated wisdom of the people and therefore give rich material for development children’s ability to analyze, compare the vital and surrounding facts.
Proverbs and sayings occupy one of the main places in the Abkhazian pedagogy and in mind development in particular. It should be noted that for intellectual upbringing they are irreplaceable because in a short form express all shades of intellectual development and a technique of its training. Proverbs and sayings of Abkhazians give answers to the questions arising for centuries and bear in themselves, as well as fairy tales, functions of mental and labour education.
But proverbs and sayings did not remain invariable, once and for all frozen. They transformed by time along with the development of the nation and were filled with a new sense because reflected in all variety the life of the Abkhazians. In them, as well as possible, flexibility and depth of national mind was shown. This proves the necessity of modern school to adopt it.
In the national folklore also an important place was allotted for riddles. National teachers knew that a source of puzzles is the diverse world surrounding the person. Both answers and the text of riddles differ in big concreteness and entertaining, which includes the pedagogical importance of their impact on development of children.
The value of riddles is also contained in the task set to understand and reach an essence of subjects, the phenomena, having mobilized own ingenuity, the saved-up stock of knowledge. Not incidentally, practice of asking riddles did not lose the value both presently and widely occurs in the national environment.
The pedagogical purpose of riddles consists in development of logical thinking, in enrichment knowledge with subjects and phenomena of the visual world, in acquaintance with human life and activity. Children not only used them, but also composed new ones, stirring up the cerebration, expanding the representations and knowledge of surrounding world. Therefore if in proverbs ingenious mind of the people was shown, in riddles purposeful exercise of mind is concluded. If proverbs and sayings sought to generalize all life, socio-historical experience of the working people, puzzles
were limited to learning of the main external signs of subjects and phenomena.
Thus, riddles and proverbs, national songs and fairy tales, supplementing each other at intellectual development, made system of verbal educational tools of younger generation. In the absence of school training they had great informative value, served as important means of intellectual education.
Verbal means of intellectual education gained the further development and fixing in games. The national pedagogy attached huge significance to childish sports in which were closely connected a word, a melody and action. An important role of child’s play consists in development of dexterity, sharpness and resourcefulness. By means of games the respect for the existing order of things, folk traditions were accomplished, its accustoming to rules of conduct was carried out. National teachers knew that games for children represent the serious occupations. They are some kind of lessons preparing for labour and adulthood [4, 34].
The national pedagogy used the fact that game is directly connected with intellectual development as it is surprisingly various and rich field of children’s activity. Game, along with songs, fairy tales, riddles, tongue twisters, recitatives and other types of national creativity, is a tool of intellectual education.
Thus, thanks to means of the Abkhazian pedagogy, namely folklore, national creativity and games, intellectual education of the younger generation was carried out. Abkhazians considered it base for comprehensive preparation the young to life. By means of folklore older generations inspired youth with respect for knowledge. The love to brainwork was instilled. Parents formed children’s skills which were applied in everyday life: in games, work, and communication with nature. Children under the leadership of adults became proficient in a certain system of applied knowledge: in agriculture, cattle breeding, processing of agricultural production, in the seasonal phenomena, etc.
Representations of people are accurately reflected in works of national creativity that intellectual upbringing is carried out in unity with labor, moral, art, physical ones. Teaching children, telling them fairy tales, asking riddles, singing songs, participating in childish sports, parents, national tutors cared of development of mental capacities, diligence, art tastes, physical force, love to the nature, the native land, its historical past. Thus, mastering knowledge, familiarizing with spiritual culture of the people promoted development of interest in culture, traditions of other people, and it, in turn, strengthened trust of the people to each other, pulled together them, consolidated the nation.
The knowledge connected to national traditions and moral experience promoted formation at children, along with elements of moral education, elements of the intellectual education occupying one of the leading places in national pedagogy. At the same time, as modern experience of education testifies, it traditions in the field of intellectual development are considerably lost. Elimination of these gaps in education is one of the tasks of modern school.
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The carried-out analysis serves as the bright proofofthe edu- tional pedagogical opportunities for intellectual potential growth
cational heritage of the Abkhazian people. It includes uncondi- of modern younger generation of the Republic ofAbkhazia.
References:
1. Abkhazian fairy tales/Composed by H. S. Bgazhba. Sukhumi. 1983. 356 p.
2. Hamitsayeva T. A. Historical and song folklore of the Ossetians. Vladikavkaz, 2002. 189 p.
3. Hatayev E. E. National pedagogy of the North Caucasus Moscow, 1993. P. 83.
4. Medvedev I. K. Role of game in labor education. Moscow, 1995. 122 p.
5. Mirzoyev H. A. National pedagogy. Makhachkala, 1984. 234 p.
6. National legends of the Caucasian mountaineers. Tiflis. Issue VI. 478 p.
7. Pomerantseva E. V Mythological characters in mountain folklore. Moscow. 1975. P. 489-490.
8. Zhigadlo A. P. Ethnic consciousness as leading component of the organization of educational systems of higher education institution//Omsk scientific bulletin. 2009. No. 5 (81). P. 130-135.
Denisov Igor Vasilievich, Sterlitamak branch of Bashkir state University, senior lecturer of the Department of General history, the Faculty of History
E-mail: meretites@mail.ru
Childhood and children in preliterate societies according to archeology
Abstract: The article offers a reconstruction of elements of the upbringing of children of different age groups according to archaeological studies in the southern Urals and in the Volga region.
Keywords: education, age group children, archaeological culture of the bronze age, Sarmatians and Scythians, the results of archaeological research, South Urals and the Volga region.
The situation of children in ancient societies is of great interest, both from the point of view of archaeology and history, and from the point of view of the history of pedagogy. Archaeology, studying the material culture of antiquity, at the present time and can provide factual material for the reconstruction of the age stratification of children, relationship with parents and come from, as well as certain specific “classes” within the family.
Based on available data, children under the age of 7-8 years (Inf.) were a particular age group. The children of this group of tribal timber Carcass and Alakul cultures of the bronze age of the southern Urals, Middle and Lower Volga region were buried either in the same grave with an older woman (mother?), or separately, when baby burial form the outer circle of graves, on the perimeter of the mound [1, с. 17; 6, fig.15; 6, fig.26; 6, fig.40, 1; 7, с. 91; 7, с. 191]. Similarly, did the population Catacomb archaeological culture of the bronze age in the Lower Volga region [7, с. 189]. The important fact is the presence of a pair of children’s burials of tribal timber Carcass and Alakul cultures of the bronze age of the southern Urals [1, с. 22-23].
The Sauromatians Lower Volga and the southern Urals in the VI-IV centuries BC to bury children with adults, or separately, but next to the graves of adults, as a rule, the graves of women (mothers?) [8, с. 228; 9, с. 62-64, 73, 87]. So did the nomadic tribes of the Sarmatians (end of the IV-II centuries BC) of the southern Urals and the Lower Volga region [8, с. 300, 318; 9, с. 62, 92-100]. Together with female babies were
buried and the Scythians [10, с. 59, 280]. On the contrary, the children of the tribes Siglinskas archaeological culture (V-IV centuries BC) of Central Asia and were buried in some family tombs with adults, but in special places, usually in the legs of adults [2, с. 56]. In the graves of children Carcass archaeological culture of the bronze age of the Middle Volga, Lower Volga and the southern Urals, as well as Sintashta archaeological culture of the southern Urals, relevant to this age group, found sheep Astragalus [1, с. 24; 4, с. 42; 6, с. 124-125; 7, с. 94;].
The bulk of children’s burials in this age group, at best, contains only dishes with funeral food. In addition, in the group there are a number of burials of children, which are clearly distinguished by their high social status. Thus, among the burials Carcass archaeological culture of the Lower Volga region, Sintashta archaeological culture of the southern Urals and Peter archaeological culture, is known one burial of children with weapons [4, с. 42; 5; 7, с. 101]. Similar facts exist for the Sarmatians of the southern Urals [9, с. 112].
The second age group presented uninitialized teenagers 9-11 years, tribes Alakul archaeological culture of the southern Urals were buried separately from adults and grave goods, as well as the overwhelming number of adults, occasionally presents only decorations [1, с. 10]. Nomads Siglinskas culture these teenagers were buried in cells together with adults, with them in one row, but on the edges of these series. Separation from adults and reflects the inventory. A weapon with adolescents was found only arrows, and other weapons (daggers, stonechats, etc.) normally present in the inventory next
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