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TEACHER AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT:
CONCERNING THE ABILITY TO DIAGNOSE PEDAGOGICAL CONFLICTS
D. Kamenova
Introduction. This report attempts to correlate the resources of two trends which are comparatively new for Bulgarian scientific schools. On the one hand - managing conflicts in education, and on the other hand - in respect of the technology of personal charisma, which has not spread widely enough in Bulgaria. Collective study and application of the ideas and principles of these two scientific spheres demonstrates that they can be used to increase the teacher’s authority 1 both in his specific professional activity in the educational and pedagogical process and in the process of communication with students, parents, colleagues and other parties. The teacher’s authority increase in the context of lifelong education is directly connected with sustainable development.
1. Connection between the teacher’s authority and the ability to diagnose conflicts. The problem associated with disregarding a teacher’s authority correlates on the one hand - with state political motives, focused on his (teacher’s) stable professional position in the society, and on the other hand - in an ever-changing social and cultural situation, where the teacher finds himself carrying out his professional and pedagogical activity, it is him and not the outer world that has to pay particular attention to making a strong positive impression of himself on other the participants of pedagogical interaction - students, parents and community. Moreover, the creation of such a good image, i.e. authority, is even more essential for the teacher himself as it allows him to establish a more profound and confident pedagogical communication in a highly rapidly changing context.
In the present report the attention is focused on such characteristics of the current social and cultural situation as high conflictogenity of the environment in which the teacher works, hence on the necessity of developing his conflictological competency. One of its most important elements is the management of the pedagogical conflicts in which he is involved either as a direct participant - with student/students, parents, colleagues, or as a third party - an independent expert on resolving school conflicts. Furthermore,
1 Taking into account that usage of the resources of the personal charisma technology (imagelogy) is a comparatively new field of science, here in this report we use the terms “authority” and “image” as synonyms. Moreover, the synonymic use of “personal charisma technology” is preferred to “imagelogy” due to the absence of theoretical and praxiological traditions of development in Bulgarian conditions and even less in the sphere of education.
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the core of good conflict management, if conflict is understood to be a clash of interest of at least two parties, is the correct conclusion.
We believe that in Bulgarian schools, special attention is still not paid to the system of developing such competencies in the headmaster or teacher. The teacher’s ability to diagnose conflicts, and consequently the ability to choose the correct way of resolving them, becomes an extremely important component of the conflictological competence. Teachers do not receive special training in this sphere, which makes them instinctively choose the method of managing the conflicts they get into. Therefore the decisions they make are not always appropriate for the situation or for the student’s or parent’s personality. Such decisions often turn out to be helpful at a certain moment, but have a very short-term and often even negative effect. So at present stage the ability to adequately manage conflicts using the skill of accurate diagnosing becomes one of the reliable psychological prerequisites, a guarantee for establishing and raising teacher’s authority. We believe that developing of such skill would lead to significant changes in the attitude of students, parents, establishments and society in general towards this factor, which is extremely important for its own successful professional existence and growth.
2. Conflicts diagnosis - essence, components and implementation stages. Appearance, development and resolution of conflicts at school are the subject of pedagogical conflictology. Communication at school as in a system of oppositional and incompatible parties, which at the same time demonstrate an internal unity, becomes a source of its self-motion and progress. Speaking of diagnostics and methods of resolving conflicts at schools, the most accurate concept definition reads: a conflict shall be understood to mean active inter-aimed actions of each party in order to reach its goals and fulfill its needs, and followed by strong feelings and deep emotions (refer to 3, page 34). Conflict diagnosis comes before its managing and implies the definition of the major components of the conflict and factors that lead to it. Diagnosis involves the definition of: (a) roots of the conflict (events, subjective and objective emotions, “struggling” techniques, clashes of opinions, events and affected needs and interests of the parties); (b) “biography” of the conflict: the story which served as a background for its growth and progress, critical and turning points of its development; (c) the participants of conflict interaction (personalities and groups); (d) attitudes and relations of the parties (their interdependence, roles, expectations, personal relations); (e) the initial attitude of the parties towards a particular conflict (whether they wish and are able to resolve it themselves, what are their hopes, expectations, disposition and conditions, whether the
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conflict is centered in the zone of interest of the party which keeps the level of tension up, or it encompasses both parties).
While diagnosing the conflict the most complicated thing is to identify its parties, the needs that were affected, interests, fears, reasons of conflict interaction. Therefore it is possible to use the method of conflict cartography (refer to 1, page 38) to find the conflict’s grounds. Using this method one can carry out a consecutive analysis of the behavior of the each conflict participant and define the major problem through the differentiation of needs and fears, in order to eliminate the factors that caused the conflict. However the most important thing is that the conflict can be forecast so that it can be prevented. Such a skill as a constituent of the teacher’s authority or even image is being proposed by V. Shepel - the founder of the personal charisma technology (the term “imagelogy” is being used) - as a new scientific school, and is being associated with education, family, politics, business. How does the ability to diagnose conflicts correlate with a teacher’s authority?
3. Personal charisma technology and the place of the ability to diagnose conflicts.
3.1. The essence and objectives of personal charisma technology. The notion “imagelogy” which was introduced into scientific language in 1990 has quickly won general recognition. Interest towards it has started growing since the issuing of certain publications, especially after three reeditions of the book “Imagelogy: secrets of personal charisma” by V. M. Shepel in a row, in which it is presented as science and art of attractiveness. The top-priority goal of personal charisma technology is to prepare people for establishing successful interpersonal and business relations. “The more we succeed in creating a positive image, the richer the repertory of our behavior becomes and we control other people’s impressions more efficiently, and the more successfully we can construct different spheres of social interaction, gaining sympathy and respect” (refer to 5, page 34). The risk of health problems is reduced in the field of successful communication, where people tend to like each other and where conflicts are successfully transformed into constructive ones. Therefore, teachers’ striving for personal charisma can be regarded as a guarantee of a healthy lifestyle not only for themselves but also for everyone they come across with while engaging in their professional activity.
3. 2. Top-priority functions of authority in their correlation with the ability to diagnose conflicts. V. Shepel defines personal charisma technology as a science and an art, which helps people to obtain personal charisma and the skill of “shining” when dealing with people. The job of a teacher,
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doctor, or service worker is impossible without creating a positive image. V. Shepel believes that its essential constituent is the ability to anticipate, outrun and forecast conflicts. The knowledge of conflictology and especially the ability to diagnose and manage conflicts can be directly correlated with the functions of authority as an active form of its essence and content, and the ability to diagnose conflicts can be correlated with the functions of authority divided into two groups: the first one refers to value functions of a teacher’s authority, using which he diagnoses conflicts, that is social attractiveness, normalization of interpersonal relations, and psychotherapeutic function; the second group refers to the technological functions of a teacher’s authority, which are realized by the ability to diagnose conflicts that is: interpersonal adjustment, development of personal and business qualities; attracting attention (a positive image of the teacher subconsciously attracts people); overcome age, social and professional barriers (the teacher feels himself more and more comfortable communicating with students if he possesses the skill of self-presentation technologies, which shows a more and more efficient choice of behavior model while performing various roles in the process of skillful diagnosis of conflicts).
Conclusion. Presumably a more profound analysis in a diverse educational context would allow us to obtain more significant results concerning the combined use of two scientific fields, which firstly seem to be incompatible - managing conflicts and personal charisma technology. It appears that authority (or image) - is a multidimensional phenomenon with a variety of functions. Its main idea is to reach the effect of a personality’s attractiveness. Therefore, the emphasis which is laid on the practical meaning of the image makes our perception and understanding of its matter and intended purpose different from the eastern approaches - it is laid not on the appearance of the individual, though it is also very important, but rather on his personality, which is subject to continuous improvement.
Bibliography
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2. Гришина Н. В. Психология конфликта. М., 2008.
3. Громова О.Н. Конфликтология: курс лекций. М. ЭКМОС, 2000.
4. Димитров Д. Конфликтология, Унив. изд-во,УНСС, 2000
5. Шепель, В. М. Имиджелогия. Как нравиться людям, М. 2002.
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