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SPIRITUAL AND MORAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE LIFELONG LEARNING. PLACE OF NURTURE IN THE EDUCATIONAL PROCESS. FORMING OF A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE IN THE SYSTEM OF CONTINUOUS EDUCATION
SPIRITUAL AND MORAL VALUES IN THE SYSTEM OF RUSSIAN LIFELONG EDUCATION
V. A. Belyaeva
There is a catastrophic moral decadence in the modern social life of Russia. National spiritual values such as patriotism, helping one’s neighbor, the equal importance of each individual, kindness, and rejection of violence all significantly lose their relevance under these conditions. The moral is defined by the principle "what is not prohibited by law is allowed”, conscience is generally treated as a shortcoming, and ideals are erased. "In times of changing values, the spiritual unity of society is broken, moral guides of youth become vague, the values of the older generation are devaluated, and the traditional moral norms are malformed [1, pp. 4].
This process is considerably impacted by the modernization of the national system of lifelong education since the implementation of the European model of education along with the widely accepted concepts of humanization and democratization of the educational space promote the image of a “successful person” in society that assumes the prevalence of material values as indicators of life success. Thus, domestic spiritual and moral values are promoted at all levels of lifelong education, but are hardly applied in the practice of educational systems. Consequently, a contradiction between the need for positive social and cultural reforms in society and the lack of spiritual, patriotic people ready to implement these transformations is observed. In this situation the problem of spiritual and moral renewal of modern Russian society is extremely important.
The theory and practice of Russian and global educational culture defines a high degree of spiritual and moral education as well as the development of a person, marking the inevitable long-lasting character of these processes and the obligatory active participation in it of a teacher / tutor able to engrain spiritual life values to students on all levels of lifelong education. It is noted in the “Policy of spiritual and moral development and education of Russian citizens” that “Education plays a key role in the moral
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and spiritual consolidation of Russian society and its integrity in the face of external and internal challenges, in strengthening social solidarity, in building people’s trust in living in Russia, in fellow citizens, society, the government, the present and future of the country” [1, pp. 5]. Coincidently, the implementation of the humanization of the country’s education and its ongoing reform is primarily aimed at the needs of citizens in literacy and creation of possibilities for self-fulfillment of each person. In this situation education institutions are the organizations providing educational services to the public, yet the spiritual and moral evolvement of a person remains unclaimed.
The diverse system of lifelong education in Russia can not have a significant impact on the spiritual and moral development of young citizens, as educators are not ready to professionally manage students’ spiritual and moral guidance. There are many reasons for that. One of them is that the vocational training of a teacher has been strictly defined by the uniform ideological orientation for decades, since the knowledge about mankind, its culture and life activities were considered one-sidedly. Knowledge on a child’s spiritual world and development of his / her soul were removed from education science and the thesaurus. Consequently, the educational goal of rearing a well-developed personality excluded education for the soul and was aimed at developing personal qualities regardless of the spiritual basis.
However, in fact, the spiritual and moral culture of Russian teachers has grown on the best traditions of Russian folk education science based on the thousand-year experience of Orthodox culture. The spiritual essence of a man raising him above the rest of the biological kingdom, the purpose and meaning of life, the nurturing of soul, the prevention of evil deeds, and education and training for decent social life has always been the subject of studies of Russian philosophers, psychologists, teachers and theologians. The teaching concepts of raising a true Christian held a special place within the search of upbringing methods. An analysis of the spiritual and literary heritage of N. I. Pirogov, K. D. Ushinsky, I. A. Ilyin, V. V. Zenkovsky, The-ophanes Vyshensky, etc. reveals that they primarily focused on Christian anthropology, the person’s spiritual world and soul and self-improvement issues. Though huge emphasis was placed on human spirituality and morality as the subjects of a special educational concern, Orthodox teachers did not diminish the value of physical, aesthetic and labor education in their judgments. One of the fundamental pedagogical concepts was the relationship of secular science and religious education (Gregory the Theologian, 391 AD). Profound philosophical views on man’s nature and essence were presented in the educational views of K. D. Ushinsky. He defined the fundamental need to study the personality in its integrity and the problem of
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anthropological knowledge "which studies the physical and spiritual nature of a person.” He explained that the moral development of a child should be based on the development of his "feelings” forming the "soul composition” of a person. K. D. Ushinsky stressed the importance of the Orthodox teaching culture in the person’s education. By the great teacher, the enormous role of educational impact of the Orthodox culture is in its profound concept in which the religious, moral, ethic and aesthetic elements are combined into one system with their educational essence. He marked the obligatory education of spirit, soul and national identity based on the national educational culture as the fundamental task of national importance. After K. D. Ushinsky, N. I. Pirogov, and I. A. Ilyin, the well-known philosopher and psychologist V. V. Zenkovskiy considered the spiritual "organization” of a person as one of the most important educational tasks. In his works "The Psychology of Childhood” and others the dynamics of the child’s spiritual and mental and physical development, his spiritual life and maturity were represented as the subject of a teacher’s special concern.
The philosophical and educational heritage of domestic scientists is the fundamental base of academic research studies in lifelong education which will provide focused development of the spiritual and moral world of a person from a preschooler up to the graduate specialist. The implementation of the policy of spiritual and moral development and education of a citizen of Russia requires analysis of the present social and educational situation within the system of lifelong education, the teaching experience of the spiritual and moral development in past and modern Russia, research of the academic and educational collection of national secular and Orthodox culture gained, and the academic development of theory and practice in raising a spiritual and moral personality at all levels of education.
Bibliography
1. Концепция духовно-нравственного развития и воспитания личности гражданина России в сфере общего образования: проект / А. Я. Данилюк, А.М. Кондаков, В.А. Тишков. РАО. М.: Просвещение, 2009.
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