About the world significance of pedagogy A.S. Makarenko

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

An interview with one of the most respected specialists in pedagogy A. S. Makarenko in the world - Professor, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences Anatoly Arkadievich Frolov.

On April 19–20, the Volgograd State Social and Pedagogical University hosted the International Scientific and Practical Conference “Nationally Oriented Pedagogy of A. S. Makarenko as the Most Important Factor of Modern Education”. Researchers from the Nizhny Novgorod Research Laboratory "Educational Pedagogy of A. S. Makarenko" took an active part in the conference. Doctor of pedagogical sciences Anatoly Arkadyevich Frolov, one of the oldest Russian Makarenko scholars, came from Nizhny Novgorod.

In October 2017, Anatoly Arkadievich turned 90 years old, the Soviet era passed before his eyes, its heyday and decline. He witnessed how the name Makarenko was mixed with mud after perestroika, and how the works of the great teacher were consigned to oblivion for many years.

Anatoly Arkadyevich is familiar with many graduates of the Makarenko colony and commune, with well-known practitioners of Makarenko. He is a unique specialist who collected information about people who used the Makarenko system in the Soviet Union and beyond.

Speaking at the conference, Frolov especially emphasized the global scale of the unique Soviet experience. He spoke about Israeli labor communes - kibbutzim. According to him, Makarenko's experience had a significant impact on the founders of these agricultural labor settlements-communities: “The publishing house of the kibbutz movement republished the“Pedagogical Poem”three times. Until now, these organizations of the socialist type exist. They, of course, have reduced their large-scale activities, but they continue to seriously influence the policy of Israel."

Anatoly Arkadyevich is sure that Makarenko's legacy cannot be reduced only to a children's theme: “Makarenko is not children's pedagogy, not school pedagogy, not university pedagogy. This, I repeat, is a socio-cultural phenomenon. These are elements of pedagogy that exist in any kind of social activity. There are elements of pedagogy in our politics, in our ideology, not to mention culture, in military affairs, in foreign policy, in the sphere of business. The socio-political, ideological root of all Makarenko's pedagogy is that it repeats the pedagogy of the whole society. And the better it repeats the pedagogy of the whole society, the more effective pedagogy is … Makarenko is not pedagogy "in short pants", it has long grown out of this. than the whole country lives, then it turns out miserable attempts."

Makarenko lived in the era of the revolution. It was a great social revolution in our country and around the world. The environment in which he lived was the environment of revolutionary novelty, transformation, building communism, a new man. In your opinion, can Makarenko's pedagogy be called revolutionary?

- A real revolution not only destroys. This, as Lenin said, "we need to master everything developed by mankind." A real revolution preserves and consolidates the most valuable of what was and is in the history of the country, but it mercilessly destroys what stands in the way of progress, prevents humanity and man from living better, more fun, more successful - for the common good and for common happiness. In this sense, Makarenko accepted the revolution.

It was not by chance that I said today that Makarenko is developing the general socio-pedagogical line of Jean Jacques Rousseau, the ideologist of the French bourgeois revolution. The ideologist who put forward the slogan - "Freedom, equality and brotherhood." The revolutionaries did this - they suppressed the aristocracy, suppressed the monarchy, supported and restored the right of the working man. In this sense, I repeat, Makarenko is a revolutionary in pedagogy. It reflects the best that was in the Soviet country - in its aspiration, in its ideals. But, at the same time, he came into conflict with what was hindering this. He strove to do better and more, and therefore many resisted him.

What happened in 1991 - when the anti-revolutionary conservative forces defeated the revolutionary impulse of the Soviet country and the Soviet people? The country was thrown back into the past. We are now living in the past, even though it is called the present.

Now we live under capitalism. Will Makarenko's experience be applicable today? Are there any attempts to repeat it in our country, in the world?

- The answer is in life itself. Over the past thirty years, an entire generation has been brought up on the ideas of student-centered pedagogy. We got the result - this is a product of personality-oriented pedagogy. What happened to this generation? The collective was thrown away, education was thrown away. Education was equated with violence. Freedom was equated with arbitrariness, with the dispossession of the masses of people.

In 1992, when the law on education was passed, a massive de-makarenkovization of pedagogy began. Completely erase, completely forget, erase, trample everything that was in our history. The entire law on education passed in the mainstream of personality-oriented individualistic pedagogy …

Those who tried to work practically failed. Already 16 contests named after Makarenko "farm schools" have been held by Aleksey Mikhailovich Kushnir (head of the publishing house "Narodnoe obrazovanie", editor of the magazine of the same name - approx. IA Krasnaya Vesna). I told him: "Kushnir, thank you very much for showing that the principle of production education of Makarenko is very limited in application in modern socio-economic conditions."

It turns out that today there are some undertakings, schools, collectives that are trying to apply the production principle, but they do not last long?

- As soon as the school enters into the conditions of the market, the laws of the market take effect and everything is suppressed. Makarenko's ideas work very weakly with this system. The main one is the idea of upbringing in collective work. Education of a working person, with a sense of dignity, that he is a master, and not a forced laborer. Without this, a person will be a "midge that is just waiting to be fed", does not know how and does not want to work, but wants to exploit someone, make money out of thin air, drag each other out of pockets.

Attempts to apply Makarenko's experience have been and are. They give results, but they intertwine with the system and do not last long … There is a movement of agricultural schools in Yakutia. They hold out in the Chelyabinsk region, because the Minister of Education there, Kuznetsov, is a student of the Makarenko expert Opalikhin.

I am currently preparing a brochure called “Makarenko's Ideas in Educational Theory and Practice of the Contemporary Brazilian Landless Worker Movement”. The fact is that the Brazilian state, when its head was Goulart (João Goulart, President of Brazil in 1961-1964 - approx. IA Krasnaya Vesna), supported the people and said: if the landowner has land that is not used, we have the right hand it over to landless peasants. Let them settle there. They began to call it "occupy vacant land." They began to create camps - from several dozen to several hundred families worked, created cooperative farming. This was the only way to survive. They lived in families, children together with adults. This has been going on for about 40 years. It became the most influential agricultural association in Latin America.

How do you assess Makarenko studies in Soviet times and now?

- I have a big book “A. S. Makarenko in the USSR, Russia and the world: the historiography of the development and development of his heritage”, which highlights this issue. There are about 1,500 of our names and 500 foreign ones. I would say this: Makarenko studies in Soviet times went wrong. The inspiration for this wrong direction was Viktor Mikhailovich Korotov. He worked in the Central Committee, then as Deputy Minister of Education of the USSR. Korotov forcibly introduced Makarenko to school, introduced discipline, but without organizing work. Only the introduction to work introduces the working person to the psychology. If this is not the case, the psychology of a person is formed, who takes possession of knowledge and, with the help of this knowledge, exploits others …

In modern Makarenko studies, confusion and vacillation. There are some of our leaders who say "come on, come on Makarenko." What come on? They don't seriously think about it. Remembrance, celebration, expression of respect. Saying: so many people participated, there were such and such events, etc., but in terms of content, the specifics of Makarenko's legacy - practically nothing … Sometimes Makarenko's achievements are used by dogmatists who use his banner to strengthen their position, make a career …

Conclusion

Concluding the report from the Volgograd conference, I would like to say that, unfortunately, today the name Makarenko has begun to be used as a kind of brand. His experience is not taken as a guide to action. Conferences are held, research papers are published, but it is difficult to name a real experience that, in the spirit of A. S. Makarenko, is successfully and steadily applied and developed.

However, there is some benefit from the conferences taking place all over the country. The public's attention is again drawn to the name of Makarenko. In the movement of researchers of his experience and followers of practicing teachers, strength will be added. Yes, someone will make their name and career on Makarenko, but others will begin to work out his legacy more deeply, comprehend it and try to apply it.

Makarenko in his pedagogy proceeded from life itself, its challenges and peculiarities. Its true followers cannot simply blindly copy and use the experience of the past. It is necessary to comprehend the greatly complicated life - and, remembering the invaluable legacy of predecessors, create your own, new social creativity.