AD ALTA
JOURNAL OF INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH
Personal reform, striving to achieve a state in which the school is
not just an institution providing new knowledge, skills and habits
to learners, but the one in which learners enter various
communication relations with teachers and classmates. Last but
not least, personal change also means a more consistent
communication with parents.
Didactic reform is the one which most occupies the teachers,
psychologists, as well as professionals from other sciences. Its
essence lies in dealing with the questions of educational content,
concentrating especially on the harmonisation of the
requirements of society with the possibilities of the school. The
scope of the paper does not allow a more detailed analysis of
this, so to say, eternal problem, but it is a fact that in the future
education will have to pay more attention to the future than to
the present or to the past. This requires the adaptation of
educational objectives, especially harmonisation of the content
and objectives with the methods and forms of educational work,
since education is frequently reproached because of its slow,
even lagging behind didactic reform.
Communication reform has already been partially indicated in
personal reform. It means the openness of the school outwards –
the openness to parents, to a wider community, to other
institutions, enterprises or businesses, etc. In the past, for a
school to be successful it was enough to fulfil the prescribed
curricula, nowadays, in addition to this the school has to be open
to cooperation with a wider public, to be able to flexibly respond
to social requirements.
Reform of the diagnostics of teaching requires, among other
things, also the growth of new pedagogical-psychological and
didactic knowledge about teaching. Current pedagogy, unlike the
past one, tends to see the learners more significantly as subjects
in education. While in the past the individual approach to a
learner was understood mostly as the “arrangement of conditions
for the work of learners“, nowadays we emphasise, for example,
the specificity of learning styles with individual learners and
finding corresponding methods of teachers work to match them.
Aesthetic reform is required by changing life all around us. The
school, with its content, methods and forms of work, must lead
learners to their being able to perceive and create aesthetic
values, in addition to their absorption of scientific information.
The aesthetic of the school, of interpersonal relations and life in
general, is a standing task of the changing school.
Extra-curricular reform is oriented on the development of a pupil
also outside the process of formal education. It uses various
activities outside the classroom; e.g.: trips, sport competitions
etc. Pupils are in the centre of extra-curricular activities, not only
curricular ones. Such incentives are provided by alternative
pedagogy, which uses so-called hidden curriculum. It indirectly
influences the pupils (formal relations between pupils and
teachers, between teachers and teachers, classroom and school
aesthetics, interest in development of the school, etc.), and plays
a significant and important role in their lives. This is the weak
point in Slovakia. The pupils are not taught to be proud of their
school; one can hardly hear them say the sentence: “I am proud
of my school because of...“
Structural reform is about the school as such; its climate,
operational methods, organization and management; it also
includes the school reform, which can only be implemented on
the national level – state and its people level – if only the people
are interested in the development of school in general.
In addition to what has been already said, it is necessary to point
out the fact that the school culture is created by the teachers
themselves. Therefore, it is necessary to pay the attention to the
following areas:
Personal competencies, in addition to other things, express also
the realistic self-perception, a particular self-reflection, and so
help teachers to improve their teaching methods. Whereas in the
past, the communication was mainly understood as the
relationship between pupil and teacher, nowadays, it is being
understood in a far broader sense regarding the additional
personal competencies of teachers. The teacher must interact
with parents and other social entities. In other fields, cooperation
and mutual interaction is a natural part of working processes. It
should become a natural part of teacher´s work as well. The
innovative approaches based on the team work require the
interaction of teachers and their colleagues with the school
management.
Pedagogical competencies are associated with the profession of a
teacher rather automatically. With teachers, these are often taken
as granted. These competencies are not listed by a chance; they
are crucial for the schools in future. One of the key pedagogical
competencies is the skill to create the appropriate pedagogical
conditions for educational activities of pupils. For many readers,
such sentence will sound pretty obvious. But is it?! Is the focus
of education always on the optimal educational climate? Is the
pedagogical interaction always self-evident? Questions like these
could go on and on.
Psychological competencies were described in the opening part
of this contribution. It is obvious that teachers must also be
skilful psychologists in order to understand pupils and manage
their educational activities efficiently. In addition to basic
psychological aspects, teachers should be able to implement
various interventions to support or inhibit manifestations and
activities of pupils. Psychological competencies allow teachers
not only to work with pupils; these also allow them to work with
their parents. These competencies need to be employed and
appreciated mainly by teachers working with pupils in older
school age.
School organizational competencies went through a significant
development in comparison with the past era. The conditions
have been changed significantly. The school has become an
autonomous institution. In this new situation, teachers overtake a
certain deal of responsibility for the operation of the school. On
one hand, this new responsibility is represented by significant
pedagogical freedom (it should be manifested in the search and
implementation of new methods and forms), and, on the other
hand, in the significant responsibility for the final results of
educational outcomes of the school. Organizational
competencies also include other activities, such as cooperation
with other schools, institutions and regional businesses. These
are the competencies that were rather overlooked in the past; or,
these were only required in top management.
Didactic competencies have been in the focus for several years
in a row, now. These competencies are significantly changing
the perspective on and requirements of education, which is being
transformed from the classic authoritative one to creative and
humanistic teaching style. The actual educational practice has
proven that teachers do not include motivation naturally into
their teaching styles; positive motivation based on a thorough
diagnosing of pupils is often substituted by so-called “in medias
res” didactics with almost no motivational activities. The key
didactic competencies include mastering the newest educational
forms and methods. The current didactic theory offers a great
number of methods pursuing efficiency in education. In this
regard, it is only correct to stress the role of progressive teaching
methods in the actual educational process.
Along with others, the above listed aspects significantly
influence and create the quality school. The quality school is
embodied in a number of relations and activities influencing the
quality education. Above all, this aspect deserves to be in focus.
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