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PHYSICAL FITNESS AS A COMPONENT OF PEDAGOGICAL PROFESSIONALISM OF FUTURE TEACHERS
N. Yu. Dudnik
N. G. Makarenko
In the conditions of social-economic transformations in society, the task of professional training of teaching staff is priority number one among the strategic areas of modernization of the national education system. Different aspects of formation of professionalism of future specialists are considered in philosophy, sociology, psychology, pedagogics, acmeology and other humanities. The holistic approach to studying the problem is ensured by the need of contemporary schools for professional teachers.
Pedagogic professionalism must be considered in a wider context than an aggregate of professional characteristics and qualities of one’s personality meeting the requirements of a teacher’s profession. For example, L. Kondrashova notes that the content-related side of the pedagogic professionalism comprises not just the professionally significant qualities of the teacher’s personality but a set of certain means (intellectual, moral, spiritual) that provide the teacher’s pedagogic impact on the students and their interaction [1]. Sharing this point of view we think that pedagogic professionalism should be understood as a complex characteristic, systemic personal education combining professional knowledge, skills, techniques, and personal qualities reflecting the specific features of teacher’s labour and the means acting as the aggregate force of solving professional-pedagogical problems. The specific features of the teacher’s profession imply that achievement of the high level of professionalism is closely linked to a person’s personality growth. Formation of a professional teacher is only possible as a result of unity of his professional and personal growth, which is impossible without achieving a sufficient level of physical fitness (its cognitive, personality-motivational and activity-related components).
Physical fitness is a person’s activity aimed at strengthening one’s health and developing physical abilities. Physical fitness is an aggregate of values, knowledge and norms used by the society for developing human physical and intellectual abilities. Physical fitness is an important means of education of a manysided personality harmonically combining spiritual wealth, moral purity, and physical perfection. Ya. A. Komensky, J. Locke, K.D. Ushinsky and others wrote about the need for physical education of a personality, about the role of physical activity, and its exceptional significance for a person’s intellectual and emotional development.
According to the present research, only 6% of students remain healthy by the time they receive higher education. About 45-50% of children finishing comprehensive school have morphofunctional deviations, and 40-60% have chronic diseases; one third of graduates have restrictions in the choice of a profession. Over the years of studies at the university, 20-80% of students develop
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disorders in 2-5 systems of the body [2]. The wide introduction of technical means of education and computer technologies in academic process, the growing volumes of teaching information, social-economic conditions of students’ life, the low level of self-organization, the inability of most future teachers to work out and keep regular hours have a negative impact on young students’ health. The reduced muscular exercise, insufficiency of time and desire to do physical exercises and sports, and growing neuro-psychic loads promote lower working efficiency, resistance to cold-related diseases, and general unsatisfactory condition of health.
The reduction in the hours for physical education within the academic program conditions the need to organize work in extracurricular time. All the more so since the physical activity of most students is actually half as much as the physical need, according to the results of interviews. To maintain one’s health and high working efficiency, a student must make 21-30 thousand steps per day or work out for average 1 - 1.5 hours per day. The results of the survey have shown that 20% of the people interviewed do physical exercises 3 times a week and more, 50% do them exercise twice a week, and 10% do them once a week, while 10% of respondents don’t do them at all. To overcome this situation, during physical education classes, attention should be paid to theoretical training of students regarding a healthy life style and its influence on the life and professional activities of the person. The cognitive component of the physical fitness of students is formed due to the use of discussions about the significance of physical and emotional health for a future teacher, formation of such physical qualities as stamina, strength, agility, and flexibility, five-minute theoretical training on the topic “In the world of sports today” during classes as well as meetings with well-known sportsmen of the region and physicians in extracurricular time.
The formation of the value-motivational component of physical fitness of future teachers is expressed in the attitude to one’s health, positive perception of the need for systemic physical exercises and healthy life style, and in formation of the desire to do physical exercises and sports. To develop a positive motivation for systemic physical exercises in students, one must show their significance, and explain the influence of various kinds of physical exercises on different systems of the body. An important form of work at this stage is talks with students and the teacher’s personal example.
The activity-related component is manifested in the student’s practical willingness to do systemic physical exercises for self-improvement and selfdevelopment, in the ability of rational planning of one’s working day, of choosing the optimal methods and means of a rational schedule of work and rest. Higher physical activity of students is promoted by the use of game-based forms of work, involvement of future teachers in organization of and participation in mass sport events, the possibility of choosing sections for exercises in extracurricular time (step-aerobics, bodyflex, Oriental dancing, football, basketball, weightlifting).
The efficiency of formation of physical preparedness for professional activities in future teachers can be increased provided a number of pedagogical conditions are met: a process approach to implementation of the model of physical education (setting of goals, lines of activity, tasks, choice of particular methods and
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forms of work, monitoring the results of activities) for systemic control and adjustment of the process of formation of physical preparedness for professional activities; formation of the need for physical exercises and positive motivation to physical self-improvement, and creation of a favorable psychological climate during classes. The systemic work aimed at increasing the level of physical fitness of future teachers contributes to both the improvement of their physical condition and development of the skills of the healthy life style, and has a positive impact on the emotional-moral sphere, which, in its turn, increases the efficiency of pedagogical labor.
References
1. Кондрашова Л. В. Методика подготовки будущего учителя к педагогическому взаимодействию с учащимися. - М.: Издательство «Прометей» МГПИ им. В.И. Ленина, 1990.
2. Мiхeeва Л. Особливост формування здорового способу життя у молодого поколЫня. [Електронний ресурс]. Режим доступу: http://www.social-science.com.ua/article/577.
Translated from Russian by Znanije Central Translations Bureau
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