Currently, parents are faced with the fact that without additional education their child cannot enter a prestigious school or university. The usual school curriculum is not enough for this. In principle, additional educational programs for children should be introduced in kindergarten in order to instill in the child the habit of constant additional activities.
Why is modern additional education for children needed?
Additional education is the area of acquiring knowledge and skills beyond the mandatory state standard, which should satisfy the diverse interests of the child.
The main areas of additional education for children and youth are:
- scientific and technical;
- artistic and aesthetic;
- sports;
- physical education and health;
- ecological and biological;
- military-patriotic;
- social and pedagogical;
- economic and legal;
- cultural;
- tourism and local history.
This is not a complete list of interests of children and parents. The development of additional education for children is, first of all, connected with the capabilities of the region, as well as with the organization of business by the administration of educational institutions.
The tasks of additional education for preschool and school children include a harmonious combination of the general educational standard with the creation of the necessary conditions for the formation of a creative personality. The main emphasis is on protecting the child’s right to self-determination and self-development.
Problems of additional education for children and youth
One of the main problems of the system of additional education for children of preschool and school age is the unpreparedness of teachers. There is a certain psychological barrier that prevents teachers from treating additional education in the same way as the general standard. As a rule, it is quite difficult for school teachers to break the usual stereotypes and treat the child as an equal.
Therefore, in most cases, additional classes are conducted in an edifying form, practically no different from school lessons. In addition, an obstacle to the widespread development of additional education in kindergartens and schools is the insufficient material base. Often, the local budget does not have funds to pay for extracurricular activities.
In this case, parents are forced to turn to private organizations, paying a lot of money so that their beloved child receives the desired education. True, high payment does not mean a guarantee of quality. The teachers of the private center studied in the same government agencies and their methods of work differ little from those of general education.
Types of additional education institutions for children
Today there are four types of organization of additional education.
Leontovich Alexander Vladimirovich
Ph.D. psychol. Sciences, Deputy Director of MGDD (Yu) T, Chairman of the All-Russian public movement of creative teachers “Researcher”, Moscow
Why do we need a state system of additional education? In most countries there is no such phenomenon - and that’s okay, they live just fine. Such a question immediately evokes furious exclamations from system workers, parents who themselves studied in circles and now take their children there. In our minds, additional education is the most important social achievement of our country; it should be free.
Opponents ask the question: why should the state pay the bulk of the costs for individual educational needs of families? Is additional education so effective and efficient that it can make a significant contribution to the education of the younger generation? And here you won’t get away with common slogans about the “uniqueness” and “indispensability” of creative houses.
The main problem of additional education in modern Russia is that its state functions and the distribution of responsibilities between society and the state are not defined. Statements even by the top officials of the state about its benefits are of a sloganary nature and do not indicate the mechanisms through which general tasks can be accomplished in a real educational system.
What should additional education do? Take children away from the streets and reduce crime rates? Help the school improve performance? To become a home for those children who “drop out” from school - the “weird” ones, who have become the object of ridicule for their peers and the unloved stepson for teachers? A place to realize the potential of the gifted? A platform for diagnosing aptitudes for a particular professional activity? A place where the state creates conditions for children to become interested in the professions that it needs most? The list goes on. And each answer implies either the need for large-scale government investment, or the creation of market models using parental money, or the presence of a sponsor.
The usual but vague answer is that additional education is both this and that, and the fifth and tenth. Maybe, in fact, this is so, when everyone finds in it their own, the most necessary thing, which you will not find anywhere else. Gone are the days of slogans when we said that “additional education is the zone of proximal development of education as a whole”, that “additional education complements education to complete education”, etc. The current moment requires us to have a clear, definite answer: what are we doing, why is it needed and how much? it's worth it in monetary terms. Therefore, such a complex phenomenon as additional education, one way or another, needs to be brought to one denominator. Which will bring clear certainty and will not destroy diversity.
First, let's look at the origins. Where did it come from in Russia and why did it not become state-owned in other countries? Let us note (in parentheses) that a number of Asian countries that focus on innovative economic development and have achieved undoubted success in this direction (the so-called “Asian tigers” - South Korea, Taiwan, etc., as well as China) are still actively They are developing a system of out-of-school education, considering it one of the main resources for modernization.
Historical excursion.
The origins of the modern system of additional education can be traced to the educational aspirations of the Russian intelligentsia of the second half of the 19th century. It was then that, on the initiative of educators, zemstvo councils, and church leaders in the provinces, forms such as societies for promoting public education began to develop on a massive scale; folk houses; libraries and reading rooms; Sunday schools; folk readings; book warehouses; specialized (natural science, sports, technical, theater) clubs and societies. During this era, a clear state order for out-of-school education was formulated, which was reflected in the adoption of a number of legislative acts supporting public initiatives in this area (for example, “Rules on district branches of diocesan school councils” (1888), “Rules on public readings” (1891), which allowed them to be carried out everywhere with the approval of local administrative, spiritual and educational authorities.
At this time, a key idea for our country was formulated - the use of children’s free time for their intellectual and personal development - which determined both the features of the development of extracurricular work in subsequent decades and, in many ways, modern views of society on the role and place of additional education. In Europe at this time, utilitarian ideas of a market economy about the sphere of free time of people (and children in particular) as a market niche in which a variety of services for organizing free time are offered became more developed. In these conditions, forms of the leisure and tourism industry began to develop, not particularly burdened by the problem of intellectualization of leisure. The apotheosis of this approach was the phenomenon of Disneyland.
And in Russia at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century. The theory of extracurricular work is rapidly developing, its various forms are being tested, professional, philanthropic, educational, cooperative and other public associations are working. It is enough to mention the First All-Russian Congress of Leaders of Societies of People's Universities and other educational institutions of private initiative (1908); First All-Russian Congress on Library Science (1911); First All-Russian Congress on Family Education (1912-1913). The works of teachers and public figures are published: V.P. Vakhterov. “Out-of-school education of the people” (1896); IN AND. Charnolussky. “Basic issues of organizing out-of-school education in Russia” (1909); S.O. Seropolko; "Out-of-school education" (1912); E.N. Medynsky. "Encyclopedia of Extracurricular Education" (1923).
I would especially like to note the work of the group of S.T. Shatsky (A.U. Zelenko, K.A. Fortunatova, P.F. Lesgaft, etc.), whose experience is considered to be the prototype of modern additional education. The group’s work was based on the Dewey project method and the principle of creating a multi-age team of adults and children in the process of organizing joint work activities. S.T. Shatsky organized a whole range of forms of extracurricular work at Krasnaya Presnya: 1905 - Day shelter for visiting children; 1906 - Settlement Society; 1909 - Society for Children's Labor and Recreation; 1911 - Labor commune "Brisk Life". The purpose of this work was to meet the cultural and social needs of the children of workers; education through work and child-adult communities.
In 1917, the Bolsheviks who came to power identified out-of-school education as one of the main directions of their educational policy. Realizing the importance of working with the younger generation, they understood the high educational potential of this type of work (in this case, the mass formation of a citizen of a new society) and its prospects in motivating schoolchildren to learn professions that were necessary for the industrialization of the country. N.K. Krupskaya wrote: “Extracurricular work is extremely important, as it can help in the proper upbringing of children and create conditions for their comprehensive development. We must take up the initiative of children, help the children in their creative work, guide them, direct their interests (...). We must strengthen children’s technical stations in every possible way, organize excursions to enterprises, power plants, etc. We need to set up workrooms in the Palaces of Culture, where children can do what they want.” The first People's Commissar of Education, widely educated and with a broad cultural outlook, A.V. Lunacharsky in the article “What is education?” wrote: “Out-of-school education is a matter of creating and using those cultural centers that would help a person make his life not just a pastime, not a simple process. This is what so-called out-of-school education consists of and strives for: museums, libraries, theaters, public universities, courses, gymnastics societies, etc. Make all this accessible to the population, draw the population into all this so that they can learn and teach it “How to learn so that it can give its soul, give everything valuable to the common treasury.”
Immediately after the revolution, the creation of the world's first state system of out-of-school education began: in November 1917, a department of out-of-school education was created in the People's Commissariat of Education, the Resolution of the People's Commissariat of Education of the RSFSR dated 06/04/1919 “On the organization of out-of-school education in the R.S.F.S.R.” was issued. ."
At this time, the country adopted the model of a unified labor polytechnic school; all schoolchildren mastered a single program, and the out-of-school education system served to increase the variability of education, and therefore became a platform for the development of new (as they would now say - innovative) forms of education. In the pre-war years, out-of-school education gave rise to two systemic innovations that changed the face of the educational system: specialized out-of-school institutions, organized jointly with industry enterprises, and multidisciplinary institutions - Houses and Palaces of Pioneers.
On the initiative of I.V. Rusakov and teacher-biologist B.V. Vsesvyatsky in June 1918 in Moscow, a station for nature lovers was created in Sokolniki. Since 1920 - Central Biological Station for Young Naturalists named after K.A. Timiryazev. 1926 - Central Station of Young Technicians (Moscow); 1923 - 1925 - under the influence of the ideas of electrification of the country, the GOELRO plan, electrical engineering circles are opened in Orel, Rostov-on-Don, Smolensk, etc.; 1928 - Central Children's Technical and Agricultural Station of Ukraine (Kharkov); 1935 - Children's railway (Tbilisi), House of collective farm children (Kirov region), children's water station (Arkhangelsk, 1935), children's highway (Moscow, 1937), children's sugar factory (Vinnitsa, 1937). Since 1935, multidisciplinary out-of-school institutions have been created in all major cities - Palaces of Pioneers - Kharkov (1935), Leningrad (1936), Moscow (1937), etc. By 1940, there were 1,846 out-of-school institutions in the USSR. 1970 in the USSR there were: 3780 Palaces and houses of pioneers and schoolchildren (about 2 million children and teenagers were engaged), 175 children's parks, 553 stations for young technicians, 327 stations for young naturalists, 33 children's railways, 1.1 thousand clubs for young technicians , one of the functions of these institutions was the popularization of scientific and technical knowledge, adapted to different ages. At this time, in most large cities, city Palaces of Pioneers and Schoolchildren were built according to individual projects.
Another systemic innovation was provided by the movement of youth scientific societies and small academies of sciences, which gained great momentum in the post-war years. This movement had the following stages: 1960s - systematic development of search, experimental and research work of schoolchildren; 1962 - creation of the first Small Academy of Sciences “Iskatel” (Simferopol); 1975 - First All-Russian meeting of active scientific societies (Moscow). There are 318 city scientific societies of students and small academies of sciences. This movement became a synthesis of children's initiative initiated by teachers and patronage from scientific organizations and scientists.
What happened to this unique system in post-Soviet times? With the beginning of perestroika, the unified program of the Soviet school began to shake. Ideas about updating education have swept society and the teaching environment. The regulation of the educational system was reduced, new schools began to be opened on an application basis, teachers had the opportunity to implement the most daring ideas, without regard to auditors and departments of public education. A powerful movement of innovative schools developed, their creative leaders and teachers adopted many of the best practices in out-of-school education. The experience of lyceums, gymnasiums, and proprietary schools that arose during this period, which in fact were integrated complexes of general and additional education, is widely known.
The system of out-of-school education itself, renamed additional, found itself “on the sidelines,” half-forgotten by the state (education, children’s public organizations, training of the scientific and technical elite were forgotten for a while) on the “residual” principle of financing. Additional education was not included either in the state informatization program, or in the Priority National Project “Education”, or in other state programs. In many institutions, little has changed over the past decades (except that the Pioneer and Komsomol organizations have disappeared), from teaching methods and class topics to outdated equipment. This gave rise to some officials calling houses and creative centers “museums of further education.” At the same time, there are in-depth developments on the content and forms of additional education by A.K. Brudnova, L.G. Loginova, G.P. Budanova, L.N. Builova, V.A. Berezina, V.P. Golovanova, N.V. Klenova and many other authors, systemic experience in organizing IT training, organizing specialized summer schools, research expeditions, etc., but, unfortunately, they were not able to reach the level of determining state policy in this area.
But there are traditions and potential! Therefore, the task now is to return the cutting edge of science, technology, and art to the system of additional education. This seems necessary: the situation is somewhat reminiscent of the post-revolutionary period of the twentieth century (see above): secondary schools are being unified, the state sets the task of modernizing the economy, and calls are being made to strengthen the training of schoolchildren in the field of scientific and technical disciplines. As in the era of the unified labor school, the system of additional education can and should become the basis for the variability of our education.
From our point of view, we can distinguish three main aspects in the meaning and value of additional education on a state scale.
The first level is the work of educational groups for additional education of children, which is based on a specific subject (dancing, modeling, football, etc.) and is aimed at students mastering a certain type of activity. This is the most important resource for individualization, identifying and increasing individual abilities; the possibility of deep compensatory work for students maladjusted at school.
A community develops around the subject of activity, which is difficult to create in school or at work (and this is the second level in the sense of additional education). These are teachers of additional education and specialists from industry structures - science, sports, culture, etc. Through their efforts, a special multi-professional educational environment is being created in institutions of additional education, which fundamentally expands the life and educational horizons of children.
The third level is associated with the support of new, nascent, non-systemic practices that form a niche for broad sociocultural innovation activities in the education system and in society as a whole. The flexibility of the normative system of additional education allows such practices to strengthen and move into the status of official institutions.
The long-standing tradition of extracurricular additional education in our country is associated with three tasks: education, personal development, and the implementation of state policy on career guidance for young people in the field of professions that are relevant to the state. Additional education is a cultural phenomenon specific to Russia, and from this point of view, it is pointless to evaluate its “expediency” or “effectiveness,” just as it is pointless to talk about the appropriateness of celebrating Christmas in Christian culture. It is a given, firmly embedded in our mentality. Therefore, we need to look for real ways to synthesize the past and the future - the traditions and challenges of our time.
What needs to be done to develop additional education?
Many programs for the development of institutions or industries resemble spreading trees on which the program developers have hung everything they could remember. At the same time, there is no general development line and specific mechanisms for its implementation. From our point of view, it is necessary to identify several areas, the targeted development of which will entail the development of the entire system. These are the directions.
Defining the mission of additional education as a sphere of personal development of children and the subject-activity approach as its methodological basis.
Determination of mechanisms for launching innovative processes in the development of content, forms and methods of additional education.
Identification of the specifics of management in the system of additional education, including through interaction with existing pedagogical schools.
Development of mechanisms for attracting personnel to the system and creating conditions for their work.
Let's look at them in order.
Additional education ensures the achievement of personal learning outcomes.
The school, as a general state system, solves the issue of educating a “normal” member of society - so that he follows the laws, goes to the polls, works to the best of his ability, etc. The school has developed and is constantly improving tools for assessing students' knowledge, skills and abilities - tests, the Unified State Exam. They allow us to compare the knowledge (as we are told) of children and identify the school that has shown “the highest achievements.” The mass school is much less interested in the personal development of each child; it does not report on this indicator.
That is why the competency-based approach has become the leading approach to assessing the effectiveness of general education. It was developed in the second half of the twentieth century by the English psychologist J. Raven; it was “ordered” by employers interested in obtaining an effective tool for assessing the real capabilities of potential employees. Within the framework of this approach, competence is defined as an integral personality quality that characterizes the ability to solve problems and typical tasks that arise in real life situations using knowledge, educational and life experience, values and inclinations. Competence is a characteristic of the effectiveness of education, primarily from the point of view of the utilization of a person by society, the usefulness of a particular person to it.
But one of the fundamental documents of modern education, the educational standard of general education, requires the achievement of high personal learning outcomes. The task of personal development is successfully solved by additional education. Therefore, we consider the development of student subjectivity to be its central task. We define subjectivity as the focus on achieving independently set goals and objectives in activity under existing sociocultural conditions, the nature of inclinations, the structure of a person’s abilities and his mastery of methods of activity. Do you feel the difference? Here we start from the person, his capabilities and aspirations. This approach to education is called subject-activity.
It is the focus on personal development that sets the specific functions and results of additional education and makes it a necessary and integral part of the educational system, allowing one to achieve high personal learning results. Therefore, we believe that assessing the quality and effectiveness of additional education, like its entire organization, cannot be based on a competency-based approach.
Personal results are determined by the development of students’ value foundations. One of the ways to diagnose them (perhaps the central one) may be to evaluate the results of creative activity. It is the activity, its level, direction; The volitional qualities and abilities to interact that are manifested during its implementation best characterize the nature of value orientations and the possibility of their implementation in actions. Therefore, success in activity, mastering its individual stages, is one of the significant characteristics of personal development, which, together with some other “measurements”, can give a fairly objective picture of the level of personal development.
It should be understood that the fundamental feature of personal results is their relativity. If in subject results, say, in mathematics, we can use an absolute assessment - whether a student knows or does not know specific material, then with an absolute guideline for determining personal results the situation is much more complicated. There is an age norm that characterizes the typical, average level of independence, responsibility, focus on self-realization, etc. for a given age. Moreover, each personality is unique and inimitable, its development is characterized by the degree of its uniqueness: this is its main value for itself and others. In this regard, any absolute criteria for assessing personality will push us to develop a “personality standard,” a set of qualities that a “normal” person should possess. The main object of measurement when determining personal learning outcomes should be, on the one hand, the degree of compliance with age standards, and on the other hand, the dynamics of development; “increment” of personal parameters over a certain period of time; recording the depth and scale of personality manifestations in activity.
So, the competence approach defines as the main task the development of the ability to act in real life situations, i.e. the basis for it is the task of fitting a specific person into the existing society, equipping him with the means of action in a real (already existing, created by someone and for something) life situation. Subjectivity begins from a specific unique person, personality, from his independently set goals and objectives, therefore it is the development of the subject-activity approach that determines the specifics of additional education.
Additional education needs to create conditions for the development of innovation.
Now at every step they talk about the need for innovative development. With this development, work productivity increases sharply due to the use of some innovation. It begins to be used en masse and becomes the source of the spread of a new, more effective way of life.
This is precisely the situation that needs to be created in additional education. Innovation, new ideas, approaches, etc. are needed. As a rule, they cannot be born within the system - they need to be “seen” and brought in from another sector of the economy, another culture. Create a mechanism for the emergence of new solutions in additional education institutions - from the areas of pedagogical technologies, new specialties, production technologies, etc. Therefore, it is necessary to open the doors of additional education wide - for teachers, scientists, artists, athletes; create comfortable, creative working conditions for them. So that they bring with them all the newest, most advanced of their professions, adapt this new thing to work with children and thus create innovative educational practices that children and parents need, and that are interesting to the state.
Creative houses are much more fertile ground for this than school. At school - curriculum, educational standard, state exam. If you get carried away with something new, there is a risk of not meeting these standards. And in a creative center, a teacher can himself determine an educational task, develop a “measurement” - a method for diagnosing it, propose an innovation, thanks to which he will provide unique opportunities for children, and - implement all this in practice. Naturally, after having the educational program examined by specialists, so that it cannot harm children. This is the fundamental advantage of additional education.
This requires two conditions. The first is to minimize external regulation of the work of creative houses, to provide them with the opportunity to develop their own regulations and procedures for their activities. The second is to provide money for the development and implementation of new programs (for example, astrospace education for schoolchildren), stipulating that with part of these funds the institution can order the development of individual modules, manuals, and simulators from professionals - in universities, at enterprises. Then it itself will be able to attract the carriers of innovations - those that are necessary. Good Art. 15 of the new law “on education” allows this by establishing the status of network educational programs, different modules of which can be implemented on the basis of different institutions.
Additional education requires a special management model.
The specifics of additional education require a special type of management, both the educational process and the team of teachers. To maintain and develop a creative, personality-oriented, developmental educational environment, administrative management is impossible, the leading function of which is control. The staff of an additional education institution is usually a community of creative people of different professions who do not owe each other anything, and whose actions are driven by personal beliefs and the desire to pass on their experience to children. Such a team corresponds to the model of value-semantic community, developed in Russian psychological and pedagogical science by a number of authors (V.I. Slobodchikov, E.I. Isaev, etc.), when the employee’s motivation for effective work is not determined by the effectiveness of control and the system of rewards/punishments (moral and material), but by personal responsibility for results to himself and obligations to referent colleagues who enjoy his respect.
Only such a model of building management awakens the creative activity of the teacher, stimulates him to apply new forms of organizing teaching, and focuses not on the formal, but on the personal result of the education of his students. The work becomes interesting, the prospects are exciting. The main task of management is to create a friendly, comfortable environment with the help of a special system of administrative and methodological support. The teacher needs freedom in developing programs, forms and technologies of educational activities.
Now it happens that registering for a trip or conducting a lesson in a new form requires such efforts to complete documentation that the teacher refuses them, preferring traditional “lesson” forms, which dilute the essence of additional education. Therefore, the management system should be structured in such a way as to motivate the teacher to self-development, mastering new forms and methods of educational work, and applying new, sometimes unexpected solutions. In practice, this requires the presence of specialists (lawyers, economists, accountants, etc.), to whom the teacher sets tasks based on pedagogical expediency and who creatively solve them in the context of the existing regulatory framework. In practice, the opposite often happens: an accountant acts only within the framework of established schemes, and if the teacher needs something that goes beyond them, he is asked to propose a way to legally prepare the relevant accounting statements. Here it is necessary to divide the areas of responsibility of the teacher and other specialists and formulate the corresponding job responsibilities.
The development of management models in this direction will allow additional education to become a real platform for the creation of new, popular and promising practices that will say a new word in our education and lead to the renewal of society as a whole.
Pedagogical schools in the system of additional education.
It is known that science is developed by scientific schools. So, S.I. Hesse wrote: “The method of scientific thinking is transmitted through oral tradition, the bearer of which is not a dead word, but always a living person. The irreplaceable importance of the teacher and the school rests on this. No books can ever give what a good school can give.”1 This is true for all areas of creative activity, and, of course, for education. It is a set of scientific ideas and practical methods of teaching that are passed on from one generation of teachers to another. We know many pedagogical schools that have existed for many generations (Waldorf pedagogy, the M. Montessori system, Elkonin-Davydov developing education, etc.). Their diversity determines the variability of education, the ability of each child to find the most suitable educational environment for himself, and, in general, the sustainability of the development of national culture.
Additional education is a field in which a number of pedagogical (similar to scientific) schools have emerged and have been operating for dozens of years (for example, the Youth movement, technical modeling, etc.). It has its own traditions and methodological systems. The teachers are, as a rule, graduates of clubs from previous years. They make their undoubted contribution to our culture. Recently, questions have often been raised about the relevance of traditional areas of additional education, the need for their modernization, and sometimes replacement. The problem of modernization can be successfully solved by attracting specialists using the mechanisms described above. And the value of pedagogical schools as a factor of variability and potential for the development of our education is undoubted.
We believe that it is necessary to approve a list of registered pedagogical schools in the system of additional education and targeted support for their development.
Additional education requires special teaching staff.
We have already talked about this a little above. A child should receive in a circle what he fundamentally cannot get from a teacher who was given extra hours in an extended day group or to “catch up those lagging behind.” These should be completely different horizons - a door beyond the boundaries of school, into the adult world of professions, hobbies, travel, assessments of life, adult conversations.
Therefore, a teacher of additional education must be, first of all, a high professional in his field, who has experienced the need for pedagogical activity and the passion of the younger generation for his work. The concept of a “full-time teacher of additional education” looks somewhat awkward (especially in the scientific and technical field): most teachers should not have many hours of workload, they should be able to maintain contact with colleagues, participate in the work of scientific councils, artistic bodies, etc. . The head of the creativity center should see the teacher, first of all, as a professional and adapt the normative and methodological requirements to him, and not, with the help of administrative pressure, turn the scientist into an “impersonal” teacher of additional education, fulfilling the requirements for teaching methods that are common to all areas and scrupulously complying with all Sanitary Regulations , instructions and orders.
And most importantly, how to attract specialists to the creative house? Here the material incentive is not the main thing. It is necessary to create a situation where a specialist, after his working day or on his day off, happily rushes to the art house to meet with children. A comfortable atmosphere has been created for him; there is no minute control over his work. Technical means have been prepared, there is an assistant who will kindly fulfill any requests, a specialist who will help fill out the log, tell you how to prepare documents for an excursion or re-register an educational program, what changes have occurred in the regulatory framework and what this entails. Whenever possible, in an informal setting, over tea, discuss with colleagues methods of working with children, plans for the development of a thematic area. It seems that every institution should specifically provide for such work.
Risks, or what hinders the development of additional education.
What dangers await today's additional education?
1. First of all, municipal financing, when in most regions local authorities determine financing standards, and they, as a rule, do not have money. Therefore, the well-being of institutions depends entirely on the income of the region and the will of local authorities. Here, a division of responsibility is necessary: the provision of educational services of a general developmental nature is expedient at the expense of municipal funds and payments from parents; the solution of state tasks in the field of development of scientific and technical creativity, search and selection of gifted children and the like should be financed from federal targeted state programs.
2. There is a danger of reducing the system of additional education to an “auxiliary” subsystem of general or secondary vocational education if its specific mission and subject of work are unclear. And the current trends in regulating activities, determining the effectiveness of the system based on the “tracing paper” of schools and colleges contribute to this. It is necessary to normatively consolidate the mission and specifics of additional education, the subject-activity approach as a methodological basis for the system’s work and a tool for assessing its effectiveness, and the procedure for forming the regulatory framework of institutions.
3. Degeneration of additional education programs into entertainment and leisure, correctional, and tutoring programs. This is facilitated by the current lack of level differentiation of additional education programs (in particular, the status of extracurricular activity programs implemented by schools, which are often additional classes in the subject, has not been determined). It is more profitable for an institution to teach using simple, introductory programs that do not require additional equipment. Therefore, an independent examination of additional education programs is necessary before its approval by the director of the institution (as opposed to extracurricular activity programs) and differentiation of the funding standard depending on the level.
4. Decrease in the quality of educational programs and their implementation with the reduction of methodological services of institutions of additional education due to the policy of reducing administrative and managerial personnel. It is necessary to consolidate at the document level the standards for methodological support of the educational process (the number of groups per methodologist), or an independent examination of the quality of programs and their implementation, which entails the need for constant methodological support for the implementation of programs.
5. The contradiction between the financing of additional education institutions for the educational programs they implement and the real functions they perform - holding events, organizing club forms of work, working with one-time visitors, etc., which are not systematically funded. This leads to the workload of qualified teachers with organizational functions unusual for them and a drop in the level of education in educational groups.
Thus, it seems to us that the prospects for the development of additional education lie in the development of a special regulatory and management system that creates conditions for the widespread development of innovations based on special mechanisms of interdepartmental interaction. It should be focused on attracting and creating conditions for the work of specialists from various industries, supporting pedagogical schools that have developed in the system. The main result of the implementation of additional educational programs should be to increase the personal results of students, which can be recorded using a set of diagnostic techniques based on the subject-activity approach. It is personal development as a general goal (which gives the child the opportunity to set and solve his own problems in planning activities, interacting with others, building his own educational (and later professional) trajectory, increasing educational performance, overcoming his own complexes and compensating for psychological and physical problems, implementation of special needs) is the mission and meaning of modern additional education for children.
“Only personality can act on the development and definition of personality.”
K.D. Ushinsky.
Nurturing a creative personality, developing a moral, competent person of the future is one of the most important tasks of modern education. In my opinion, one of the most vibrant, emotionally rich means of aesthetic education and artistic education for children is theater. After all, theater pedagogy has a powerful potential for a holistic impact on the child, since it contributes to the development of creative abilities, the formation of a competent and successful personality, since theatrical activity is based on close interaction and integration of different types of arts (theater, choreography, literature, fine arts). This contributes to the creation of an educational environment that has a beneficial effect on the formation of independent and independent thinking and the creative potential of the individual. Allows you to enter the space of the possible and the impossible - through the game...
Who is he, the man of the future? What questions does he pose for himself? What is important to him? How to direct him without harming his uniqueness and individuality? Where can I get landmarks? How to awaken the need for self-knowledge and the need to bring out the best that is in oneself and boldly show it to the world? How to lay the foundation on which the courage to solve problems grows, and not run from them? I think that each teacher, and especially additional education teachers, asks himself these questions, and more than once. And I'm no exception. It is hardly possible to become such a wise Teacher as Life itself... But to touch this risky profession and understand something - the task turned out to be quite doable for me... And how not to become “mumbling” or all-knowing (as it suits you) “ mothballs”, serving the business for more than 20 years? Where to get resources for endless renewal of yourself and discoveries in the profession additional education teacher?!..
…I won’t lie that becoming a teacher was not initially part of my life plans. What can students of a creative university in the theater department dream about? With healthy ambitions? Minimum - Prima theater... Success in student work inspires! But “someone’s hand” (most likely mine) suggested another way... And I was lucky. I was lucky from the very beginning to get into the Children's Theater School of Volgodonsk, where the director was Nikolai Nikolaevich Zadorozhny, a student of M.O. Knebel, who, in turn, was a student of K.S. Stanislavsky. It was there, I believe, that a turning point in the direction of theater pedagogy took place.
A year later, immersed in the atmosphere of boundless goodwill, the highest skill of work of children and adults, teachers, graduates of the “Etude Studio” and the Master himself, I had a dream...
It was there that the idea came that someday I would be able to create my own studio, my own children's theater. A theater where children play! But I still had a great desire to play on stage myself, and not go to “coaching” work... Then I was 23 years old... But, I can honestly say: I saw the level, the bar of working with a children's group of unprecedented height and skill! And I have never seen anything like this anywhere else, more than 20 years later... This “meeting” became a guideline for me, as it can and should be! Outrageously professional, inimitably tasty and serious! And dreams tend to come true!
It was from this “bar” that my march through the pedagogical expanses began...
Further, for many years, combining acting and teaching activities, having tasted all the “difficulties and delights” of integrating general and additional education, I learned to set goals and achieve them, to look for ways to solve problems. The children of the most ordinary school with whom I studied acting also learned the same thing with me. Working in a team of young teachers, we studied together all the “innovations in education”, together we created our own unique program that combined the Children’s Studio, the Children’s Theater and the Student Theater, which won the All-Russian competition of educational programs. The classes were comprehensive, conducted by entire classes of a comprehensive school and in subgroups...
The school teachers loved the “creative” classes. Children, acquiring the skills of productive communicative communication and joint creative activity in an informal setting, gradually changed, became different: friendly, proactive, active, although these were far from the best classes, and did not always study with straight A's. And all this in the second half of the 90s, when the country was in complete confusion... Despite the non-payment of salaries and half-starved existence against the general background... During classes and rehearsals, we tried to create a situation of success for children (participation in concerts, sketches, productions) and demand while the “adults” were playing games about the collapse of the country...
We believed that what we were doing was not in vain, that the children and we needed, no matter what, to live on, and moreover, to succeed in the future! Let it be in a new, changed country...
For a long time, acting was still my priority... And our studio children, looking at us, their teachers, playing in plays, learned, admired, and imitated. We were an example for them of how to “be.” We were called “practicing teachers.” And we understood this responsibility. Sacrifice? Not at all! We were happy, young, hopeful and just loved what we did. And it took time, rethinking myself, before I was able to go completely to “coaching” work - as a teacher of additional education.
How important it is sometimes not to interfere with a creative person in order to achieve something truly worthwhile!
Further, in 2006, already in my native Tomsk, having slightly transformed this “model” of interaction with children, on the basis of the Career Planning Center, my wonderful team was born - the Sintez Theater Studio... In the Palace of Children and Youth Creativity, it takes on that form and the content that I always wanted and dreamed about. Since my youth. How important it is sometimes not to interfere with a creative person in order to achieve something truly worthwhile! The first thing we had to create was a program! Plan! Instructions! Get to work! Three subjects: “Acting”, “Stage speech” and “Fundamentals of stage movement” are the main ones, and two additional ones are “Choreography” and “History of theatre. History of Costume". For 5 or more years of study... The slogan “Come to us, be able to become better in the Theater where Children play!” appeared, which perfectly reflects the essence...
In the first year of work, there were 24 people in the Synthesist Palace. Six years later - more than 70! Age – from 8 to 17! Four groups. Close in age and years of education. "Younger", "Middle" and "Senior". About equally. The fact that the number of studio students is growing year by year, and we already have to make a “selection”, since we cannot accommodate everyone, of course, without false modesty, this is an indicator for me, as a teacher... The children remain. New ones come and also stay. They come again and again. And even graduates, after completing five years of training, continue to study...
First - intention. It works.
Of course, children go “to the teacher.” Often, when a teacher or leader changes, the team or organization “goes into decline,” or, conversely, everything begins to sparkle with new colors, burst with ideas, possibilities... Everything comes from the person. And even more so - from the leader. Or rather, from his intentions. First intention - then opportunities for implementation. Not otherwise. And especially in our profession! It works!
A recent example. Before I had time to think about charitable activities, like, “It’s necessary, it’s time,” almost immediately I received an offer for children to participate in the “Special Fashion” gala concert of the Regional Competition of Young Designers for Models with Disabilities. “This is an opportunity to teach children a lesson in kindness, acceptance of otherness, to make, so to speak, my contribution...” I thought. The children supported. This year we are invited again. And we'll go again.
Or here's another example. In 2014-2015, I was inspired to create a big project, try my hand at it, and win a grant. Thanks to friends, colleagues, like-minded people, it took place - “The international real-virtual competition “Sozvezdie.ru” confidently declared itself. He united the efforts of children, teachers, and leading Russian experts in the field of art. It was not an easy matter. But I received “profit” in the form of enormous experience. And undoubted growth, thanks to everything new. And the children of my “Synthesis”, like thousands of other participants in the competition, became the most active participants.
Don't teach, but share what you know!
My main methodological principle for teaching the basics of acting is mastering the patterns of human behavior in stage conditions. Be able to look and see. Listen and hear.
The ability to solve complex problems is the competency of the future!
According to World Economic Forum analysts, the ability to solve complex problems (Complex Problem Solving) will remain in first place in 2020, as in 2015 (that’s when this study was conducted). I really love the word “task” and often use it in class. Children understand what it means: “Your task is to make sure that he…”. Subsequently, they learn to set tasks for each other and themselves. She is always specific. It is directed at the partner. The ability to understand the task of the hero in a sketch or play and find ways to achieve their goal is a very important skill that will be useful to them in their future life, in any other profession, not just on stage.
Viva for creativity and critical thinking!
The increasing complexity of processes in all areas requires non-standard solutions. Unfortunately, this is not taught in modern schools (and in many universities). Here is the opinion of Tatyana Chernigovskaya, a famous scientist in the field of neuroscience and psycholinguistics: “Is this how we teach children?.. Why teach meaningless things? We pump our children up with them. It is important for me to know in what year Napoleon married Josephine? No, it doesn't matter. It is important to me that people understand what is happening on this planet. Google already knows everything else. I don’t need people who know what Google knows professionally, because Google already exists. I need someone who will come up with an unusual thing. You know, discoveries are mistakes. If we offer the following people to take the Unified State Exam: Mozart, Beethoven, the slacker poor student Pushkin, and also take the chemist Mendeleev (a bad student in chemistry, remember?), Einstein, Dirac, Schrödinger, etc. They'll screw it all up. We will say: “Two for you, Niels Bohr.” He will say: “A deuce is a deuce, but the Nobel Prize is waiting for me.” And precisely for this “wrong” answer! So what do we want? Discoveries or an army of fools who learned Newton's binomial? Of course, there is a major danger here. I know her. If everyone knows a little bit about everything, then there is a risk that we will start producing amateurs. We need to think about what to do with this.” I totally agree! I especially welcome this “non-standard” in children! The ability to “not look at your neighbor” or “go beyond the usual” is very valuable.
There are special exercises and acting techniques aimed at finding non-standard solutions. And children love them very much, at 10, and at 13, and at 16 years old... For example, composing and implementing etudes. Of three words. Not related to each other, for example, snow, turtle, nail. The task is to come up with and connect them into one story, that is, according to all the laws of drama – plot, climax, denouement. I earnestly remind them not to “follow stereotypes by finding unusual meanings for simple words and things.” And they find it! They not only come up with ideas and put them together, but also present “their product” on stage, that is, they independently distribute roles among themselves, agree on goals, objectives, and the actions of the characters they have created - they create! Let it be “here and now”, momentarily... This is training! This is an “investment in the future”! Experience! Then we discuss it together and sort it out. Reflection! By creating, the child’s mental, communicative, and regulatory abilities are trained. And... out-of-the-box thinking. And they do it with great joy and pleasure! Nothing less than geniuses!
Cognitive flexibility and empathy are also a priority. Understand and empathize with the feelings of another, respect internal processes. It is important! If only you could feel it! How can a person of the future live without this?..
Of course, participation in productions and performances is what they strive for. Everything is like with adults - to get into the “leading roles”, into the “main cast”... And at the same time, I cultivate in the team, there is no other way to say it, an atmosphere of goodwill and respect for each other. The atmosphere is not competition, but cooperation! Theater is a collective, synthetic art. Everyone is important here! They themselves (including) choose each other for roles or nominate themselves, justifying their choice. This is how children learn to accept the opinions of others. Whether they are relaxing at a summer camp or having fun on holidays, working - rehearsing, arguing, creating and performing - but they know - “we are a team”!
Having reached a fairly high professional level, I set myself the task of ensuring that the team of which I am the leader reaches the international level. It was realized in the second year! And it has already become an annual good tradition! We are in the trend - at festivals and competitions of different levels - from city to international, filming on TV, trips to festivals in Yekaterinburg, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk, etc.... Of course, this is the creation of both a situation of success and self-confidence, and summing up some results of the work - for everyone. And our theater session at a country summer camp! Almost the whole team! Easily! There would be intention!..
In my work, I deliberately do not set myself career guidance goals. Although more than half are “senior and middle” Rather, it’s the other way around. And not because I have a bad attitude towards the professions of “actor, director”... I just know that you have to go there if you can’t live without it, that is, there is no choice. Otherwise there is nothing to do there! “If you have a choice, it’s better not to go,” I tell the children. That's probably right. Let it be better that, having played enough games in childhood, they enter adulthood and decide for themselves “to be or not to be”... Let everything be a joy! I am convinced that not only in any profession they will be able to apply their skills to “live on stage,” but also in any life situation, since the knowledge and experience of theater pedagogy are universal! They help raise a wise, competent, understanding person. And in this situation, in our country, I think this is much more important!
Thus, theater pedagogy is the area for me where all the best qualities that exist in people are most fully concentrated and manifested. This is an area where you can nurture and develop the qualities that you want to see in yourself in the future. Where everyone is given the opportunity to express themselves, participating in the general process, the tasks of socialization and cooperation are solved with the greatest intention - to give, with the inescapable need to develop oneself.
It doesn’t matter that someone sings, someone enlightens, someone... We all awaken something in people, children... I want to be able to touch the very insides of those who “have ears and hear.” Words!.. But the form is not important. The only important thing is how much clarity, simplicity and purity we can bring with our work, with ourselves, to the world.
It’s not enough, gentlemen, just to give your heart... You need to grow yourself. And educate only by your own example!
Anna Ivanovna Grigorova,
additional education teacher,
DTDiM, Tomsk
Editorial opinion may not reflect the views of the author
The concept of additional children's education appeared in the 90s of the last century and is reflected in the law on education adopted at that time. It includes a step-by-step, systematized, purposeful process of education and training of schoolchildren using additional programs.
Additional education for children (ECE) has become a mandatory component of general education. But its peculiarity is that different types of preschool education correspond to the inclinations, interests and goals of each student.
The history of the appearance of DOD
For many years in our country many elements of preschool education operated as out-of-school education. Various sections, circles, workshops, clubs and summer health institutions existed back in the 19th century. They still exist today, but their features and functions have changed several times. Therefore, today various forms of out-of-school education and additional education for children are concepts, although close, but different.
Types of DOD institutions
At the moment, there are four options for organizing additional education.
- A random selection of clubs and sections in a comprehensive school that do not form a single structure. Their work depends only on personnel and material resources. This model is most common in Russia.
- A combination of sections with a general focus, which often becomes part of school basic education.
- Maintaining close communication and developing a joint program of work between secondary schools and children's creativity centers, sports and music schools, theaters, museums, etc.
- The most effective concept for the development of additional education for children involves the formation of educational complexes in which general education is harmoniously combined with additional education.
Additional education programs
Each educational institution develops such programs independently. It can be based on a standard program developed by a government agency and focused on the standards of additional education. If an educational institution includes elements of military training in the program being developed, then it must be agreed upon with the authorities that have the appropriate powers from the government. By creating such a program, an educational institution in the process of its implementation can itself determine the content of the course, the form of delivery and the duration of classes. It is not necessary that the implementation of such programs be carried out by general education institutions themselves, but it can take place in independent centers (studios, clubs, stations, palaces) that specialize in additional education for schoolchildren of different ages.
When implementing a program of additional children's education, the institution must follow certain principles:
A selection of useful sites that can make life much easier for schoolchildren and parents and help in solving pressing school problems. 1. History of the city...
- parents or children can choose both institutions and additional education programs themselves, focusing on the interests and abilities of the child;
- the child must be offered a choice of several similar programs;
- teachers, implementing additional education programs, must preserve the mental and physical health of students;
- during training, the individual characteristics of students should develop;
- classes should take place against the backdrop of creative interaction between students and teachers;
- the process of implementing such programs must proceed continuously, their continuity must be respected, and if necessary, it would be possible to adjust them.
Thanks to this, each student receives the right to receive a full-fledged additional education that contributes to the development of his personality and pushes the child to knowledge and creative activity.
Main functions and goals of DOD
Regardless of the form of implementation of preschool education, its goals are aimed at nurturing in each student a comprehensively developed, full-fledged personality, creatively and professionally realized. Education within the boundaries of preschool educational institutions is not compulsory, which can be considered a great advantage.
Main goals:
- the formation and subsequent development of various children's creative abilities;
- education of such moral qualities as spiritual values, respect for elders, love of work, patriotism;
- teaching the culture of communication and other communication skills: the ability to maintain a conversation, politeness, respect for the interlocutor, the ability to listen to comments and accept criticism;
- assistance to children in choosing a profession and the opportunity to develop acquired skills;
- meeting the cultural and communication needs of schoolchildren;
- physical development;
- protecting schoolchildren from the aggressive and harmful influence of society.
Its main directions logically follow from the tasks and goals of additional education for children. For the comprehensive development of students, their subsequent personal and professional fulfillment, any direction of additional education is important.
Modern pedagogy has six such areas:
- Social and pedagogical, including work with gifted children, volunteering, caring for people requiring special treatment.
- In the artistic direction, the inclinations of creativity in children are actively developed - abilities for literary work, fine arts, etc.
- The technical direction prepares schoolchildren for relevant professions.
- The tourism and local history branch is intended for children who want to explore their native land and travel.
- A natural science direction that focuses on the study of chemistry, physics, biology and other natural sciences.
- Sports and physical education branch aimed at physical development (strength, endurance, agility, flexibility).
Each of these areas is capable of fully realizing the goals and main functions prescribed for additional children's education. It is quite natural that preschool education is implemented in an optional form that has long become familiar to children, parents and teachers, as well as in the form of various sports sections, creative clubs, dance studios, and on-site and school children’s camps.
The sensitive period is understood as a time interval, which is characterized by the presence of the most suitable conditions for the development of certain psychological...
Organization of DOD
Additional education of children is a very important and pressing issue to which any teacher must pay sufficient attention. And although a lot has been written and said about its importance, unfortunately, most teachers continue to underestimate preschool education, even though universal teaching methods, the main types of activities of structures aimed at preschool education, and the main goals pursued are spelled out in Russian legislation.
New items that appear in additional children's education and relate not only to methods of education and training, but also to the activities of schoolchildren themselves should be especially interesting. After all, pedagogy, as a humanities science, does not stop developing. Continuous technological progress causes the emergence of new professions, therefore the preschool education system should not lag behind and develop, meeting the needs of children's education.
Regardless of what aspects of training undergo changes, they must be monitored. This monitoring of ECE is extremely important and is done in order to instantly capture new trends while simultaneously tracking the behavior of children within any of the ECE programs.Education and additional human opportunities
A person can reveal his potential, talents and abilities at any age. In sections and creative teams, an environment of interests is formed. For example, in sports sections, the organization of free time can be quite accessible for most people. In the process of participating in competitions and improving results, a person can reveal his sporting talents.
The field of additional education should also include specialized courses dedicated to advanced training. There are no age restrictions for visitors in art houses. Quite often it happens that a person works in some specialty all his life, and when he retires, he unexpectedly discovers new abilities in himself. And additional education only expands a person’s freedom of choice and helps more complete realization.
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Additional education for children
Today, additional education of children is considered as the most important component of the educational space; it is socially in demand and needs constant attention and support from society and the state as education that combines upbringing, training and development of the child’s personality. Additional education, based on its originality, organically combines various types of organization of meaningful leisure (recreation, entertainment, holidays, creativity) with various forms of educational activity and, as a result, reduces the space for deviant behavior, solving the problem of children’s employment.
Practice has shown that the higher the quality level of school education, the wider the range of interests of the growing individual, which the current school is not able to satisfy alone. The educational process at school should be aimed not only at the transfer of certain knowledge, skills and abilities, but also at diverse development child, the disclosure of his creative potential, abilities and such personality traits as initiative, initiative, imagination, originality, that is, everything that relates to a person’s individuality.
The system of additional education for children has undergone a full course of development from a random set of circles and sections through the creation of blocks of different directions, through the creation of a material base to a system that is naturally woven into the educational and educational processes and is a natural continuation of basic education. Children choose what is close to them by nature, what meets their needs and interests. And this is the meaning of additional education: it helps early self-determination, gives the child the opportunity to fully live his childhood, realizing himself, solving socially significant problems. Children who have gone through additional education tend to have more opportunities to make error-free choices at a later age.
The value of additional education for children also lies in the fact that it strengthens the variable component of general education, promotes the practical application of knowledge and skills acquired at school, and stimulates the cognitive motivation of students. And most importantly, in the conditions of additional education, children can develop their creative potential, adaptation skills to modern society and get the opportunity to fully organize their free time.
Additional education for children is an exploratory education that tests other, non-traditional ways out of various life circumstances (including situations of uncertainty), providing individuals with a range of opportunities to choose their destiny, stimulating the processes of personal self-development. In additional education for children, the child himself chooses the content and form of training, may not be afraid of failure.
It has shown that the higher the quality level of school education, the wider the range of interests of the growing individual, which the current school is not able to satisfy alone.
Sections and clubs help the child better master the curriculum at school and develop the gifted traits inherent in him in the intellectual, emotional, artistic and physical spheres. Informatization makes it possible to create a unified educational space for students’ research and independent work
The development of a child’s logical thinking, his ability for consistent reasoned reasoning, as well as the ability to create logical schemes and identify patterns help to go beyond the boundaries of the school curriculum and instill interest in intellectual exercises and games. All this is accompanied by high-quality aesthetic development.
Taking into account the trends in the development of the educational environment, three priorities for additional education of children can be identified:
- development of children's creative activity;
- integration of children who find themselves in difficult life situations into the life of society;
- development of gifted children.
To reduce tension, intolerance, and aggressiveness among children and adolescents, it is necessary to increase their employment in socially useful activities. In this regard, additional education for children resists the onslaught of all kinds of “countercultures” that destabilize the younger generation.
Additional education for children increases the space in which children and adolescents can develop their creative and cognitive activity, realize their personal qualities, and demonstrate those abilities that often remain unclaimed by basic education.
In order for additional education to fully realize its potential, clear and coordinated work of the entire pedagogical system is necessary. Therefore, it is so important for teachers to know and understand each other’s problems - those who are professionally involved in additional education for children, and those who are associated with subject teaching at school.
Comments
"additional education" for children
Tatyana Pavlovna, I agree with every word you say, but I will add one thing - the so-called “additional education” of children is just the main one, and from a very early age. And then, having become an adult, a person develops himself along the path of spirituality and development already laid down by culture. This idea should be boldly applied in your work.