CC BY
31УДК 371.255
Methods of Moral Education in Various Pre-School Educational Programmes
Elena О. Smirnova*
Moscow Centre of Psychological and Pedagogical Expert Examination of Games and Toys Moscow State University of Psychology and Education Room 411, 29 Sretenka, Moscow, 107045 Russia 1
Received 04.11.2011, received in revised form 11.11.2011, accepted 23.11.2012
New various approaches to pre-school moral education are analyzed in the article. Urgency and complexity of this task and inadequacy of traditional methods based on moral standards and rules of behaviour acquisition, encouragement and reproach, higher self-appraisal, etc. are dwelt upon. The idea of L.S. Vygotsky who emphasizes that moral education can’t be based on laws and rules of behavior are also viewed upon. It is proved that moral education is inseparably connected with the development of interpersonal relations with the peers. Age-related dynamics of relationships to a peer at preschool age (from 3 to 7) is described. A special attention is given to problem forms of interpersonal relationships (aggressiveness, demonstrativity, shyness, etc.). In the final part of the article principles and stages of moral education focused neither on explanations, nor on positive examples display but on the development of spontaneous interrelations between children, perception of a peer not as an opponent or rival but as a partner are presented.
Keywords: moral education, preschool pedagogy, interpersonal relationships, self-consciousness, subject and object inception in interpersonal relationships, acquisition of moral norms, selfappraisal.
Preschool age is an extremely responsible period of a personality’s and interpersonal relationships’ formation when motivational sphere is intensively cultivated, personality mechanisms of behaviour, self-consciousness and attitude to others are formed. At this stage it is possible to overcome various deformities in relationships with other people, help a child to fully live through different stages of age development.
Unfortunately, the issues of moral education are not given due attention in modern psychology. The matter lies not in the fact that teachers
* Corresponding author E-mail address: [email protected]
1 © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved
and tutors neither notice nor underestimate the importance of moral education but in the fact that this delicate sphere requires a very keen psycho-pedagogical approach. Traditional methods of pedagogy, and namely explanation, transmission of information, giving patterns and positive examples turn out to be ineffective.
Various approaches to children’s moral education in preschool pedagogy
At present in the majority of preschool educational programmes the chief method
- 1617 -
of moral education is acquisition of moral standards and rules of behaviour. Tales, stories and dramatizations teach children to appraise characters’ actions and qualities, acquire the rules of moral behaviour and moral standards. It is supposed that understanding and acceptance of moral values will lead to a child’s relevant bahaviour: having learnt “what is good and what is bad”, a child will commit good deeds and avoid bad ones. However, life shows it is far from being so. Most children at the age of 3-4 appraise other characters’ good and bad deeds rightly; they know that it is good to make concessions to the weak, share sweets, help the others, etc. Nevertheless, their actions in real life are, as a rule, different from the standards they are aware of.
L.S. Vygotsky rigorously criticizes such methods of moral education. He considers that moral education can’t be based on laws and rules of behaviour. Pedagogy based on moral law and prohibition can’t lead to success as it “intimidates a weak person and provokes a strong person’s resistance” (1, 258). Any fear, dependence on punishment or encouragement already means the absence of moral sense. Violation of a prescribed standard, on the contrary, gives an aura of courage, challenge, inner force to a violator. Warning children from what they mustn’t do, we fix their attention on this deed and thus give him / her a push to perform it. “Awareness of a right action doesn’t always guarantee its performance but awareness of a wrong action facilitates it” (Ibid., 262). Even if a child abstains from a bad deed under the influence of such educational pressure educational influence at this is “equal to zero or even negative because it is bought at the cost of fear and humiliation” (Ibid.).
It should be mentioned that L.S. Vygotsky didn’t especially examine the problems of a child’s moral development. However, his works reveal an extremely interesting and extraordinary approach to moral education that doesn’t fit
in with his main conception at first sight. It’s known that the basis of this conception is the idea of the development of higher psychological functions that, unlike natural ones, are indirect, unconditioned and conscious. From this point of view a child’s development is understood as acquisition of socially designed means that make it possible to control oneself and organize one’s own behaviour. It would seem from this point of view that moral development must be regarded as acquisition of moral standards which become the means of moral behaviour formation and becoming conscious of it.
Pedagogy, based on moral standards observance, forms a completely wrong idea of moral values and deeds as kinds of personal merits or a peculiar advantage that causes self-admiration and contemptuous attitude to all the rest. All this is incompatible with moral development. According to Vygotsky’s precise point of view, he / she acts morally who DOESN’T KNOW that he / she acts morally (Ibid., 257).
These Vygotsky’s statements, being rather radical and non-traditional for pedagogy, presuppose refusal to single out moral education as a separate area of pedagogical work, its integrity within the context of everyday life, its dissolution in it. However, Vygotsky also denies the ideas of free education. Absolute freedom means an adult’s denial of educational influence that leads to a child’s transfer to element’s forces. Left to his / her own resources, a child can do huge harm to him / herself. If a tutor refuses to educate, it is street, furniture, media, etc. that start doing it.
Thus, moral education is necessary but it must be based not on external prohibition but on inner incentive, on the things that naturally attract a person to kind and beautiful. “Moral behaviour must become a person’s nature and be performed freely, easily and ingenuously” (Ibid., 265).
- 1618 -
Vygotsky sees the main strategy of solving this most important task in setting forth right “social coordination of one’s behaviour with that of another’s”. By this term he means natural communication between children, reality of their interpersonal relationships in which children start valuing their friends’ anxieties and share common impressions and feelings. To Vygotsky’s mind, these reflected impressions from one’s own deeds are the strongest educational measures.
Another form of cultivating a humane attitude to peers is organization of preschoolers’ common activity - playing or productive. These methods presuppose that children build common houses, draw pictures together or play plots. It is supposed that in the course of such common activity children learn to coordinate their actions, cooperate, they work out communication skills. However, such children’s common pastime often ends in quarrels, dissatisfaction with a peer’s deeds. The matter is that a child can’t coordinate his / her actions with a peer being neither attentive to a peer nor sensitive to a peer’s actions. Appraisal of one’s own actions usually precede the vision and ingenuous perception of somebody else that reduces a peer’s personality to a belief about him / her. All this “closes” the other and favours reticence, lack of understanding, offence and quarrels. Possession of attractive objects and superiority in subject activity are usual reasons of children’s conflicts and a traditional form of demonstration of self.
Humane attitude to the others is obviously based on the ability to empathy, sympathy that becomes apparent in various life situations. It means that not only ideas of proper behaviour or communication skills, but moral senses, that make it possible to perceive and consider joys and sorrows of the others as a child’s own ones, should be cultivated first and foremost.
Another widespread method of social senses formation is awareness of emotional states,
distinctive enrichment of glossary of emotions, mastering the peculiar “ABC of emotions”. A widespread method of education both in domestic and foreign pedagogy are child’s awareness of his / her anxieties, cognition of oneself and comparison with the others. Children are taught to speak about own anxieties, compare their qualities with the qualities of the others, recognize and name emotions. All these methods, however, make a child’s attention concentrated on him / herself, his / her own achievements. Children are taught to listen to themselves, name their own states and moods, understand their own qualities and merits. It is believed that a child, who is confident in him / herself, understands his / her own anxieties well, can easily take the others’ position and share their anxieties. However, these assumptions prove to be wrong. Sensation and perception of one’s pain (both physical and emotional) doesn’t always lead to the empathy of other people’s pain, high appraisal of one’s merits doesn’t favour similar high appraisal of the others in most cases.
For some time past formation of positive self-appraisal, encouragement and a child’s merits acknowledgement are chief methods of social and moral education. This method is based on the certainty about the fact that early development of self-consciousness, positive self-appraisal and mediation ensure a child’s emotional comfort, favour his / her personality’s and interpersonal relationships development. Such education is focused on strengthening a child’s positive selfappraisal. As a result, he / she starts perceiving and thinking about him / herself only and the others’ attitude to him / herself. As it has been shown this is the source of most problem forms of interpersonal relationships.
Such concentration on oneself and one’s own qualities closes the possibility to see somebody else. As a result a peer often starts being perceived not as an equal partner but as a competitor and a rival. All this causes disconnection between
- 1619 -
children while the main task of moral education is formation of community and unity with the others. Education strategy must presuppose the denial of competition and, consequently, appraisal. Any appraisal (both positive and negative) focuses a child’s attention on his / her own positive and negative qualities, merits and deficiencies of the others and as a result provokes the comparison of oneself with the others. All this causes the wish to please an adult, assert oneself and favours the development of the sense of community with the peers. Despite the evidence of this principle, it is difficult to be put into practice. Encouragement and censure are practically main and traditional methods of education.
This statement suggests the conclusion that the basis of a child’s moral development and education should lie in organization of children’s interpersonal relationships. However, for a right solution of this pedagogical task it’s necessary to understand psychological conditions of formation of the most favourable alternatives of attitude to other people as well as the nature of deformations that arise on this way. A series of such research was undertaken at the laboratory of preschoolers’ psychological development at the Institute of Psychology of the Russian Academy of Education (2).
Development of interpersonal relationships with the peers at preschool age
The basis of the research is formed by M.I. Lisina’s idea that personal interrelations are inseparably connected with the image of oneself and somebody else: they arise in common communication activity and are its products. Relations and image of oneselfbase ontwo different inceptions - subject (personality) and object ones. A subject inception of self-consciousness corresponds to integral perception of oneself (and somebody else) as a source of consciousness, own
activity, will, feelings, etc. It’s a certain centre, nucleus of self-consciousness in which a human I is unique and bears no likeness (it’s unmatched), isn’t subject to comparison (it’s incomparable) and has absolute value (it’s invaluable). Similar ingenious and non-appraisal perception and emotional view on another person as an integral personality correspond to it that causes inner connection with him / her and various forms of participation (empathy, collaboration, common joy, etc.).
Object inception reflects a human’s ideas of specific qualities, knowledge, skills, possibilities, position in a group - their appraisal and meaningfulness. Some kind of objectification, determination of self, its fixation are caused by such ideas. These ideas of oneself make a periphery of an image of oneself which mediate a person’s attitude to the world, people and him / herself. This attitude causes appraisal and cognition of correspondent qualities of somebody else, their comparison with one’s own. Another person can become a means of self-assertion (implementation of one’s own interests and needs) at this. Object (or subject) attitude sets the boundaries of self, one’s own difference from the others and isolation. These two inceptions are indispensable and complementary parts of self-consciousness and every person’s attitude to others, though the extent of their manifestation rate and content may be considerably different.
The empirical research based on this theoretical approach made it possible to trace back the development of a child’s interpersonal relationships in connection with the development of his / her self-consciousness in the course of the first seven years. The researches have shown that a new, extremely important sphere of a child’s interpersonal relationships (and namely his relationships with the peers) comes into existence at an early age of three. It is this sphere that was in the centre of most Russian
- 1620 -
researchers’ attention. As the research has shown the first forms of relationships with a peer and first contacts with him / her reflect first and foremost the emotional experience of one’s likeness with another child. At an early age first of all children recognize themselves in a peer’s portrayals, in real contacts they reproduce his / her movements, vocalizations, facial expressions as if reflecting or being reflected in him / her. And such mutual recognition and reflection give kids stormy cheerful emotions. It’s typical that at this period children react to other children’s individual qualities (their appearance, skills, abilities, etc.) rather weakly and superficially as if they don’t notice the peers’ deeds and states. First of all they see their own reflection in a peer. At the same time a peer’s presence increases a child’s general activity and emotionality.
It can be assumed than emotional and practical interaction between children of an early age gives them the sense of integrity, activity which becomes stronger if reflected and reproduced in somebody else. Children don’t distinguish certain qualities and properties (both their own ones and those of other children) yet. Their attitude to somebody else isn’t yet mediated by any other subject actions. It is affective, ingenuous and non-appraisal. Despite evident differences, all this brings the first forms of a child’s communication with an adult or a peer together. In both cases a child recognizes him / herself in another one that gives him / her the sense of community and complicity with others. Perceiving their own reflection in somebody else, children single out themselves better and get confirmation of their integrity and activity.
In spite of the fact that the need for communication with a peer at an early age takes far from the main place in the hierarchy of a child’s needs and is usually not regarded as a new formation of this age, it can be suggested that emotional and practical interaction between
children plays an extremely important role in subsequent development of interpersonal relationships. A feeling of ingenuous community and connection with others is built in here. Common actions, emotions (mainly positive) and moods that children easily catch from each other create the sense of community with equal and similar people which can subsequently become a basis for deeper human relationships. At an early age, however, this community is of a purely external, situational and procedural character. Besides, recognizing oneself in a peer, children experience an active process of self-cognition. Against a background of likeness every child’s own individuality is highlighted to its most. “Looking at a peer”, a child seems to objectify him / herself and single out specific qualities and properties in him / herself.
Such type of a child’s attitudes to the peers is preserved approximately up to the age of four. In the whole, three-year-old children are rather indifferent to a peer’s actions, his appraisal from an adult’s part. They do not worry about a peer’s success and misfortunes. At the same time they easily catch cheerful emotions of the others (though they almost don’t notice negative anxieties), can let them have a toy or turn in a game if an adult asks about it. All this can be the evidence of the fact that a peer doesn’t play a significant role in a child’s inner life yet.
A decisive improvement in the attitude to a peer takes place in the middle of a preschool age. The age of five isn’t usually regarded as critical by age psychology. However, our data, got by numerous researches, give evidence that it is a very crucial stage in a child’s personality development and display of this change is revealed particularly sharply in the sphere of relationships with the peers. At the age of approximately five a steady indifferent attitude to a peer is changed by a tense attention to him / her. There appears the need in collaboration and mutual actions. Children’s
- 1621 -
communication starts being mediated by object or playing activity. Children watch their peers’ actions intently and jealously, appraise them and react to an adult’s appraisal with bright emotions. At the same period empathy to the peers (regarding both the number of cases and their intensity) sharply increases. But this empathy is often of an inadequate character - a peer’s success can make a child sad or offend him / her while a peer’s failures can make a child happy. Children start boasting, envying, competing, demonstrating their advantages. The number and acuteness of children’s conflicts increase sharply. Tenseness in relationships with the peers becomes higher. Ambivalence and shyness manifest themselves more often than in ages different from this.
All the phenomena enumerated above give evidence concerning a deep qualitative change in a child’s attitude to a peer and him / herself. It can be assumed that its essence is in the formation of peripheral structures and object components of the I-image. A child’s self externalizes. Specific qualities, skills, abilities, etc. are singled out and appraised. But they can’t be singled out and appraised in themselves. It is possible only in comparison with somebody else’s, when peculiar to an equal but a different human being, i.e. a peer. A preschooler starts treating him / herself via another child. It is possible to appraise and assert oneself as a possessor of certain merits that are important not in themselves but only if they are appraised by someone, i.e. “in somebody else’s eyes”, only via the comparison with a peer. This comparison is focused not on disclosure of community (like at the age of three) but on the opposition of oneself and somebody else. A peer becomes an isolated, opposed human being and a subject of constant comparison with oneself. Comparison of oneself with somebody else takes place not only in the course of children’s real communication but in a child’s inner life. There appears a stable need in recognition, self-
assertion, self-appraisal in the eyes of another person. These become very important components of self-consciousness. All this naturally increases tenseness and proneness to conflict in children’s relationships.
Attitude to the peers significantly changes again by an elder preschool age (by the age of six-seven years). Emotional involvement in actions and a peer’s anxieties increases, empathy to another person becomes more marked and adequate; malevolence, envy, rivalness manifest themselves considerably seldom and not as sharply as at the age of five. Many children are already capable of emphasizing with both a peer’s success and failures, ready to help and support him / her. Children’s activity targeted on a peer (assistance, consolation, concessions) significantly increase. There appears the aspiration not only to respond to the peers’ anxieties but also to understand them. By the age of seven manifestations of children’s shyness considerably decrease. Sharpness and tenseness of preschoolers’ conflicts are reduced.
All this can serve the evidence that b y the end of a preschool age a peer becomes not only the object of comparison with a child him / herself but a self-valuable, integral personality, a subject of communication and address. It can be suggested that appearance and increase of a subject component in a six/seven-year-old child’s attitude to other children reflect certain shift in his / her self-consciousness. By this age children start being aware of not only their specific actions and qualities but also of their desires, anxieties, motives which, in contrast to object characteristics, unite and consolidate a child’s personality in whole. A child’s self isn’t already firmly fixed on his / her own merits and appraisal of one’s own object qualities. It is open for other people, their joys and problems. A child’s self-consciousness exceeds the bounds of his / her own object characteristics and embraces other people’s anxieties. Another child already
- 1622 -
becomes not only an opposed human being, means of self-assertion but the content of a child’s self. That is why children willingly help their peers, emphasize with them and don’t perceive the success of the others as their own failure. Our results show that such subject attitude of a person to him / herself and to the peers is formed by a preschool age in the most cases and it makes a child popular and preferable among the peers.
This is a general logic of normal age developmentofachild’sinterpersonalrelationships with other children. However, it is not always realized in concrete children’s development. It is widely known that there are considerable individual alternatives in children’s attitude to the peers. Problem forms of interpersonal relationships (heightened proneness to conflict, shyness, aggressiveness, state of being outcast in a group of peers) cause a special alarm among these alternatives. In view of this we have given a special attention to the research of these problem forms of children’s relationships. Psychological peculiarities of shy children, conflict preschoolers, children outcast by the peers were in the focus of a special analysis. Our data have shown that these children do not differ from their peers in the level of intellect development, arbitrariness or playing activity. Psychological reasons of their difficulties lie in different things.
Despite evident differences in behavioral manifestation, common psychological basis is the foundation of all problem forms of interpersonal relationships. It could be roughly defined as focusing on one’s own object qualities or predominance of object attitude to oneself and the others. Such focus causes constant appraisal of oneself, self-assertion, own merits demonstration, etc. Thus, unpopular, outcast children differ in a heightened desire for self-assertion, defense of selves, proof of their superiority; others become the means of self-assertion for them and the subject of comparison with them. The research has shown
that a distinctive feature of conflict preschoolers is a tense need in the peers’ acknowledgement and respect, maintenance and confirmation of positive self-appraisal. L.N. Galiguzova’s work (2) convincingly proves that the basis of children’s shyness lies in self-focusing, constant doubts about own personality’s value. Such anxiety about one’s self overshadows the content of mutual communication activity, disturbs the emotional sphere development. It is clear that the peculiarities of a child’s self-consciousness lie in the basis of various disturbances of interpersonal relationships. That’s extremely significant that conflict, extremely active, aggressive preschoolers and shy children demonstrate common peculiarities of self-appraisal. In general cases a positive self-appraisal is distinctly different from appraisal of one-self in the eyes of the others. Having high common self-appraisal and considering oneself the best one, a child doubts the others’ positive attitude, especially if the others are unfamiliar to a child. In case of shyness this difference manifests itself in uncertainty, shrinking into his / her shell, anxiety and fear of new situations; in case of proneness to conflict -in demonstrativity and constant striving for his / her advantages to be proved, his / her self to be asserted. However, the basis of both alternatives is in common psychological foundation, that is focusing on oneself and one’s own image. A child unites, coincides with his / her image and strives to hold it. He / she constantly looks at him / herself by the eyes of the other as if being in the system of mirrors. Some children try to hide from this stare, shrink into their shell, others, on the contrary, admire themselves, demonstrate their merits. But in both cases these mirrors make it possible to see themselves only, shutting both the world around and other people in whom they see only attitude to themselves but not themselves.
The matter of sources and factors of one or another type of attitude to the peers
- 1623 -
naturally arises. The practice of communication with the peers is distinguished among them. Communicative skills are practised and friendly relationships between children are formed due to it. However, according to our approach, the main and key condition of the development of harmonious attitude to the peers is close adults’ personality, subject attitude to a child which forms the basis of a child’s self-consciousness.
The possibility to check and confirm this hypothesis occurs in the course of research of preschoolers’ who live without families (in children’s homes), are deprived of the parents’ normal subject attitude since early childhood but have unlimited possibilities to communicate with the peers. A special research has shown that both aspects of interpersonal relationships between inmates of children’s homes - subject and object ones - are non-mature and nondeveloped. These children are unable of empathy, mutual assistance. Indifferent, nonchalant attitude to the peers predominates in them. They demonstrate emotional involvement neither in their own activity nor in a peer’s activity. At the same time they don’t feel any need in appraisal of their merits, they don’t compare themselves with the others, neither compete nor rival. Children’s conflicts are of a slacker, emotionally flat character than in a kindergarten. The preschoolers’ main and practically the only communicative need (as well as the cause of their conflicts) is an adult’s attention and amicability. They get aware of themselves mainly through an adult’s attention and attitude which are an external basis of their self-consciousness (like in an infantile age).
On the basis of these data it can be concluded that the structure of self-consciousness of children without families are not formed. Their selves need an external basis provided by an adult’s marked and personally addressed attitude which can’t be given by another child.
Thus, the results have shown that formation and development of moral attitude to a peer depends not only upon children’s common life but upon a child’s consciousness level of development the source of which is an adult’s subject personality attitude at early stages of ontogenesis. Children without families are deprived of such attitude. As a result, a child’s self remains non-marked, nonformed that makes emotional involvement in any other activity and a full-fledged attitude to him / herself and other people impossible.
Principles and stages of the programme of moral education
The results available open the way to a new approach that might solve the problem of moral education. This approach is based not on moral standards and positive patterns acquisition or on the awareness of own anxieties but on the formation of the sense of community and complicity with the others that presupposes the removal of focus on a child him / herself and his / her appraisals. Working out of specific methods of cultivating a personality’s moral qualities and humane attitude to people is one of the main tasks solved by psychologists at present.
The necessity of new approaches to children’s moral education arises in connection with it. Removal of focus on a child’s self via the development of attention to somebody else, the sense of community and complicity with the others but neither mediation over one’s own anxieties nor one’s own self-appraisal improvement should be the main strategy of this formation. Such strategy implies a significant change of tasks and methods of children’s moral education that exist in modern psychology nowadays.
First of all it is necessary to refuse from a competitive start in games and pastime. Contests, competitive games, duels and competitions are rather widespread and are widely used in preschool education practice. However, all these games focus a child’s attention on his / her own
- 1624 -
qualities and merits; cause bright demonstrativity, competitive capacity, orientation on appraisal of the others and, finally, disconnection with the peers. That’s why for the formation of a personality inception it’s important to exclude the games of a competitive character and any forms of competitiveness.
Numerous quarrels and conflicts are often caused by toys. According to practice, any new object in a game distracts children from communication; a child starts regarding a peer a challenger for an attractive toy but not a partner. In view of this on the first stages of humane relationships formation it’s better to refuse from toys and objects to the extent possible to focus a child’s attention on the peers as much as possible.
Verbal aggression (every possible teasing rhymes, calling the others names, etc.) is one more reason for children’s quarrels and conflicts. If a child’s positive emotions can be shown expressively (a smile, a glance, gestures, etc.), then the simplest and the most usual way of expressing negative emotions is their verbalization (swearwords, complaints, etc.). That’s why the work focused on the development of moral feelings must minimize children’s verbal interaction. Conventional signs, expressive gestures, facial expressions, etc. can be used as communication means instead of it.
Besides, this work must exclude any compulsion. Any compulsion can cause the reaction of protest, negativism, and reticence.
Thus, moral education (on the first stages in any case) must be based on the following principles:
1. Absence of appraisal. Any appraisal (irrespective of its valence) favours concentration on one’s own qualities, merits and drawbacks. It determines a prohibition on any verbal expression of a child’s attitude to a peer. Minimization of verbal addresses and transition to direct
communication (expressive-and-mimic means or gestures) can favour non-appraisal interaction.
2. Refusal from real objects and toys. The practice shows that any new object in a game distracts children from direct interaction. Children start communicating on the occasion of something and communication itself becomes not the aim but means of interaction.
3. Absence of an emulative moment in games. As concentration on one’s own qualities and merits causes bright demonstrativity, competitiveness and focus on appraisal of the others, we have excluded games that provoke children into display of such reactions.
The main aim of our programme is in the formation of community with the others and the possibility to see friends and partners in the peers. The sense of community and ability to see another person (but not one’s self in him / her) are the basis for humane attitude to people. It is this attitude that causes sympathy, empathy, common joys and assistance.
Proceeding from these propositions we have worked out the system of games for 4-6-year-old kids. The main objective of the programme is attraction of a child’s attention to somebody else and his / her various manifestations: appearance, moods, movements, actions and deeds. Suggested games help children to experience the sense of community with each other, teach to notice a peer’s merits and anxieties, help him / her in playing and real interaction.
The programme is extremely simple in implementation and doesn’t demand for any special conditions. It can be implemented by any adult with rather a small group of children (from 4 to 10 persons). It includes seven stages, each having its specific aims and objectives.
The main aim of the first stage is refusal from verbal communication means habitual for children and transition to gestures and facial expressions in communication that require great
- 1625 -
attention to the others. Attention to a peer becomes a meaning centre of all games on the second stage. Adjusting to somebody else and becoming similar to him / her in one’s own actions, children learn to notice the peers’ slightest details in movements, facial expressions, intonations. The ability to coordinate motions is perfected on the third stage. It requires the focus on the partners’ actions and adjustment to them. The fourth stage presupposes the children’s’ plunge into common anxieties - bothjoyous and uneasy. The imaginary sense of common danger which is established in games unites and ties preschoolers. Role-plays in which children assist and support each other in difficult playing situations are introduced on the fifth stage. The sixth stage makes verbalization of one’s own attitude to a peer possible. According to the rules of a game it must be of an extremely positive character (compliments, kind wishes, emphasizing the merits of the other, etc.). On
the final, seventh stage games and pastime are held. Children learn to really assist each other in common activity while being engaged in them.
It should be emphasized that the programme is focused neither on explanation, nor display of positive examples, nor encouragement of good deeds and reprimand of bad actions but on the development of ingenuous interactions between children, perception of a peer as a person close to him / her but neither a rival or opponent.
The preliminary practice of organizing games and pastimes in Moscow kindergartens has shown that the climate in a group noticeably improves: children become more independent; aggression of many “problem” children reduces considerably; the number of demonstrative reactions goes down; shy children, who have been playing alone before, participate in common games more often. All this indicates a high effectiveness of this programme.
References
Выготский Л.С. [L.S. Vygotsky] Педагогическая психология // Моральное поведение. Глава XII. С. 249-270.
Межличностные отношения от рождения до 7 лет [Interpersonal relationships from birth to 7 years] / под ред. Е.О. Смирновой (Москва-Воронеж, 2000).
Смирнова Е.О., Холмогорова В.М. [E.O. Smirnova, V.M. Kholmogorova] Межличностные отношения дошкольников: диагностика, проблемы, коррекция (М: ВЛАДОС, 2003).
Смирнова Е.О., Холмогорова В.М. [E.O. Smirnova, V.M. Kholmogorova] Конфликтные дети (М.: ЭКСМО, 2010).
Проблемные формы межличностных отношений дошкольников [Problem forms of interpersonal relationships between preschoolers] // Вестник практической психологии. 2011. №3. С. 22-33.
Сюжетная игра как фактор развития межличностных отношений дошкольников [Game with a plot as a factor of development of interpersonal relationships between preschoolers] Культурноисторическая психология. 2011. №4. С. 38-44.
Методы нравственного воспитания в разных программах образования дошкольников
Е.О. Смирнова
Московский центр психолого-педагогической экспертизы игр и игрушек МГППУ Россия 107045, Москва, Сретенка 29, ауд. 411
В статье анализируются разные походы к нравственному воспитанию дошкольников. Показана актуальность и сложность данной задачи и неадекватность традиционных методов, которые основаны на усвоении моральных норм и правил поведения, на поощрении и порицании, на повышении самооценки и пр. Специально рассматривается позиция Л.С. Выготского, который показывает, что нравственное воспитание не может быть основано на законах и на правилах поведения. Доказывается, что нравственное воспитание неразрывно связано с развитием межличностных отношений со сверстниками. Рассматривается возрастная динамика отношения к сверстнику в дошкольном возрасте (от 3 до 7 лет). Особое внимание уделяется проблемным формам межличностных отношений (агрессивности, демонстративности, застенчивости и пр.) В последней части статьи представлены принципы и этапы программы нравственного воспитания, которая направлена не на объяснения, не на демонстрацию положительных примеров, а на развитие непосредственных взаимоотношений между детьми, на восприятие сверстника не как противника и конкурента, а как партнёра.
Ключевые слова: нравственное воспитание, дошкольная педагогика, межличностные
отношения, самосознание, субъектное и объектное начало в межличностных отношениях, усвоение моральных норм, самооценка.
