CONTENT OF CULTURAL ACTIVITIES OF STUDENTS OF HIGHER PEDAGOGICAL EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

CONTENT OF CULTURAL ACTIVITIES OF STUDENTS OF HIGHER PEDAGOGICAL EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS

The article analyzes the approaches of researchers to defining the essence of cultural activity. Its purpose and tasks in the context of training of pedagogical staff in higher pedagogical education institutions are determined. It is concluded that culture-creating activities in higher pedagogical education institutions are intended to promote the self-determination of the future teacher’s personality, his/her self-realization, increase the level of aesthetic culture, develop creative potential, and acquire practical skills in using aesthetic experience in other activities.
Keywords: culture-creating activity, future teachers, aesthetic education, stages, tasks, content.

Zarubenko O.
is a student of the second (master’s) level of higher education,
H. S. Skovoroda Kharkiv National Pedagogical University,
м. Kharkiv, Ukraine

Taking into account the pedagogical potential of culture-creating activities, the modern practice of higher pedagogical education widely uses its educational opportunities, which contributes to solving the problems of aesthetic education of student youth. In this regard, O. Shevniuk noted: “The student’s cultural activity is based on the results of late socio-cultural processes and is realized in the poly-communication process” [4, p. 87-88]. Therefore, during pedagogical interaction focused on the disclosure of significant cultural values and meanings, through involvement in various forms of educational, regional, ethnographic, museum, and artistic activities, the cultural thesaurus of higher education students is enriched; the national cultural experience of attitudes towards the world and towards man is internalized.

Familiarization with the scientific literature has revealed that in the context of the modernization of higher pedagogical schools, the focus of the educational process on the implementation of a personality-oriented approach, culture-creating activities lead to the use of aesthetic factors in the spiritual and practical development of students, their training as future teachers.

In order to substantiate the cultural activity, let us consider the evolution of ideas about this category in psychological and pedagogical science. First of all, it should be noted that scientists characterize cultural activity as a multifaceted phenomenon that functions in the interaction of the individual and the social environment, taking into account the needs of society. Orientation to universal values determines its organic inclusion in the structure of personally and professionally significant qualities of the future teacher [4].

At the same time, it should be noted that culture-creating activity is substantiated by scientists through the characterization of such concepts as cultural activity, creative activity, and culture-creating activity. In the scientific works of I. Ziaziun and V. Leontieva, the emphasis is placed on the fact that cultural activity is conditioned by the strengthening of the cultural function of education and is represented as “cultural activity”, the purpose of which is to create new cultural values.

Scholars A. Kapska, L. Kondratska, H. Padalka, O. Rudnytska, S. Sysoieva, O. Shevniuk, O. Shcholokova, and others consider cultural activity as “creative activity” of higher education students aimed at mastering culture and creativity.

At the present stage of modernization of higher pedagogical education, creative activity is widely used in the practice of higher education as a purposeful solution to the problem of changing reality and its transformation in the pedagogical process. Psychological and pedagogical research reveals the peculiarities of the implementation of culture-creating activities, spatial and temporal factors that determine its purposeful and systematic organization and implementation.

Proceeding from the above, researchers O. Zhornova and Y. Kunytska consider cultural activities as “cultural creation”. Thus, O. Zhornova, summarizing the results of the analysis of the formation and development of this concept in the psychological and pedagogical aspect, emphasizes that culture-making is a universal humanistic category, that characterizes the development of culture “while preserving cultural archetypes through the comprehension of the individual and collective path in it, the affirmation of the highest spiritual ideals and aspirations of the united collective efforts in the deployment of the desired future scenario” [1, p. 114].

According to the scientist, culture-making as a pedagogical category and educational practice is characterized by the awareness of such mutually opposing concepts as “passivity – activity”, “collective – individual”, “normality – anomaly”, “reproductive – productive”, “ordinariness – extraordinary”, “consumption – creation”, “giftedness – habituality”, etc. The researcher concluded that the spread of this concept in pedagogical science is associated with the strengthening of the process of culturalization of education.

O. Shevniuk analyzed the essence of the culture-creating activity of higher pedagogical education students. The researcher interprets this category as follows: “Cultural activity is a specific form of human existence in culture, which is manifested in the directed transformation of socio-cultural reality, realizes and develops the system of its attitude to the world and itself” [4, p. 85]. Cultural activity is considered as a criterion of the effectiveness of the future teacher’s later understanding of socio-cultural processes, and that it allows the teacher not to be limited to certain conditions of life, but to stand out from the flow of pedagogical practice and contemplate his or her work [4, p. 85].

However, taking into account the existing views of scholars on understanding the essence of cultural activities, we believe that it is not enough to consider it only as a continuation of the educational process. It causes much more later activity compared to the learning process and has a greater impact on the formation of students’ aesthetic feelings.

We believe that O. Sofishchenko’s opinion that culture-creating activity in higher pedagogical school allows to systematically solve the actual tasks of aesthetic education of students, as it is able to “generate aesthetic ideas, enrich their content, find ways and methods of artistic and figurative expression to convey aesthetic values to the audience” [3, p. 26].

The study suggests that the cultural activity of higher pedagogical education applicants consists in the ability to acquire information and transfer it to the participants of aesthetic activity; rationally allocate time at certain stages of cultural activity; organize systematic independent mastery of beauty, perform creative tasks; exercise self-control of the achieved results of activity.

We believe that the purpose of cultural activities in higher pedagogical education institutions is to transfer (in various forms) social experience, the wealth of spiritual values of mankind to young people and, on this basis, to form a personality that actively learns and multiplies cultural values, follows the traditions of the Ukrainian people and promotes its cultural heritage.

We share the opinion of the researcher I. Korolova, who identifies the following tasks for the implementation of cultural activities of students in higher pedagogical education institutions
– formation of orientations and needs of students in motivating the promotion of environmental and artistic values;
– revealing the aesthetic activity of applicants in feelings, thinking and creativity, which contributes to the preservation of the values of national culture;
– development of applicants’ creative potential based on independently developed skills and abilities, abilities to act creatively and the extent of their implementation in cultural activities aimed at increasing aesthetic values [2].

Thus, to summarize, we note that culture-creating activities in higher pedagogical education institutions are intended to promote self-determination of the future teacher’s personality, its self-realization, increase the level of aesthetic culture and development of creative potential. In the process of its implementation, future teachers acquire the necessary aesthetic experience, practical skills to use it in other activities, and get the opportunity to show an aesthetic attitude to the phenomena of the surrounding reality while communicating with the world of beauty.

List of references

1. Zhornova O. I. Theory and Methods of Formation of Culture Creativity: a monograph: Dyke Pole, 2006. 416 c.
2. Onishchenko O. Aesthetic education: historical traditions and modernity. Art and education. 1998. № 3. С. 2-6.
3. Sofishchenko O. V. Formation of the system of aesthetic values in students of pedagogical educational institution. Kherson, 2002. 226 с.
4. Structure and functions of cultural education of the future teacher. Pedagogy and psychology. 2003. NO. 1 (XXXIII). С. 81-89.