CC BY
31
THE ROLE OF PERSON-FOCUSED TRAINING IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF STUDENTS’
CIVIC POSITION
А. А. Akramov
This report presents the value of person-focused training for development of students' professional competence and civic position. The author summarizes the viewpoints of some scientists-teachers on person-focused training, and identifies the main pedagogical conditions of students' professional knowledge development along with the development of their personal and civil qualities.
Key words: person-focused training, social and psychological qualities of an individual, civic stance, professional knowledge and abilities, functional and cognitive activities, future teacher, personality and society.
Person-focused training has become significant in higher pedagogical education in recent years. Most heads and teachers of higher educational institutions assess person-focused training as a promising pedagogical paradigm (model). This approach can be accounted for by a number of objective factors: (1) the reform of Uzbekistan society and possibilities of sustainable development have led to the need for intensifying the training of highly qualified teacher training staff with a strong feeling of civic consciousness; (2) analysis of the philosophical-pedagogical, psychological, and legal fundamentals has shown that the level of professional competence of future teachers depends on the level of their acquired legal, cultural, spiritual, and professional knowledge. This process has a substantial role in development of individual-psychological and social-psychological qualities of students’ personality, which enrich students’ world outlook, and develop the feeling of professional and civic duty and responsibility for performing the assigned tasks; (3) one can feel the acute need for humanization of the relations between teachers and students in the educational process. This factor is the basis for expanded democratization of students’ life activity; (4) high attention is now paid to acquisition of professional knowledge, abilities and skills by future specialists on the basis of the person-focused approach.
The traditional approach in higher pedagogical education also provides for acquisition of certain knowledge, abilities and skills. However, apart from the stated goal, person-focused training is aimed at developing students’ professional abilities and their important professional qualities. Within the framework of the person-focused approach, students assimilate the methodological aspects of pedagogical activities. Future teachers acquire a system of interrelated notions and actions. In this process the student becomes conscious of him/herself as a personality, acquires the skills of controlling one’s activities, and skills of practical utilization of the acquired knowledge and abilities. Thus, the future teacher’s individual personality is formed.
Person-focused training uses a number of technologies. For example, comprehensive development of one’s personality, the development of academic actions and abilities, and individual and differentiated training. Depending on the major goal of the pedagogical process, a relevant technology is identified. The
276
issues of effective introduction of the person-focused approach in academic process were elaborated by C. Rogers and J. Freiberg; they revealed the essence of the process of acquiring knowledge and the necessary information based on the person-focused technology of training.
As applied to the process of acquiring a certain profession by students, we can assert that person-focused training facilitates accumulation of internal energy and creative potential of education recipients, successful acquisition of the necessary knowledge and competencies. In the process of person-focused training conditions are created for development of the students’ civic stance, in particular for: (a) assimilation of vital knowledge and concepts by students; (b) consolidation of a positive attitude to the laws and regularities of public life, understanding of the correlation between professional knowledge and the needs of society; (c) the possibility of free choice of educational material and training resources related to the future professional activities; (d) actualization of students’ personal activities, motivation for self-development and self-education of young students.
I.Ya. Yakimanskaya placed a special emphasis on the need for development of the personal position of every specialist. The scientist considered person-focused training not just to be a subjectified process, but as acquisition of professional social experience because this experience is enriched and improved throughout the training period. Social experience is embodied in development of students’ cognitive activities, with their civic stance developing on this basis. Social experience helps to gain an insight into the content of the subjects being studied, to some extent to complement and expand the scientific and practical aspects of the content and, if required, to reform the educational process.
According to V.V. Serikov, the person-focused approach is primarily aimed at solving the tasks of development of the students’ personality. This reveals itself in the development of such personal qualities of students as the ability to choose priorities, free thinking, creativity, self-actualization, critical analysis of one’s activities, and a rigid civil stance. To develop these qualities and abilities teachers should create appropriate training situations which would expand the possibilities of students’ professional and personal development, stimulate a search for new ideas, and urge learners to choose theoretical variants of solving training and life problems.
However, as of today, the technologies of person-focused training have not been sufficiently elaborated. Quite a number of attempts are made in the system of higher education to introduce the technologies of person-focused training, and this factor becomes especially significant for formation of one’s personality and civic stance. Of primary importance for a future teacher is development of the feelings of self-cognition, self-sufficiency, self-respect, and development of the abilities to make a conscious choice of solutions, and to demonstrate samples of civic consciousness.
The professional development of a future teacher relies on the following principles: (a) individualization, acquisition of values and availability of a civic stance; (b) formation of a professional personality based on modern technologies; (c) comprehensive embodiment of the social, economic, informational, spiritual, cultural, intellectual, and legal development of Uzbekistan society in the content of higher pedagogical education; (d) intensification of the process of higher
277
pedagogical education; (e) provision of the educational environment and dynamic development of the system of higher pedagogical education; (f) organization of person-focused training with account for the students’ personal experience, needs for professional development, and self-education, and the level of development of civic consciousness.
At every stage of pedagogical education, professional development of students takes place in the unity of the educational process and pedagogical practice. Their coordination enables students to fully study all components of professional activities. The potential of the educational process is based on the students’ personal activity and civic stance. This is the basis for student’s development as a specialist and as a citizen. This process also involves development of the students’ civic thinking and intellectual-emotional sphere. Psychologists consider this condition to be the process of personality development.
Thus, in person-focused training, high attention is paid to professional development of the student and formation of the student’s civic stance. Having learnt to make personal decisions, the student can change himself in the process of training. Hence, person-focused training opens the possibilities of self-education for students.
References
Белоухин Д. А. Основы личностно-ориентированной педагогики. - М.: Воронеж, 1997. - 92 с. Бенин В. Л. Педагогическая культурология: курс лекций / В.Л. Бенин. - Уфа: Изд-во БГПУ, 2004. - 515 с.
Сериков В. В. Личностно-ориентированное образование / В.В.Сериков / Педагогика. -2004. - № 5. - С. 16-21.
Якиманская И.С. Личностно-ориентированное обучение современной школе. - М.: Сентябрь, 1996. - 96 с.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translastions Bureas
278
