CC BY
12
DOI: 10.24234/wisdom. v20i4.560 Svitlana KRYSHTANOVYCH, Nataliia CHUBINSKA, Iryna GAVRYSH, Oleksandra KHLTOBINA, Zhanna SHEVCHENKO
PHILOSOPHICAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO SELF-DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC AND PEDAGOGICAL WORKERS
Abstract
The study's main purpose is to highlight the philosophical and psychological aspects of the self-development of scientific and pedagogical workers in the context of the development of the education system. The article uses various methods to conduct research, namely general scientific methods: formal-logical, systemic, structural-functional, concrete-historical. The pedagogical synergetics is considered as part of the research. Pedagogical synergetics, which explains the development of a complex system, education, is a new philosophy of the educational process. Pedagogical synergetics makes it possible to approach the development of problems of the development of pedagogical systems and the pedagogical process in a new way, considering them primarily from the standpoint of openness, co-creation and orientation towards self-development. As a result, philosophical, psychological and pedagogical approaches to self-improvement are characterized.
Keywords: philosophy, psychological approach, self-development, pedagogy, pedagogical workers.
Introduction
Scientific thought of the XXI century synthesizes the achievements of philosophical, psychological and pedagogical thinking on the issue of professional self-development and self-improvement of teachers of all previous centuries, expanding them, deepening, increasing the arsenal of means of self-creation of the individual, assigning an essential role in creative self-development and components of the process of self-improvement. Proceeding from this, the problem of considering the philosophical, psychological and pedagogical approaches to the teacher's self-improvement is urgent.
The philosophical understanding of personal self-development is characterized by a significant lack of views on its essence and meaning, mechanisms and internal nature under the influ-
ence of which idealistic, materialistic and dialectical approaches to the interpretation of the concept of self-improvement are formed.
The materialistic approach to understanding a person's self-improvement is based on the priority of utilitarian-pragmatic values. It characterizes self-improvement as an external activity of a person aimed at achieving a socially conditioned ideal by correcting his own behaviour according to the norms of a given society to assert himself in it. In the dialectical approach to understanding the self-development of a person, idealistic and materialistic views are harmonized, according to which self-improvement of a person is considered simultaneously as an internal and external activity aimed at achieving the ideal of a "superman" (in the unity of its spiritual and physical principles) (Mascall & Rolheiser, 2006).
Self-development of the personality, for what
is recognized as "not the degree of development of any personality traits, but their moral content, the ability to form universal human moral values", is interpreted as "the process of human development in a person", a phenomenon that "concerns the criticism of the personality, and not the improvement of its individual properties and abilities", and is invariably associated with the actualization of the positive forces of growth and development of the individual (Yushko, 2012).
Thanks to the development of synergetic and acmeological philosophical concepts, the dialectical understanding of personality self-improvement as a self-determined movement by an integral open system towards ever greater orderliness (self-organization) are fundamentalized in order to achieve the highest possible level of development under these conditions ("acme" -peak, prosperity) (Zawadzka, 2014).
The study's main purpose is to highlight the philosophical and psychological aspects of the self-development of scientific and pedagogical workers in the context of the development of the education system.
Methodology
The article uses various methods to conduct research, namely: general scientific methods (formal-logical, systemic, structural-functional, concrete-historical); logical methods of theoretical analysis (analysis, synthesis, generalization, comparison, abstraction, analogy, modelling, etc.); technical analysis, clarification.
Research Results and Discussions
The origin of the concept of "self-development" took place since ancient times, as evidenced by the inscriptions on the columns located in the Temple of Apollo in Delphi. Thinkers of different historical epochs gave great importance to "self-development" to improve the individual and society as a whole. There is no doubt
that for the implementation of self-development, self-knowledge of the individual is necessary (Smirnov, Smirnov, & Uvarov, 2017).
Achievements of prosperity, socio-economic stability, prospects for personal development directly depend on the ability to navigate and independently master new information to be ready for retraining in the changing guidelines of professional activity in the labour market. In turn, the development and prosperity of society depend on the general educational and general cultural level of its members. Modernity requires a person to constantly and quickly adapt to the rapid dissemination of information and scientific and technological advances and the pace of their practical implementation, affecting everyday life and the labour market. For successful production activities, a person must have a good command of the professional knowledge and skills acquired during the training period in the system of secondary and higher professional education and be sufficiently developed in the cultural, moral, philosophical, and psychological sense. (Tims, Bakker, & Derks, 2013)
The main task of self-education is the independent development and improvement of the personality for maximum preparation for life, building a personality capable of knowing the existing world and purposefully changing it for the better. Self-education is based on methods of activity, personal motivation and attitudes, qualities and skills. As one of the forms of satisfying the cognitive needs of an individual, self-education is associated with the manifestation of significant volitional efforts with a high degree of consciousness and organization, the acceptance of inner responsibility for one's self-improvement. Knowledge acquired through self-education is stored in memory and is productively implemented. Through self-education, a person creates a unique configuration of personal qualities, motives, cognitive styles, and ways of adapting to reality, helping to create his own lifestyle. Self-education of a person becomes a way of forming a life strategy, helps to choose and
implement the chosen direction, to create conditions that ensure the effectiveness of increasing professional and general cultural competence, the development of intelligence and creative independence in the process of independent individual work (Bakker, Tims, & Derks, 2012; Fre-derickson, 2001; Sonnentag, 2003).
An individual's adaptation to rapid changes in economic, social, political, and cultural life occurs with minimal costs, with a multifaceted and diverse preparation of a person's intellectual abilities for industrial and social life. It should be noted that human actions are determined not only by certain external circumstances but also by such internal conditions as a worldview, strategic attitudes, motives, and needs that determine the individual's social, professional, philosophical, and cognitive orientation.
Skills and knowledge are the only sustainable advantages in modern society. Knowledge can be used only through the qualifications of individuals; it becomes the only source of long-term sustainable competitive advantage. If a person knows how to learn, can achieve a goal, if he knows how to gain knowledge, look for and find the necessary information to solve certain problems, use a variety of sources of information to solve these problems, then it will be easier for him to improve his professional level, to retrain, to gain any necessary additional knowledge, -after all, this is exactly what is needed to feel comfortable in the new socio-economic conditions of life (Zawadzka, 2014).
The psychological aspects of studying the concept of self-improvement are focused on identifying the mechanisms and patterns of a person's personal growth, ways and means of his work on himself. Foreign psychological theories of self-improvement, based mainly on its idealistic philosophical interpretation, consider self-improvement as a personal phenomenon. Self-improvement is understood as an expression of a person's own positive potential, the manifestation of ideal traits through the creation of conditions for their realization and has the character of
self-actualization as a manifestation of a person's latent abilities, an expression of his inner personality core (Zimmerman, 2008; Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001; Luthans, 2002). The main psychological mechanism of self-improvement is determined by experimentation, as the expression and consolidation of individually unique personal achievements in material cultural values and self-actualization (in such invariants as self-expression, self-affirmation, self-realization, etc.). The idea of self-movement of a person on the path of cognition of the "true self' and the realization of his potential in activities and in relationships with others determines the search for sources of self-improvement in the person himself, in his inner world in the form of potential forces of growth and development. Self-improvement is considered an expression of a high human need - the need for self-actualization, which, when realized, constitutes the vital meaning of the individual.
Directly pedagogical problems of self-improvement are mainly aimed at finding ways and means of strengthening the inner self-creative activity of the individual as a subject of life and development. Modern ideas of personality self-activity in the process of its formation are affirmed, first of all, in the context of humanistic pedagogy, based on the recognition of the value of each person, his subjective experience, inner world, on the belief in his professional growth, and, accordingly, are opposed to authoritarian tendencies.
The idea of personal self-improvement in the traditions of the so-called "formative" pedagogy of the Soviet period, in which self-education is determined by the main factor of the effectiveness of all influences on the personality, acquires a specific development. The gradual transition of the theory and practice of "formative" pedagogy to "developmental", due to the recognition of the individual's ability to be the subject of his own education, upbringing and development (Ryan, & Deci, 2000; Frunza, 2018; Vavricova & Lovas, 2013).
The concept of development in philosophy is associated with the improvement of intelligence and a gradual transition to a higher level of organization when development processes do not arise spontaneously but are purposefully directed. The philosophy of personal development and self-development is noted as balancing the contradictions between the known and the unknown, between the desired and the existing, between the quantitative and the qualitative, between the necessary and the accidental, between the intellectual and the sensual. This process is because of the need to understand self-development as a systemic educational factor.
External determinants precede the development of any system. When the decisive role in development shifts to internal determinants, this process acts as self-development. The point at issue is the formation of the personality as an integral system. This is possible only in the unity of all its components at a certain stage of human development. It provides for a developed self-awareness in the unity of self-knowledge, self-esteem, self-control, self-regulation and self-development. The result of the process of personal self-development is certainly broader than the traditionally identified forms of professional experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities. It manifests itself in the dynamics of its characteristics, self-esteem, self-confidence, and volitional efforts to overcome difficulties and increase self-efficacy (Taylor, Neter, & Wayment, 1995; Me-sarosova, 2014).
In the future, the research plans to consider it as a purposeful, diverse self-change of personality, which serves the purpose of its maximum spiritual, moral and active-practical self-enrichment and self-disclosure. This is its independent formation, aimed at successful self-realization in society. The self-development process includes:
1. changes in the motivational sphere of a person, where universal human values find their indispensable expression;
2. the growth of the ability at the level of intelli-
gence to plan and then carry out in practice exactly those actions that correspond to the spirit of the named values;
3. increasing the ability to mobilize oneself to overcome difficulties of an objective nature;
4. a more objective assessment of their strengths and weaknesses and the degree of their readiness to implement the intended goals.
Thus, human self-development is manifested in the achievement of new, qualitatively higher productivity levels of each mental process separately and their interaction, leading to the successful solution of more complex problems. Many scientists consider professionalization and personal self-development as an interdependent processes.
The basis of their integrity is the inner world of the individual, his unity. In pedagogy, the thesis is declared that the process of professional training should be inextricably linked with personal development and self-development. However, the analysis of scientific literature in the field of teacher education shows that the problem of human self-development as a subject of professional activity remains poorly understood (Tenner, Affleck, & Greshman, 1986; Halliwell & Dittmar, 2009). The initial element of professional and personal self-development is the self-awareness of the individual.
Self-awareness belongs to an integral subject and serves to organize his own activities, his relationships. It is only thanks to self-awareness that we understand the discrepancy between the properties of our personality and the social and moral requirements that are presented to us; we are also aware of the discrepancy between our physical and mental capabilities and our aspirations. The main functions of self-awareness are considered to be self-knowledge of oneself through awareness of the image of one's I, the development and improvement of one's personality under the social and moral requirements of society, the conscious use of knowledge about the mechanisms and laws of the mental activity of one's personality (Tims, Bakker, & Derks,
2013; Cameron, Dutton, & Quinn, 2003).
An unformed attitude towards oneself as a scientific and pedagogical worker inhibits professional self-development, since it is thanks to self-awareness that the student understands the discrepancy between his qualities and the requirements of the profession, as well as the social and ethical requirements of society, and thereby internally encourages overcoming the contradictions between them, forming a readiness for self-development.
The transformation of all spheres of production is initiated by changes in the system of higher pedagogical education aimed at training a highly competent and competitive teacher, the main feature of which is the readiness for self-improvement. New pranks in solving the problem of professional training of specialists cause an intensification of pedagogical research. The implementation of innovative reforms in education and, to a certain extent, the formation of the nation's intellectual potential depends on the effective work of teachers. Dynamic social restructuring requires a progressive movement from a specialist, as a result of which qualitative transformations of the personality would take place, the improvement of the mental and spiritual potentials of the personality, the deployment of its individuality (Schaufeli, Bakker, & Van Rhenen, 2009; Bauer, Park, Montoya, & Wayment, 2015). The theory of personal growth and self-development is based on ideas about the positive nature of man, the value of each personality, and its individual characteristics. In these conditions, it becomes necessary to educate a personality capable of reproductive activity and to restructure the prevailing stereotypes, ready for regular self-education, constant self-education, and self-development. Therefore, the problem of the teacher's self-improvement remains urgent, a component of which is the teacher's self-development.
The driving forces of personality development are internal contradictions that stimulate its activity. Some contradictions are successfully
overcome, and this encourages the person to take new actions and, ultimately, to self-improvement, while others cause insurmountable obstacles in overcoming them. So, here it is advisable to talk about the presence of a barrier. The pedagogical barrier, subject to its effective overcoming, ensures the unity of the development of cognitive and emotional processes since there is a connection between the origin of emotional-value relationships and barriers. The developing nature of the pedagogical barrier also lies in the fact that the attractiveness of most values is directly proportional to the size of the obstacle one must overcome to achieve them, and the absence of an obstacle devalues the subject. The accumulation of experience in overcoming pedagogical barriers ensures the development of will, causes changes in the mechanisms of self-regulation of behaviour, the formation of motivational attitudes, finding themselves in difficult situations of choice and with the rest, leads to facilitation of the process of overcoming barriers.
The training and self-improvement of a true professional - a master of his craft - continues throughout his life. It is not limited to the scope of the educational institution or the position held. The realities of every day and the challenges of future changes put each of us in front of the need to predict them and prepare accordingly. Self-development is determined by socioeconomic factors, the psychophysiological potential of a person, purposefulness and, first of all, by the nature and content of labour. The conditioning forces of self-development are professional work, material, social status and spiritual needs. The content of self-development is an integral complex of processes and means of personality development, the pleasure of its cognitive and spiritual needs, the disclosure and improvement of natural inclinations and abilities.
Pedagogical synergetics occupies an essential place in our research. Synergetics, as a theory of self-organization of complex systems, describes the common (joint) in their development. Without a doubt, education in the embodiment of
pedagogy is a complex system, and therefore synergetics, which is being developed today by various branches of scientific knowledge, necessarily becomes its new philosophy. In this context, one can speak of pedagogical synergetics as a new dimension of the initial process of education.
The emergence in the pedagogical process of new, stronger structures that have new qualities becomes possible if a number of conditions are met: if the old system is in a state of crisis, and its former structures do not meet the requirements of the new situation; the main source of the emergence of new qualities is embedded within the system itself, but in order for the self-organization mechanism to work, an external driving force is needed; a new structure in the process of evolution, together with deviations and accidents that accompany it, must independently "survive" in order to achieve proper stability; the formation of new qualities in the system (education, consciousness, personality) should be determined by synergistic principles and conditions.
The introduction of synergetic into pedagogical science as an important philosophical and methodological section of pedagogical theory prompted individual scholars to interconnect pedagogical and philosophical problems, to a certain extent, contributed to the "erosion" of the boundaries of pedagogy as an independent science. In the paradigm of synergetics, pedagogy manages to combine the idea of self-organization with the idea of cognition as a new dialogue between man and nature to significantly expand the scope of application of various phenomena: physical, chemical, biological, social, and the like. After all, synergetics as a theory of self-organization of complex systems shows the general in behaviour of complex systems - both natural and social. A person "as a whole" or a student in the learning process interacts with the natural and social space in which life occurs. It is with him that she interacts. It is this space that determines his needs, norms, abilities, forms the
environment of education, training, development, that is, the educational space.
Reflecting on the synergistic content of the activity, we note that the leading place belongs to the teacher's professional activity. Pedagogical activity is the professional activity of a teacher, solving the tasks of teaching and developing students with the help of various actions. It acts as a special type of social activity aimed at transferring culture and experience accumulated by mankind from older generations to younger generations, creating conditions for their personal development and preparing them to fulfil certain social roles in society. The essence of the activity is considered lies in the fact that the teacher sets educational goals and objectives for himself and then transforms them into tasks for students. This should stimulate their activity, cause positive changes in their personal development. By the nature of the goal of the pedagogical activity, it is a dynamic phenomenon. The logic of their development is such that, arising as a reflection of the objective trends of social development and bringing the content, forms and methods of pedagogical activity in accordance with the needs of society, they consist in a detailed program of gradual movement towards the highest goal - the development of the individual in harmony with himself and society. The type of professional activity we are examining has a dynamic structure, which includes many elements. It is the interaction of all elements that results in the phenomenon of pedagogical activity. Its functioning presupposes the achievement of the following goals: cognitive - receiving by the subject information about an object (its highest form is science in all its modifications) value-orientational, the goal of which is the subject's awareness of the meaning of the object for it (its highest form is ideology in various modifications) transformative, the goal which is the change by the subject of the object, material-practical and spiritual -ideal, for the sake of creating a new, cultural object from the material of natural, social, human given (at one level - the creation of the objectivi-
ty of "another nature", at the second, ideal - a model, project, dream, in the third, semiotic, in the sign systems created by the culture, languages necessary for communication in the synchronic section of socially organized being and the diachronic section of cultural continuity).
The principles of the synergetic approach began a new systemic-synergetic concept of pedagogy, the starting points of which are as follows: the essence of all pedagogical phenomena and processes is the systemic synergetic approach; each pedagogical system is considered and understood as a synergistic integrity; the sources and driving forces of the development of pedagogical systems (primarily the development of personality) are not contradictions, not struggle, not denial of negation, but the synergy of these systems and their interaction, both internal and external; pedagogical systems are essentially anthropological systems, since they have an objective purpose - to ensure the formation of a person as a person and mastery of the systemic culture of human studies, produced by previous generations, gives it life meanings and goals, guidelines in its development; the personality in the pedagogical process is considered as a synergetic, self-developing social system, the essence of which is embodied in the domination and fulfillment of objective social roles; education is a systemic and social process of human studies.
Pedagogical activity is a synergistic system, where everything is subject to the laws of system synergism, the action of which is manifested in system-functional patterns. Determining factors of the education system from the standpoint of a synergetic concept: motivation, the system's openness, dialogue, freedom of choice, exchange of information. Implementing a synergistic approach in the teacher's activities is manifested in updating the content, methods and forms of teaching, taking into account such factors as openness, self-organization, self-development, creativity and nonlinearity of thinking, management and self-management, and the like. The synergistic approach frees the pedagogical space
from single-lineness and cliches, opens up the multifunctionality and multidimensionality of hypotheses and theories, makes it possible to comprehend in a new way the peculiarities of creative thinking and representation, evaluate the variety of ways, methods, principles of personality development, is constantly updated, to create new conditions for the disclosure of creative abilities. The principles of synergetics today are new trends in the development of pedagogical skills (Mascall & Rolheiser, 2006; Yushko, 2012; Kryshtanovych, Golub, Kozakov Pakho-mova, Polovtsev, 2021). These principles of synergetics provide a non-standard approach to teaching, completeness and high quality of subject knowledge, professional development and professional adaptation of a future specialist through various academic disciplines, taking into account their interdisciplinary connections.
Conclusion
Thus, self-development is considered as a broad category, including any activity of the subject, carried out consciously or subconsciously, directly or indirectly, which can leads to progressive changes in mental processes, physical functions, and social abilities. This is a process of constant improvement, conscious management of the development of a personality, one's qualities and abilities, the result of which is satisfaction with oneself and one's achievements, and the main internal mechanism of self-development of a personality consists in a conscious, qualitative change in personality through self-education.
The multifaceted problem of the teacher's self-improvement is determined by the philosophical, psychological and pedagogical opinions. It has been established that the idealistic, materialistic and dialectical philosophical understanding of an individual's self-improvement is characterized by a variety of views on its meaning and inner nature. The recognition of the key criterion for the perfection of the optimality of
self-realization by the individual of his creative potential leads to the understanding of self-improvement as an important prerequisite for the successful creative self-realization of the teacher. Ideas of personality self-activity in the process of its formation are affirmed in the context of humanistic pedagogy, a personality-oriented approach based on the recognition of the value of each person, his subjective experience, inner world, on faith in her professional growth.
A scientific solution requires the existing pedagogical theory and practice contradictions between the use of the term "teacher's self-improvement" and the variability of the definition of this concept, which is a question for our further scientific research.
We believe that the priority potential of the teacher's self-improvement is the self-development of the personality, the basis of which is the deployment of a person's essence through his individuality. Professional self-development is efectively carried out only if students are active, which is manifested in the ability to consciously and independently use their own potential with the aim of successful professional and pedagogical activity. A specific feature of the activity of teachers is the conscious professional orientation of the individual, which is manifested in the understanding of the importance of teaching, the correctness of pedagogical knowledge, the presence of a stable interest in a pedagogical activity. We define the self-development of a future teacher as a conscious, active, purposeful activity aimed at developing one's own individuality and professional self-realization with the aim of self-improvement. We see the prospects for further research in this direction in the study of the problem of the teacher's readiness for self-development.
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