Факультет начального и специального образования

Text 1. T h e A u t h o r o f t h e “ G r e a t D i d a c t i c “

John Amos Comenius (1592-1670) is the man, who has most often been called the first modern educator. He was born in Moravia. After four years at a poor village school he went at the age of fifteen to study Latin at the grammar school. This school was probably no worse than most schools of that kind, but Comenius was older than the other pupils and could realize the defects of the teaching. Boys in the splendid years of youth had to study languages without proper books, wasting their time in the memorizing of grammatical rules. At the age of twenty-two, after the University, he returned to his native place and became master of the school.

He wrote many works on education. His most outstanding achievement was his writing of the first textbook “The World in Pictures” to employ pictures as a teaching device. Here the beginner in Latin was helped to understand Latin words by having the printed words accompanied by pictures illustrating their meaning. “The World in Pictures” was a particular example of Comenius’s conception of the teacher’s method.

In his monumental “Great Didactic” he laid down the general rule that everything should be taught by the medium of the senses. Comenius advised the teacher to start with the senses because they stand nearest to the child’s present state of understanding. To begin with the senses is to go from easy to the difficult. Therefore, after a sense impression the teacher may proceed to memorization, from memorization to comprehension, and then to judgement.

John Amos Comenius recognized the importance of Latin, but he refused to regard the learning of the classics as the central interest of the educator. For him education meant the preparation for life not through languages but through all the facts about the universe to which languages opened the door. He saw that education was the right of every man, not the privilege of the limited ruling class. He wrote that not only the children of the rich, powerful, but all boys and girls, noble and ignoble, rich and poor in all cities, towns and villages should be sent to school. Instruction must be fitted to the child, not the child to the instruction.

Q u e s t i o n s :

1) Comenius could realize the defects of the teaching when he was a pupil, couldn’t he?

2) What were these defects?

3) What general rule of teaching did Comenius introduce?

4) How did he speak about education?

Text 2. T e a c h e r . T h e P a v l y s h S c h o o l .

Vasili Sukhomlinsky worked for many years as a teacher in a small Ukrainian village and became famous as an educationalist. His books have been translated into many languages and have been received with great interest in every continent. Sukhomlinsky’s book “The Teachers’ Collective of the Secondary School” was published in 1958. It was his fourth book. He had already defended his thesis before the Scientific Council of the University of Kiev and received his Candidate’s Degree in Pedagogy. Sukhomlinsky was 39 when he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences.

“My Big House” he called the two-storeyed red brick school building where he worked and lived. In the 23 years that he had worked as the head of the Pavlysh school it had changed very much. He described it in his book “The Pavlysh Secondary School”. It stands on the outskirts of a large rural centre 15 kilometres from Kremenchug. In 20 years three additional school buildings were built around the original school. The new buildings are fitted out with classrooms designed for the primary grades while the main building is used by the pupils of the fifth to tenth years. Besides the classrooms there are special study rooms for mathematics, language-and-literature, and foreign languages, this complete with a library of records.

The building also houses a radio laboratory which operates the school’s radio transmission system, a music room, a gymnasium, and a “meditation room” where any pupil who is so inclined can read or just sit and dream by himself. There is also a “girl’s room” furnished with cases of literature on anatomy, physiology and personal hygiene. The school yard is a green paradise. “Everything connected with the life of man should be beautiful”, Sukhomlinsky said. “That is why we give so much thought to the beauty of our surroundings. The child’s surroundings should stimulate and teach.”

Sukhomlinsky maintained that pedagogy is a science for all, parents as well as teachers. Every mother and every father should have a minimum knowledge of pedagogy. The Parents’ school opened by him in Pavlysh invited parents to enroll two years before sending their child to the first grade, and continue taking its courses until their child was in high school. At the meeting of its Teaching Council, he reminded the teachers that “every mother and every father, who comes to school, comes in the hope of receiving welcome news of their child’s progress from his teachers. Don’t deny parents that hope! No child must ever be given to feel that he is a failure, that he has no ability. The building of character is ensured in the educational process when the teacher treats the pupil as an equal, as one man another.”

Q u e s t i o n s :

1) Where did Vasili Sukhomlinski work as a teacher?

2) How did he call the school building where he lived and worked?

3. How did he speak about pedagogy as a science?

4) Is the building of character ensured in the educational process?