Scientific journal

European Journal of Natural History

ISSN 2073-4972

ИФ РИНЦ = 0,301

According to V.S. Lazarev, developing schools concentrate mostly on the education content as it is the education content that is affected by development and serves as its indicator. For our School of traditional Russian culture it is designing educational and instructional system as a single unit and as a comprehensive pedagogical megasystem. And as educational content is connected with a renovating educational process, in other words with an innovative process, modeling of which serves as a basis of all systematic changes in the personality and school development management, designing education content model for our school is at the bottom of all its innovation activities. According to V.S. Lednev all activities in a renovating school are factors in personality development which means school development as a whole, and are elements of education content structure at the level of separate subjects [4].

As we already mentioned, education content as an innovation and as a development process consists of four levels:

1) theoretical;

2) designing curriculum and course programs;

3) designing a definite education process in the form of plans for the whole year;

4) a separate class.

Designing educational content gives a scientific ground for renovating educational activity of the School of traditional Russian culture and its development management.

As modern pedagogical science states , education is a process and the result of personality development and upbringing in a definite historical and cultural environment. Education is a controlled by society standardized process of constant transfer of socially significant experience from preceding to succeeding generation which ontogenetically represents the process of personality development in accordance with the genetic and social programs [2, p. 24] This systematic and multifunctional definition implies the transfer of spiritual experience by preceding generations as expressed in steady customs – traditional culture. “….The process of education includes not only personality education, but also the transfer of culture by the preceding generations” [4]. Education content means a system of scientific knowledge and skills which ensure all-round personality development [6, p. 366] including spiritual development. Education content presupposes a well- planned educational activity which brings about changes in a person, changes in his or her traits and characteristic features. [5, p. 54], that is why the social experience of people and traditional culture transformed into educational activity are taken into consideration in setting education goals.

Today traditional culture in its broadest meaning is absent in society and it doesn’t function as an environment either. That is why bringing it into education content not only doesn’t decrease in value the main education components but it creates additional stimuli for renovating the whole content the goal of which is to create (bring up) an integrated personality using the traditional mechanisms of cultural experience transfer.

Education content includes:

1) assimilating the experience of preceding generations;

2) training typological behavior traits;

3) psychological and physical personality development.

For the School of traditional Russian culture that means:

1) knowledge of traditional culture plus skills and competencies acquired by mastering crafts and through application of cultural knowledge;

2) adopting behavioral anchors through folklore and its ceremonial and play content;

3) adopting and accepting values of Orthodox morality.

Education content also includes four types of main elements which we use in the education activity of the School of traditional Russian culture “Vasyuganie”:

1) system of knowledge;

2) system of skills and competencies;

3) creative experience;

4) emotional and prudent attitude to the world.

For the School of traditional Russian culture “Vasyuganie” the knowledge system is connected with the language component and the knowledge of traditional culture as a whole and the system of skills and competencies is connected with crafts and folk art. Experience of folk art is the main part of the whole education and upbringing process in the School of traditional Russian culture “Vasyuganie” The experience of emotional and prudent world attitude is connected with spiritual or moral spiritual student activity both in theory and in practice. Let us consider the structure of education content of our designed model based on “assimilating the experience of preceding generations”, which in our innovative model means: the knowledge of traditional culture, skills and competencies acquired through mastering crafts and through applying cultural knowledge.

Invariant part of ethnic cultural education and upbringing structure in the School of traditional Russian culture “Vasyuganie” is connected with experience transfer through traditions and, thus, the development of basic personality traits: moral, communicative, aesthetic, physical, and occupational.

That is why the structure of traditional personality experience covering cognitive component and set of values as expressed in

1) personality traits;

2) personal experience;

3) qualification ( special and general education);

4) creative experience is reflected in the education content structure.

The particular feature of education (studying) in the School of traditional Russian culture “Vasyuganie” is the influence of culture transfer mechanisms on educational and creative activity and the effect of additional reserves which affect personality psychology. The education in the School of traditional Russian culture “Vasyuganie” is also connected with upbringing in the broadest meaning of the world and its content ensures all-round personality development: personality traits, experience, etc. That is why personality structure serves as determinant of the education content structure (Table 1).

Let us consider subjects and courses of our innovative education model.

Table 1

Personality structure and education content in the School of traditional Russian culture (Determinants’ Table)

Education content structural units in the School of traditional Russian culture comprise subjects and subject cycles, courses and disciplines, as well as theoretical and practical education. Relying on the theory of invariant and active education content V.S. Lednev singles out separate activity types invariant to the scientific knowledge structure. These types are to be found in traditional culture. Among them he singles out cognitive, goal-oriented and conative, communicative, transformative, artistic, and physical activities which correspond to the division of scientific knowledge into subject cycles: intellectual, social, linguistic, aesthetic, occupational, physical and moral and spiritual. Applying this theoretical provision to our school we get the following subject cycles:

1. Aesthetic – artistic cycle:

1) painting (folk painting, drawing, composition, working with different materials);

2) music (folk musical instruments, solfeggio, general piano, etc.).

2. Occupational cycle: craft basics (craft technology, craft types); artistic occupation (handicraft types, bead weaving, willow weaving, etc.)

3. Social cycle: spiritual anthropology, Christian anthropology (Orthodox culture), and folk games.

4. Linguistic cycle – folklore, language history, philology.

5. Intellectual cycle: ethnography, cultural anthropology, philosophy, scientific research, and project activity.

The education content determines the study material and characterizes the learning process connected with personality development and personality focus. That is why subjects and subject cycles are organized in accordance with the personality experience structure, the activity structure and also in accordance with the object of study structure, in our case it is traditional culture as a whole.

The education content structure in the School of traditional Russian culture is influenced by the activity structure and the corresponding structure of personality experience (Table 2)

Let us consider subjects and study disciplines that touch upon many fields (pass-through subjects). In the School of traditional Russian culture such subjects are: specialized (musical and artistic); general cultural (general aesthetic, ethno aesthetic); pre-professional – profession –oriented (craft, ethno pedagogics); general studies (artistic occupation, technology, lore). Pass-through subjects in the subject cycles are: general humanities (for music department – general piano, solfeggio, music history, decoding of folk songs; for art department – drawing, painting, composition; for all departments – ethnography basics, language history, world art). Pass-through subjects for all departments in the School of traditional Russian culture are:

1. Orthodox culture.

2. Artistic occupation (crafts, handiwork).

3. Ethnographic research (expeditions to study regional natural history).

4. Traditional culture as a theoretical and practical subject (folk holidays, folk games, folk rituals, folklore).

All of them serve not only their specific purposes but contribute to the task of creating spiritual component of personality culture and at different education levels.

Table 2

Table 3

The particular feature of these fields of knowledge is their integrity, interchangeability, and complementability. And this helps the child to choose an activity.

Structural units in the designed education model in the School of traditional Russian culture (activity types, courses, subjects, subject cycles).

Each activity (and there are seven of them in the School: aesthetic, artistic, intellectual, cognitive, communicative (communicative and game, ceremony and game), occupational, moral and spiritual) has two sides: it is a separate subject and a component of another study course. Thus such subject as Orthodox culture is a component of folk singing, liturgical singing, music folklore, artistic modeling, handiwork, crafts, and folk painting.

Separate courses include different subjects adding to the content of the course. Thus solfeggio includes music theory and music literacy. Folk singing includes ensemble and solo singing. Orthodox culture is based on Scripture, the Church Slavonic language, patristic literature, and devotional arts.

Separate disciplines, courses and subjects comprise structural units in the education content in the School of traditional Russian culture. Study complex is arranged according to the following model:

1. Subject basics – intellectual formation, building world outlook (cultural anthropology history, philology, philosophy).

2. Social studies: Orthodox culture, traditional culture, world fiction.

3. Linguistic studies: lore, philology, folklore.

4. Aesthetic studies: folk art.

5. Occupational studies: crafts and handiwork.

6. Physical activity: folk games