In this article attempt of world outlook judgment of problems of education on the former Soviet Union is carried out. The special attention is paid to questions of humanitarization of education. Authors convincingly prove need of formation for an education system of the complete personality which is capable to make not only professional solutions, but also actively to join in a sociocultural picture of the world.
Modern world with its numerous ‘-tions’ (modernization, globalization, transformation, etc.) resembles a child who got out of parents’ absolute control. He does not know yet what is good or what is bad, what is important and what is minor. Intoxicated with freedom he welcomes positively all the novelties. He begins living not for something but despite… Despite fixed stereotypes, aggressive standards, outdated norms. The freedom turned into an all-forgiving decoration. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise, freedom of freedom, freedom of relations, freedom from… Here we come to the most terrible thing. The man in his throes of postmodern interpretations ‘cognizes’ the freedom from responsibilities. He gets the opportunity for uncompromising self-actualization (Maslow). The man hesitates to admit that in his indiscrimination he was gradually caught in a mesh of freedoms. What is to be done? Who is to blame? –these questions do not seem so archaic in these circumstances. In this connection we would like to share some ideas of ours. These ideas were caused by the current processes in our educational sphere. Nowadays it is undoubtedly important to realize the role of science and education in formation and development of human capital. We have to answer the universal questions: What person is able to join in the high-speed train of civilization — reasonable, pragmatic, utilitarian, cynical to some extent, or are we aimed at the portrait of an intellectual who has keen senses of the peculiarities of modern anthropogenic civilization, and is able to oppose to it with the delicate notions and spiritual symbols? This opposition is obviously aggressive and pointless. It is necessary to understand that the excessiveness of one or another part leads to either the triumph of indulgent pragmatism or the occupation of social impressionism. The answer to this question depends largely on the system of education and our attitude. It is not a secret that the basic worldview attitudes of the youth are formed at the age of 16–18. Here our pedagogics can serve as a forming factor. Modern system of education is mobile, dynamic, updated and productive. It gives many opportunities for those students who want to get knowledge and skills. Great emphasis is laid on the self-guided work, which makes it sort of advance in independent intellectual effort. Moreover, a young man can choose his own educational path, he chooses the most necessary subjects to his opinion, shows his good attitudes to the teachers and professors, and has the possibility to receive some extra-curriculum knowledge (with additional credits).
Nowadays a number of social factors affect the necessity to revise the system of education. Further development of higher education is now a strategic direction for many countries, including modern Kazakhstan.
The concept of development of education is changing to meet the demands of the time. Its paradigm is an active person who is both a condition and a means of training the modern specialist who can meet the demands of social, scientific and technical progress.
The new paradigm of higher education in Kazakhstan can be implemented only on the principles of personal activity, humanization, integration of education, science and production, consideration of national and regional components of education, correspondence of higher education with social goals, personal plans, social and market need for higher education. But today the process of knowledge acquisition takes a considerable and growing part of the specialist’s personal life. This tendency appeared as a result of complication of professional activity, the necessity to acquire a great deal of knowledge and information on the one hand and the limited capacity of human brain on the other.
The humanitarian training of specialists is a constituent of training process. Social and Humanities, in particular Philosophy, History of Culture, Religion Studies, Social Science and Political Science play an important role. Therefore, certain changes in the system of education occur in teaching Social and Humanities. To begin with, it is a substantial innovative improvement of the contents of the subjects of Social and Humanities in accordance with social practice. Second direction is connected with the adoption of new approaches to the organization of the learning process, its individualization, when the learner becomes a key figure of the learning process. These opportunities appear with the transfer to the credit technology in educational process. The third direction involves the ergonomisation of education and learning. It is connected with the development and implementation of the most effective methods which considerably improve the quality of teaching with the highest possible minimization of their time and intellectual efforts. Further development and use of problem-solving teaching is also of great importance. One of the fundamental directions today is the use of the new technologies of teaching, its computerization, use of training and monitoring programs in Social and Humanities.
Unfortunately, nowadays the teaching of the subjects of Social and Humanities is carried out mainly with the help of reproductive method (explanation and illustration). This does not allow to solve effectively the problems that the higher school faces.
The interest to social sciences and their authority cannot be provided automatically, without the students’ understanding of their theoretical and practical value in their activity. The practice of work with the students shows that it is fully provided when the social scientists use the problem-solving teaching in higher education institutes. Still, to our opinion, we can consider it as a long-drawn transition to the problemsolving teaching. This long-drawn transition was stipulated by several objective and subjective reasons:
- introduction of new subject into the universities curricula, 2. substantial revision of the contents of previous disciplines, 3. insufficient training of many teachers in the sphere of scientific methods of teaching,
- fixed teaching stereotypes, overestimation by teachers of their own experience and underestimation of the new achievements of pedagogical and psychological science as a scientific and psychological basis of teaching methods.
The problem-solving teaching and explanatory-illustrative teaching used in our universities have common features (educational aims, didactic and psychological principles, forms and means of learning) as well as considerable differences in the methods of knowledge acquirement, types of thinking, character of information and results of learning.
Theory and methods of the problem-solving teaching are not well-developed in respect to the contents of the new subjects of Social and Humanities.
It is known that the problem-solving teaching has ideological, methodological, social, pedagogical and psychological grounds. Their implementation in the learning process allows the teacher to form creative, cognitive and civil activity of the students and the future specialists.
The problem-solving teaching is the most correspondent with the modern aims of education and teaching the subjects of Social and Humanities. In order to successfully implement the problem-solving teaching, it is necessary to develop its theory and methods for all the forms of learning process and for new or renewed disciplines of social science. The problem-solving teaching is not a goal in itself, but a didactic means encouraging a deeper and more creative acquirement of subjects of Social and Humanities by students and the use of their theoretical and practical potential.
I have been teaching philosophy at the university for over 20 years. I like my job, it assumes the constant intercourse with the youth. However, it is clear that old teaching formats and old methodological constructions don not work anymore, and the new ones are difficult and slow to create. Unfortunately, we must admit that today only the form is actively changing — the new interactive boards, electronic textbooks, etc. But the content is still the same, veiled under the new forms. It is obvious that neither the teachers nor the students, who are sceptical about our subject due to triumph rationalism and utilitarianism, are satisfied with this situation. We can be mistaken, but every year there are fewer students who like our subject. Many of them wonder why they need Philosophy if they study at the Law or Economics departments. The teachers’ task is to change the situation in such way that our confident presence in the classroom would be the answer to these seemingly tactless questions. Philosophy is a necessary constituent, it bears the reasonable academism, classical idea of education. And we should always illustrate it, understand it and keep it in mind.
We can remember the Kazakh philosophical school that reverberated all over the country. The maîtres of Kazakhstan philosophy A.N.Nyssanbaev, A.Kh. Kassimzhanov, Zh.M.Abildin, T.S.Anzhanov defined largely the prospects of development of philosophical thought in Kazakhstan. The new wave of philosophers — G.Essim, T.Gabitov, B.Nurzhanov, Zh. Altaev, B.Kolumbaev, V.Baturin, M.Izotov and many others — are carrying out research investigations and thus continue the great traditions.
Still, we think that our today’s success in this sphere is far too modest, although we have many opportunities. What is the problem? Firstly, it is the common tendency of dehumanization of education. We shift to the educational formats of pragmatic character. Soul, spirit, and meaning of world-view constituent — we place these concepts into the sphere of secondary, accidental notions. Secondly, to our opinion, we moved to the level of world outlook anarchism, methodological uncertainty explaining it as a freedom of interpretations. Is there the way out of this situation? Is it possible to return to the original status of philosophy as the Queen of the Sciences? Are we still able to be surprised? (Aristotle) How to teach philosophy in the modern educational coordinates? There are many question and they deserve a deeper look, comprehension and discussion. We think it is necessary to develop a unified position in this question, a position which still does not reject the diversity. It is also important because the concept of 12-year secondary education is being actively developed and introduced in Kazakhstan. This model implies the including into the school curriculum certain themes and problems of humanities that previously were taught only at the higher schools (the author of the article is one of the authors of the program on the subject ‘Human. Society. Law’).
In this connection we offer to organize a congress of Kazakhstan philosophers where we can discuss these urgent problems, share our experience, develop the unitary methods of teaching philosophy, define the state educational standards, etc. It would be symbolic to organize the congress of philosophers on the International Day of Philosophy, proclaimed by UNESCO, every third Thursday of November. We hope to find the support from our colleagues.