Development Of Professional Consciousness Of Modern Teacher

Abstract

The article reveals the concept of professional consciousness and self-consciousness of the teacher. The issues of personal and professional development of the teacher in the context of the ideas of interdisciplinary knowledge are considered. This article discusses the model we have developed for the process of improving the qualifications of teachers, aimed at developing their professional consciousness. The authors have turned to a number of questions that relate to knowledge about the development of professional consciousness of the teacher. The purpose of this research is to develop a humanitarian model for the development of professional consciousness of teachers. As a methodological basis for the study, the authors identified a humanitarian anthropological approach, according to which the process under study provided that we take into account the diversity of human reality and development tools to improve the reflexive sphere of personality. The experience of working with teachers in the framework of improving their skills based on the principle of humanitarianism is presented. Particular attention is paid to the development of professional consciousness in the framework of improving the methodological culture of the teacher. The issues of the development of the professional consciousness of the teacher based on the method of "spiral dynamics" are described in detail.

Keywords: Professionalconsciousnessself-consciousnesstextual-dialogical principle

Introduction

Education can not but respond to the intensive processes of a global scale that are taking place in the world today. Today, the request for an "educated person", of course, differs from the idea of ​​a student of previous eras. It is quite natural, in this regard, the question arises of revising the value-target orientations, content, methods of education and the image of the teacher himself. Most likely, the most likely vector of movement of thought will be associated not with the change of principles, but with their integration, unity. The question is the quality, essence and application of the knowledge, processes and conditions that make up the content of education of a modern person. The point is that the value-oriented benchmarks of modern education, one way or another, should be correlated with the ideas of developing generic, basic human abilities, “growing viable community of people” (Slobodchikov, 2005), values ​​of “noospheric education” (Maslova, 2002) which opens up the horizons of human problems in the universe. In a situation of global crisis of mankind, when the contradiction between natural and artificial is aggravated, when “posthuman” reality is forming on Earth before our eyes, humanity must be able to restrain the expansion of technology and preserve the niche of natural being (Kutyrev, 2016).

Today, there is the phenomenon of “futuroshok” (Toffler, 2008), manifested as the inability of people to cope with current situations of unpredictability and instability. And in these conditions there is a need for consciously managed, value-oriented co-development of man with society and nature, when the satisfaction of the most diverse vital needs of people is carried out without prejudice to nature, human culture and the interests of future generations. “The principles of building our social institutions should be compatible with the principles of organization that nature has formed to maintain the web of life” (Ushinsky, 2015). The conclusion is obvious: the formation of the new millennium should provide the experience of “awakening”, the experience of holistic thinking, dialogue, and human development proper. The implementation of such tasks is only possible for a teacher with a new (humanitarian, “noosphere”, “noetic”) type of thinking and a high level of self-consciousness, which allows one to perceive himself as a “person of culture”, as a subject of his own education and author of his own life activity.

Problem Statement

As the analysis of our psychological and pedagogical studies and teacher surveys (Belova, 2006; Pankin, 2012) shows, the level of reflection in the profession itself, which means the level of professional consciousness, is not high enough for many teachers. Professional burnout syndrome, lack of interest in your own education, conflict, inability to manage the process of improving your skills and features of social infantilism - all these facts are evidence that the teacher does not always give herself an account of their actions, do not understand the broad context of their activities and peculiarities personality. Today we are seeing a “lack of reflective ability of teachers,” which is manifested in the difficulties of their adoption of a different point of view, self-centeredness and stereotyped thinking. This article discusses the model we have developed for the process of improving the qualifications of teachers, aimed at developing their professional consciousness.

Research Questions

In our study, we turned to a number of questions that relate to knowledge about the development of professional consciousness of the teacher. The result of the teacher's work depends on the level of such consciousness. It is necessary to understand what this phenomenon is, what are the specifics and conditions of its development, what are the mechanisms, content and process of its development. All these are questions about the integral model of development of professional consciousness of the teacher.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of our research was to develop a humanitarian model for the development of professional consciousness of teachers. As studies show (Kohn, 1978, Slobodchikov, 2005), consciousness arises as the removal of the relationship between the opposites of the inner world and the external, and self-consciousness is defined as the entry in opposition to itself. A person opens to himself through reflection, through the accumulation of experience of perception and vision of the wide context of all internal and external relations.

Before we developed a model for the development of the professional consciousness of teachers, we needed to clarify the basic concept. It was interesting for us to turn to the works of researchers (Bellg, 2003, Dagnan & Trower, 2002; Damon, 1980), which testify to the discovery of new principles that expand our understanding of consciousness and its possibilities. They are associated with coding-decoding information that a person can own. And also with different levels - verbal-text, sound, color - impact on the mind. “All our emotional reactions are no more than a result of chemical processes caused by established neural networks, and they are based on past experience”.

As a methodological basis for the study, we identified a humanitarian anthropological approach (K.D Ushinsky, M.B Bim-Bad, V.I Slobodchikov, and others), according to which the process under study is possible provided that we take into account the diversity of human reality and development tools to improve the reflexive sphere of personality (Bim-Bad, 2002; Slobodchikov, 2005; Ushinsky, 2015). We also chose the textual-dialogical principle (S.V. Belova) as a methodological guideline, which gives an opportunity to work “objectively” with subjective phenomena: feelings, attitudes, emotions, feelings, attitudes (Belova, 2006). In addition, we relied in our study on the model of spiral dynamics (K. Graves, D. Beck, K. Coven), explaining the development of professional consciousness as an integral dynamic process of consistently unfolding the human “bio-psycho-socio-spiritual system” (Beck & Forged, 2010; Capra, 2002).

Research Methods

Among the methods that we used in the study: analysis of the results of philosophical, psychological, pedagogical and interdisciplinary research on the development of professional consciousness; generalization of empirical experience associated with the self-reflection of teachers; measurement of levels of professional consciousness; theoretical modeling of the process of professional development of teachers, ensuring the development of their professional consciousness; approbation of the developed model in the course of the formative experiment.

The problem of professional consciousness (self-consciousness) of a teacher is the problem of his definition of his own way of being in a profession. Awareness of oneself as a subject of professional activity, a reflection of one's own ways of thinking, behavior, and activity presupposes attention to questions such as: “Who am I in the profession?”, “How do I think?”, “What do I communicate with my students?”, “What are my values? "," How do I perceive my students? "," How do I act (react) in a given situation? "," How do I treat myself and others? ". These and similar questions are important for understanding your way of not only professional activity, but also of all life activity. The experience of self-knowledge, self-inquiry, self-reflection contributes to overcoming the traumatic influence of internal conflict, choosing the path of self-improvement and managing the process of personal-professional self-development.

By definition, I.S. Kona, self-consciousness is called “a set of mental processes through which an individual realizes himself as a subject of activity, and his ideas about himself are formed into a certain image of “I” (Kohn, 1978). It is associated with the emotional sphere of the personality, and with the cognitive state, and with the whole wide spectrum of the individual's reflection of social relations, as well as self-perception (Maslova, 2002; Slobodchikov, 2005).

A self-aware teacher is able to understand what is happening in his inner world and what he really is, how his thinking, behavior and actions influence the results of his professional activity. Professional consciousness involves the ability to reflect the professional activities and the means that the teacher chooses in certain situations. It is also characterized by the ability of the individual to value-semantic self-determination, to the realization of his mode of being. Formation of professional consciousness among teachers is an important task in the adult education system built on the principles of humanitarianism.

Studying the problem of professional self-awareness, we concluded that teachers lack not only knowledge about themselves, but knowledge about themselves as a dynamic system and about the laws of development of subjective reality, which obeys the objective laws of evolution (Belova, 2006; Pankin, 2012). It requires the accumulation of the experience of perceiving oneself as a subject of behavior in different situations. It should be noted that the formation of a person’s attitude to himself occurs later than the formation of attitudes towards a situation, subject, other people, and in traditional education rather weak attention is paid to it. In the mode of seminars and trainings, we invite teachers to explore the system of their existing relationships and look for opportunities to change automatic, stereotypical behavior to a conscious, more productive one.

There are laws, rules and principles that affect the shifts of living systems, their “hangings,” development, internal organization, and transformation. We are all carriers of the “package” of thoughts, motives, values, beliefs, organizing principles, ways of thinking. Invisible, deep-seated ways of thinking, which are often not understood by people, are called memes (sometimes written as "memes"). The meme “is” in the human head and rebuilds the entire neurological system (Beck & Kovan, 2010; Beck, & Christopher, 1996). From the perspective of this, it is more important for us not the question “What are the of the teacher?”, But “what is the way of thinking, activity and life of the teacher?”.

A mature person, according to his psychological characteristics, differs from a person with "child" psychology in that in his internal system arises and unfolds "oscillatory spiral process, in which the older systems of low-level behavior are included in the newer high-level systems, when the existential problems of man is changing " (Beck & Kovan, 2010).

Consider these levels-systems. The first - “Beige” - is characterized by the need of the system for survival, in satisfying physiological needs. The main value for a person is himself, his own life. Another person is considered as a means. The second level - “Violet” - reflects the human desire for emotional connection with the world. Here is the overwhelming desire to have relationships with other people. At the third level - “Red” - the personality is important to satisfy the need for power, for dominance, for the manifestation of one’s power. The fourth level - “Blue” - is associated with the desire of a person to belong to any system of ideas (beliefs), to build their hierarchy and order. It is important to serve, search for the meaning of their actions and life in general. The fifth level - “Orange” - raises a person to the awareness of himself as the creator of his life, his own life activity system. There is a desire for better opportunities for oneself, a desire to be more competitive. At the sixth level - “Green” - there is a need for an “ecological” consciousness, a need for collective rationality. The well-being of others and consensus are what is important for green thinking. The main feature of the seventh level - “Yellow” - is a flexible adaptation to change due to systemic vision. Here the integrating processes and “life by principles” are important. At the next level, "Turquoise", there is attention to the global dynamics, to actions at the macro level, to responsibility to future generations.

As part of our study, we correlated the different needs and values, beliefs and behavioral strategies of teachers with whom we worked in the process of their additional education, with the levels considered. We managed to reveal several positions. We have defined different vectors of orientation in behavior, relationships, and activities: self-isolation, a survival strategy, and relationships to another as a means; need for relationships with others; the desire for power and the manifestation of their strength; serving systems (duty) and responsibility for their actions; and creativity; care, cooperation; management of its development and the search for system-forming principles; integration of knowledge and modernization of its "human system". In accordance with this scheme, the characteristics of inefficient and effective teachers at different levels of the "spiral of consciousness" are highlighted. It should be noted, moreover, that this or that level can be considered not according to the principle of “good-bad”, but according to the principle “adequate-inadequate”. In general, the teacher must be present, depending on the specific situations, the willingness to express themselves effectively at different levels. So, we single out the opposites: 1) “non-authentic” - “authentic”; 2) “dependent person” - “autonomous person”; 3) “aggressor”, “slave” - “positive subject of activity”; 4) “executive-functionary” - “operator of actions”; 5) "competing rationalist" - "the creator of the culture-like system"; 6) “a member of a team focused on moral values”; 7) "a man of system thinking"; 8) “a man of global thinking”.

Findings

Relying on the model of spiral dynamics, on research in the field of psychology of consciousness, on knowledge of the essence of professional consciousness and developmental features, as well as on the humanitarian principle of education, we developed a textual and dialogical model of the formation of a professional consciousness of a teacher, which helped to identify the positions of an effective and inefficient teacher. The basic idea is that the phenomena of professional consciousness, among them sensations, emotions, experiences, attitudes, thought forms associated with professional situations, are objectified by texts that appear as objects of analysis. By texts we mean the sign structures (messages), which reflect the meanings of the relationship between the "author" and "addressee". It can be any act of action, posture, reaction, word or product of an activity. If the authorship of such “texts” is not realized and such acts arise unconsciously, spontaneously, then they can be called “being”. And if we can stand up in relation to the incident (and any information, message) in the position of perception "from the side", then we will have a "reflective" text. In the mode of textual-dialogical activity, we built work with teachers in the context of increasing their skills.

During the implementation of the ascertaining experiment, we developed a diagnostic program that is based on the criteria we selected. Each criterion met its own methods. Ability to holistic perception of the professional situation (1 criterion): the questionnaire “My attitude to pedagogical problems”; projective tests “My coat of arms”, “I am in my profession”; self-diagnosis of their position in the profession by the method of Spiral Dynamics. The ability to communicate dialogically in a pedagogical situation (2 criteria): interpersonal relations tests (Leary), empathetic listening test; analysis of cases and situations of communication; self-diagnosis of personal contacts using the Spiral Dynamics method. Willingness to creatively transform their professional system (3 criteria): analysis of the products of activities; essay "My life in the profession"; creating a movie script about yourself; development of the author's program of self-education; self-diagnosis of creative activity by the method of Spiral Dynamics.

In order to assign teachers to a particular level of formation of professional consciousness, we used the following scale of levels. A high level is characterized by: the ability for a clear and holistic vision of pedagogical issues, an understanding of the entire complexity of pedagogical reality; the ability to be in dialogue with oneself and with the student, to induce the interlocutor to dialogue; creative position and willingness to implement their own professional system; the creation of pedagogical situations (lessons) as creative copyright "texts".

The average level of formation of professional consciousness is marked by a desire for understanding, but an unclear vision of the integrity of pedagogical situations; inadequate awareness of the dialogical connections in communication; occasional examples of creativity in their professional activities. Here are some elements of the positions described in the indicators of the highest level.

To a low level, we attributed the characteristics indicating a one-sided perception of pedagogical problems; formal communication with children; performance of activities on the model; weak manifestations of activity in creative situations; low level of reflection of their actions. At this level, teachers tend to look for causes of pedagogical problems outside, and not in themselves.

Given this understanding of the professional consciousness of teachers, we have identified three stages in which the process of its development unfolds. The first stage is reflexive-personal - the formation of a holistic perception of pedagogical reality, its position as an “authentic person” and “autonomous person”. At this stage, teachers in the context of dialogue and training sessions learn to look for answers to questions related to the possibilities of their “presence in the moment” and self-awareness. The second is reflexive-communicative - forming the experience of dialogical relations with others, learning the experience of the “subject of action” and “operator of action”. Achievement of this goal is promoted by a system of training situations that develop various methods of dialogical interaction and analysis of communicative texts. The third stage is reflective-creative - is the formation of the experience of behavior in non-standard pedagogical situations that are close to real and require creativity. In such situations, project and training work teachers learn to create the products of their activities as the author's "text" - individual and collective.

The implementation of the model developed by us, including the description of the technology presented above, was carried out on the basis of the Volgograd Academy of Postgraduate Education and Kalmyk State University. Seminar and training sessions with teachers were based on the principles of: a) textuality is translating information into an integrated communicative structure, which has the language of expression, authorship and targeting; b) dialogue is constructive and holistic interaction; c) subjectivity is the actualization of the creative activity of each; d) meta-subjects is access to the common cultural, transpersonal space of basic, generic abilities; e) co-authors is co-creating the situation of the Meeting as a product of culture (“works of art”).

The work that contributes to the formation of the professional consciousness of teachers unfolds in the context of other productive activities. For example, it may be activities related to projects, professional development, development of personal-professional development programs, team building, etc. In the process of work, teachers learn “textually and dialogically” to perceive themselves and their subjective world, acts of their actions and results of activities. In this case, there is not only a reflection of his action, but also a reflection of his reflection.

One of the programs according to the model developed by us was implemented on the basis of Kalmyk State Univerity in the “School of Young Teacher” and was associated with an increase in methodological culture among young teachers. Questions of methodological competence and culture, as studies show, can not be reduced to the subject side (Gulyaeva, 2014). Although, most often, the majority of teaching materials is devoted to this side. Professional culture is associated with the teacher’s self-awareness. The teacher must be the carrier of the values of his profession, the subject of his professional activity, which includes methodological skills.

According to our model, the technology of forming the professional consciousness of teachers included the creation of situations that ensured the stage-by-stage development of the required ability. We turned to the real experience of teachers and the real situations that arose in them. We conducted a more thorough testing and concretization of the content of the model of formation of teachers' professional consciousness developed by us on the basis of Kalmyk State University. The pedagogical experiment we conducted consisted of three stages: ascertaining, shaping, and generalizing. Teachers were divided into two groups: control (125 people) and experimental (140 people). The purpose of the formative experiment is to master the experience of textual and dialogical activity that ensures the formation of the professional consciousness of teachers.

During the implementation of the reflexive-personal process of the first stage of the process studied in our model, we tried ways to create situations that were aimed at understanding ourselves at the “Beige” and “Violet” levels. The ability of teachers to see themselves as an integral “system”, which is in their external and internal relations, has been updated. With teachers we analyzed their professional situations related to the self-perception and perception of the student. There were situations of open discussion of questions that prompted a holistic vision of pedagogical reality.

Together with the teachers, we developed a system of classes with teachers, the basis of the content of which was the experience of reflection of their own ways of thinking. In this regard, we have developed questions of a reflexive nature, which set the field of communication for the participants of our School and allow us to accumulate experience of a conscious attitude towards our activities. These questions do not suggest the correct answer, but they do allow the attention of teachers to be turned towards self-reflection. The answers of teachers were considered by us as certain “texts” (messages), which allowed to analyze their subjectness (authorship) in the conditions of reflexive activity. This method allows you to explore the events of their own lives, their professional actions and products of activity, regarding them as “texts” that authors and addressees contain, have their own meanings. It is about the development of the Inner Observer (the “observing Self”) and the analysis of its subjective manifestations.

The content of the next stage, reflective and communicative, was the experience of analyzing situations of communication and finding means of dialogical interaction with others. For this purpose, we tested various methods of dialogic communication, playing roles, the study of the position of the teacher on the “Red” and “Blue” levels of the dynamics of consciousness. Here the case study method was widely used when teachers analyzed conflict situations encountered in the pedagogical reality. They also learned to create “letters to students” as a form of dialogue. Observations on teachers allowed us to identify their difficulties in creating situations of dialogue in the classroom. They are associated with the inability to go beyond the classroom system and the methods of communication with children adopted in practice.

At the third stage, reflective and creative, teachers learned to create situations in which they could show their creative abilities. Among them are situations of public speaking, the creation of a “Personal Teacher's Brand”, the development of a lesson. At this stage, mainly tasks and tasks that were associated with the creation of an individual and collective product of the activity (project) dominated. And special attention was paid to the analysis of the position of the teacher at the "Orange", "Green" and "Turquoise" levels.

In the process of working with teachers, they were offered, on the one hand, to analyze their own actions, products of activity, thoughts as “texts”, on the other hand, to create new texts-messages reflecting their creative author's position. For example, texts like “A film about my life” (another variant is the script of the film “I am in my profession”) are materials that allow you to analyze your existing system of relations with the world and design an image of the desired future.

Conclusion

In the process of working with teachers by the end of the third stage, we found a significant shift in their indicators towards a higher level. Particular dynamics was observed in moving from low to medium. The overwhelming majority of teachers (98%) admitted that they became internally more confident, more relaxed in relations with students, that they had a desire to create their own professional system. Many educators have shown interest in research work and writing articles in which they try to analyze their activities. In the control group, the re-examination gave, in fact, the same results as they were at the very beginning: a rather low level of reflexivity and awareness of the phenomena of professional consciousness. The experiment that we conducted with the teachers of KalmSU in the framework of increasing their additional education, as well as introducing elements of our technology in other educational institutions, acted as an approbation and concretization of the model we developed, aimed at developing the professional consciousness of teachers. The results that we obtained in the experimental work allowed us to justify the technology of the process being studied as a consistent deployment of dialogic situations. They are associated with the solution of problems that request the experience of reflection of pedagogical thinking, pedagogical communication and pedagogical activity.

Summarizing the results of our work, we concluded: the development of a professional consciousness of a teacher is the most important condition and factor in humanitarian changes in education. Innovations that bring qualitatively new real changes in education are possible provided there are teachers who recognize themselves as subjects of these innovations and understand the whole complex “structure” of a person. Today, the school (secondary and higher) does not require a specialist in the subject, but a “specialist in person”. Only such a teacher, who controls the evolution of his consciousness, sees the whole "spiral" of his own development and recognizes himself as a "bio-psycho-socio-spiritual system", is capable of solving those innovative tasks that education faces today and which are aimed at becoming " human "in man. As our experience with teachers showed, effective development of professional consciousness is possible in the context of the implementation of the textual-dialogical model of advanced training, when the phenomena of subjective reality are mastered in “dialogue with the text” situations. The teacher himself and any act of his thinking, behaviour and activities in this case act as an object of study, objectified in the text, requesting a dialogical reading.

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