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UNIVERSITY EDUCATION:
THE MISSION OF A TEACHER
V. I. Kazarenkov Т. B. Kazarenkova
Higher education is an important component of lifelong education. Higher education is a priority area for ensuring the development and independence of the state. Higher education is focused not only on the professionalization of students (preparation of professionally competent people with fundamental and applied knowledge and a high culture of organization and carrying out of professional activities), but also on their socialization (harmonization of human relationship with the natural and social world through studying the modern picture of the world, development of the national identity of a person, and the creation of conditions to enable a person to acquire a large-spectrum basic education, which makes it possible to quickly adapt to the social world) on the development of a person’s selfimprovement and self- fulfillment experience (development of a person’s creative style of life activity). A high school teacher is seen as the subject of the educational process, within which the “teacher-student” relationship is being formed. Young peoples’ needs in education, as in real human value, are obvious. By entering university, boys and girls expect not only to receive material benefits after graduation, but also an opportunity to realize their potential, real human values, and sense important landmarks, as well as to experience the multidimensionality and fullness of life through active participation in the transformation of the world. A teacher must teach young people how to develop their own basic and applied knowledge and skills, ensure the professional growth of young people, reveal the richness and diversity of human relations, forms and methods of their joint activities, create conditions to determine a student’s unique personal reserves, and implement those in the system of higher education.
The role of a university teacher in modern society is constantly becoming more diverse and complicated. A teacher cannot be only a lecturer any more, who only sets out the basics of scientific knowledge. Young people have a need in education as in the systematic integrated development of professional skills with studying the experience of social interaction and detection of their own capabilities, their role in the continuously changing natural and social world. Students of higher educational institutions consider a teacher as, first of all, a person, who demonstrates a high level of competence in his/her professional work. Education of young people at university becomes effective, if a teacher is able to connect the transferred knowledge and skills to the experience of joint teaching, research and production activities. Students are no longer satisfied only with the formal channels of acquiring knowledge and skills; they are focused on high-quality informal cooperation with a teacher, where a teacher delegates powers of an active subject of teamwork. In such interaction, the professional development of students becomes possible, as well as disclosure of their creative reserves and formation of their social experience. Through such interaction, the professionalization, socialization and self-actualization of young people studying at a higher educational institution can become interrelated. Professionalization of a student is
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possible, if he/she is included into the system of business relationships with teachers and his/her fellow students. It is university education that should ensure the creative interaction of all participants in the educational process of various types and forms of classroom and extracurricular activities. Achieving the goals of the professionalization of students is based on the use of various curricula and programs that make it possible to implement professional training, both through the content of teaching and research work, and through the process of teaching a future specialist. Such training will be successful, if a teacher, using the traditional content of professional education of a student, systematically implements his/her personal achievements in scientific and research and production activities. Connection of classical postulates with modern inventions (although not so widely used) allows a teacher to win the true appreciation of students, and allows the young people to gain confidence in the opportunities of professional growth, through co-operation with a teacher-researcher.
Not only the professional knowledge and skills acquired by a student contribute to his/her professional growth. Acquisition by students of the experience of the organization of labor, and in particular, intellectual activity, occupies an important place in the system of university education. Mental activity, like any other activity, not only involves the development of subject-specific knowledge and skills, but also knowledge of ways of organizing scientific research, training and cognitive and production activities. The practice of a high school confirms the importance of targeted preparation of a future specialist to the scientific organization of his/her own labor as an important element of the professional training of young people, that has an influence not only upon the level of his/her professionalization, but also on the level of his/her social adaptation, level of his/her readiness, and ability for self-development and self-realization. A lack of skills contributing to the culture of organization of one’s labor work results in the loss of creative freedom of a student both in the process of learning and in the process of social interaction, and a loss of interest not only in professional activities, but practically in all other types of human activities. The problem of the professionalization of students is closely related to their socialization. Mastering of a profession is essential, but not a sufficient condition for a successful human life. The production sphere in modern society is no longer a technocratic, but rather a humanitarian field for interaction between human beings. A professional of any level should, first of all, be based on the knowledge of human nature, and be able to organize the production process in such a way as to maintain, rather than destroy the human personality. Here we have a real problem of university education of young people - the acquisition of experience of social interaction. When a teacher comes into direct contact with the young people in various kinds of educational and other partnership activities, he/she is contributing to the patterns of social behavior and interaction.
In the best traditions of university education, a teacher (at all times) appeared before the students not only as a scholar and a teacher, but as a person, as an informal leader with a high level of intelligence, personal charm, and spiritual culture. In the educational process it is the teacher who actually contributes to the growth of national consciousness of the young people, focuses their attention towards the respect to all peoples, and the needs of civilized integration of the various states into the international community. The development of national
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consciousness as an element of socialization of students offers a prospective understanding by young people of their social responsibility for the fate of their country, which ultimately surely affects the development of the need for the professional development and self-realization of a student.
Teaching students to love their country and fellow citizens and to respect national traditions creates prerequisites that allow a young person to understand the meaning of his/her life, and to gain freedom and responsibility. A university teacher, in the process of educating young people, should study the sources of development of science as part of the national culture, to show the students the interdependence and interrelation of such concepts as “universal values” and “national values”, namely, to reveal the essence of transition of national positive values, and the significant heritage to the category of universal, global cultural heritage. This issue is not a standalone issue of socialization and education of an individual, but in fact is also a question of self-realization of young people. After all, human self-realization starts with finding the meaning of one’s life, with selfknowledge, and with the discovery of one’s role in the surrounding dynamically changing world. Young people cannot be satisfied with the passive role of observers and listeners. Students are actively searching for ways to selfrealization. In this context, a teacher’s task is to create the conditions for full selfknowledge and self-realization of young people. A university lecturer is a direct author of the projects of preparation of a specialist as a cultural and well-educated person. Professors and teachers are involved in the planning of educational programs for the young people for a specific higher educational institution, at a level of direct interaction with their students. The creativity of a teacher in a goalsetting, the selection of educational content, choice of methods, means and forms of collaboration with students in the area of the educational scientific production activities, and the style of relationship, make it possible to create the conditions for the realization by young people of their own ideas and projects.
The scientific and research work of students is one of the forms that encourages the professionalization, socialization and self-fulfillment in their integrity. This activity allows students to deepen and apply the acquired knowledge and skills, to gain experience of creativity, to develop an active approach and independence, to develop partnership skills, to check intellectual, will, emotional and moral principles, and to demonstrate their own abilities and psychophysical reserves, sense-bearing and value orientations. The scientific and research activity is able to integrate all kinds of university training of young people. In the process of implementation of one’s projects, a student should rely only on himself/herself. It is through education that he/she seeks to solve his/her own problems, and to find the opportunities for fully-fledged development and self-improvement. A university teacher can and should provide a student with real help in implementing the above.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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