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ON THE ROLE OF SPIRITUAL
AND MORAL VALUESIN THE UPBRINGING
OF SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS
O. L. Rakovskaya
The issues of morality and aesthetic artistic perspective in the process of lifelong education are among the most relevant problems of the modern times. A spiritual person shapes themselves throughout their life. Every learner represents a certain level of everyday consciousness shaped by society. He or she has a variety of creative inclinations, abilities for learning, communication habits; also, the emotional level of childhood is a powerful factor that contributes to the active spiritual building of a personality. Certainly, values of students may differ from those of society, because they are shaped anew for each generation and closely intertwined with the individual characteristics of a personality.
Numerous pieces of psychological and pedagogical research show that most relevant for education and development of spiritual values is the age of 14 to 15 years when an individual develops a system of interests and basic needs (it is the beginning of either future spiritual wealth, emotional generosity, moral strength, or spiritual poverty, narrow interests, emotional callus, and uncontrollable will). During these years, a person rethinks and reevaluates the experience gained to that point and develops a foundation for life philosophy and attitudes to people, society, the world and their place in it. Life philosophy of a senior high school student is inseparable from the world outlook of the personality, where the social value of a person is determined by the extent to which their activities contribute to the progress of society. It is very important that a teacher is able to explain a moral motive for an action and show its creative purpose. When asking about the meaning of life, senior high school students think about both the direction of public development in general and a specific purpose of their own life. Every child has to understand "what kind of talent is given to them by nature, why one should feel good in this inconceivable world, what things they should know and be able to do" [1]. "Young people" (S. L. Rubinshtein) resolve the issue of their world outlook in a categorical manner; these issues reflect the conflict between the abstract and the concrete. As long as a senior high school student does not have their own value system, he or she is easily prone to moral relativism: if everything is relative, then everything is allowed; anything that can be understood can be justified, etc. Goal-specific ethical education explaining the principles of morality in general or on specific, real life examples and literature promotes the level of moral consciousness of the personality, helps them better understand, weigh and evaluate different situations of life, and develop spiritual values.
An analysis of a few foreign and Russian sources on psychology and pedagogy leads us to a conclusion that middle adolescence is the most favorable period for fostering spiritual values into a persistent feature of the personality.
E. Spranger believes that the primary novelties developed in middle adolescence include the discovery of one's self, the appearance of reflection, and the realization of one's own individuality. He laid the foundation for a systematic research of self-
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consciousness, value orientations and world outlook of teenagers [2]. It is typical of a teenager to strive to understand and appreciate themselves as a personality in terms of specific goals in life, which is transformed into a holistic attitude towards one’s self.
It is only through the experience of life and actions that a person develops moral appraisals, assimilates and fixes moral judgments and understanding of moral norms and requirements - all of which constitutes the basis of ideological and moral beliefs of a young person. Moral judgments of a senior high school student are often vague, unstable and erroneous. Besides, there is a gap between moral knowledge and behavior: regardless of good knowledge and understanding of the essence of moral requirements, a person acts contrary to them. Therefore it is necessary to continuously foster "social adultness" in teenagers by involving them in self-governance efforts and active, socially useful activity.
The process of fostering spiritual values is understood as step-by-step mastering of social values that enrich the inner world and contribute to the holistic development of an individual, because it is not through endless self-analysis but through being fully oriented toward others in their acts that a person finds themselves. Only this can reveal the best traits of personality. As a state of mind, morality determines the behavior of a person from within, from conscience, helping to withstand adverse external influences and counteractions. It appears as an aggregate product of the material, spiritual and social being of a person. It contains the spiritual side, which is common for all moral people, and forms its core by manifesting itself in the principles of life of an intellectual, moral, free, conscientious and responsible person. Morality is about the attitude of one person to another, the way they define the limits of their behavior, while spirituality is about a person's attitude to the world, the universe, and the cosmos. According to V.A. Sukhomlinsky, moral values should become a personal spiritual wealth of every learner" [3], and hence turn into spiritual values in the course of activity.
Moral and functional analysis of works of art, including imaginative literature, is commonly considered to be an effective means of fostering spiritual values in senior high school students. Consequently, lessons and extracurricular activities in literature play a special role in the educational process for fostering spiritual values in senior high school students. Imaginative literature can give a teenager correct and clear ideas about ethical norms and attitudes, teach to properly treat the surrounding environment and other people, give strength and depth of experiences which will subsequently form a basis for the motivation for acts and deeds. It is Russian literature that promotes the fusion of spiritual, aesthetic, national, educational, ideological and moral aspects in the mastering of life. According to V.Y. Troitsky, humanities subjects (Russian Language, National History and Russian Literature) are essential for the development of national selfconsciousness and building a personality in schoolchildren. Spirituality should serve as a basis of perception of these subjects.
The system of spiritual values is characterized by ethical knowledge and behavior, and thus is closely linked with the moral position, representing a system of attitudes to society, other people, oneself and the entire universe throughout one's life. A rapidly growing public system of lifelong education based on a
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systemic complex of traditional spiritual and moral values is currently seen as optimal, which in turn will be determined by whether society will keep its traditional spiritual and civil identity. Lifelong education should guide a personality towards continuous self-learning, development of spiritual moral qualities, and correspondingly the entire education system, starting from the pre-school level, should contribute to the development of this aspiration.
References
1. Рубинштейн С. Л. Научный архив. Из научного наследия Сергея Леонидовича Рубинштейна [Текст] // Человек и мир. - М.: Наука, 1997. - С. 175-187.
2. Шпрангер Э. Два вида психологии // Хрестоматия по истории психологии / под ред. П. Я. Гальперина, А. Н. Ждан [Текст]. - М.: Изд-во МГУ, 1980. - С. 286-300.
3. Сухомлинский В. А. Проблемы воспитания всесторонне развитой личности. Избр. соч. в 5 т. [Текст]. - Киев: Рад. школа, 1979-1980. Том I. - С.121.
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