Conditions and means for pedagogical higher educational institution students' formation of value and sense relation to pedagogical knowledge

The condition of axiological adequacy for professional pedagogical education is its humanitarization. One of the most prominent functions of higher pedagogical school today is referred to the formation of value and sense development of students' personality, activation of their personal functions, i.e. selectiveness, notional creativity, reflection, self-realization; capabilities development that allow the future participants of the educational process to find the universal senses. This requires changes in approaches to planning the education content, transformation of methods for pedagogical knowledge representation, transfer from discursive academician delivery of educational content to formation of a «living» knowledge in the process of the students' professional training. Pedagogical knowledge as the foundation of a theoretical competence of the future teacher shall be considered by the latter as the humanitarian, dialogical, two-subject knowledge bearing a certain sense. «The sense is always responding some questions. Something that does not respond to anything is perceived by us as something senseless, taken out of the dialogue» [3, p.370]. Today, one can find a lot of references to the ideas expressed by M.M. Bakhtin regarding the nature of humanitarian knowledge and germs for humanitarian thought, however, in the system of pedagogical knowledge this is not yet vividly reflected. «Special two-sidedness and two-subjectiveness of the humanitarian mentality», of which M.M. Bakhtin was writing, shall be the subject of special care from the part of the lecturers of psychological and pedagogical disciplines.

The scientists point out that today, the pedagogical knowledge is mostly being developed in accordance with the natural science sample remaining in the context of technical and cognition culture (N.N. Nikitina, Yu.V. Senko, M.N. Frolovskaya and etc). It is proposed to the students who in their major part have neither professional experience nor experience of own parent relations acting as a monological knowledge, as the one which is «silent», detached from a child, problems of its development and from reality. Plenitude of ideal essences, theoretical structures of different nature creates an obstacle between a knowledge and a person perceiving the latter. The value nature of such a knowledge is sometimes difficult to perceive. Most superficial analysis of the educational books in Pedagogic persuades that the pedagogical knowledge is strictly rational (these are numerous notions, terms, principles, ideas, regulations, theories, concepts, systems, regularities and etc). This knowledge that is fat from a human being, from a child, the one that is deeply reasonable and sometimes even theoretic and schematic is not able to reveal involvement with deep spiritual processes we are discussing herein as well as not able to evoke personal attitude even with those who have found their vocation in the pedagogical profession. Not even doubting the value of scientific and theoretical knowledge in the pedagogical education we remark that they can be and must be added with other form s of knowledge that are described in the modern epistemology.

The abovementioned problems activate the lecturer's search for conditions and means to overcome value neutral in the students' cognition of pedagogical facts, processes, phenomena, relations and events. Notwithstanding the active search for solution of the problem it is far from final resolution as yet. This is why we consider the strive of the pedagogical disciplines lecturers to look for new possibilities with the purpose to form with a future specialist personal and value and sense relation to the knowledge a very important one.

The Pedagogics and pedagogical psychology discuss the possibilities for emphasizing value and sense aspects of students' educational and professional activity that are referred to renewal and enrichment of psychological and pedagogical disciplines content as well as to the changes in means of its development (Ye.I. Isayev, I.A. Kolesnikova, S.V. Pazukhina, Yu.V. Senko and etc). It is worth mentioning that in the light of modern trends, the relation towards the pedagogical knowledge as the basic and actually the single component of the education content is experiencing changes. The idea that the pedagogical education content is not limited to subject and cognitive experience, i.e. knowledge itself,  but contains components that are isomorphic to basic cultural components and  are invariant to types of activities, including personality developing components is pacing up in the development. Researchers (A.V. Zelentsova, I.A. Kolesnikova, V.V. Serikov, Yu.V. Senko, M.N. Frolovskaya and etc) remark that in the definition of the essence for pedagogical education content a greater importance is gained by a human being – his experience, feelings, values and senses, while the knowledge provides his personal and professional development performing the role of a mean.

Development of ideas regarding the educational content, including the pedagogical education, is reflected in the works of N.F. Golovanova, I.K. Zhuravlev, L.M. Perminova and etc and is mostly related to necessity to introduce specific personality development components into the education content. Thus, authors of «Prognostic concept of educational goals and content» (Yu.B. Aliev, V.G. Bogin, I.K. Zhuravlev, L.Ya. Zorin, I.Ya. Lerner, Ye.I. Lerner) call reflection as such method [13], L.M. Perminova calls reflective relation to the world [12], N.F. Golovanova – social experience of students [5].

A.V. Zelentsova considers personal experience of a lecturer and students as an essential characteristic and component of education in the conditions of value and personality and sense orientation of the education. The researcher proved that new formations in different spheres of a scholar’s or student's personality  are not directly related to the objective content of the studied disciplines and subject-related activity of the students that is adequate to this content but are mediated by complex processes of sense formation, gaining experience of independent decisions, taking the responsibility, reflecting one's life activity, and that is perceived by the author as a personal experience of the individual [7]. This type of experience is differentiated from the «impersonal» social and generic experience, e.g. fixed in the notions of science by the fact that it is integral with its carrier and cannot be fixed in any impersonal forms and acts as a subjective (individual, personal) experience of a human being [24; ñ.10].

The attempt to revise the education content taking into consideration the human being was developed within the framework of philosophical and anthological approach. Thus, L.M. Luzina specifies the epistemological and anthological aspects of pedagogical knowledge. The author is reasonably remarking that while considering the essence of pedagogical events and processes the reference to scientific knowledge regarding general regularities and principles of pedagogical cooperation of the educational process participants is widely observed. Therefore, the epistemological aspect of pedagogical knowledge development is realized. Not denying the value of scientifically explained, epistemological knowledge, L.M. Luzina proposes to add it with anthological,  genesis-related knowledge orienting to consider the participants, subjects of a pedagogical process in the context of their genesis [11].

It is worth mentioning that while researching the problem of education content, including the pedagogical education, the subject of specialized analysis conducted by a number of researchers were the issues of a structure and formation of pedagogical knowledge. For example, American philosopher, the founder of a pragmatism pedagogical concept, John Dewey, distinguished between three types of knowledge: objective, experience-oriented and sense-generating. The objective knowledge, or «knowledge itself», is actually little changeable and stable. Experience-oriented knowledge referring to the methods of activity performs the normative function in relation to this or that system of activity. The sense-generating knowledge as a special type of knowledge allows us to search and find the essence of specific human acts, cultural texts, phenomena of reality and etc.

A number of researchers discussing the problem of education content differentiate between «living» and «dead, fixed» knowledge (V.P. Zinchenko, Yu.V. Senko, S.L. Frank and others). S.L. Frank characterizes living knowledge as knowledge acquired in the process of understanding related to the subject's plunging into the object as well as with sympathizing experience of an object. The philosopher points out that living knowledge are possible only subject to internal relation of an object and a subject [5]. According to V.P. Zinchenko, «living knowledge is differentiated from the dead of fixed knowledge just by the fact that it cannot be consumed. It shall be constructed. It shall be constructed in the way a living image is constructed» [8; p.22]. In the process of such knowledge construction the latter combines the value and sense that is fixed in the human genesis and that is personal and affectionately coloured.

Yu.V. Senko, the author of the humanitarian pedagogical education concept, grounds the necessity to refer to the living knowledge in the process of professional preparation of future teachers. He emphasizes the impossibility to present the content of academic subjects of a Psychology and Pedagogics cycle in the form of the «conceited», sustainable knowledge to the future teachers. In author’s opinion, this shall lead to a single-directed development of the educational content in the process of training of a «delivery-perception» type and in the long run to the disposal of educational process participants from each other and pedagogical knowledge that is presented in the «impersonal form of generality» [16]. What is generally named as knowledge acquired in the process of training is just a specific knowledge of a specialized language (any subject area of cognition develops such a language). Sometimes such knowledge has nothing in common with a spiritual experience of a studying personality, and detached from an understanding (sense-formation) it remains an intellectual ballast [19; p.6].

In his further works, Yu.V. Senko expresses the idea that education content is not equal to the training content. The scientist points out that education content is autonomous, standard, beyond the personality and was received by someone some day. In addition, the content of education is personal and is created «here and now» at a training lesson directly by this teacher and a student; this is the result of cooperation between the «fixed culture» (content of an education) and cultures of direct participants of a pedagogical process [17]. In this respect one of the topical pedagogical problems is the problem of transformation of the educational content («dead» knowledge, «fixed culture» fragment) into the training content («living» knowledge, biased, personal), the problem of transformation of the education content «from the impersonal form of generity» into a personal pedagogical culture of a future teacher.

In the most general sense on the basis of the abovementioned it is possible to formulate the sufficient for us conclusion regarding the fact that the development of value and sense formations in the students' personality as well as actualization of their personal functions can be assisted not by any content or pedagogical knowledge; and that personally valuable can be those pedagogical knowledge, values, ways of activity and etc that are not taken for granted and are not perceived on the level of their definitions but are researched by the students themselves with the purpose of revealing their personally valuable sense, are deeply felt and according to which a student shall have one's own opinion. In this respect a pedagogical process in a higher educational institution considers it sufficient to uncover not only the definition of this or that element of the education content but also its senses in the context and in relation to other elements of social experience, including personal experience of direct participants of an educational process.

Irreducibility of the education content to the given subject and cognition experience, the value of formation of value and sense relation to the pedagogical knowledge, to be more precise a»living» knowledge requires employment of specific process means that set forth the actualization of a valuable potential a pedagogical knowledge, reflection of values and senses of direct participants of an educational process, inclusion of their subject experience into the context of definite pedagogical cooperation.

The course of Pedagogics potentially contains a wide range for personal self-determination of a student in the values of professional and pedagogical activity. The pedagogical knowledge accumulates spiritual, moral and pedagogical values themselves alongside with the axiological universals. A considerable potential of this discipline in the development of students' values sphere shall be defined by its vivid philosophic and pedagogical, ideological orientation, covering methodological problems, direct inclusion of a number of issues into the modern situation in the education, relevancy of the course topics to the tasks of personal and valuable  self-determination of students. However, this values potential exists implicitly, not obviously.

Therefore, planning the subject content of the course that  contributes to the value self-determination of the students, we realized the necessity to change the methods of Pedagogics course content presentation with the view to provide the actualization of values potential of pedagogical knowledge and enhance the values and sense components in pedagogical disciplines content. In the research undertaken by us the basic methods for actualization of a values potential of Pedagogics were axiologization of a content (emphasizing the values of pedagogical knowledge), problematization of the course content, integration of scientific and pedagogical knowledge and personal experience of students as well as personalization of pedagogical knowledge [19].

Allow us considering the aspect oriented at realization of the indicated ways for actualization of axiological potential in the Pedagogics.

Performing the axiologization of the content we expanded and concretized the content of the course «General grounds of Pedagogics», having included for the discussion the issues of defining the value grounds of education, basic professional and pedagogical values, i.e. humanitarian, professional self-development, self-cognition, enrichment in pedagogical experience; communicative (subject-to-subject relations, dialogue as the space for Other personality development and etc), that allow fully and pointed revealing of humanitarian essence for the pedagogical activity, peculiarities of a professional role, teacher's position as well as to realize the essence of values in the professional and pedagogical activity.

In addition, we took into consideration the fact that humanitarian values are not external as compared to the pedagogical theory; and their strengthening shall not lead to the deformation of a pedagogical knowledge, shall not diminish the scientific level and shall not cause its simplification.

Performing the problematization of the Pedagogics course content we grounded our suppositions on the base that new formations in the values and sense sphere are not directly related to the objective content of a specific subjectiveness, and are mediated by complex processes of sense-formation, gaining experience of independent solutions, reflection of one's activity and etc. In the major part that was provided by the subject content given in the form of a problem.

The problematization of the content was performed by us during both lectures and seminars. At the first stages, the work at any problem was performed collectively under the guidance of the lecturer. The initial stage was often related to revealing the basic problem, main issue and independent search for the «author's» answer. This search allowed to actualize the value and sense function of the students. The content given in a problematic form encouraged them for their own considerations and not to the usual expectation of the ready information. The setting of a problem as well as formulating the problematic issue in the beginning of the lecture actualized the usual views of the first-year students regarding various phenomena of a pedagogical reality, allowed for the confrontation of a student with a difficulty objected in the question that had no answer and that required sense searching activity that initiates his/her internal tension and contributed to the student's obtaining one's own value position. The lectures were structured in such a way that the lectures material set forth the specific problematic background, and presenting of all pedagogical phenomena was conducted in a way of phenomena with such features as contradiction, problematicness, openness and etc, all this, in our opinion, oriented the students for individual search for senses in notions, ideas, approaches and etc.

Moreover, realizing the problematization of the content at lectures we provided the students with positions of different pedagogical schools in resolving this or that problem, thus, illustrating the situation of polemics between different directions of a Pedagogics as a science. With such an organization the not just the form of informing but became the media for forming the value set for the dialogue and personal knowledge and understanding. In our opinion, such an approach contributed to development of estimation and analytical as well as reflective capabilities of students and development of their own axiological position.

Moreover, when actualizing the axiological potential of a subject content of the pedagogical course we employed such a method as integration of scientific pedagogical knowledge and personal experience of future teachers.

Here we grounded our supposition on the fact that the value content of the Pedagogics does not acquire the status of a personal value by itself, but just in case when the student sees the personal sense in them and opens one's own context in the proposed texts [6]. In this respect the objective for the lecturer is to touch upon the student's real problems sphere through these texts, the problems that are grounded on their personal self-determination and self-realization.

Regulation on acknowledgement of a subjective experience of future teachers as self-genesis and self-valuable as well as construction of training impacts with a maximal ground on the students' available knowledge, settings and values in the context of a personally oriented approach is principally important (A.V. Zelentsova, M.V. Klarin and others).

In the framework of a traditional education it was very frequent when the personal experience was not taken into account together with the practical requirements, needs, interests values of the students as well as no connection was made between the knowledge acquired and life plans and professional activity of the future specialists. In the result the pedagogical knowledge containing the most important values is perceived by the students as something detached and they do not always realize the importance of the proposed knowledge and values. All this  contributes to formal and impersonal learning of Pedagogics by the students and does not touch upon their value and sense sphere and further considerably makes the process of professional development more difficult. Thus, from the first lesson the active plunge of the students in the activity of a reflective and sense-formation nature was simulated in the course of perceiving the subject matter of the discipline so that the students could feel the anthropological, humanistic nature of the Pedagogics as a science and sincere professional interest to their personalities, values strives from the part of the lecturer on the background of traditional interpersonal relations in the pedagogical higher educational institution when the students being in a complex emotionally discomfort situation of didactical pressure  within the educational process are perceived one-sided — from the part of their academic success in the conditions of no demand for personal qualities, experience, functions and etc.

Moreover, we tried to construct the pedagogical knowledge itself that includes spiritual, universal, professional and pedagogical values, as a special, «living» knowledge (V.P. Zinchenko). To the basic characteristics of a «living» knowledge the scientists refers its completeness and openness. The «living» knowledge is always personal and includes not only the knowledge about something but the knowledge about the subject of the knowledge, i.e. About the human being itself. «Perceiving and feeling something, V.P. Zinchenko says, – we simultaneously perceive one selves and through this self-understanding we ... create ourselves» [8; p.33].

In addition, we took into consideration one of the main peculiarities of the students' perceiving the Pedagogics that is revealed through the following: starting learning the latter the students of a pedagogical higher educational institution have specific knowledge of pedagogical activity and profession, they have gained experience of cooperation with lecturers of various types, they have a specific structure of professional and pedagogical values since they themselves have been participants of an educational process in the capacity of students and have experience of living through this subject. These common-life views, general knowledge have been worked out by the students during all their life, and they contain value and sense, feelings and emotional attitude towards the objects of pedagogical reality. This knowledge are related to various tremours of the students and are topical for them, these are always emotionally «heated» and have a high probability of including them to any their thought. Therefore, we strove to the situation when scientific pedagogical knowledge in the framework of the course studies would be given in such a way that it would include the elements of that «living» knowledge that was formed by a personal, value-oriented experience of a particular student (A.I. Dontsov [6], V.P. Zinchenko [8], B.Ya. Pukshanskiy [14]).

Considering the available personal experience of students as an important determinant set for the quality of perceiving «new» valuable content when organizing the subject content we aimed at reaching the situation when students' discovering new axiological phenomena and realizing the humanitarian content of values in the pedagogical activity would be conducted simultaneously with  the reconstruction and reflection of the students' own experience as participants of educational systems, analysis of own content of valuable characteristics in the pedagogical activity and perceiving their correlation. With this purpose at the lectures we stimulated reflective activity of the students who in the pedagogical knowledge proposed for understanding by the whole audience were to find out the personally valuable topic directly touching upon their life. Special attention was paid to the situations when previous experience of the first-year students was contrasted to the «new» content of professional and pedagogical values, values of a schooling model for the pedagogical interrelation did not comply with the set humanitarian values and etc. In this respect as a result of the lecture we considered the student's formulating a definite value problem, issue defining the lecture problematic for one personally.

The personalization of a subject content as a way of actualizing the axiological potential of the pedagogical knowledge was directed at the situation of correlating the students' studying pedagogical theories, concepts, various schools with the personal and professional position of their authors. This allowed the students to get assured that various didactical and educational concepts bear the trace of their author's personality, his/her philosophical position, ideology, values orientations. Realization of personalization as for the pedagogical knowledge that makes the subject content of the course allowed to make it more «human»; Pedagogics ceased to be presented in definitions, summaries, regularities only but it appeared in the real genesis, in searches, contradictions, specific events and its focusing on a human being and a child.

Thus, realizing various ways for actualization of an axiological potential of a pedagogical knowledge (axiologization of the content, problematization, integration of scientific and pedagogical knowledge and personal experience of future teachers as well as personalization of a pedagogical knowledge) we proved the fact that the students' performing specific cognitive actions was alongside with the actualization of their value-oriented function. Employment of the indicated methods for actualization of an axiological potential of Pedagogics contributed to the students' being involved into a special type of cognitive activity that stipulated subject and sense communication, the process for exchanging the moral values, senses, impressions, feeling and would form with the students the valuable attitude to pedagogical knowledge, to the child, to professional and pedagogical activity and oneself as its subject.

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