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THE CONCEPTUAL EXPERIENCE OF A PERSON AS A HUMANITARIAN COMPONENT OF MODERN EDUCATION
E. G. Belyakova
The central role of a conceptual element in the development of cultural experience is proved in some philosophical, cultural, psychological researches. It is now recognized that an integral worldview is the result of the understanding of the world by a person through a cultural lens. The culture, in its turn, acts as a form of existence, generated by human activity, and as a source of human development. Culture is an entire system of concepts of human existence, both - ideal and materialized. A. A. Pelipenko [1999, 2001], notes that there is always a mediating prism of culture between people and the world, hence the problem of meaning is not to be formulated in a way that there is a world, a man or an object, but in a way, how some or other things function in the space of meanings. Meaning, arising and functioning in the structure of consciousness is a universal selforganizing form of culture. At the level of individual consciousness, meaning is a discrete state, experienced by consciousness, capable of being objectified by expression in codified systems of culture. In terms of cultural concepts (values) «sense - is an experienced value, expressed in codes (signs and images), which is implemented in the context of culture, transmitting socially», while value is a semantic component of meaning [2001]. Thus, cultural space as a space of concepts always involves the conscious attitude of a subject to reality.
The human being, according to A. Y. Agafonov is a conceptual model of the world, the combination of «the four conceptual spheres (biosphere, cognitive sphere, social sphere, spiritual sphere) [2000]. According to the theory of psychological systems (V. E. Klochko, A. A. Veryaev), a person is a multidimensional world, arising in a process of interaction between the person and reality as a «humanized» space, emerging as a result of the integration between objective and subjective dimensions. The human being combines an «image of the world» (the subjective component), the “lifestyle” (the activity component) and the reality itself - a multidimensional world of a person as an ontological foundation of his\her life that determines lifestyle and is determined by it. At the same time, the person, due to an understanding of the world in terms of meaning and value, stands not in opposition to the objective world, but in unity with it. Meaning as the most important post non-classical category allows the establishment of the most important interrelations that arise in a process of growth and creative selfdevelopment of a person in culture. The conceptual experience of an indi-
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vidual in the context of the educational process is a central integration component that provides an access for a student into the cultural field, his\her self-identity and further self-development. We share the point of view of A. A Veryaev [2000], who considers the content of education as a small semiosphere that, acts as a means of developing the internal culture of a person on the basis of personal-conceptual integration processes.
Developed in the process of understanding reality, the method of comprehending the world and oneself in the world is unique to a person, including not only the acquired knowledge and ways of changing the world, but primarily the conceptual attitude of the person to the world, mediated by the cultural values. The conceptual experience of a person as a major humanitarian component of the content of education is organically connected with an experience of knowledge, activity and practice, but has a special status for it defines a system of personal-conceptual relations, organized in accordance with the specific meanings that a person attaches to knowledge, activities, events and reality. The development of the conceptual experience of a person is provided by a number of special conditions in the educational process. First of all, the conceptual experience of a person, including conceptual knowledge, is a result of special activity - "work of understanding» as defined by V. P. Zinchenko [1997]. In a broader interpretation of understanding as a process of developing concepts one can state that human activity in the creation of concepts is that a person, based on cultural content, builds his\her own personal experience of knowledge, skills and understanding of the world, its problems, controversies and prospects, including his\her own life project.
The opportunities for understanding educational content by students at the level of conceptual personal valuable knowledge are provided upon condition of the organization of educational interaction in a form of a dialogue, actualizing concepts, the expansion of a humanitarian component of the content of education, the promotion of concept creation in the pedagogical situation through some special procedures, the formation of a value developing environment of a specific educational establishment. The general conditions of concept creation are the productive value-significant context of the class that includes dialogical communication, the unity of the teaching staff, the humanistic ideas of a teacher, determining the style of pedagogical communication, the definition of meaning and the purposefulness in the context of socially personally-relevant situations, the use of humanitarian text potential, the interdisciplinary integration of the content of education, the use of procedures promoting awareness and acceptance of the personal value-significant position by the students. The specific conditions of
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concept creation are determined by the interpretation potential of educational texts, the degree of readiness of the interaction participants to be included into the dialogue of concepts, their actual needs and conceptual ideas.
The distinctive features of professional-pedagogical tasks in implementing the model of conceptual-oriented education, in their turn, determine the content of a special training for teachers, which should ensure their ability and readiness for conscious, environment-friendly work with a value-significant sphere of students, the methodological knowledge about the principles of organization of concept-generating dialogue, the developed skills of creating productive value-significant context of learning educational content. An integrative aspect of concept-oriented competency of a teacher is his\her specific teaching position, which contains a concentrated system of pedagogical concepts. The teaching position arises in a process of perception, understanding and creative reinterpretation of the values in pedagogical culture, adoption of them by the teacher as a basis for professional and pedagogical activity.
A value developing educational environment as a prerequisite for the implementation of a model of conceptual orientation provides greater involvement of the cultural experience in the content of education in a unity of object and value components as well as the possibilities of its comprehension and creative development on the basis of various forms of conceptualization-actualization. The core component of conceptualization-actualization is the «culture of understanding», which includes conceptual values, goals and means of educational activities, value-significant unity of the teaching staff, revealed at the level of mentality and supported by normative nature of the declared values, their actual operation in the conditions of a specific educational establishment.
The result of the educational process, based on the formation and development of the conceptual experience of a person is the development among students of a multidimensional value-mediated understanding of situations, events, phenomena, self-perception, the development of an ability to consciously make a value-mediated choice on the basis of the acquired object knowledge, an increased level of learning and cognitive motivation and emotional involvement in learning activities, an activation of creativeness on the basis of acquired knowledge.
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