Текст книги "Образ человека будущего, Том 7 (СИ)"

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Teachers" experience

We would like to add some findings from 5 interviews with teachers. Actually, they were 4 teachers and 1 school psychologist. The main things we had understood with students did not change after the interviews with teachers. We just tried to catch the wisdom of experienced people and add it to the whole picture.

Iryna, a teacher of elementary school, is 25 years in profession. Her sense of profession: «I am working, because it is mine. I get used to it, I like it and I just cannot be without it.» The difficulties of the profession do not overweight a satisfaction that Iryna gets from teaching. Those flashes of inspiration, desire to give something special to pupils, to teach them thinking, to evoke their creativity supports the teacher in her work. The work holds her. Her thoughts are busy after working hours. She thinks about her work, her pupils. Still, it fulfills her, gives her wings.

The phenomenon of calling for Iryna is both internal and external: «That is not just our own device. We feel a push for it from outside.» Mainly calling is a matter of self-actualization. For the person it brings happiness up to the end of the life, but loftily speaking it is also a mission. Her calling is for people, not the deeds, but people call. The teacher sees the faces of children in her mind and they inspire her to stay in profession, to respond them with her devotion.

Yevhen, 13 years in teaching of English, is looking at calling as a way of honest life. Chil-dren will not allow one to lie. Knowledge that teacher gives is not just a bunch of facts on a subject, but it is a way to know the world and oneself. Moreover, it is a kind of attitude to life: be conscious, know thyself, be responsible, and bring benefit to the world. That starts from school.

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«Teacher»s calling is to bring young people to their callings", that is how we understand

Yevhen. That is the core of the teacher"s mission in the world. If one is called to teach, he or she leads young generation by the way of knowledge and prompts them to be mature, respon-sible and beneficial citizens. That is a way to make young people happy in their lives.

Therefore, to be a teacher is a different thing than just to have a teacher"s job. Teaching is a way of living when internal work never stops.

Svitlana has been a teacher of Ukrainian language and literature for 30 years. Teaching is a task not only to help young people find their own ways, but also to show those ways in purpose, to give the direction in the society, even to make them patriots of their land and cul-ture. Black weekdays are shined for the teacher by the asterisks of children"s success, because everyone has own talent.

«For Ukrainians calling is what they feel by heart and then recognize in mind», says Svit-lana. Teacher is called to bring goodness and knowledge into the world. Teacher"s calling is permanent development in order to develop others. «Teacher is a perpetual pupil.»

Laura is a teacher of arts and social educator at school. For 32 years she has been in ed-ucation starting from a day nursery and then working at school. Calling for her is an internal flame that she carries all the life. It can be strong or weak sometimes, but it cannot extinguish. Whatever various it is or looks like, in its essence it is the same. Calling always finds its way of realization and influences the surrounding. It is holistic. Thus, Laura"s gift for painting is not a hobby or just a tool for a lesson. It is a part of educating process and her art-therapy.

For the educator calling is a passion to help people and a will to achieve a positive result, because the result is a benefit for the life of children and their families. Educator has to be a winner, not a dominator, but a strong person able to take risk and to achieve goals. Teaching a-priory serves good purposes, for education cannot be evil in essence.

Caroline has been working at school for a one and a half year. She is a psychologist doing her PhD project. A career consultancy or vocational guidance is a part of her work with pupils. Caroline says that she does not teach, but she guides. As a psychologist, she likes bringing people to their own right solutions.

Her calling as an educator and a school psychologist is to help young people to realize themselves and to find out what they like to do and to be. «All the taste of life, its beauty and diversity is what one called for. Still, it is one»s choice to go for it or do not go. We cannot drive one into a calling", says Caroline.

Comparisons with the results of Jared T. Bigham"s research "Role of

Spirituality in Persons Choosing a Career in Education:

Calling as a Motivating Factor"

One of the sources of inspiration for the presented research was the article of Jared Bigham and Samuel Smith «Called to Teach: Interpreting the Phenomenon of Calling as a Motivating Factor» [Bigham & Smith, 2008]. Thanks to Prof. Samuel J. Smith, I got the manuscript of Jared Bigham"s dissertation and thus the possibility to know about that research in the details. With my own research, I am answering the call of Bigham to conduct the similar study in a different environment. Here is just a brief comparison of the results. To begin with the differ-ences, my research was not about the role of spirituality in choosing of teaching profession. It was first of all about the phenomenon of calling itself. The samples for the interviews were

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also different. The pupils, students, and teachers were from secular educational institutions. The cultural background was different too. Ukraine is a Christian country, but mainly Ortho-dox, where Protestant and Catholic denominations are rather minorities. The everyday life of Ukrainians flows mainly in a secular surrounding. Religion is a rather good old tradition for the most part. We conducted a quantitative research to confirm that the idea of calling is in the trend of Ukrainian school and university youth"s vision of their future work and life. We have also done 5 interviews with teachers to deepen and validate our knowledge from student"s in-terviews. That was not in the frame of the referred American research. Anyway, it is interesting to sum up what we have got in common and what actually differs.

The reasons for the choice of teaching profession and the spread of the idea of calling could be different in Ukraine and in the USA, but we would not compare the exact shares of opinions. We just state that there is a phenomenon of calling in Ukraine. We have got various evidences of vocational motivation in our research. For instance, about 30-35% of school pupil youth feel a calling for their future profession or for some other kind of occupation in their life and state their will to serve society or some good purpose in the world. As for pedagogic university students it appears that 60% of them would like to work and communicate with children, 35% would like to teach and educate youth, 29% want to benefit society and serve others and 18% feel a spiritual calling for goodness. For more than a half of Ukrainian school and student youth, it is important to choose a career according to calling.

All in all the phenomenon of calling appears the same in such different countries like Ukraine and the USA. It emerges in the process of understanding and interpretation of per – sonal experience and is rather not just a single event of revelation. Although there can be some special events and sparks of inspiration that further interpretation recognizes as a calling. The American and Ukrainian students also generally accept the idea of passion for something and of gifts as the base of calling. In our research, we have also got opinions of the part of students and teachers that God gives talents and the person is free to develop them or not. The common understanding of calling as caring for social and spiritual benefit is also supported by our comparison. We got the same evidence of the dynamics of intrinsic force and external pull in the construct of calling. Moreover, the progression when calling became more and more evident in time is also a generally valid way of interpretation of the phenomenon.

A born-to-the-calling philosophy can also have its place in both countries, because for some people it was clear from early years what they would like to do and to be. Some images or metaphors about calling are also corresponding in the language of Ukrainians and Amer-icans. Thus the metaphor of «doors opening and closing to guide a person into a particular role» [Bigham, 2008: 69] can be supported from our interviews by the image of open path to go. There is, however, a difference about the idea of a direct impact from outside on a called person. For the religious believers «implicit in vocation is the presence of a caller. In biblical narratives, the caller has a name Yahweh, God, Jesus. The caller»s voice is heard as something outside the person called" [VanOosting, 2002: 11]. Most of the students in the American re-search would agree with that. Even though they did not have, and had not expected to get, a direct vocal experience of calling, they do believe and say openly that God calls them, for example, to became teachers [Bigham, 2008]. Whereas in a secular educating institutions like we have seen in Ukraine it was true out of 10 only for 1 or 2 students. Nevertheless, the idea of God"s rather subtle providence was acceptable for the half of our interviewees. The Orthodox Christian people in Ukraine would say that in a rather humble way. For us, Ukrainians, the

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experience of calling is rather personal and internal. That is not what we would talk in public. For teachers and pedagogic students the only real external personification of calling is mainly an image of children"s faces, of pupils whom they teach.

Although the experience of calling is akin to responsibility and sacrifice, people in Ukraine do not feel it like a heavy burden. The possible in America and Western Europe opinion that calling is a necessity even when one does not like it would rather not be supported on the base of our research in Ukraine. For example, we can find in the «Theological Dictionary» by Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler that any career, «even one that is disliked, can be a vocation, since one may have a duty to do what one finds difficult» [Rahner & Vorgrimler, 1965: 483-484]. Contrariwise, calling is rather a personal happiness than a duty for Ukrainians. Hard work for calling can be acceptable, but still it fulfills and brings happiness. Ukrainian students generally insist that freedom is the essence of calling. Moreover, some of them feel easy to say that callings can change during the life, because they are personal.

What is also different is that Ukrainians are very cautious about affirmation that they are chosen for their callings. That could mean the difference of the religion and culture in Ukraine comparing to the USA. Ukrainian believers would accept that God brings them into definite field of activity, gives them some gifts and will give the abilities to overcome the difficulties, but to say that they are chosen ones is too strong statement for the majority of them. Only 1 student of 10 and 1 of 5 teachers told directly that they did not choose their way themselves because the choice was in God"s hands.

The experience of calling as a career-motivating factor in Ukraine is rather not religious. It is about self-realization, social service and helping people, about goodness. Ukrainian students and teachers do not use the word «spirituality» when talking about their calling for pedagogic profession. During our interviews, the Ukrainian Christian believers did not tell that they were going to be teachers directly because of the religion. Our survey also showed a very little evidence of impact of the religion on the choice of teaching profession. Only 3% of students admitted that they got a religious calling to teach. At the same time love for children, desire to give knowledge, to benefit the society as motives are really important and it is evident that teaching profession cannot be a calling without them. Teaching as a career definitely needs calling, even though it is not true for some teachers. That is undoubted thesis for Ukrainians and for Americans as well. Maybe in Ukraine we need it even more.

I think that the cross -cultural studies of calling need further development as for the sub-ject fields, methods and procedures and present a big scientific and practical interest. More-over, the cross-cultural competence is a vital need of a contemporary world [Aleksandrova, 2016: 21]. Thanking the American colleagues form Liberty University for their research and for the impetus of my study, I hope that presented article has also added some knowledge and experience in the field of education and for general understanding of the phenomenon of calling.

Conclusions

Let us make a short summary of our findings. Calling as a phenomenon has a structure that can be presented as follows: Desire (Passion) – Talent (Abilities) – Realization – Social Benefit and Good. In case of religious belief, the structure of calling looks like this:

Faith – Gifts – Deeds – Religious or Spiritual Benefit. There could be no calling when it is a lack or a gap in it. Whatever structures can be invented, we feel that calling goes from

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the depth of human being and from the wonder of co-existence with people, or even from the transcendent being of God. Calling is a sacred possession or rather a gift that one is free to take or to lose.

The aim of transpersonal goodness is the core of the phenomenon of calling and gives the integrity of its structure. Calling is for good, it cannot ruin. It is a kind of participation in creation within this world. What is opposite to it is not an evil. It is human laziness and fears that can be overcome with faith, love and wisdom.

Because of free character of the phenomenon, calling cannot be a criterion for a formal assessment of teacher"s ability to work at school. That is rather a regulative idea for some more detailed instruments for the improvements and training of teachers and for the politics in education. Teacher"s calling is to bring young people to their own callings.

If the essence of education is raising people to the level of spirit out of the level of matter, the task of a teacher is to bring up that ability in the youth. That is the core the teacher"s mis-sion in the world.

Calling is not all in our life. It has its limits, its horizons of appearance and there is al-ways something else or someone else beyond it. That is why calling needs ethics and, as we can say, first of all calling needs faith. However, the attention to the phenomenon of calling is definitely a part of caring for the future of humanity.

 References

Aleksandrova, Nataliya. Cross-Cultural Competence of Specialists Engaged in International Business, Economic Relationships and Management: Content and Structure (with a view to business challenges). In Future Human Image. Volume 6, 2016: 9-23.

Beregova, Galina. Philosophy of Education: Pragmatism-Instrumentalism Concept of Forming the Future Human in Higher Education. In Future Human Image. Volume 6, 2016: 32-45.

Bigham, Jared T. Role of Spirituality in Persons Choosing a Career in Education: Calling as a Motivating Factor. A Dissertation, Liberty University, USA, 2008.

Bigham, Jared T., and Samuel J. Smith. Called to Teach: Interpreting the Phenomenon of Call-ing as a Motivating Factor. Liberty University. Faculty Publications and Presentations. Paper 99. 8-2-2008. http://digitalcommons.liberty.edu/educ_fac_pubs/99

Colozzi, Edward A. and Laurence C. Colozzi. College students" callings and careers: An inte-grated values-oriented perspective. In Career counseling of college students: An empir-ical guide to strategies that work. Edited by D. A. Luzzo. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, 2000: 63-91.

Gomilko, Olga, Denys Svyrydenko, and Sergii Terepyshchiy. Hybridity in the Higher Edu-cation of Ukraine: Global Logic or Local Idiosyncrasy? In Philosophy and Cosmology. Volume 17, 2016: 177-199.

Merton, Robert K. Some thoughts on the professions in American society. Address before the Graduate Convocation Brown University, June 6, 1960, Brown University Papers, Num-ber XXXVII, 1960.

Rahner, Karl, and Herbert Vorgrimler. Theological Dictionary. New York: Herder and Herder.

1965.

Skovoroda, Hryhory. Works in two volumes. Volume 1. Poetry. Fables. Tractata. Dialogues.

Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University, Shevchenko Institute of Literature National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Кyiv: Oberehy, 1994.

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VanOosting, James. Vocation Education. In America, July 01, 2002: 8-11, http://www.ameri-camagazine.org/issue/377/article/vocation-education

Weber, Max. Politik als Beruf. In Weber M. Gesammelte Politische Schriften. Tübingen, 1980:

505-560.

Weber, Max. Wissenschaft als Beruf. In Weber M. Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Wissenschaftsleh-re. Tübingen, 1952: 572-597.

Weber, Max. Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus. In Weber M. Gesam-melte Aufsatze zur Religionssoziologie. Tübingen, 1963.

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Educational Cognitive Technologies as Human

Adaptation Strategies

Marja Nesterova – Doctor of Philosophy, Associate Professor

National Pedagogical Dragomanov University

(Kyiv, Ukraine)

E-mail: [email protected]

Modernity is characterized by profound changes in all spheres of human life caused by the global transformations on macro and micro levels of social reality. These changes allow us to speak about the present as the era of civilizational transition in the mode of uncertainty. Therefore, this situation demands qualitative transformations of human adaptive strategies and educational technologies accordingly. The dominant role in the dynamics of pedagogics and andragogy"s landscape belongs to transformative learning. The transformative learning theory is considered as the relevant approach to education of the individual, which is able to become an autonomous communicative actor of the social complexity. The article considers the cognitive technologies of social cohesion development and perspectives of their implementation in the educational dimension. In addition to implementing the principles of inclusion, equity in education, an important factor for improving social cohesion, stability and unity of society is the development of cognitive educational technologies. The key factors and foundations for the cognitive educational technologies are transversal competencies. They create the conditions for civil, public dialogue, non-violent type of communication. These «21st century skills» are extremely important for better human adaptation. One of the aspects and roots of social adaptation is social cohesion. Mutual determinations and connections between social cohesion development and transversal competences have been shown. The perspective direction of further researches is to find a methodological base for the further development of cognitive education technologies and platform for realization of innovative services for educational programs. New educational paradigm offers the concept of human adaptation as cognitive effectiveness and how to reach it through educational technologies. The article includes topics of creative thinking, teambuilding abilities, effective decision-making, engagement in the learning and teaching processes, cognitive skills improvement, social cohesion abilities, etc.

Key Words: cognitive technologies, complexity, education, social cohesion, transformative learning theory, transversal competences

Introduction

The modern world is very fast changing complex system. And human needs to change its adaptation strategies because of different cognitive and evolutionary niche. Internet of Things, Augmented and Virtual Reality, 3D manufacturing, Artificial intelligence and socio-economical global crisis challenges for the new innovation approach in education and upper-education of the specialists in the future creative economics. First of all this is a challenge for the system of high education. While the concept of «triple L» (LLL) – long life learning is suited to the innovative creative society. Anyway, it means to change the educational system

╘ Nesterova, Marja, 2017

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of it is as creative. This is not only special coursed for the development of creative tools and approaches. The main task of modern high education (in particular) is to prepare new learners for the current global realities. The core problem is changing of cognitive niche of humans. Especially young people are living in informational, digital society, mostly in virtual reality. The social reality is very non-stabile with the high level of uncertainty. It actualizes the problem of proper decision making skills and creative thinking. New generation needs higher order thinking, higher cognitive effectiveness. Mainly it concerns of empowerment of creativity, creative thinking. It is clear because of creative economy demands creative actors. On the other hand we have to take into the consideration the problem of academic mobility which is arising because of many political and social-economic reasons. So, one of the main factors is globalization [Svyrydenko, 2015].

Innovations in high education should be based on the latest scientific researches, approaches and technologies. Therefore, the one of the most perspective direction is cognitive. Cognitive technologies in education based on multimodal learning, embodied cognition and interactive-learning framework. Cognitive technologies aimed to cognitive effectiveness improvement not using of new neurotecnologies (neurodevices) but training of various mental abilities

(neurobics, eidetic and mnemonics). Cognitive technologies based on practical technologies of interactive communication (facilitation, mediation, active learning based case studies, serious games, etc.).

Educational cognitive technologies – are the set of technologies, which are based on the using of the cognitive channels – first of visual. All these technologies aimed to the creativity development and other directions of cognitive effectiveness. In addition, they deeply involve students in interactive processes of teaching and learning for better results in education for better cohesion, teambuilding and social intellect training. One of the most innovative approaches is Interactive Visual Communicative Technologies (IVCTs) because of connections of these technologies with the most powerful mechanisms of human cognition – visual communications and mutual games. These technologies will help to improve a cognitive effectiveness and proper decision making because of involvement of learners in to the educational virtual dimension with the immersion in the real context.

Traditions of the «Future Human Image. The Scientific Journal» demands to keep both focuses of the consideration: academic and practical. Following to the scientific discourse on the pages of the above journal, «different learning theories should be viewed from the perspective of several main scientific orientations: behaviorism, cognitivism, humanism, developmental theories, social learning, constructivism, which have different philosophical background and, accordingly, different understanding of the nature and methodology of learning» [Lytovchenko, 2016: 67]. But the main focus of this consideration is opportunity of the practical implementation of methodological concepts and theories in to the modern educational system.

Perspectives of Interactive visual communicative technologies in education

The objective of the above approach is implementation of interactive communicative cognitive technologies based on the visualization. They are applied in the gaming, design, marketing and business spheres. Now they are successfully implementing into the educational system. These are technologies of video scribing, doodle video, serious games, graphic

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facilitation and art scribing which could be effectively connected with the teaching and learning processes. These cognitive technologies will help to increase a cognitive effectiveness, social cohesion in education, motivation and involvement in teaching & learning processes. These techniques will allow starting education from the youngest students and successfully educating them by creating of motivated learning dimension. Therefore, these IVCTs will strengthen the concept of secondary and high education. In addition, this approach will help to solve the problem of social cohesion by education of various groups of students (with different social and cognitive styles).

Implementation of the visual technologies in the educational processes started very early.

For instance, the predecessor of modern visual presentation technologies (like Microsoft Power

Point or Prezi) – Kamishibai theatre. Kamishibai is part of an ancient visual storytelling tradition that originated during the 12th century in Buddhist temples in Japan (kami = paper, shibai = drama; paper dramas). Monks there used picture scrolls to pass moralistic stories to a largely illiterate audience. Traditionally it is a small theatre box in which large prints can be inserted. On the back of these prints is a story that the kamishibai narrator reads or tells: image and language coincide perfectly. A kamishibai story is reminiscent of delayed animation. For thirty years, from 1920 to 1950, this narrative technique was all the rage in Japan; it was the forerunner of the popular manga culture. For the past several years, this unique narrative form has made a global comeback not only in Japan but also in Europe. Kamishibai stories for educational purposes are still being published and can be found in schools and libraries throughout Japan and more recently, through the efforts of Kamishibai for Kids, in the United States and Canada. (www.kamishibai.com). It is very popular in kindergartens and various types of schools. It is connected with the one of main task of education – morality and sense making. The main approach is to develop thinking of the students, to increase the level of their cognitive ability. Moreover, the one of the efficient methods is implementing of philosophy in the system of high education. This approach is well known in the pedagogics. PHILOSOPHY FOR CHILDREN (P4C) is a worldwide educational movement that began in 1972 with the work of Professor Matthew Lipman and colleagues at the IAPC. Mattew Lipman wrote special «philosophical novels» for use with children and comprehensive «manuals» of accompanying resources. He also suggested the «community of inquiry» as an appropriate method and aim of P4C. Now Philosophy for Children is practiced in more than thirty countries around the world (www.P4C.co.uk). Doubtless, this approach with the proper impact of visualization should be implemented (in accordance with the age psychology and axiology) into the system of high education. Luck of values platform for the successful adaptation and personal self-development of youth is the one of the most fundamental and painful problem nowadays.

The normal practice of using innovative cognitive technologies is video scribing in the education processes. It is really practical because of possibility in a 5 steps to create your own whiteboard video (http://www.videoscribe.co). The same approach proposes other companies like Sparkol – Doodle Video, etc. This is sort of a new type of kamishibai: an interactive approach in drawing the pictures and following speech.

It is actual, that the above cognitive educational technologies are aimed to the involvement and motivation for learning of youth. Video and graphic connects with young people. Multimedia whiteboard videos are not just fun – they are shown to grab attention, invite engagement and boost retention for exams. In addition, it will help to empower teachers by using interactive visual communicative technologies (Video Scribe, in particular) to illustrate complex and difficult for understanding ideas. These technologies will bring dry topics

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alive, teach storytelling, design and media, to learn IT skills. The results of the application of the above cognitive educational technologies – new educational tools, new approach for subject education, methodological courses for supervision and upper-qualification of teachers (especially of high education schools).

Methodological foundations of cognitive educational technologies

It is necessary to find methodological foundations for the implementation of new approach in the educational system. This approach should be based on the recent achievements of cognitive researches, neurosciences, socialcommunicative educational technologies implementation, etc. It should be taken into the consideration that practical educational tools also need to be upgrade according to the recent innovations. It means that cognitive technologies (for example, Interactive Visual Communicative Technologies – IVCTs) both as advanced courses and as important educational tools should be precisely implemented into the education system. This process should be based on the relevant aspects of European educational policy (including social cohesion and transversal competences studies). The main task is the dissemination of this direction of educational policy cognitive principles. Innovations in high education should be based on the latest scientific researches, approaches and technologies. Therefore, the one of the most perspective direction is cognitive.