How education will help your freedom. The path of freedom in education, work, all life. Presentation of acquired knowledge is the basis of professional training


It is not enough to say that Soviet education was terrible, and that the current Russian education is generally worthless. So what? we should talk about what education is in itself and how to get it.

Here the New Year passed, met with relatives. Before my eyes is the image of one of them. He graduated from a prestigious technical university in the 80s. Now - the deputy director of the average hand of the desk. In general - prosperity, a relatively lively person with ethics above average. But he is not educated at all, although he is very literate. Doesn't understand life at all.

How can he be educated? After all, the Soviet system did not include such disciplines as history, literature, art, religion, philosophy, logic...
"How much self-confidence do you need to have in order not to stop and not turn off the path of liberation from schools, from the path of freedom in education, work and all life?"- asks the author of the article posted below. At one time, after grades 4-5, I was rather engaged in self-education. I taught only what I wanted. Mathematics, for example, and biology with chemistry .. And I also seriously went in for sports at a sports school. This is how my personal path of freedom in education, work, all life.

True, we did not grow up from an academic environment, and the one about whom in question- the best available. He is the first in the family who graduated from the university at all (I am the second :)). But my grandfather Peter Semenovich graduated from the 7th grade in the village. Once my father was caught at school for throwing out a behavior magazine with his friends - where? - of course in the toilet!
At the teachers' council they decided that let the father himself go to school with his son and look after him. Grandfather Petya sat at the lessons and listened with great interest...

A short story about education:
* unschooling - "schooling out". a term adopted among parents who teach their children to " family education". liberation from the stereotypes of the school, the prevailing system.

The most difficult in our unschooling it turns out not even how to learn or what is worth learning, whether it is necessary to force something to learn or not, when the value of self-education has already been realized and the main vectors have been found to help children in their education, but grandparents of our children.

The traditions of home education, as well as home birth, long-term breastfeeding have been lost by the vast majority of our mothers and even grandmothers so long ago that it is now almost as difficult to explain this to them as to the citizens of Malaysia. How do you explain to a woman who has only 2 months of maternity leave that breastfeeding for at least six months is the best food for her baby? The same is true with relatives. Many grandparents have become so accustomed to the existing education system that they consider it simply something undeniable.

All the same, a child who studies at home will not know perfectly how many cells to retreat and how to write "Classwork" and "Homework" correctly, which Bakugan models are the most fashionable now and what games a neighbor on the desk has on the phone. Children who study at home, no matter how hard you try, turn out to be completely different. I won't say they are better or worse.

Grandparents are always interested: where do our children study? To which there is still not enough courage to answer everyone directly: at home! If a person is not ready to hear the truth, how can he tell about it? We answer grandfather about the youngest: he is still 6 years old, he still does not go to school. He is trying to understand about the older one, but so far he can’t from our brief phone conversations. "On the Internet, or what? And the certificate? And the exams? And the Russian education? .."

Yes, grandparents so want to be proud of their grandchildren and say that ours is studying for five, and we, here, received a letter for the first class. And what can they say about children who have achieved in their lives, perhaps a lot, they themselves have achieved, no one offered it to them on a silver platter, but no one graduated their achievements in accordance with educational standards and did not translate them up the ladder of school initiation from the class to class? How much self-confidence do you need to have in order not to stop and not turn off the path of liberation from schools, from the path of freedom in education, work and all life?

Frankly, unschooling is much more difficult for parents and children who have managed to visit school. And you yourself become at least a little more inquisitive next to these powerful sources of curiosity and begin to learn without fear what you have dreamed of learning for a hundred years. I read this magazine and rejoice for the parents of children who study at home. Someone learned to play musical instruments, someone discovered a teaching talent in himself. I myself could not stand it and went to art school this year, for the first time in my life.

No less significant problem, the solution of which determines the development of education in recent centuries, is the problem of freedom. And therefore it is necessary to consider this problem both in general and in relation to spiritual and moral education.

Analyzing the problem of freedom of education, it should be noted that it should be analyzed on its own, without any opposition: scholastic - free education; scholastic - real education, etc. And it should also be borne in mind that, of course, the decision of the freedom of education will be largely determined by the space of worldview choice. For example, if atheism does not see the problem of sin, then it does not solve it in education, although it distinguishes between the concept of good and evil. For liberalism, on the contrary, there is no distinction between good and evil; for it, not only is there no concept of sin, but sin itself is very often good. Hence, freedom is the freedom of choice as equal to sin and virtue, and moreover, today it is a frank propaganda of sin, it is a purposeful education of a person to sin. In Orthodoxy, freedom is an unambiguous avoidance of sin and the pursuit of good.

Reflecting on the vast number of works devoted to the problem of freedom in education, we can say that this concept has different meanings and meanings, different sides and aspects: for example, the freedom of the child is one thing, the freedom of the teacher is another. The freedom of the school is one thing, the freedom of the education system as a whole is quite another. It is one thing - an abstract-theoretical fundamental solution to this problem, and quite another thing - the solution of the problem of freedom of a particular student. Therefore, speaking of freedom in education, we must note, firstly, that this is indeed a fundamental characteristic of education; secondly, that a historically developing phenomenon.

There are several main stages in the development of freedom in the history of education.

I. stage. Creation of the institute of education as a form of professional training, first of all, of an official and a priest. To what extent at this stage can we talk about the freedom of education - this big question. Apparently, only about freedom itself as a phenomenon inherent in education in general.

II. Transformation and it's already in ancient time, education from a form of professional training (official or priest) to a relatively free institution, to a way of human development in general, more or less regardless of one or another future professional activity.

This is a transformation that can actually be traced in all ancient schools at a certain stage of their historical development, gave a huge degree of freedom to education in general, and above all, relative autonomy from other social institutions, including regarding the future professional activity of a person. In the most obvious way, this was expressed in the content of education: why would a future Chinese official need a sophisticated literary and musical education, or a Babylonian - solving equations of the second degree? Further, this can be seen in the organization of education, in a certain, sometimes even complete independence from the authorities, especially in Ancient Greece; in the school's desire to teach students to think for themselves, or, speaking modern language, creative. Finally, in the nature of the relationship between the teacher and the student, there is greater respect for the personality of the student, his greater independence. But along with this, in a number of schools, especially religious ones, a completely different system of gaining personal freedom is being formed - the system of obedience. Its essence lies in the fact that a person in the process of education, getting rid of, overcoming, "eradicating" his bad habits, ideas, passions, acquires colossal spiritual freedom.

And already in ancient times, there was a serious understanding of the problem of freedom of education, the works of Plato and Aristotle are especially important here. In the teachings of Plato, free upbringing (education) is proposed to be given to the upper classes (warriors and rulers) of his ideal state; according to Aristotle, free upbringing (education) is intended for children of free citizens of actually existing Greek states, all the rest are either artisans, professionals, specialists, or slaves, for whom there could be no education other than professional, by definition. (Once again, we emphasize that for Plato and Aristotle, the concept of freedom is the prism through which they analyze all education as a whole.)

III. Christianity. The most important idea proclaimed by Jesus Christ is the idea of ​​freedom. Every person is free. This meant a radically new look at a person, as it affirmed the concept, the idea that every person is a person, not a slave, not a talking tool, not a barbarian, but a person.

And the second, no less, and perhaps much more significant idea given by Jesus Christ is that every person is free to the extent that he lives according to the commandments of God and to the extent that he is free from sin. Departure from these commandments is sin and submission to sin.

This has become not only the greatest truth for all mankind, but also a task for all mankind for its entire subsequent life, including education and upbringing. The entire subsequent history of education is already the realization of this idea: in the history of different peoples, in the history of every person involved in Christianity. Of course, in different Christian countries it was implemented in its own way.

Since freedom in education is currently analyzed mainly on the example of Western European civilization and education, we will also consider this problem on the example of the history of Western Europe.

Unlike Byzantium, which directly continued its development on an ancient basis, in Western Europe, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the cultural and pedagogical development. And so many centuries passed before Western Europe reached a certain level of development of their education. The foundation of this new "system" modern education constituted the Carolingian revival, when a folk (parochial), "learned school" and "high school" were created.

New trends in the manifestation of freedom were revealed in education from the 12th century, when, along with church schools, a kind of “secular schools” began to open, that is, schools of different levels, largely autonomous from church and state. Universities, which became the personification of the culture of this time, the birthplace of such a form of theoretical knowledge as scholasticism, are especially famous. This field of knowledge took upon itself the solution of the grandiose and last tasks of its time, the tasks of a holistic understanding of the world.

Education, especially university education, at this time receives considerable freedom. This manifests itself both in the freedom of theoretical research, although with a certain regard for the church, and in the freedom in the organization of universities, up to student administration and their own courts, and so on.

The Renaissance, which proclaimed the cult of man, proclaimed his freedom as his most important characteristic and inalienable attribute. Freedom is a favorite theme of all humanists. Look at the works of any humanist, including Erasmus of Rotterdam. Based on the fact that it was man who was proclaimed the measure of all things, freedom became a quality that makes a person even independent of God.

Schools were also organized, corresponding to the idea of ​​free education. Of course, humanistic schools were proclaimed as such.

However, and this is paradoxical, having created a class-lesson system, to the theoretical substantiation and improvement of which Ya.A. Comenius, they closed the student in a rigid frame of equalizing development of all. By the way, Ya.A. Comenius considered such a system to be correct, since it pulls up the weak and does not allow the capable to develop excessively and prematurely.

The problem of freedom became even more significant in the Age of Enlightenment. And although, by some misunderstanding, she is mainly associated with the name of J.-J. Rousseau (perhaps because Rousseau's teaching was called "free education", or rather, as he himself called his teaching, making the problem of freedom the central problem of "Emil"), this problem is solved by all major scientists of that time.

At the same time, perhaps the most important thing in the huge mass of solutions to this problem is that the geniuses of the Enlightenment themselves already realized that boundless freedom threatens upbringing and education. Hegel writes: “Therefore, a playful pedagogy must be considered a complete perversion of the matter, which would like to present serious things to children under the guise of play and which makes demands on educators that they descend to the level of a childish understanding of their students, instead of raising children to the seriousness of the matter.” K.D. warned about the same. Ushinsky.

Consequently, already the Age of Enlightenment, both in the practical development of education, and still more in theory, reached the limit beyond which freedom turned from a condition for the successful development of education into a mechanism that destroys it. And therefore the Age of Enlightenment actually posed the problem of not just freedom, but the measure of freedom.

In the last quarter of the XIX century. in the world, the pedagogy of free education, which today is called reformist pedagogy, begins to develop. The idea of ​​a free school, originally formulated by E. Kay, very quickly turned into a huge theoretical and practical movement. Within the framework of this pedagogy, and these are almost all significant scientists of that time - from S. Hall and D. Dewey in America to S.T. Shatsky and K.V. Wentzel in Russia, the problem of freedom of education was solved as the most important pedagogical problem. And never and at no time has freedom acquired such significance and such hopes for a radical transformation of education, as in reformist pedagogy.

Its main principle: the freedom of the student is the lever that will solve all the problems of education. With what pathos, almost every scientist argued that the student should become the sun around which everything in the school should revolve, and the school itself. But did the leaders of reformist pedagogy manage to solve the tasks that were set and fulfill the promises that were made?

Certainly not. Very soon, if scientists organized their own schools, they became convinced in practice that freedom in itself does not solve any pedagogical problem. Moreover, it turned out that unlimited freedom simply destroys the educational process, education, makes it impossible normal life schools. And that is why almost all scientists, if not in theory, then in practice, were looking for their ideal version of the optimal ratio of freedom and discipline. In a word, the boundless freedom, on which all the educators-reformers placed so many hopes, did not become a coveted lifesaver.

Modern "liberal education". Although its theorists consider the concept of liberal education last word of pedagogical science, but in fact, modern liberal pedagogy itself is a continuation of the development of reformist pedagogy without the big problems that it posed, and those big hopes that the reformers saw if their ideas were realized. By and large, being already tertiary, that is, a continuation of reformist pedagogy, which is a continuation of educational pedagogy, it does not solve a single fundamental pedagogical problem.

Accordingly, continuing to solve the problem of freedom of education in line with reformist pedagogy, liberal pedagogy turns freedom into some kind of independent phenomenon, and not a property, of a particular education system, of a particular educational institution. But is it generally possible to consider the property of a thing as its absolute characteristic? And if the property of a phenomenon becomes the substance of the phenomenon itself, then the understanding of the phenomenon is lost.

Thus, the problem of freedom in upbringing and education is the most complex, multifaceted problem that requires a truly systematic solution at all its levels, starting from its initial fundamental significance; and then - understanding the freedom of the goal of upbringing (education), its content, legislation, organization of education, the freedom of the teacher and student, the freedom of parents, the freedom of educational institutions and education systems as a whole. At the same time, it is fundamentally important to realize the measure of freedom, the optimum of freedom in education as a whole and in all its components.

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“Drawing classes do not aim to make artists out of all children. They are designed to free and fully use such sources of energy for children as creativity, independence, awaken imagination, strengthen the natural abilities to observe and evaluate reality ... What should we expect from creative drawing?

First of all, the desire for comprehensive freedom, it is in it that the child is realized” (1, 191). These words are the miraculously preserved camp notes of the art teacher of the Terezin concentration camp, the famous designer, painter and graphic artist Friedl Dicker-Brandeisova. The Terezin concentration camp is a transit camp before being sent to Auschwitz. Hunger, cold, dirt, typhus reign here... Teaching children in Terezin is prohibited, there is no ban on drawing. Fascists expect that people doomed to existence without a future will stop thinking, will be paralyzed by endless and boundless fear. To endure inhuman humiliations, to remain people in a world doomed to death, the art teacher helps by creating a "pedagogical system for the mental rehabilitation of children through drawing." Friedl Dicker-Brandeisova systematically teaches children the techniques of composition, acquaints them with the laws of color preference, and after each lesson puts the works signed by the children into folders. Meanwhile, death trains are taking and taking children to Auschwitz. In 1944, Friedl died in Auschwitz along with the children. The Jewish State Museum in Prague houses 4,000 drawings of tortured children from the Terezin concentration camp. Why does Friedl teach children to draw? Why do children draw? “If one day is given, it must also be lived.” With this motto, Friedl lives and teaches children to organize their thoughts and feelings, teaches them to feel freedom in a different space. The problem of education for freedom is relevant today. New social and political realities require a rethinking of the goals and values ​​of education and upbringing:

  • 1. The postmodern family expects greater independence and responsibility from children; it is focused not on the well-being of children and the self-sacrifice of adults, but on the well-being of adults and the self-sacrifice of children.
  • 2. Increase in the duration of compulsory education and the formation of a system continuing education turn the school into the most important institution that determines the life of society.
  • 3. Informatization and globalization, unification and universalization of culture expose the problem of differences, unique and irreducible identity.
  • 4. Education, intertwined with competition, proclaims knowledge as a key resource for the economic and military power of any country. Not only products and technologies are exported, but also ideas and specialists.
  • 5. The massization of education leads to the need to revise the standards and curricula, changing the structure of the education system.
  • 6. The ecological crisis puts a person before a choice: learn to think and live in a new way, in harmony with nature, or perish. (2, 53 -- 61)

The ideal of free education has attracted many thinkers past and present. The great Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau believes that in the state of nature a person is free, lives a full life, does not need the help of others and does not depend on them. He is at the same time a farmer, and a cattle breeder, and a fisherman, and an artist, and a singer, and a teacher, and a warrior, without being any of them separately. The division of labor (professionalism, specialization) and the artificial rational world of culture destroy the simplicity and direct feeling of an integral natural person. The task of educating J.-J. Rousseau proclaims the creation of man. The means of education determines freedom, the protection of man from artificial, mechanical culture. The most difficult thing in the education of J.-J. Rousseau calls the ability to do nothing with the pupil, to allow the best educator - nature - to act in a person. On the one hand, J.-J. Rousseau is afraid to prematurely teach what has not become the need of the person himself, and on the other hand, he claims that the formation of the necessary needs, interests and requests is in the hands of the teacher.

The brilliant prophet connects the problems of our civilization with the alienation of man, his oblivion of his nature, the dominance of rationalism (science) in all spheres of life. A person turns into an object, a thing, a machine, a function, losing his human appearance. Therefore, in our opinion, J.-J. Rousseau can be called not only an antiscientist of the Enlightenment, but also the first representative of the existential educational paradigm. In it, individual choice and freedom of the individual are valued above all else. The existential paradigm of education opposes external restrictions, stereotypes, traditions of the past as factors hindering the development of a free individuality, the internal potentials of an individual. Truth is intentional to a person and is realized in his actions in accordance with his personal choice. Through choice and action, each individual creates his own values. Through choice and action, man is in constant becoming and self-determination. Human existence is inherently contradictory: rational and irrational, absurd and pathetic, authentic and conformal. The main thing in life is one's own existence (2, 17).

Freedom in a positive dimension, "freedom for" (E. Fromm) inspires the exploits of another supporter of this paradigm - an outstanding English teacher of the twentieth century, one of the pioneers alternative education Alexander Sutherland Neill, who founded "the happiest school in the world" in 1921, Summerhill. It is so because the child knows that he is accepted for who he is. Children have the freedom to be themselves. Summerhill stands on five foundations: self-government for children and employees; free attendance; the freedom to play for days, weeks, years; freedom from ideology (religious, moral, political); freedom from purposeful character formation (4, 5). Summerhill's criteria are happiness, sincerity, balance. The main merit of his school A.S. Neill names the health, freedom, complete self-confidence of his pupils. “Freedom means the right to do whatever you want, as long as it does not violate the freedom of others. Its result is self-discipline” (4, 96). "Live and let live" is Summerhill's motto. A child is born a sincere person, focused on happiness and goodness. Growing naturally and freely, he intuitively finds the boundary between freedom and permissiveness.

There are many parallels between the Nillian system of education and the ZhFEN movement - the movement "For a new education", which arose around the same time in France at the behest of psychologists, philosophers, and writers. JFEN members share the philosophy of freedom of J.-J. Rousseau, believing that a change in education should help change the life of society, prevent wars on the planet, and find oneself in the world. Attaching colossal importance to the word, for the last twenty years ZhFEN has been practicing masterful writing (5, 20-21). They solve these problems on the basis of their principles: the teacher (master) is equal to the student, everyone is capable, do what you can, alternating individual and collective work, “survive, realize, be able” (I. Itten). A workshop is not a school lesson, not a university seminar or an exam. This is a way of organizing the student's activity, in which knowledge is not transferred, but built. The master gives tasks and creates a special cognitive situation, within each task the students are free, they choose the path of research, the choice of means, the choice of the pace of work. Friedl Dicker-Brandeisov opposes premature "academicism", because it threatens the sovereignty and independence of the child and his unique experience. “Too early assimilation of ready-made forms leads to the enslavement of the personality,” she believes (1, 192). Therefore, the teacher, the educator must be restrained and delicate in his influence on the student. A compliant and trusting child, following the instructions of an adult and quickly achieving the desired result, first renounces his own tasks, and then from personal means of expression and from his own life experience. This is how dependent, slavish thinking is formed. All the thinkers discussed above, when discussing freedom, are faced with the problem of human nature. Speaking of holistic natural man, J.-J. Rousseau, in our opinion, goes beyond the naturalistic, biological approach to man. He means spirituality, which is revered in such traditions as “eternal philosophy” (O. Huxley) and “eternal psychology” (K. Wilber), in transpersonal psychology (A. Maslow, K. and S. Grof, F. Capra), in the anthroposophy of R. Steiner, in the philosophical anthropology of A.S. Arseniev. II and III postulates of the "eternal philosophy" affirm the dual nature of man: the phenomenal "Ego" (mind) and the enduring self (" inner man”, Spirit, divine spark in the human soul). A person can identify with the Spirit.

Identification with one's self, knowledge of the divine basis is the only purpose of a person on Earth (6, 242). Spiritual self-manifestation, spiritual self-disclosure is an evolution from a less mature way of life to a more mature and full, evolution associated with the discovery of the divine nature of man. Going beyond material goals and values ​​is possible with the understanding of the truth that humanity is part of the creative cosmic energy and mind and in this sense is one, “in proportion to it” (6, 48). The paradox of man lies in the fact that he simultaneously acts both as a material object, a biological machine, and as an extensive field of consciousness. (7, 92). In the concept of the famous Russian philosopher A.S. Arseniev, this duality is expressed through the definition of man as an infinitely finite being, as a manifestation of Potential and Actual Infinities, reflection and transcending. Reflecting, a person plunges into himself, reflects on himself. By transcending, he transcends himself or some other reality. A person does not exist separately from the World, relations between a person and the World are initially integral and endless. A person is immersed in two streams of interpenetrating eternities: the first one is connected with Potential Infinity, with an infinitely flowing stream of time that gives birth and destroys finite forms of being, the second one is connected with Actual Infinity, with timelessness, outsideness, with “Nothing in which Everything is”. This second eternity defines universality as the destiny of man (19, 458-453). Ideas A.S. Arseniev sound in unison with the postulates of "eternal philosophy": a person is not a thing, not a machine, but "infinite value and mystery."

The universality of Man lies in the fact that he is “nothing in which everything is”, the unity of the infinitely diverse. Man is unlimited in his abilities and possibilities: he can do everything. Man is infinitely plastic, capable of infinitely and infinitely developing any aspect of his existence. However, the reality is such that an infinitely internally universal Man with his divine destiny (as the image and likeness of God) lives in a limited finite world of external expediency. Hence the dual task of pedagogy: "to preserve the universality of Man and at the same time teach him to live in conditions that exclude it." (9, 470-475). K.G. Jung believes that the main cause of drug addiction, alcoholism is the "thirst for integrity" or the desire for God - the desire to find your true "I", to discover your spiritual essence. His position is shared by the famous Rostov psychotherapist M.E. Litvak (10, 8). If a person's life is gray, uninteresting, joyless, then he will inevitably become either a neurotic, or an alcoholic, or a drug addict.

Figures speak eloquently about this: in the 20th century, the level of alcoholism increased by 40.6 times, the level of neuroses by 40.4 times (11, 428), state programs are being created to combat drug addiction.

Rudolf Steiner, the founder of anthroposophy and Waldorf pedagogy, emphasizes that the "I-body" as the carrier of the immortal human soul, the manifestation of God inside a person, is inherent only in man. But it is this highest level of human essence that influences and transforms the lower levels - the astral, etheric and physical bodies. Changed by the work of "I", the astral body (the body of sensations) becomes the soul of sensations, the ethereal (life) body - the soul of reason, the physical body - the soul of self-consciousness. (12, 261-264).

The ambivalence of human nature determines the dual nature of freedom. Freedom is not permissiveness, freedom is limited by limits. Such limits can be subordination domestic law debt (3, 155-156), hidden learning programs: relationships, character development, lesson structure, groups, schools (13), human nature and student age (3; 12), etc.

S.I. Gessen is convinced that education towards freedom, that is, towards the consciousness of one's duty, requires the reasonable authority of the school law. School law has a higher foundation - reason, indignation against which is an indignation against oneself. It should be noted that S.I. Hessen, being a student of G. Rickert, continues the line of neo-Kantianism, and in matters of freedom and morality, in our opinion, the presence of the Kantian categorical imperative is felt. The unreasonable authority that proclaims the disciple's obedience to duty degenerates into mechanical power, which corresponds to external, mechanical, formal submission. At the same time, in the case of premature abolition of authority, freedom degenerates into arbitrariness, vanity, a thirst for domination and power (3, 164-165).

R. Steiner emphasizes that the physical, etheric, astral bodies and the I-body develop at different times and in different ways. For the formation of the physical body, pleasure and joy are important. Until the age of seven, before the change of teeth, imitation and example are the main means. After the age of seven, the leading means of education are obedience and authority. Spiritually visual images of heroes, teachers help a person develop his conscience, develop a moral sense, inclinations, habits, streamline his temperament. The astral body can be influenced with the attainment of puberty. At this time, pure, independent (categorical) thinking is formed. “Before you are ripe for thinking, you must learn to respect what others have thought. There can be no healthy thinking if it was not preceded by a healthy sense of truth, based on faith in unquestionable authorities” (12, 282).

In our time, these ideas are shared by the Australian philosopher and educator Harry Richardson, who in 1978 created a person-centered school in Koroval (near Sydney). A child is a complete person, not an object. However, the consciousness of a child is different from the consciousness of an adult. This should be known and understood by teachers and parents (13, 45-48). Consequently, the level of freedom of the child is different. Richardson criticizes both the traditionalists, who seek to turn children into conformists by limiting freedom, and the progressives, who deprive the child of childhood by giving him freedom at the level of adults, which means freedom without responsibility. “A truly freedom-oriented education, in which children are taught how to become free adults, must consciously include, as part of the hidden education, the fact that freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin” (13, 78).

Just as authority is a bridge between the external force of law and an internal sense of duty, the school lesson acts as a bridge between play and creativity. Creativity, according to S.I. Gessen, “includes the ability to courageously and steadily pursue stable, distant goals” (3, 122). In a higher school, university, teaching and research are in unity, there is a dual freedom of teaching and freedom of learning. Studying the cutting edge of science, science in the making, in a living state, both the professor and the student state and defend their own positions. But even here freedom is limited. The professor must give systematic courses in basic subjects, and the student must attend and pass these systematic courses to obtain a profession and practical skills (13, 318-320).

It is necessary to constantly remember the words of A.S. Arseniev: to be faithful to the calling of a universal person. When teaching the pragmatics of life, do not forget about creative beginning in man, that he is the image and likeness of God. And this means being a creator yourself and instilling a love for creativity in your students.

Literature

  • 1. Makarova E. In the beginning was childhood. Notes of the teacher. M., 1990. 256 p.
  • 2. Mordvintseva L.P. Contemporary Issues philosophy of education. M., 1998. 66s.
  • 3. Gessen S.I. Fundamentals of Pedagogy. Introduction to Applied Philosophy. M.: Shkola Press, 1995. 448 p.
  • 4. Neill A. Summerhill: Education in freedom. Moscow: Pedagogy Press, 2000. 296 p.
  • 5. Okunev A. How to teach without teaching. St. Petersburg: Piter Press, 1996. 448 p.
  • 6. Huxley O. Eternal philosophy // Ways beyond the "Ego". Ed. R. Walsh and F. Vaughan. Moscow: Transpersonal Institute Publishing House, 1996. 345 p.
  • 7. Grof S. Outside the brain. M.: Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Publishing House of the Institute of Psychotherapy, 2000. 504 p.
  • 8. Arseniev A.S. Paradoxical universality of Man and some problems of psychology and pedagogy // Arseniev A.S. Philosophical foundations for understanding personality. M.: Academy, 2001. S. 412-480.
  • 9. Grof K. Thirst for integrity. Addiction and the Spiritual Path. M.: Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, Sattva Publishing House, 2000. 272 ​​p.
  • 10. Litvak M.E. If you want to be happy. Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix, 1995.
  • 11. Steiner R. Raising a child from an esoteric point of view // Steiner R. From the field of spiritual knowledge, or anthroposophy. M.: Enigma, 1997. S. 256-283.
  • 12. Richardson G. Education for freedom. M., 1997. 211 p.

AT recent times like never before, by all means mass media with different political orientations - left, legal and simply nowhere - and, especially, the Internet, which has become the property of almost every home and (unlike the central press and television) is available to present their painful and innermost thoughts, is full of alarming messages about the upcoming "innovation ”, with which the Ministry of Education and Science, through the next law on education, is trying to enlighten and make its people happy. Most of all, teachers pour out their pain, the older generation of which still remembers what a worthy education was in our country in the recent past and what it became after the “innovative” reform. Parents also remember whose children could receive free and a good education not only at school, any university, but even at the University on Sparrow Hills - there would be abilities and there would be a will to learn.

Under the slogan of modernization and gaining freedom of education, as a result of legislative manipulations over the past two decades, many hard-to-correct mistakes have been made in the entire system of long-suffering domestic education. Any action is evaluated by the results, and the person himself by his deeds, and not by the words borrowed abroad and incomprehensible to many people: “modernization”, “innovation”, “variability” - and not by the beautiful-sounding phrase “quality of education”, with through which it is possible to raise the level of education. What are the results of educational "innovations"? Everyone knows about them - from young to old: and a professor whose salary is barely enough for food (for example, a professor at Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov receives less for his hard work than a trolleybus driver); and parents forced to pay their last hard-earned money for dubious educational services; and their children - schoolchildren and students, who very quickly felt the will and freedom from education.

Many schoolchildren, intoxicated by freedom from learning and diligence, have stopped studying, stopped honoring and listening to their parents and their teachers, especially those who, according to the good old tradition (and there are many of them), are trying to give the most precious thing - knowledge, and thereby show their love for to his disciples, and especially to those who have gone astray against their will. And there are several reasons for this. The first reason is why study diligently at school, when without any problems you can enter any university, even to any paid faculty of Moscow State University, which with great difficulty manages to maintain a high level of education. For this, knowledge is not needed at all, but money contributed by parents in the form of an educational dues is needed. At the same time, only money wins, and not common sense and not a traditional competition, which, through the level of knowledge, is the only one capable of opening the way for the most knowledgeable and prepared applicants to higher education. Numerous "universities" and "institutions" that have grown like mushrooms after warm summer rains on "free" soil, fertilized by educational "innovations", are ready to absorb all applicants with a guarantee of issuing a state-recognized diploma. They do not need knowledge of the applicant, but money. And the leaders of many such “universities” are not at all interested in the fact that parents pay the money, most often they are not at all rich and forced to work in different places and in more than one shift to the detriment of their health. There is also state funding in the domestic education system, but it dissolves into a commercial educational bacchanalia, which has also overwhelmed state universities.

The second reason for freedom from study is that in order to study well, one must work hard, one must educate oneself daily and hourly. And who wants to strain, as it is now fashionable to say, and work tirelessly when there are so many temptations around: and the Internet, which can draw young fragile hearts into a pool of vices and passions, from which neither parents nor teachers can free; and television, which elevates violence and depravity to the rank of a feat. All this taken together stupefies and devastates the soul of a person, in which conscience is etched, which in many respects distinguishes a person from an animal.

The third reason for disrespect for knowledge is that some smart and observant schoolchildren and students can see with the naked eye that it is not the people who have studied well and diligently who often make their way to power and seize the people's wealth.

Everyone knows perfectly well what all this leads to - television tries not to miss a single educational sensation. In Moscow, where, it would seem, there should be all the conditions for a full-fledged education, a secondary school was recently closed due to the low quality of education. Instead of sorting out and eliminating the cause, officials from education went along their only "correct" path. Is the school, teachers, students and their parents to blame for the fact that they have to reap the benefits of a rich "innovative" harvest in education. Another sensation - free from conscience and physically strengthened students beat their physical education teacher, and the filmed egregious episodes were posted on the Internet so that everyone could see that even at school there is a place for "feat", that there are "heroes" in our country. And there are a great many such mind-blowing sensations that have overwhelmed long-suffering Russia. Trouble and nothing more. "The biggest problems modern man come from the fact that he has lost the sense of meaningful cooperation with God in his intention for humanity,” these are the words of the great Russian writer F.M. Dostoevsky most fully reflect the realities of being of the present time.

Without a doubt, in our country there are good schools and gymnasiums and, in particular, Orthodox schools, where they give excellent knowledge in mathematics, physics, biology, Russian language and literature and other classical subjects, and where they not only learn the secrets of life, but also teach to distinguish good from evil, respect and love their parents and teachers. Pupils in such schools experience the joy of learning, and they come home with enlightened, peaceful faces, and it does not occur to them to commit any sinful act, for which they would be ashamed and ashamed of their parents. But for some reason, such a true form of education, tested for centuries, bypasses both the state and the would-be education reformers and education officials - it is paid from the pocket of parents who wholeheartedly want to raise their children educated and enlightened; to grow up comprehensively developed people, in whose souls not the demons of hatred and gain would be instilled, but love for one's neighbor, compassion and mercy.

School troubles like an avalanche fall upon the institutions of higher learning, in most of which the conditions have been created not for learning, but for freedom from education to thrive in full bloom, and where, for the same reasons as in school, students do not want to bother studying. They will receive a diploma of “manager”, “economist” and “lawyer”, and influential and wealthy parents, and not at all fundamental and professional knowledge, will help some of them to seize the position of head in the prescribed manner. Savvy students observe that without special, highly qualified training, i.e. not being highly qualified specialists, one can miraculously acquire a high position, for example, take the post of head of a large industry, say, energy or the nuclear industry. And the result of such “management” is known to everyone: systematic shutdowns of power supply sources (with an excess of energy capacities in our country), which used to be extremely rare; the injection of huge financial resources into nuclear energy, which in many civilized countries is curtailed so as not to leave a dangerous radioactive legacy to their descendants; technological disaster at the Sayano-Shushenskaya HPP, where the management turned out to be free from technical and engineering knowledge.

What is the huge parental money spent on, which fell into the hands of a small handful of university “leaders” and a significant part of which passes by teachers and employees? About this last year, the TV program "Man and the Law" and other leading channels told everything Russian people and including parents who love their children, telling how their money earned by honest work is criminally squandered, using the example of the State University of Management, where millions of rubles were deposited in pockets under the cover of repair work and where, on the basis of violations of the law, a search was carried out, an arrest was made, and criminal case. At the same university for the rector Lyalin A.M. two executive cars were bought, worth millions of rubles each, and many employees and teachers receive meager salaries, which are barely enough for travel and food. After a thorough investigation, the Investigative Committee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia at the end of last year sent materials to the Ministry of Education and Science for decisive action. After much thought and silence, by order of the ministry Lyalin A.M. yet he was fired for his "fruitful" work. And at the same university, he was enrolled as an adviser. The question is why? Is it not in order to continue to advise how to divide and rule and to further ruin the university and eradicate from it the engineering and economic direction, for which it was famous throughout Russia before the reign of Lyalin. Another question arises, why is the ministry removed from its direct duties?

Who needs such a ministry and why? Maybe it is needed in order to new law education to introduce their crazy ideas about the introduction of a new state standard in which there was no place for compulsory study of either mathematics, or physics, or chemistry, or biology, or the Russian language and literature, or geography, or the basics of Orthodox culture, which all taken together form fundamental knowledge about nature and make a person enlightened, educated and educated, and the deeds of such a person will be directed not to destruction, but to creation and development. The minister's explanations about the proposed "innovations" look very ridiculous. not happy and new version standards, little different from the previous one. Is it really necessary to intervene at the highest level to put everything in its place? And why, then, is a huge army of ministerial and other education officials needed, for the maintenance of which quite a lot of money of all taxpayers is spent?

The first places in the proposed standards were given to the subjects “Life safety” and “ Physical Culture”, and a certain symbolic period was named - 2020. It can be assumed that by that time, as a result of all failed reforms, including “innovative” education reforms, the dying Russian nation will reach a point beyond which everything will be collapsed to such an extent and it is destroyed that only one field of activity will remain - the field of life safety of physically strong, but ignorant, ill-mannered and spiritually backward people, but by that time there will be no one to save.

The degradation of society and the extinction of any nation begins with the degradation of education and the human soul. Saving the soul of a person through the acquisition of spiritual and moral values, it is possible to save education from far-fetched and pernicious reformations. To do this, educational reformers must understand and firmly grasp a simple truth: education is not a paid service and not a product that can be sold at the highest possible price, but it is priceless. creative process, nurturing educated, enlightened and educated people capable of doing great miracles in the name of saving civilization and further development of all mankind.

Stepan Karpenkov , doctor of technical sciences professor, laureateState PrizeRussian Federation in the field of science and technology

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POINT OF VIEW__________________________

FREEDOM IN EDUCATION: ESSENCE, REALITIES AND PROSPECTS

E.V. Ivanov, Associate Professor, Department of Pedagogy, Novgorodsky Institute of Continuing Pedagogical Education state university them. Yaroslav the Wise

The article presents some materials of the author's own research and reasoning on the problem of freedom, its general scientific and pedagogical essence and the possibilities of implementation in the practice of teaching and education. The scientific novelty and practical significance of the content of this work consists in revealing the theoretical essence of freedom as a pedagogical phenomenon, identifying and characterizing its main levels in the current practice of teaching and upbringing, as well as in the possibility of using the presented analytical calculations for a new understanding and adaptive instrumental development of the principle of freedom in the process. modern innovative search based on humanistic and cultural priorities.

The article presents the author's views on the concept of freedom, its scholarly and pedagogical essence and ways of realization in educational practice. Freedom is viewed as a pedagogical phenomenon; characteristics of its main levels in current practice of education are given, the ways of the implementation of the analysis results are presented.

The peculiar situation that has developed in the system of domestic education in the post-perestroika years is characterized by the search for new paradigms for the development of pedagogical science and practice based on humanistic and cultural priorities, the central, unifying core of which is the phenomenon of freedom, which has long since proven its viability and is constantly growing in strength. and relevance today.

Today, freedom has finally become one of the most significant individual and social values ​​of mankind, as well as the goal and condition for the development of the civilizational process as a whole and its individual constituent parts including the education and upbringing of the younger generation. Meanwhile, this concept is very complex and, despite the centuries-old history of study, does not have an unambiguous scientific interpretation. As before, so now it is used very widely and is extrapolated to many life situations and processes, highlighting more and more facets in itself, which makes us rethink previous ideas and theoretically justified points of view.

Quite a lot of different words are usually used as key words in the definition of freedom, and the most common is “a conscious need

© E.V. Ivanov, 2003

bridge" and "opportunity". At the same time, both options are criticized by opponents. Opponents of understanding freedom as a “conscious necessity” quite reasonably say that there is some kind of predestination and predetermination here. Those who do not agree with its interpretation as "opportunities" reasonably draw associative parallels with arbitrariness and randomness.

According to the author, the essence of freedom is most accurately reflected in the second option (“opportunity”). However, in order to protect it from being confused with the other concepts mentioned above (“arbitrariness”, “randomness”), some clarifications are required. First, the opportunity must be realized by those who have it. Secondly, focusing attention in the pedagogical understanding of freedom not on one or two, but on all three of its main components (meaning freedom of will, choice and action), along with the possibility, one must always mean the ability of a person to one or another implementation of their will. And thirdly, the person himself must be understood and considered in all possible forms of his existence.

With this in mind, we can give the following definition of freedom: freedom is conscious opportunity and way-

the ability to choose and act on the basis of internal motives and needs due to the characteristics of a person as a natural, spiritual and socio-cultural being. The child-oriented pedagogical understanding of this formulation determines the focus on the implementation of the principle of freedom at the level of positive “freedom for” with the creation of conditions conducive to this at the level of negative “freedom from”, taking into account the specific individual and social essence of a growing person.

An analysis of the accumulated experience in understanding and implementing the phenomenon of freedom in education makes it possible to identify and see common character traits four possible levels of its manifestation: idealistic, maximally realistically possible, rationalistic and totalitarian.

The idealistic level of freedom in education is close to philosophical interpretation of this concept both in the positive (“freedom for”) and negative (“freedom from”) dimensions. It exists only in theory. Attempts to implement it in full in practice fail, forcing teachers to seek a compromise between the ideal and the realistically possible. If we turn to history, then, of course, the most striking pedagogical projection of freedom at the indicated level in its negative understanding, as “freedom from”, is the theory of “natural education” by J.-J. Rousseau, which, as is known, was not implemented in its original form, although the methodological and methodological approaches actively interpreted in various concepts and practical experience. The main, fundamental ideas for this level are Rousseau's views on the nature of the child as ideal from birth and capable of self-development, but only under conditions of unlimited freedom of choice and action.

The mentioned practice-oriented concepts, which interpreted Rousseau's theory in their own way, as well as other more or less successfully existing

Most educational models (beginning with L.N. Tolstoy), which recognized freedom as the main principle of education and upbringing, form the highest possible level. In terms of its initial positions, in particular in the general understanding of the nature of the child and his freedom, it differs little from the idealistic one, however, in the plane of practical implementation, it involves the demarcation of broad and mobile boundaries of freedom of choice and action, which, it must be said, do not always coincide in various institutions. of this kind. This is due to the fact that, strictly following the pedo-centric postulate of pedagogy as “pedagogy emanating from the child”, the creators of free schools accumulate in their minds not only general, but also special, specific scientific-philosophical, psychological and pedagogical ideas, including and about the essence of man as a natural, spiritual and socio-cultural being and the patterns of his development in childhood and adolescence. This is the main explanation for the diversity and sometimes the external dissimilarity of educational institutions belonging to this level.

The next, third, level of freedom in education is rationalistic. Its essence lies in the fact that freedom of choice and action is dosed and varied with the help of external constraints in volumes dictated by pedagogical expediency. This expediency can be justified from theoretical positions and from the standpoint of practical necessity and benefit both in line with humanistic and in line with authoritarian pedagogical ideology in their moderate forms. The unifying point here is that even in the case of recognizing the presence of good principles in the nature of the child, his ability for their self-development is denied and the need for direct external control and influence on the part of adults is justified both in the interests of the growing person himself and in the interests of society.

The last, totalitarian, level of freedom in education would be more accurate

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called the level of denial of freedom, since it involves strict regulation of all school life, including the activities of the teacher and student. Similar theories and educational institutions are created on the basis of ideas about the child as a carrier of innate and acquired destructive traits or as one of the links social mechanism totalitarian regimes. A typical good example of this is the traditional Soviet school.

The global socio-cultural changes of the last fifteen years, which have covered all spheres of the country's life and are aimed at liberation from the negative totalitarian legacy, have led to the appearance in the public mind of views on man as a subject of his own development and on Russia as part of the world community, which is subject to universal laws of evolution and universal human values. All this could not but affect the domestic education, whose figures were actively engaged in the development of new ways of its development.

The stage of pedagogical searches and discussions found its first most significant logical conclusion in the Law of the Russian Federation “On Education”. It finally affirms the humanistic strategy, formulates the main principles and tasks, outlines the main ways and mechanisms for updating the modern education of the country. Meanwhile, proclaiming the need to move away from authoritarianism, the main regulatory document does not provide for significant systemic changes, and therefore bears several declarative, without proposing radical measures, but only focusing on a gradual movement from the possible in the indicated direction. Elevating the phenomenon of freedom to the rank of the most important principle public policy in this area, the law still requires teachers to take the utmost care that every student learns the impersonal educational standards, which, as a rule, to this day are achieved by

standard and impersonal forms, methods and techniques that are netically connected with the traditional Soviet school. In general, we can say that the state, taking into account the new realities of life, orients teachers to solve the tasks they face in line with the humanistic ideology at the rationalistic level of freedom, but tries to do this on the old foundation of the authoritarian heritage, prolonging the agony of the basic educational paradigm of the past.

It is not surprising that, in contrast to the inert in relation to everything new official school in modern Russia various experimental projects are being developed and alternative educational institutions are emerging, striving to overcome the emerging crisis phenomena, realizing the phenomenon of freedom at the highest possible level. However, by and large, they are all a “drop in the ocean” of traditional authoritarian pedagogy, which, despite criticism from all sides, continues to confidently occupy the main educational space of the country.

One of the most important and complex pedagogical and social problems that have not yet received due theoretical understanding is the problem of the ever-increasing abyss of alienation between the world of children and the world of adults. It has long historical roots and centuries-old evolution in the process of family and social education, especially actualizing today. Meanwhile, no real ways have yet been found for its complete resolution.

Without setting ourselves the task of a comprehensive consideration of this issue, we will focus only on the analysis of some of its causal aspects related to various paradigmatic attitudes and the problems of this article.

With subject-object relations in line with the authoritarian pedagogical ideology, such a question, as a rule, does not arise, since what it is aimed at is considered a necessary condition.

ІІІІ1ІІІІIIIШ № 4,

viem or the inevitable cost of educational activities. Denying children the right to the full realization of their age-related needs and struggling with their various "negative" manifestations, parents and teachers forcibly impose on the younger generation formal morality, rules and norms adopted in a particular society, thereby causing a natural protest, expressed in a hidden or a clear resistance and desire to isolate themselves within the framework of their own world, inaccessible to adults, with its special subculture, different from the official one.

As for the humanistic paradigm settings, here the existence of the named problem is not denied, and its solution is seen in the transition to subject-subject relations and the recognition of the child's right to free development and manifestation of his "self". However, as the accumulated pedagogical experience shows, the proclamation of the inherent value of childhood and "childishness" with a formal approach to the implementation of these ideas does not solve, but, on the contrary, sometimes even exacerbates the situation, creating new artificial barriers. This is expressed, in particular, in the fact that a growing person (of course, not directly, but indirectly) is said, as it were: “Live, rejoice, enjoy your childhood, since there is almost no benefit from you for the family and society anyway, and your opinion about serious things does not interest us, because you are not able to say and do something sensible until you grow up and gain the necessary knowledge and experience.

In other words, authoritarian pedagogical systems, forcibly “putting an adult’s head on the child’s shoulders”, and humanistic educational models aimed at ensuring a full-fledged life for the pupil of each period of childhood in accordance with age and individual characteristics and needs, ultimately strive for one thing - temporarily (and this period is becoming longer and more) "isolate" the

a growing person from the adult world, if possible, “cultivate” him, and only after that allow him to really participate in the affairs of society and the state. The role of this “temporary isolator” is assigned to the school, which from the moment of its appearance has become, in fact, an official public institution that divides people into two opposing camps: those who are not yet “ripe”, i.e. did not become sufficiently full-fledged intellectually and socially, and those who received a matriculation certificate, having passed a long-term path of assimilating standardized, but often divorced from life, knowledge, skills and abilities.

Thus, from the above reasoning, it can be seen that the indicated problem can be resolved only in line with the humanistic pedagogical ideology by establishing truly trusting and respectful subject-subject relationships between the younger and older generations, for which it is necessary to equalize the rights of adults and children as much as possible and provide the latter with opportunities for free choice and action in the process of real, rather than formal participation in the creation and design of one's own and common (in the family, school, society) present and future. In practice, it is very difficult to model and implement such a situation. However, the direction of pedagogical efforts emerges quite clearly: it is necessary to more actively socialize a growing person in various spheres of life in a “fair community” and organize the educational process at the highest possible level of freedom.

In the West, these and other problems of modern education have recently been trying to be resolved in line with the ideas of open learning. As for Russia, taking as a guideline the model of an open civil society of the Western type, our country began to adopt his ideas in the field of education, which, as you know, are inextricably linked with the ideas of

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bauds and dialogue of cultures. At the same time, the axiological priorities corresponding to them began to play the role of basic in the process of organizing and implementing educational activities.

Modern domestic pedagogy, having freed itself from the tenets of communist ideology, emphasizes universal human values ​​as the fundamental foundations for educating the younger generation. On the whole, both the state, which enshrined it in the law and in the Doctrine of the Modernization of Education in Russia, and most of the public agree with this approach. Meanwhile, there is still no complete clarity on this issue, since the problem concerning the content of the declared values ​​and the specifics of their socio-cultural and personal acceptance has not been fully resolved.

It must be said that such a situation with its specific features is now also typical for the West, where, like in our country, two irreconcilable positions are once again colliding, whose representatives can be conditionally called “individualists” and “traditionalists”.

The ideas advocated by the “individualists” in their deepest essence go back to the views of the ancient Greek philosophers-sophists and, like them, cause rejection among broad social strata, as they preach the relativity of certain social values. According to the “individualists”, there is nothing unequivocally good or bad in this world. Therefore, everyone has the right to free choice and act according to their own scale of values, based on the subjective worldview and attitude, limiting themselves only to what can harm others. In the pedagogical plane, such an axiological interpretation is found in the concepts of both domestic and foreign supporters of "free education", idealizing the nature of the child and his ability to self-discovery and self-development.

As for the “traditionalists”, both in Russia and in the West they hold

live in this issue a different, conservative, point of view, recognizing and defending the objectivity and stability of the system of values ​​created by mankind in the process of its historical and cultural development. All this is concretely reflected in their views on education, where the leading role in shaping the worldview and personal qualities of students is assigned not to nature and a properly organized environment, but to the teacher and the knowledge he teaches.

As can be seen from the foregoing, neither in the first nor in the second case can we say that certain individually or socially recognized values ​​are universal, since their content is always conditioned either by subjective or historical, cultural and social political determinants. Then what is meant by the meaning of the word "universal" in this context, and in general, is it permissible in relation to the category "value"?

If we analyze the situation in the world of the last centuries and decades, we cannot fail to notice that the axiological priorities formed in the West are becoming more and more dominant. The way of life and thinking adopted there in various ways "occupies" other civilizations, including Russia. Meanwhile, anthropological, cultural, psychological, social studies recent years clearly show that what is good for one culture is not always acceptable, and sometimes even destructive for another. Western values, among which one of the main ones is freedom in its negative sense, can cause, if not complete, then partial rejection from other peoples or, in the case of purposeful or indirect instillation in the process of education, lead to a gradual loss of new generations of their cultural roots. and identity. All this must be taken into account in the process of modernization of domestic education, because the desire to quickly become "their own

di strangers”, recklessly recognizing and trying on “universal” Western models, may result in the alienation of our children in the course of education not only from adults, but also from the surrounding heritage of the material and spiritual culture of their native country.

Modern world is a multicultural integrative space in which coexist different nations, countries and civilizations that are in the mode of constant, multi-level and multi-channel dialogue. The role of the main channel in this case is given to education, which opens access to a growing person to other socio-cultural meanings and images. In turn, comprehending the content of various cultures and experiencing their influence, the cognizing subject will certainly face the problem of cultural self-determination, which is far from simple in conditions of openness and freedom.

The history of Russia shows that blind copying of foreign cultural samples often leads to a negative result. This fully applies to attempts to inculcate Western-style negative freedom on Russian soil. Unable to cope with its excess, our compatriots sometimes made the irrevocable choice of giving up freedom in favor of totalitarianism.

AT last years we are experiencing a similar situation. Unable to digest the first big portion of negative freedom (since the internal boundaries

freedoms for the majority of Russian people brought up in the Soviet era turned out to be already external), our society and the school, as its most important institution, began to balance on the verge between the old and the new, more and more leaning towards the first.

To avoid such a development of events, it is necessary to carry out full-scale integration into the world community only after acquiring and recognizing one's own cultural identity. A true dialogue of cultures is not the imposition of one's own or blind copying of someone else's experience and values, but equal mutual communication and mutual enrichment. And therefore, only having formed the inner, spiritual freedom of a person, characteristic of the national cultural tradition, we will be able to painlessly and to our advantage significantly expand the boundaries of external freedom.

Thus, we can say that pedagogy today has an important task to help a growing person in the process of acculturation of his personality through the humanization of the educational process, which involves the realization of the phenomenon of freedom at a rationalistic level with a gradual transition to the maximum real possible. At the same time, it is worth relying mainly on one's own cultural and pedagogical traditions, which, however, should not interfere with the creative use and adaptation of the best foreign examples.