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THE PLACE AND ROLE OF A TEACHER AND EDUCATOR IN SOTSIOOBRAZOVATELNOM SPACE IN GENERAL AND THE INSTITUTION IN PARTICULAR. PEDAGOGICAL INNOVATIONS IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS
RUSSIAN EDUCATION:
PRIORITIES OF PROFESSIONAL TRAINING OF PEDAGOGUES
V. N. Skvortsov
A consideration of the priorities of professional training of pedagogues of the general and middle professional school is linked with establishing a new system of social, economic and civil coordinates of the development of Russian society and education. Here, issues become important concerning the development of value and meaning aspects of the activity of modern pedagogues working in Russian general education schools, professional lyceums and colleges. Time is required for radical technological changes and an update of socio-economic components of the life of our entire society. In these conditions, an important priority, in our opinion, should be the systematically understood and solved task of a positive change in the social status and training of modern pedagogues at schools, professional lyceums and colleges. Solving this task may be seen as the integral result of the realization of other (but which are subordinate to solving the first priority task of the development of national education) key directions in the development of the modern Russian pedagogical community employed in the sphere of general and middle professional education of youth.
Raising the social status of pedagogues of general education schools, professional lyceums and colleges is one of the key priority areas of the modern development of Russian education and professional training of the teaching body. Progress in this area can be real if the following key tasks are carried out (but only if they are subordinate to an even higher integration goal): (a) social and economic conditions of carrying out pedagogical activity are improved; (b) the staff potential of Russian education becomes younger; (c) the development of lifelong education of pedagogues continues, ensuring the realization of their creative and innovative potential; (d) there is a rise in the quality of pedagogical activity and the educational process at all levels; (e) a positive image of the Russian pedagogue is formed. All these priority areas for the development of
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Russian education and professional training of pedagogical schools, lyceums and colleges are objectively linked with the concept of the creation of a "new Russian school”, and tasks for the improvement of the education of today’s younger generation. We shall briefly examine each of these areas of the development of professional training of modern Russian pedagogues working in the sphere of general and middle professional education of youth, but in the context of raising their social status in Russia society.
The priority nature of development of socio-economic conditions of activity of pedagogues of general education and middle professional schools is based primarily on the increasing competition for the main human resources of the development of contemporary civil society - human capital. In principle, every person is the main goal, and not an appendage, of the economy. This implicitly existing tendency is unavoidable for the development of countries striving for leadership in the modern world. It is directly related to problems of the development of education and raising the social status of Russian pedagogical workers, as education fulfills numerous useful functions, above all the instruction and upbringing of youth.
When we speak of raising the social status of pedagogical workers of general education and middle professional schools, we must be guided by the development of socio-economic conditions of the activity of modern educational institutions, and also have quite a clear theoretically and practically justified idea of measures for their "resource provision” (organizational, economic, financial-budget etc.). From the theoretical and practical viewpoint, here we must combine into a single system an increase in "knowledge values” and effectiveness of stimulating an innovative strategy of development of our new economy up until 2020 with a series of measures that focus legislative and executive institutions of the power vertical on the practical introduction of the "principal of parity of financing” of the sphere of education with other branches of the economy and social life, which are important factors of labor productivity. This follows from the nature of pedagogical activity in the school, lyceum and college as highly qualified and difficult work. The fact of the matter is that on the practical level, it has not yet been possible to give an extremely precise description of the productive character and socio-economic effect not only of an individual institute of study, but often all of middle education (general and professional) as a whole. Here, if we may say so, two major sets of circumstances "work” against this sphere of education: firstly, the feedback from the development of the sphere of general and middle professional education and the activity of its pedagogues is economically very difficult to assess (and measure the effect of its improvement) in the short to medium perspective, owing to the fact that the effectiveness of this social institution can ultimately only
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be checked by the entire socio-historical experience, and not by the experience of a specific school, lyceum, college, or even an individual region; secondly, the effectiveness of both education in general and professional training of individual pedagogues of schools, lyceums and colleges is of an implicitly “multidirectional” nature.
The effectiveness of the development of education and the activity of pedagogues may be expressed empirically in the most varied poorly measured results. For example, in the focus of young people on creating a strong family, in the ability and skill of young people to resist the difficulties of life, in the professional aspirations of young people, and the effectiveness of their careers, in a drop in crime, in the formation among young people of a system of new values that are appropriate for civil society, etc. Measuring and giving an adequate economic assessment (and thus encouraging) this multi-directional effectiveness of educational institutions and pedagogues is something that we are not yet able to do in theory or in practice. All this hinders and complicates society from accepting the fact of the involvement of the sphere of general and middle professional education of youth in the labor productivity of all of society, on the one hand, and on the other hand it slows down the formation of an effective system of its budget financing. In order to remove these barriers, in our opinion, we must more specifically (both in theory and in practice) development new economic mechanisms, which lead to the gradual decrease in financing general and middle professional education of youth “on the residual principle”, on removing in practice its financing of principles which are based on “filling classes and groups” (the mechanisms that are currently been advocated of “per-capita financial of educational institutions” will, in our opinion, not change this task fundamentally). It is also necessary to theoretically devise and practically realize a coordinated and mutually balanced system of socio-economic mechanisms of support (at federal, regional and municipal levels), and back-up of pedagogues in small towns and villages, with federal and socio-economic “parity” with other employees of the social infrastructure. To this end, with an understanding that they are all working towards a decision of the priority goal of increasing the social status of pedagogues and the education sphere in general, we must develop and legislatively set down in writing (guided here by a different budget ideology) new mechanisms for forming the salary of pedagogical workers. They must take into account the fact that the salary of pedagogues of general education and the middle professional school should (in relative terms) be 75-80 % higher than the average salary in basic branches of industry and construction of the given region. It is no secret that many pedagogical workers are dissatisfied with their salaries, school financing and the level of their social security. For example, with an average salary in the main branches of the
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economy equal to 23-24,000 rubles, the acceptable salary for pedagogues of general education schools and professional lyceums and colleges should be at the level of 30-40,000 rubles, and not 15-16,000 rubles, as was the case in St. Petersburg in 2009. At the same time, one must remember that in the value system of modern pedagogues (as among other groups of the population), emphasis has begun to be placed not only on a high salary, but on the interests of the family, and the desire to increase and fundamentally change one’s free time. This indirectly shows that a new quality of life as a factory and criteria of social stratification in general and the formation of the social status of pedagogical workers in particular evidently has a decisive role in modern conditions. These parameters of the life activity of pedagogues must primarily be connected with the quality of work, and only secondarily with the quantitative, extensive characteristics of the study process.
A special aspect of the problem under examination is the combination of financial and economic factors that allow educational institutions not to reduce financing in the case of an objective drop in the number of pupils (which is especially relevant for rural and sparsely inhabited regions and villages in our country). These socio-economic priority measures should be based on transparency of budget and sponsor financial flows, help to carry out diversified systems of forming a material and technical base of the regional system of schools, lyceums and colleges, realize a program for increasing the professionalism of their pedagogical personnel, increase the flexibility, competitiveness and target nature of salary of individual pedagogues, and also to finance educational institutions, including measures to apply pension norms for civil servants to pedagogues.
A special group of measures is connected with the development of ideas of national education projects. Here, in our opinion, it is necessary (and at different levels) to support the creation of new institutional norms of territorial organization of the sphere of middle general and professional education of youth. For example, the creation of territorial educational consortiums, to single out and (on the basis of the paradigm of radical state intervention) give priority support to research interdisciplinary educational programs directed towards raising the effectiveness of the realization of the innovative potential and cultural development of Russian in the present century.
The staff potential of Russian schools, lyceums and colleges becomes younger. At the center of a solution to this priority area of development of Russian education and training of pedagogues lies the problem of young pedagogues and teachers coming to schools, lyceums and colleges. At present in Russian general education schools, professional lyceums and colleges, not more than 7-12 % of teachers are
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30 and younger. This explains why for the state and society, attracting young pedagogues to schools, lyceums and colleges has become one of the main priority areas of activity. Schools, lyceums and colleges should not only be filled with the energy of young pedagogues, but on their basis of their activity, it should be imbued with the spirit of new value coordinates of the development of the modern pedagogical process. The reasons that young people do not go to teach in schools even after they graduate from pedagogical universities has long been well-known. They are all focused on the problem of a fundamental change in the social status of the instructor, pedagogue and teacher of the modern school, lyceum and college, as their low social status does not objectively correspond to the social responsibility of the work of the instructor, pedagogue and teacher.
Development of lifelong education of pedagogues working in schools, lyceums and colleges as a priority area is based primarily on a number of fundamental socio-humanitarian tasks of modern Russian society. This formulation of the problem, in our opinion, is connected with two (objective and subjective) groups of circumstances:
firstly, the development of lifelong education of pedagogues depends objectively on the goals and strategy of the modernization of the modern Russian school. Therefore, the entire strategy of realization of programs of postgraduate education of pedagogues of schools and pedagogical engineering workers of lyceums and colleges is inevitably carried out in the context of new reforms and a concept of the development of the system of general, primary and middle professional education. In particular, it is connected with the development of the organization of lifelong education of pedagogues in the territorial aspect, which is based on the formation of special educational districts which encompass the university and the system of schools, lyceums and colleges of the region etc. Its main task is to ensure the maximum effective selfdetermination of youth, and its professional re-orientation based on the needs of the labor market and the market of education services etc.;
secondly, the development of lifelong education also depends on subjective needs and interests of the Russian pedagogical community. Modern pedagogues working at schools, lyceums and colleges are interested in a broad spectrum of areas of their lifelong education, in particular: gaining knowledge in the field of the subject taught; increasing competence in the field of the theory and method of teaching and bringing up youth; mastering important knowledge on age psychology, communication skills with children from a different ethnic culture; knowledge of the spiritual traditions and modern Russian socio-cultural conditions; basic competence in the field of law and economics, including the economy of education etc.
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What are the problems which must be solved primarily? The most serious problem, in our opinion, is the development of lifelong education and professional training of pedagogues as a special technology for transferring new knowledge from the field of theory to the field of methods and practice of teachers and pedagogues of schools, lyceums and colleges. Here, in our opinion, a priority task should to have more experienced pedagogues from the university accompany teachers of general education schools, professional lyceums and colleges in processes for solving practical tasks, through a system of permanent programs of lifelong and additional post-graduate education. This will make it possible to solve a very important task in the development of the professional activity of pedagogues of the most varied level; to improve its structure, contents and organization. In these conditions, universities, as centers of lifelong education, should create a system for raising the qualification of ordinary pedagogues, when through the most various forms of post-graduate education they will gradually be drawn into the orbit of new innovative and progressive developments. As they master them, they will introduce them and disseminate them in their educational institutions. At the same time, postgraduate professional training of pedagogues will objectively be fitted into the logic of all stages of their lifelong education (pre-university, university, postgraduate training).
A special priority problem, in our opinion, also exists when we think about the development of professional lifelong training of pedagogues of schools, lyceums and colleges in two of its basic areas or strategies. Here, we mean lifelong professional training of the so-called "vertical nature” (baccalaureate -master - graduate student - specialist with scholarly degree) and "horizontal nature” (various forms of additional education that allow ordinary pedagogues to acquire and master new professional competencies, but at the same time remain at their previous places of work). Here there are two priority tasks for research and real practice. The first task is connected with the search for the most optimal ratios between the vertical and horizontal area of development of lifelong education of modern pedagogues of schools, lyceums and colleges with the substantiation and elaboration of the mechanism of their movement from ordinary professional to graduate and doctor, and the return of the latter to the sphere of real pedagogical practice. The second is connected with the as-yet weakly development of mechanisms of social and economic assessment of realization by pedagogues of programs of their lifelong general and professional education. If we have to some extent learned to assess and stimulate materially lifelong professional training of pedagogues with a "vertical direction”, things are at present not so good with lifelong professional training (especially general education training) of pedagogues developing in the "horizontal direction”. Here,
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in our opinion, the priority task arises to carry out effective diversification of universities, the recognition of various stages of lifelong education by representatives of the modern pedagogical community involved in the activity of schools, lyceums and colleges. In particularly, this is connected with developing mechanisms of recognition by the state and material encouragement of informal lifelong education of pedagogues throughout the course of their life.
Raising the quality of pedagogical activity, when we are talking of a new quality of Russian education at schools, lyceums and colleges. The priority of this area of development of education in our country is based on the main goal of development of modern Russian education, the meaning of which lies in ensure conditions to satisfy the demands of youth, society and the labor market for quality education, by creating new institutional mechanisms for regulating the sphere of general and middle professional education of the growing generation, updating the structure and contents of education, and developing the fundamental nature and practical direction of educational programs, forming a system of lifelong education. And there are also objective demands for Russian education and training of pedagogues that have arisen as a result of international comparative studies of its quality.
The requirements in the field of raising the quality of modern Russian education may include the following. Above all, the requirement for new educational standards for the comfort of the educational institution should be realized (as conditions of study that correspond to the technologies of the 21st century). At the same time, the comfort of the educational institution, in our opinion, should only involve the material conditions of its functioning and development. We may also include here ensuring conditions for realization of equal rights of citizens to education of all levels and stages. The creation of a normative legal base in the field of education, ensuring the functioning and development of a system of general and middle professional education in the interests of the personality, society and state. The introduction and realization of new state education standards and matching model education programs of various levels and areas of education. To ensure the comfort of the educational institution (school, lyceum and college), the contents of education should be developed which match the modern Russian and international level of technology, science and culture. This must include the development of available scientific research and scientific and technical activity of the organization of the system of general and middle education, integration of business and education. The comfort of the educational institution will be attained if it is possible to improve the system of its licensing, attestation and accreditation, the system of lifelong education, develop full partnership between the Russian system of education with education systems of foreign nations. Then the comfort of the
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new school may be regarded as a special quality of the education of youth and professional training of pedagogues, leading to a certain multiplying effect: (a) restructuring of the system of educational institutions of professional education of various levels; (b) equipping them with study equipment in accordance with the requirements of state education standards for general and professional education of all levels; (c) quality improvement of conditions of study, acquisition by pupils of practical skills and abilities; (d) development of creative and professional abilities of pupils; (e) increasing interaction of all institutions of general and professional education with industry and the service sphere in training highly qualified personnel; (f) satisfying the demands of citizens for highly qualified educational service, with simultaneous involvement of youth in full productive work.
Finally, all of this should be realized in the special system results of the activity of educational institutions. On the one, in the predominance of a special system of pedagogical principles of the life activity of the educational institution (connection with the life of society, cultural nature of education and upbringing, systematic nature of knowledge and skills of graduates, a common requirement and respect for pupils etc.). On the other hand, in the satisfaction of society’s demands for work by qualified employees in all the main areas of socially useful activity, in raising the competitive ability of graduates of educational institutions of middle professional education on the labor market. However, it should be remembered that the development of the quality of education and training of pedagogues cannot be identified with and reduced solely to the material comfort of the organization of the study process at the school, lyceum and colleague, and to the specific educational institution’s active inclusion in the Internet space.
Special attention should be given, and perhaps this is most important of all, (if we are talking about the development of a new quality of Russian general and middle professional education and training of pedagogues that measures up to civic ideas of modern society) to the culturological aspect of this problem. The quality of education at general education and middle special study institutions is implicitly connected with its ability to maintain a "thesaurus” of our national culture for young people. The pedagogical community of each educational institution and of the country as a whole faces the difficult task, on the one hand, of forming a new system of names and symbols among the growing generation, and on the other hand to help young people to reassess former "names and symbols” that embody the historical conscience of our nation. Essentially, at present pedagogues face a colossal task - to educate the multi-dimensional (in the civic, moral and artistic and cultural aspects) historical conscience of the modern young generation. It is no secret that in the contents of modern general and middle professional education, it is the nurturing of civic, moral and artistic
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and aesthetic culture that has weakened to the greatest degree. The culturological aspect of raising the quality of education and training of modern Russian pedagogues allows us to examine this process through the prism of two its possible directions of development:
the first direction of development of a new quality of the education process and professional training of pedagogues will make it possible to realize at schools, lyceums and colleges a nurturing of the historical conscience of modern youth through a creatively oriented system of relationships of all subjects of study and education activity;
the second, on the contrary, gives preference in education and instruction of youth to material comfort and the quality of functioning of the educational institution, in comparison with the "comfort” of the in-depth contents of the educational process and relations between pedagogues and pupils. In this second case, the young pupil disappears as a historically given and historically thinking personality, and the dominant role in their education "...begins to be played by surrounding objects and formalized role relationships. In this environment, very little space remains for the personality” (C. Baudrillard).
In the first direction of development, the study and education process moves to a level of a spiritual system of the formation and realization of the personality, both of the pedagogues and the pupils. In the second, the study and education process may be seen solely as the realization of the function of a determined and essentially alienated system of their relations. Naturally, in the formation of a new quality of education at the school, lyceum and college, and also in organization of professional training of pedagogues, the first direction of development should be taken as the guideline.
Formation of a positive image of the modern Russian pedagogue. This priority area of development of national education and training of modern pedagogues is directly connected with raising their social status. It includes a system of measures which makes it possible (through the introduction of educational standards of the new generation and a many-sided attestation of education institutions) to provide real stimulus to the formation of a new socio-professional image of pedagogical workers of general education schools, lyceums and colleges at municipal, regional and federal levels. In particularly, by including systems of indicators of municipal, regional and federal positioning of pedagogues and educational institutions in standards and documents of attestation. These may include, for example: (a) the level of vertical-horizontal integration of the pedagogical team with other pedagogical communities and employees of municipal, regional and federal bodies of the education department; (b) the extent of positive comments on the activity of the pedagogical team of an educational institution in media of various levels and
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orientation; (c) other indicators of recognition of the school or institutions of middle professional education (their pedagogues) by the most diverse social groups of the municipality and region. In our opinion, these should include:
the system of social and psychological indicators which could reflect positive assessments of the activity of the educational institution and its pedagogues by the needs of educational services, partner educational institutions, enterprises and organizations;
indicators of the level of readiness of educational institutions and their pedagogues for competition with other subjects of educational processes at municipal, regional and federal levels;
characteristics of the ability, and most importantly the motivation, of the administration of educational institutions to retain the contingent of pupils and pedagogues;
indicators of the authority of employees of the educational institution and the level of complementariness of teachers, pupils and their parents, pedagogical workers in general and local residents.
A special place in the formation of a positive image of the modern Russian pedagogue should be played by the system of indicators of the formed nature of the new pedagogical culture of the educational institution, expressing the level of development of the organization and self-organization of pedagogical teams, their “productivity” in carrying out the set of their basic world-view, culture-conveying, socialized and other professionally oriented instruction and education functions. Here we may single out a system of indicators of readiness of teachers to change their socio-professional status: (a) degree of satisfaction of pedagogues with the conditions and results of activity, (b) extent of their personal and professional development, (c) level of their aesthetic and artistic potential, (d) degree of development among pedagogues of trans-cultural, communication skills and abilities to communicate with parents of their pupils, (e) personal, professional and civil positioning of the pedagogues by themselves (and educational institutions) at municipal, regional and federal levels. The main idea in creating a positive image of the modern Russian pedagogue consists on the one hand in realizing the aspiration to form effective forms and ties of pedagogues and teachers in the process of educating pupils, and on the other in introducing into the contents of subjects of the general education and professional cycles of the intensified culturological portion, and the step towards realization by pedagogues and educational institutions of a modern culturological model of personality of pupils, providing advanced joint civic and moral and aesthetic development of teachers, pedagogues, pupils and their parents through their contact with Russian and world culture. To this end, it is necessary to organize, on the basis of the most successful schools, lyceums
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and colleges (with the involvement of universities), permanent culturological courses for pedagogical workers. To turn the system of their offices, department and faculties of aesthetics and art into municipal, regional and federal (if the university is concerned, for example) methodical centers, which could not only organize appropriate instruction, but also carry out an analysis of the degree of cultural collectiveness of study and education curricula of other educational institutions. To achieve this, it is necessary to develop a system and mechanisms of development of their material base and methodological provision of offices, departments and faculties of aesthetics and art, to raise the qualification of pedagogues and the culturological field etc. We believe that these sectors will be focused (through new forms of interaction with parents) on raising the inner potential of pedagogues and pupils of Russian schools, lyceums and colleges, on the integration of the teaching and education process.
All these measures, through a positive change in the image of educational institutions and modern pedagogues, will enable them to raise their social status, and effectively implement the national concept "Our new school”.
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