Problems of Education in the 21st Century

5-6

Authors: Vincentas Lamanauskas

The 4th edition of publication “Problems of Education in the 21st Century” is in front of you. The main idea of this publication, not without reason, is paradigm change in modern education. We can safely claim that the role of education in the global world is, undoubtedly, the biggest comparing with the other spheres of social life. Education dimensions have grown up greatly in almost all countries. Informal education sector has increased immensely. The most modern ICT are being implemented into education system. Perhaps we will not find any scientific conference in which the questions of ICT application in education process were not discussed. It is not difficult to foresee necessary changes theoretically, to discuss about paradigm changes on a methodological level, but it is much more difficult to put these ideas into practice because of various both subjective and objective reasons. It is necessary to really perceive the mission of education and other questions of education, to analyze them from different perspectives, taking into consideration different theoretical and practical approaches. Education is not a one-day matter. The rule 'Education is in the hands of those who have power' doesn‘t suit here. To develop education is almost to be ready that everything what is moral in your mind will inevitably be overcome by immorality of real world (Butvilas, 2006). Education in the socioeconomical and cultural context is multiform. Therefore, we can‘t one-sidedly accept a statement that moving from teaching to learning is a new paradigm indeed. Its newness is limited by time, amount, content and application aspects. This edition contains different articles. I hope that the articles included in this publication will interest the readers by their problematics, content, methodology of research and its methods, will encourage their systematic and critical thought, will make them active in scientific discussions.

14-21

Authors: Ramune Burskaitiene

Human rights and quality of general education has got political shades as well as educational. Political aspects of the human rights can be analyzed while discussing what has the priority when the conflict among social, economical, cultural and human is just interests occurs. While forming society’s value system, which is based on the human rights, and legislative (that is the exact requirement for the countries, which already are or strive to become the members of the EU/ EC) importance of qualitative education is given prominence. However, the rights do not exist of themselves. Firstly, the society has to know about them. So human, and especially children’s, rights have to be presented to the society and the triad of the Past- Present- Future, which is encoded in these rights, has to be revealed. The secret of this formula is that pupils have to know about the past if they want to create the future because it is the reason of the present. It is very important to be able to work here and now and to use all the possibilities when you create the future. Efficiency of implementation of the education quality and children’s rights can not be dissociated from schoolteachers’ competency, strategic thinking ability, preparation and provided help.

31-38

Authors: Lorena Mihelač

The purpose of the paper is to expose the role and the significance of teacher in the contemporary society of the 21st century as well as the different forms of transformations the modern way of educating is forced to go through in Slovenia. A special emphasis will be on music education in primary schools and on searching answers on the following questions: • how is the importance of the present migration streams reflecting on the transformation of the education process and on the renovation of the program for music education • how does the renewed program for music education corresponds on the requests of the multicultural society and how are the teachers qualified for its representation • in which way does the contemporary education of teachers consider the role of mass media and its significance in formation of a »mass opinion« in the field of music In the last chapter of the paper, some activities during the study will be represented, which should be attended if choosing teaching at schools as a profession.

46-56

Authors: Tamara A. Artashkina

In the course of historical evolution the following main channels that form, consolidate and transmit the individual picture of the world: mythology; religion; philosophy; science; education are developed. In modern environment the abovementioned channels have been expanded by new ones: information technologies, cinematographic art, modern television. Education ceases to be the main channel responsible for formation, consolidation and transmission of the individual picture of the world. The common feature of the new channels is not the rational thought but a profoundly emotional reaction of a person to the environment. Withdrawal from the tradition of realism becomes one more means of formation of specific virtual reality. At present there are two pictures of the world: natural-science and humanitarian, in trivial consciousness they, as a rule, don’t correlate. This is reflected in discussions on the subject matter of school education. This is the reason for the following principle that comes into effect: it is necessary that representatives of Humanities commence “to come down” to the problems of Natural Science, and representatives of Natural Science should “come up” to the level of humanitarian problems. From didactic point of view this stated principle shall lead to setting of the issue of formation of the picture of the world in the subject matter of school education. Modern movies and television programs reflect the latest scientific achievements, hypotheses and guesses much faster than the subject matter of school education. The active process of mythologisation of individual picture of the world is observed in modern society due to the inter-textual character of visual images created with the help of modern mass media. The subject matter of school education should work on the special mechanism of prompt reaction to any innovation in the area of modern science. It means that the subject matter of education, at schools in the first place, can not be static and rigid. General education requires appropriate mechanism of popularization of scientific achievements.

65-72

Authors: Nikolay V. Gapanovich-Kajdalov, Ekaterina V. Gapanovich-Kajdalova

Self-education, as the highest form of the satisfaction of cognitive personality need, is connected with demonstration of significant volitional efforts, high degree of a person’s consciousnesses, acceptance of responsibility on oneself for one’s professional formation and improvement. In the study during the latest years it was repeatedly emphasized that the obligatory condition of efficient activity of a modern specialist is his skill in realizing independent search and conversion of necessary information (Kotlyarova, Kotova, 2006; Lobanov, Drozdova, 2005; Oleks, 2004; Sergeenkova, 2006 and others.). The modern system of experts preparation is focused on the formation of the active subject in the activity, which capable of getting knowledge independently, of applying it in labour and professional work. In this connection the increase of a role of independent work in educational process is natural. The definition of the notion « independent work of learners » is given in the article and the basic psychological components of its efficiency are analyzed. The results of authors’ long-term researches of the problem, which is connected with the formation of skills of the organization of learners’ educational and research activity, are given. The results of the comparative analysis of a self-estimation of formed skills in self-preparation of students and students of the Institute of professional skill improvement and staff retraining, dynamics of formed skills of independent work among the students of a specialty "Psychology" during the course of study are given in detail. The research has revealed the forms of independent work, which are most frequently used in educational activity both by students, and listeners (independent work with dictionaries, encyclopedias, directories, etc.). The forms of independent work which cause difficulties for students and first – year students are revealed as well (preparation of reports for conferences and publications in periodicals; methods of research work, computer data processing, etc.). The actions directed on the increase of efficiency of training skills formation, skills of independent work and increase of internal motivation of creative professional work also are offered in the article.

82-88

Authors: Maija Zakrizevska, Ivans Janis Mihailovs

The target of this article is to analyze theoretically the understanding and interpretation of the theory of social representations of S.Moskovici, investigating them in a society of Latvia and preparing psychology specialists in higher education establishments. In the first part of article – the development of the theory of social representations the commencement of the theory of social conception is shortly described, and the analysis of the term of E.Durkheim “collective representations” is performed. In the second part – the essence of the theory of social representations of French psychologist S.Moskovici is described. The root point of conclusions of S.Moskovici is his thesis about the world of representation – a peculiar “kind of the reality”, with which the individual comes into the contact in the daily life. The anchoring and objectification make mechanisms of social perceptions that connect with the categorization, language, verbalization, and memory. In the third part of the article – the mentioned investigations that are performed in Europe are investigations of social representations, starting with the investigation of S.Moskovici psychoanalysis of S.Moskovici till nowadays. However, the analysis of social representations are not widespread in Latvia due to different delaying factors. However, as one of the main important investigations can be named the promotion work of A.Ruza on European Community states. In the fourth part of the article – the theory of social representations in education - the multi-side use and inclusion of the theory of social conceptions in Europe in study programs, as well as the use of this program in other Universities of Latvia, implementing studies not only in the area of psychology, but also in the area of other sciences. In the last fifth part of the article conclusions and proposals are given that are essential for the development of studies and investigation of social representations in Latvia: 1) The development of new investigation projects, uniting the total scientific potential; 2) The translation of works of representatives and critics of social representations in Latvian must be promoted, as well as the study course options must be developed and proposed where students of Latvian Universities could participate; 3) Investigation processes must be promoted, including the new generation in them, expanding publishing possibilities, including, solving issues in the level of state about the support to magazines of professional areas; 4) In the context of searching new ideas and approaches, the mutual cooperation of scientists must be promoted, including representatives of other social and humanitarian sciences in an investigation of social representations, that conforms basically to the inter-disciplinary access, popular in the world, letting to look at already known things with a new view.

96-110

Authors: Olga Logashenko, Lyudmila Lomakina

In post-industrial society the paradigm of education has changed towards the personal orientation and humanization. The turning of the higher education in Russia to the two-level system has emphasized the understanding of importance of education got by personality means of self-realization in life and making a personal career. The psihologo-pedagogical study of the correlation between individual peculiarities, sex differences and self-consciousness at student’s age is actual due to the necessity in the process of professional training to take into account some reorientations of consciousness from the space of personal experiences and self-cognition in the system of interrelations to the search and identification of one’s place in life, self-determination as a member of society. The Proposed methodology of the study includes: a) the methodological base- of the theory of the action, personality-oriented and value-oriented approaches, the concept of personality-professional development of students, the theory of the tendency to sense and logoterapy of V.FRANKL, the theory of the interpersonal relations; b) the stages of the study- preliminary, certifying, comparative, interpretational, practice-oriented; c) the methods of the study- observation, interview, testing, statistical processing of results, qualitative analysis of experimental data; d) the methodic of the study- modified by us "Test orientations for the life sense searching (OLSS)", the questionnaire of social-psychological adaptation (SPA). Methodological approaches applied in this study have the practical meaning for foregrounding and predictive of personal of social adaptation and for the realization of the principles of individual approach to the professional progress of future teachers of Psychology.