Children’s Literature and Strategies of Modern Education

Abstract

On the one hand, modern education focuses in a large part on distance learning with a wide use of Information and Communication technologies and, on the other hand, it has to meet the requirements for the use of health saving technologies. Therefore, how should the process of learning be organized to observe the proposed conditions? The objective of the study is to determine educational basis (dominant principles) of developing diverse models of learning and organization of life, which are specified in the works of great pedagogues such as Y.A. Komenskiy, F.I. Buslaev, K.D. Ushinskiy, L.N. Tolstoy, A.S. Makarenko and V.A. Sukhomlinskiy. The article has “children’s literature” in its title for a good reason. This term makes us think about the conditions of mastering the Word and literature as a key factor for successful learning. It is folklore, oral tradition which forms cultural and speech framework of a person from the first days of life. Comparative-historical, historical-functional, system-activity methods determine the means to motivate for independent creative reading activity. Self-dependence and freedom of a child in education are established by the real life communication with the world that is crucial for him or her, the arts, physical labor, intellectual, creative and craft activities comply with the amplification principle. Therefore, colloquial speech and literary speech acts, communicative rhetoric help to elaborate solid socially important and morally founded principles to develop a personality that will be in full concordance with the frame of reference of its creative evolution.

Keywords: Children’s literature, literature, motivation, creativity, labor, freedom, self-sufficiency, health

Introduction

On the one hand, modern education focuses to a large extent on distance learning with a wide use of

Information and Communication technologies and, on the other hand, it has to meet the requirements

for the use of health saving technologies.

The considerable research evidence in children and developmental psychology and social adaptation

of children in society shows convincingly that total substitution of real, effective communication of a

child with the world by virtual communication not only fails to develop adequate behavioral patterns in

different social circumstances but has negative effects on his / her health. At the same time parents

cannot resist their children begging for an iPad or an iPhone with cartoons and games. Parents think

that on the one hand, these ‘toys’ spare them the necessity of constant communication with a child and

on the other hand, these devices provide kids with more information than adults can give.

How can one form communication between adults and children and the process of education in such

a way that they meet the requirements of modern technologies and do not harm their health? This

question could be answered by the inventors of digital devices forbidding their children to use them

without restrictions. Who is the authority in this question? Angelina Jolie, her interviewers say, he

thinks the Internet is not a source of information, but a real headache. For this reason she makes her

children read books (by the way, they have a good library in their house) and allows them to spend less

than an hour at the computer. But even when the supporters and opponents of reading come to

consensus, the argument arises with regard to a medium on which it is better to read.

Physiologists maintain that when reading from the screen, brains get tired more easily (Morosova,

Novikova, 2013). T.V. Chernigovskaya claims that a person reading only from a computer screen has a

bad memory, discontinuous attention and does not possess a long-term memory (Chernigovskaya,

2015). One can give more examples, but when medicine and psychology can persuade Education

Community and parents that in using digital media the principle of reasonable sufficiency should be

predominant, it may turn out that in their experimenting with a child’s psyche they are way past the

point of no return. It is because of the latter that the problem of children’s literature, reading with a

child and education is so urgent today.

The solving of problem

The solving of this problemlies in the responsible attitude towards established traditions in

humanitarian development of youth and identifying the necessary and sufficient mechanisms,

providing converged interaction of tested effective methods and technical and technological

innovations, which would ensure the formation of a physically and mentally healthy person, freely and

creatively exploring the world and living in peace with herself/himself and other people.

is the definition of educational pivot (strategic dominant) in building

variable models of learning and life-building, which are formulated in the works of great educators,

such as Ya.A. Komensky, F.I. Buslajev, K.D. Ushinsky, L.N. Tolstoy, A.S. Makarenko, V.A.

Sukhomlinsky (Mineralova, 2016).

If in education one concentrates on the definition of the most high-speed sources of information, it is

necessary to agree that such sources are digital media. However, in education the question is two

pronged: on the one hand, there is a demand to spare education, primary and basic, from ‘slow’

information. The authors of 'intensification' and 'optimization' maintain that if a child can get much

more information for a time unit, he/she will become more successful than those who master the same

amount of information in a slower way while using ‘outdated’ paper media. Yet, as practice shows, to

identify genuine results of such optimization, one should agree what kind of 'information' is meant and

what mechanisms of its 'preservation' are used by a person. On the other hand, the requirement to

orientate not on the knowledge paradigm, but on competences in which a student is shows how to use

information efficiently and multi-dimensionally, and in its turn, requires concentrating on the most

effective ways of 'drilling' of the 'high-speed' information and its reproducing and producing.

In the past and nowadays, linguists, pedagogues, neurophysiologists, who can give a scientific

interpretation of brain development, call for reading and understanding texts. In particular, they

mention different kinds of memory, which is not a ‘storage facility’ for information, but a complex

resource of a person’s adaptation to living conditions and social circumstances. The seemingly archaic

proverb “Repetition is the mother of tuition” sounds quite true and up-to-date. Thus, success in

education (teaching and upbringing) is achieved not only by perception of great amounts of

information, not only by slow reading, but by preserving the balance of perception, drilling and

producing imaginative, popular scientific information, realized in speech. Not incidentally the

phenomenon ‘children’s literature’ finds place in the title of the article, tuning us to the conditions of a

child’s mastering the WORD, word art as a significant factor of successful learning. These conditions

should be provided by a family, family interaction, mutual learning. Not reading for the sake of reading

but reading for the developing of a free personality that finds freedom due to mastering the native

language and the Russian language – the languages of international communication in all their richness

and beauty. The reading of fiction, science fiction, reading and memorizing, are important for

systematic practice of developing attention, memory, logic, figurative thinking, etc. K.D. Ushinsky

maintained: “Attention is the door through which everything which enters a human soul passes”

(Ushinsky, 1950). Therefore, attention is the basis of personality development, forming of these

‘ways’, which determine the rationality and emotions of a human being.

It is the folklore, its different genres, including those, which are formed on the basis of folklore

syncretism that lay the foundation of cognitive, figuratively semantic sense–expressing speech basis.

From the first days of life, even on the phonological level, the basis for development and formation of a

personality is being laid, defining the active motivational mechanisms for discovering the world in all

its diversity.

Historical-comparative, historical –functional system activity-based methodsdefine the ways of

motivational formation of independent creative reading activity. It means that no digital means of

communication are capable of substituting live communication between children and adults, children

of different ages and communication with a book and through a book. That is why an educational

authority ought not to create conditions when a book and informational communication systems

become opponents or, which is even worse, implacable enemies (Mineralova I.G., 2016).

Let us agree that the outset of everything is family reading, reading with children in primary school,

forming the necessity for the reading reflection.

And if an ideal student for modern pedagogues is a child who manifests his/her abilities and

systematically develops as a free creative personality, then one should define the system of coordinates

under which that child should realize the necessity of learning and feel free.

Frequently the notion 'freedom of children' is interpreted in a simplified fashionas adults are trying

to meet his/her needs or even whims. By adopting such a model, an adult risks becoming a performer

of unbridled desires first of a child, then a teenager as the realization of free activities can form when

these activities give satisfaction, even joy.

It is the process of reading with a child that forms his/her needs for creative development. Let me

remind you of a crucial lesson to be learned which is given to modern pedagogues by Jan Amos

Komensky: “It (education –) is complete when the mind leads to wisdom, the tongue to eloquence

and the hand to labour which is necessary in life. These three things – wisdom, eloquence and labour

are the salt of life” (Komensky, 2012). Therefore, freedom in education is the need to develop the

systematic ways of thinking and reasoning, it is the joy for honest labour, it is self-discipline and the

need to share your discoveries with others. Intellect, labour and speech are united and inseparable in

the process of reading a work of literature, creating an imaginative world and modelling new

imaginative worlds or a new reality. K. D. Ushinskiy completely associating with Y. A. Komenskiy

supposed that "the upbringing itself, if it means happiness for a person, must prepare him not for the

happiness, but for the labour of life" (Ushinskiy, 2004). Thus freedom is perceived as the necessity in

systematic creative labour. To motivate a child to read, speculate and feel for the imagery is one of the

crucial challenges. To form his/her aesthetic sense and moral values means to provide the moral

security of a personality during the period of development and formation. To offer a vector for speech

and any creative activity is possible due to the reading of a children's book, which is closely connected

with music, dancing, drawing, painting etc. The word's general usage and creative poly-synthesism and

word picture, multi-dimensionally reflecting in different arts and art synthesis, manifesting in children's

culture, are the true basis of human (speaking) personality that gains freedom and choice by virtue of

shaped necessity in creative perceiving, comprehending and familiarizing with the world. Modern

education has to attract a child to reading, it should become the first priority. Parents, teachers, reading

supervisors pre-school teachers should realize that while communicating with a work of fiction both

the process and the result are important in which connection of both should be done over and over

again.

Conclusions

1. It is necessary to consider the functions of literature as the art of writing that answer to the

purpose of moral compass, artistic value, age priorities, and individual psycho-physiological qualities

of a child.

2. Reading with a child must be inseparable from the talk about the content. This sets proper

psychological and cultural oral communication that forms the conditions for prognostic complex,

predictable interaction and mutual understanding.

3. The desire to read and compose is a guarantee of a child’s ability for active learning, his/ her

freedom to discover the world around and psychological comfort during communication.

Whereas every aspect mentioned above shall comply with a number of criteria in order to

successfully realize them and develop personality without any damage to its physical and mental health

in line with moral and spiritual values and social priorities.

Recommendations

Self-dependence and freedom of a child in education are established by the real life communication

with the world that is crucial for him/ her. Arts, physical labor, intellectual, creative and craft activities

comply with the amplification principle (the term is coined by A.V. Zaporozhets, L.A. Paramonova).

Therefore, colloquial speech and literary speech acts, communicative rhetoric help to elaborate solid

socially important and morally founded principles to develop a personality that will be in full

concordance with the frame of reference of its creative evolution.

Modern training and education ought not to only prepare children for self-sufficient mastering

discrete information, but also develop defense mechanisms, ensuring moral and spiritual, social and

psychological security of a personality, capable of countering the aggressive destructive environment.

This problem will be solved much less efficiently without developing motivation to read and reflect on

the content, without self-sufficient communication activity.

References

• Morozova, L.V., Novikova, Ju.V. (2013). Osobennosti chtenij at ekstacbuma zhnyhijelek tronnyh nositelej.Vestnik Severnogo (Arkticheskogo) federal'nogo universiteta. Serija: Estestvennye nauki, 2013, 81- 86.

• Chernigovskaja T. V. (2015). Tvorchestvo kak prednaznachenie mozga. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TJxgRUwNVU 16.12.2015.

• Mineralova I.G. (2016). Detskaja literatura. Moscow, Jurajt, 2016, 333.

• Ushinskij K. D.(1950). Sobranie sochinenij. Moscow, 1950, T. 10, P. 22.

• Mineralova I.G. (2016). Uslovija uspeshnogo formirovanija motivacii k chteniju na russkom jazyke v dvujazychnoj nachal'noj shkole .Problemy prepodavanija russkogo jazyka v uslovijah bilingval'noj nachal'noj shkoly. Materialy mezhdunarodnoj nauchno-prakticheskoj konferencii 28 aprelja 2016 g., Groznyj.Mahachkala: Alef, 2016,102-106.

• Komensky Jan Amos. (2012.) Orbis sensualium pictus.Praha, Machart,2012,55.

• Ushinskij K. D. (2004). Chelovek kak predmet vospitanija. Opyt pedagogicheskoj antropologii. Moscow, ID Grand, 2004, 532.