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THE SPIRITUAL-MORAL EDUCATION OF STUDENTS IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS OF THE REPUBLIC OF UZBEKISTAN
Sh. S. Shodmonova M. E. Gapparova
This article is dedicated to the system of students' spiritual-moral education in primary schools of the Republic of Uzbekistan, aimed at the rebirth of national values, improvement of the national education system and raising of a harmoniously developed generation in the spirit of patriotism and love of their native land.
Key words: morality, education, religion, value.
Every nation is strong not only by its wealth, but primarily by its high spirituality and culture. Since the first days of its independence, Uzbekistan has attached great significance to the revival of national values, improvement of the system of national education, and raising a harmoniously developed generation in the spirit of patriotism and love of the native land. Speaking about the riches of our country in one of his speeches, President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov emphasized: “The main source of our strength is the young generation, ready to effectively use these riches, the young people raised on harmonious assimilation of national and human values, centuries-old spiritual heritage of their great ancestors as well as the intellectual achievements and experience of developed countries” [1]
The problem of spiritual-moral education in our republic is more severe than ever. There are quite a lot of reasons for that. They are: (a) our society needs the training of widely educated, highly ethical people having both knowledge and fine personality features; (b) in the modern world, a schoolchild lives and develops being exposed to a multitude of diverse sources of impact both positive and negative; (c) education as it is does not guarantee a high level of spiritual-moral education, because character building is systemic, goal-oriented, and coordinated on the teachers’ impact on the person with a view to the formation of certain personal and social qualities in him [1]; (d) provision with moral knowledge is important because it both informs the schoolchild about the norms of behavior expected in contemporary society, and gives an idea about the consequences of violation of the norms or the consequences of this action for the surrounding people.
An important pedagogical task of personality formation is the formation of an active life stance in learners, a conscientious attitude to the social duty, unity of word and action, and intolerance to deviations from moral norms. Our teachers thoroughly study all the rich heritage of the Uzbek nation. A return to our origins, and a comprehension of the depth and grandeur of the cultural and spiritual heritage of our great ancestors who made an enormous contribution to the world culture achievements, a formation of the careful attitude to their past in every generation, to the noble national and religious traditions and, simultaneously, the clear understanding of the need to learn and join in the values of the modern
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civilization and spirituality are the soil for building our policy of educating the coming generation, the political maturity and activity of the population.
The program of character building consists of the following components:
(1) Religious-cultural education of learners. The methods of formation of moral orientations related with the religious-cultural education of learners based on the secondary course of national literature is aimed at creating a certain store of systematic ideas in them, of emotionally colored impressions about the formation of the nation’s moral ideal through its beliefs, and at developing a value-based attitude to it as to a spiritual heritage. Introduction of junior schoolchildren to the prehistory of Islam involves the presentation of ancient beliefs to them. The Islamic religion is now a means of educating a spiritually developed person. Many ceremonial attributive instructions of education have been preserved to the present day, are passed down from generation to generation, and make the treasury of the ethnical folk pedagogy. As society develops, the most experienced and knowledgeable people get involved in education, and classes become increasingly organized. [2; 3] We consider that the pedagogical engagement of the Islamic religion for the moral education of a schoolchild has the following major significance: (a) it enriches the notion of “man” in the schoolchildren’s consciousness, with the moral meanings of the spirit and soul (the schoolchildren’s idea of the man is currently limited down to their understanding of man as a biological being: “man has blood and muscles", and raises the moral norms to “deification” of man; (b) it acquaints learners with “strict” Islamic “beatitudes” as the core of human morality and at the same time the spirit of Uzbek godliness, peacefulness, conscientiousness and mercy. Quite significant in the religious-cultural education of learners is familiarization with the history of Zoroastrianism. The Zoroastrians of Central Asia and Iran considered land, water, air and fire (the sun) sacred. There are pictures of the sun on portals of madrasahs and mosques in Samarkand and Bukhara. It was strongly forbidden to throw litter into water, and to pollute rivers and irrigation canals. Fertile soil and water were like gold on the territory of Central Asia. Philosophical views and local religions reflected the specific features and needs of material and economic activities.
(2) Spiritual-moral state of the learners’ soul. A great part in the moral formation of the schoolchild’s personality is played by the teacher and his methodological skill. The methods of working with oral folk arts (tales, proverbs, sayings) in middle school are conditioned by the qualitative heterogeneity of these genres. In guiding fairytale reading, the teacher must rely on the specificity of the fairytale genre, and persistently form the learners’ optimal volume of abilities, concentrating the children’s attention on the main things in “the fairytale world”, the ability to identify episodes similar in terms of their message with the same character in reading and telling and to determine their emotional character for development of the children’s ability to empathize, their emotional and image memory. They learn a lot of interesting things from old people; they learn a lot of useful things and their first labor skills from their grandparents; the latter help children to comprehend the secrets of nature. Grandmothers acquaint children with the origins of folk poetry and teach them their native language. Also, the main thing is that having lived a long life, they teach children to be kind. Schoolchildren
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maintain contacts with the residents of the House of Veterans (making greeting cards, meetings, concerts).
(3) Moral education. A significant aspect of the moral education of junior schoolchildren is the formation of humane relations between children, and the formation of active moral feelings in them. In this respect, the school holds a lot of different events: talks on ethical topics, reading fiction, and the discussion of positive and negative actions of the learners. However, for this system of educational events to be effective, every impact of the teacher must be influential. An important mechanism ensuring successful entry of the child into school life is the psychological readiness which includes a certain level of intellectual and personal development of the child, including communicative components of readiness for school learning.
(4) Regional study as a form of educating a spiritual-moral personality. As teachers, we have referred to the problem of using regional studies at the lesson and in extracurricular activities for a good reason. Analyzing the work in nature studies, the development of oral and written speech at the lessons of reading, and native language, which is teaching the basic subjects, we concluded that learners know little about their small motherland, and do not know its past and present well enough. However, even the small volume of material which is available is abstract in its nature. To raise cognitive interest in the history of the land, its past, present and future, and to the nature of the native land, we referred to analysis of the problem, and searched for ways to solve it. It is the school that lays the foundation of cognitive interest in the study of the town as the microclimate surrounding the child, which creates the conditions for the formation of moral feelings. At a reasonable level for him, the schoolchild comprehends the significance and value of the surrounding microclimate for him personally; he discovers new aspects in the habitual surroundings, and learns to interact with them competently. Regional study presupposes a comprehensive study of the native land. Natural studies offer a wide area of activities. In our opinion, it is necessary to systematize and expand the learners’ ideas about their region, its natural conditions and resources, and specific features of interaction between man and nature.
High quality education is the primarily formation of man, his acquisition of his own self, his image, inimitable individuality, spirituality, and creativity. To educate man in a high quality way means to help him live in peace and consort with people, god, nature, culture, and civilization.
References
Каримов И. А. Выступление на торжественном заседании Олий Мажлиса, Кабинета Министров, Аппарата Президента Республики Узбекистан, посвященном 16-й годовщине независимости Узбекистана от 30 августа 2007 г.
Каримов И. А. Наша главная цель - демократизация и обновление общества, реформирование и модернизация страны. - Т.: Узбекистан, 2005.
Бабаджанова Д.И. Активная гражданская позиция как результат высокой духовности. - Т.: Узбекистан, 2008.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translastions Bureas
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