Spirituality of a Personality: Methodology, Theory and Practice

15-32

Authors: T. L. Antonenko, M. V. Bezuhla

The article describes the spiritual and creative potential of students as a key spiritual and cultural value of education. The author has analyzed scientific publications of modern scientists-philosophers, psychologists, culturologists, educators, devoted to this problem. The article presents the author’s definition of the concept "spiritual and cultural potential of students". The emphasis is placed on the importance of attracting students to the implementation of active creative activity in the process of their education, which will allow them to make an ascent from the knowledge gained, enriched with "felt" life experience, to a comprehensive disclosure of their spiritual and creative potential and will make it possible for them to realize the meaning of life, i.e. to live a full life filled with joy, pleasure and happiness. The article provides a characteristic of the ideas of modern scientists-educators about the goals of education at the beginning of the 21st century, among which the focus on the creative self-development of a holistic, creative, initiative, highly spiritual, highly moral, highly cultured, highly educated personality occupies an important place. Particular attention in the article is paid to the characteristics of the main obstacles to the development of the spiritual and creative potential of students. Among them special attention should be paid to the sharp reduction in the number of humanitarian disciplines and art classes in the curricula of universities, which negatively affects the development of spiritual and creative potential as a key students’ spiritual and cultural value of education.

46-56

Authors: A. Yu. Bovt

The article reveals the role of poetry translation in spiritual development of future translators. The paper emphasizes that spiritual development of students should be a priority of the educational process of universities. The relevance of the study lies in the fact that the importance of spiritual development of future translators is not just a subjective opinion, as one of the general competencies identified in the training program is the ability to preserve and multiply moral, cultural, scientific values and achievements of society. This task is impossible without spiritual development, because it is spirituality that gives young people the impetus to find ways to improve the world around them and to self- improve. The author emphasizes the educational potential of poetry as a driving force of spiritual development of personalities of future translators. The work determines that in the process of artistic translation an actualization of one of the needs of a spiritually developed person takes place, namely an artistic need. The paper describes actualization of the translator's creative self-expression, which consists of three stages: professionally- oriented, professionally-practical, and professionally-creative. At the last stage, an activation of creative abilities and capabilities of a student takes place. The peculiarities of the All-Ukrainian student translation contest ‘Artistic word in the world culture’ held annually by the Department of German-Romance Philology and Translation of Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University are described. The purpose of the Contest is to actively involve students in creative activities, to reveal their creative potential, to cultivate a sense of the beauty of words and figurative language of poetic works, to make translation work spiritual. The paper presents examples of poetry for translation that have a high artistic potential, as well as filled with highly spiritual and emotionally elevated images, which contributes to spiritual development of students participating in the contest.

69-82

Authors: A. O. Vitchenko, A. Yu. Vitchenko

The article is devoted to the study of the modern system of academic values, the determination of the approaches to strengthening the academic responsibility in the context of improving the internal mechanisms for ensuring the quality of the higher education. The analysis of the problem showed the presence of the conceptual contradictions in modern theory and practice of quality assurance in higher education, manifested in the recognition of the priority of academic values with the simultaneous levelling of the axiological basis of learning outcomes, in the proclamation of the general responsibility of stakeholders for the quality and a shift in emphasis on institutional mechanisms for its provision. To overcome the identified shortcomings, the system of academic values was defined and characterized, it was noted the need to assign a certain level of the responsibility to each sides, depending on the functional purpose in the system of internal quality assurance: the lecturer is responsible for the quality of teaching and organization of ducation, tutoring and advisory work, exactingness, objectivity in assessment; student is responsible for the quality of learning, performing discipline, self-criticism. Based on the study, it has been proved that the formation of a students’ responsible attitude to their own educational and professional training should be carried out through the coordinated and interconnected development of the academic values system, and the choice of methodological approaches should be based on taking into account the actual needs and aspirations of student youth.

94-104

Authors: N. S. Kravets, T. V. Potapchuk, I. L. Pukas

The authors of the article state that in any profession a person's personality, character, beliefs, morality, attitude to other people are not as crucial as in the profession of teacher, and above all, educator, which obviously confirms the urgency of the problem of forming spiritual values. We have proceed from the fact that it is his mission to transmit the spiritual values of society, to create conditions for their mastery of the younger generation and their reproduction in creative activities, the culture of action of preschool children. The analysis of scientific researches in the field of spiritual education has allowed to define more important, in our opinion, directions of preparation of the future educator: formation of spiritual values of the person; formation of moral and aesthetic ideals, values and semantic guidelines; scientific and methodical training. We consider such spiritual value to be important for the future educator – it is the moral support of the individual, so it is on its example that we will study the formation of spiritual values of future educators. The future educator can show moral support to people of different categories: classmates, important adults, insignificant adults, children. In our opinion, it would be most appropriate to consider the readiness for moral support of children, as its formation should be an integral part of the professional training of future educators. It has been found that, being the embodiment of universal and national qualities of a real person, these spiritual values are a set of specific views, beliefs and are manifested in the judgments of the individual, his character traits and behavior, encourage creativity and self-realization. We believe that the main content of spiritual values are orldviews, universal and moral beliefs. They serve as criteria for evaluating both individual actions and deeds of a person and his whole life.

117-126

Authors: O. P. Luchaninova

Today higher education is experiencing a humanitarian crisis due to the pandemic, the rapid changes in technology, and globalization challenges. This negatively affects highly qualified specialists’ training, as well as the formation of their axiological consciousness, creative thinking, national and cultural identity, and civic responsibility. This approach makes it hard to teach students tolerance, to foster their ability to think and appeal to philosophical, spiritual and cultural categories, to encourage their self-development as professionals and educated, cultural personalities. The problems of spiritual awakening of a personality, the intercultural dialogue encouragement and the attraction of young people to the creation of peaceful and open societies, the encouragement of creativity and various forms of cultural expression to ensure sustainable development appear to be relevant. Domestic universities do not have a due number of effective special courses, social, humanitarian and cultural disciplines that would contribute to solving these problems. At that, teachers-scientists and practitioners from all over the world and from Ukraine in particular have a number of practices related to education technologies and apply educational practices in the process of students’ professional training. The author emphasizes that among the scientific and applied practices in students’ upbringing, there are issues of social responsibility, formation of civic competencies, civic education, social and civic skills, upbringing through education, etc. Along with the ability to be a cultured, harmoniously developed personality, there arises a responsibility as a key competence in higher education. It is a responsible, tolerantly educated personality of a future specialist that is the key to spiritual security of any society. Research experience and educational practices of European and Ukrainian universities are very valuable. The current tasks to be solved include the forms and methods of students' social responsibility development, their civic consciousness, moral and cultural values, spiritual safety, leadership in a student environment, means of encouraging students to be civic, a role of an educational space, updating an educational system of higher education institutions and educational servers. Spiritual awakening of a personality during globalization challenges can only occur due to their acceptance of civic values through culture and social responsibility. Today Ukrainian universities not only carry out students’ professional training, but also generate their social ideology.

137-148

Authors: E. О. Pomytkin, L. V. Pomytkina

The problem of the spiritual awakening of the individual at the present stage of human development is actualized. The ideas of spiritual awakening in the views of religious leaders, philosophers, psychologists and teachers are given. The psychological mechanisms of the development of this process in ontogenesis are considered, including identification with a person who has a high spiritual potential; decentration as the ability to free oneself from self-centeredness and taking into account the needs of others; reflection, which leads to the ability to pay attention to your inner world and experience; transcendence associated with the peak experiences of the personality, striving for the absolute, perfect, ideal; awareness of the unity of being, makes it possible for the individual to comprehend himself as a part of a single whole - the human community, nature, the Universe. Based on the results of a biographical analysis of the life paths of spiritual ascetics in the history of mankind, the psychological regularities of the spiritual ascent of an individual are highlighted, in particular, the determination of spiritual awakening by spiritual ideals, meanings and values learned in early childhood; thoughtfulness in the years of early childhood over global world problems, including life and death, wealth and poverty, disadvantaged and offended children; meeting with a person - a carrier of high spiritual potential, becomes fateful; conditionality of spiritual awakening by an information impetus as a result of reading a certain book or important life events, losses that make you think about the meaning of life. It is concluded that it is necessary to create psychological and pedagogical conditions favorable for the spiritual awakening of young people in the system of modern education. The psychological and pedagogical conditions favorable for the actualization of the psychological mechanisms of the spiritual awakening of youth are determined.

165-178

Authors: Mira Sartika

Behavioural epigenetics is defined as the study of how epigenetic alterations induced by experience and environmental stress may affect animal (human) behaviour, which describes the epigenetic alterations caused by environmental enrichments. Environmental enrichment generally relates to the provision of environmental stimuli that promotes the expression of species-appropriate behaviour and mental activities. Until today, there is no conclusive determination on what kind of experience and environmental stress that affect human behaviour, and what kind of environmental enrichments facticity that induces epigenetic alterations. Vast definition of environmental and experience stress forces us to observe more complex yet substantial in nature in addition to biological processes, that is culture. We specifically determine a well-known cultural behaviour having been consistently conducted generation after generation by almost all cultural communities the world over: the rites of passage. By using qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) approach, we shall determine the purpose and enactment of the rites generally, and compare them to the case-study research in genetic phenomena. The aim of this paper is to find the interwoven connection of the rites of passage to genetic events as to how such rites may induce epigenetic alterations influencing behavioural epigenetics hence affording to strengthen individual healthiness, spiritual and cultural values. We may propose that the rites of passage are necessarily beyond spiritual practises, yet more to healthiness especially that related to the harmonization of individual’s genetic and epigenetic processes toward environment. Succinctly, using intersection study between social and life sciences, we expect to result in more comprehensive understanding about the subject matter observed.

188-196

Authors: O. F. Sbitnieva

The article investigates the problem of vocal culture development of future vocalists in the process of professional training. It is noted that the requirements for the content of art education necessitate the improvement of training of future vocalists, consideration of priority areas for improving its vocal culture, finding optimal forms and methods of developing vocal culture of future professionals. It is emphasized that vocal art is the most popular form of musical art, which combines music, singing, speech, poetry and stage culture. The artistic content of vocal works is transmitted by means of the singing voice, forms a powerful educational environment around itself, directly influencing all participants in the artistic and pedagogical process. The author of the article notes that a review of the history of vocal art shows that prominent representatives of different vocal schools (Italian, French, Russian, German and Ukrainian) are united by general methodological provisions and artistic orientation: deep sincerity and truthfulness of artistic interpretation, ability to reveal the work, vivid persuasiveness. It is emphasized that the study of scientific and methodological literature shows that the important issues of future vocalists vocal culture are the following: the development of technical skills of vocalists, the physiology of the singing process, preparation of future vocalists for performance and more. The author of the article notes that the effectiveness of vocal and performing culture of future vocalists depends on the focus of educational work on deepening the processes of perception, imagination, reproduction, which is directly related to all mental operations of students, the development of their thinking in general. It is substantiated that the most important vocal and pedagogical principles of forming the professional culture of a vocalist can be considered: musical and artistic education of the singer; development of musical and vocal hearing; individual approach to learning; imitation of the vocal tradition of the teacher; the process of forming the vocal culture of students in the positions of expediency, necessity, efficiency and success; the principle of gradualness, consistency and continuity; the principle of unity of artistic and technical development; the principle of awareness of the specifics of vocal and methodological activities; the principle of creative activity.

210-220

Authors: A. S. Ushakov

The article considers the potential of humanitarian disciplines in the formation of person of culture spiritualized image among students. The research substantiates the expediency of an extensive humanitarian training, that is one of the conditions for the formation of person of culture image. Person of culture image is the embodiment of cultural values and is an integral part of humanitarian consciousness. Cultural creativity brings one closer to the values of culture, since creativity serves as a background for culture, the source of potential for transformation, uniqueness. Transformative activity contributes to the formation of cultural and creative abilities, creating something new a person enriches not only the cultural heritage, but also develops his/her own way of thinking, reflection, creativity, revealing internal potential. Humanitarian disciplines build up humanistic outlook of the applicant for higher education the result of which is the attitude to a person as the highest value, the acceptance of set universal values and social norms. The formation of person of culture image presupposes an emphasis on the process of accumulating and interiorizing of cultural and spiritual values, as well as the willing to create: knowledge, ideas, sensory impressions, talents, in general, cultural meanings, which are multiplied not so much by guardians and keepers, but by the creators of cultural values and meanings. The author proves the necessity of including a cycle of humanitarian disciplines as an important condition for the formation of person of culture image, requiring the design of an appropriate structured system of students’ humanitarian training.

234-257

Authors: Leslie John Francis, Andrew Village, Christopher Alan Lewis

The experience under consideration in this study is rooted in the Covid-19 pandemic as crystalised in the events in England and Wales between late March 2020 and July 2020, when the Government imposed a national lockdown and when the Church of England imposed a national lock-up on its churches. The religious tradition under consideration is the Christian theological response to human disease and suffering. For considerable periods during the Covid-19 pandemic, England and Wales were in lockdown and churches were closed. Church services were live-streamed or pre-recorded for internet-savvy members to access online at home. For some clergy the pandemic may have been a challenge to faith, while for others the experience of the pandemic may have been an opportunity to re-kindle faith. A sample of 1,050 Anglican clergy serving in England completed an online survey including the newly developed Lewis Index of Spiritual Awakening (LISA) alongside a range of other measures. The Lewis Index of Spiritual Awakening (LISA) was found to have good psychometric properties. The data demonstrated that considerably more Anglican clergy experienced a sense of spiritual awakening during the pandemic than experienced a spiritual decline. The data also demonstrated that higher levels of spiritual awakening among Anglican clergy were associated with two factors, one psychological and one ecclesial. Clergy who report higher scores of spiritual awakening are more emotionally stable, associated with one of the two wings of the Anglican Church (Evangelical or Anglo-Catholic) rather than with the middle way of Broad Church, and influenced by the Charismatic Movement.

270-283

Authors: D. Paul Schafer

We are going through a very challenging period in human history. Not only has the COVID-19 pandemic had a disastrous effect on people and countries in all parts of the world, but also many other dangerous and life threatening problems have to be addressed and overcome, especially the environmental crisis, huge disparities in income and wealth, systemic racism, and conflicts between different genders, groups, regions, countries, and cultures. In order to come to grips with these problems, and others, it is imperative to make transcendental and not just transformational changes in our lifestyles, values, worldviews, actions, behaviour, and ways of life. The key to this lies in creating an effective balance between materialism and spiritualism, as well as placing a much higher priority on the cultivation of spirituality in our lives in the traditional and contemporary sense. Not only will this make it possible to reduce the colossal demands we are making on the natural environment – largely because most spiritual activities are "human intensive" rather than "material intensive" and therefore don’t consume as many natural resources as most other activities – but also it will enable present and future generations to experience a great deal more exuberance, exhilaration, and ecstasy in life without having to resort to drugs and other substances and devices to create "highs" and "peak experiences" because spiritual activities achieve this naturally. Many of these activities involve participating in causes that are greater than ourselves, joining protest movements aimed at creating more equality and justice in the world, going within ourselves to discover who we really are and what we were intended to realize in life, broaden and deepen our experiences in the arts, cultures, and the cultural heritage of humankind, and engage in explorations in nature and the natural realm that are capable of bringing us into contact with the sublime and possibly even the divine.