What do we mean when we talk about moral education?
Moral education is the inculcation in children of high spiritual and moral principles, a sense of patriotism for the Motherland, and special regulation of ways of thinking and behavior accepted in civil society.
The first experience of working on the structure of behavior and the formation of moral principles begins in kindergarten, when adults give the first lessons to preschoolers. From an early age, a kindergarten teacher instills in children love for the Motherland, frugality and respect for human labor, goodwill in relationships, teaches activity and initiative, independence in action, mutual assistance and mutual assistance, selflessness.
The research work of scientists studying the psychology and capabilities of preschool children shows that preschool children have great potential in matters of educating their morality. Children's consciousness is able to control their behavioral abilities, such as active behavior, independence in their actions and choices, and the manifestation of a certain interest in the environment.
Older preschoolers are capable of collectivization, where feelings of friendship and camaraderie are already manifested in their joint actions. The more a child sees correct actions and deeds, and the more often he hears positive things, the higher his moral education is - this is the main task of educators.
The child must develop positive habits and motives for moral behavior.
Everything that a child sees and hears that has a negative character and negative actions is also deposited in the child’s consciousness and harms his morality.
Children like to communicate with adults; with frequent communication, they develop a feeling of love and affection; children happily carry out assignments, try to please and do something pleasant for adults.
Preschoolers tend to show emotional responsiveness to adults’ reactions to children’s good and bad actions. When children are scolded, they worry and get upset; when they praise them, they smile and rejoice. Such responsiveness is the basis for the formation of a child’s moral feelings.
Preschoolers, due to their age, experience joyful or sad feelings not only for themselves, but also for their peers. They are able to be happy and sad for their comrades out of a sense of solidarity, which leads to effective actions to provide moral support. Preschoolers do not know how to be cunning or disingenuous; their feelings are sincere and not false.
In kindergarten, you can see a picture when one of the children is injured or bumped, and peers gather around him and sadly feel sorry for him.
Moral feelings acquire their consciousness closer to middle age, they are able to appreciate the work of other people, and are able to show feelings of love for their home and region.
By the age of six, children begin to develop a sense of self-esteem, a sense of duty, they recognize the justice of actions, and develop feelings of respect towards other people. Children of this age begin to approach tasks and assignments with full responsibility.
The task of kindergarten teachers is not to miss the time when children show the ability to develop moral feelings, to instill in children a love for their native land and the country in which the children were born and live, and also to teach them to respect people of other nationalities and their culture.
One of the characteristics of children is imitation, but children do not recognize or understand the morality of the actions they perform, and this can be fixed in the mind by negative life experiences.
In this regard, the task arises for parents and educators to protect preschoolers from objects and situations of imitation that carry immorality of feelings and behavior and from such life experiences.
It is very important to teach a child simple things, such as: goodwill - respect for adults, maintaining good relationships with peers, thrift, politeness, friendliness, cultural behavior.
With the initial skills acquired, the child is closer to the older preschool age, will learn to comprehend his actions and behavior, moral behavior will become the norm of life of the preschooler and will become his companion in further development.
Theory and methodology of moral education of preschool children
Andreeva Yulia
Theory and methodology of moral education of preschool children
1. Theory and methodology of moral education
1.1. Objectives of moral education
In the context of the transition to the new Federal State of preschool education, the main tasks of the spiritual and moral education of preschool children :
-formation of the principles of patriotism and citizenship;
- formation of a humane attitude towards people and the environment;
- formation of spiritual and moral attitudes and a sense of belonging to the cultural heritage of one’s people;
-respect for your nation;
-understanding of one’s national characteristics;
- formation of self-esteem as a representative of one’s people;
-respect for representatives of other nationalities;
-formation of positive, friendly, collective relationships;
- fostering a respectful attitude towards work.
1.2 The mechanism of moral development of personality
The strength and stability of a moral quality depend on how it was formed, what mechanism was used as the basis for pedagogical influence. Let us consider the mechanism of moral development of personality. For the formation of any moral quality, it is important that it takes place consciously. Therefore, knowledge is needed on the basis of which the child will form ideas about the essence of moral quality , its necessity and the advantages of mastering it. The child must have a desire to master a moral quality , that is, it is important that motives arise for acquiring the corresponding moral quality . The emergence of a motive entails an attitude towards quality, which, in turn, shapes social feelings. Feelings give the formation process a personally significant coloring and therefore influence the strength of the emerging quality. But knowledge and feelings generate the need for their practical implementation - in actions and behavior. Actions and behavior take on the function of feedback, allowing you to check and confirm the strength of the quality being formed.
Thus, the mechanism of moral education : (knowledge and ideas)
+
(motives)
+
(feelings and attitudes)
+
(skills and habits)
+ +
(actions and behavior)
=
moral quality . This mechanism is objective in nature. It always manifests itself during the formation of any (
moral or immoral ) personality trait.
The main feature of the mechanism of moral education is the absence of the principle of interchangeability. This means that each component of the mechanism is important and can neither be excluded nor replaced by another. What, for example, will happen if we decide to form kindness as a moral quality of an individual and begin to instill in a child only ideas about what kindness is? Or will we not evoke a positive attitude towards this quality and the desire to master it, to become kind? Or will we not create conditions for the manifestation of kindness? Assignment: Try to explain what will happen to moral quality if one of the components is excluded. Is it possible to replace it with another component? At the same time, the action of the mechanism is flexible: the sequence of components can change depending on the specific quality (its complexity, etc.)
and on
the age of the object of education . It is clear that it is impossible to rely on understanding and awareness of the importance of developing one or another personality quality in a child of primary preschool age . But does this mean that the time has not yet come to educate him morally ?
Of course not. We need to change the sequence and start not with imparting knowledge, but with the formation of an emotional base and behavioral practice. This will serve as a favorable basis for subsequent knowledge acquisition. The first group of tasks of moral education includes the tasks of forming its mechanism: ideas, moral feelings , moral habits and norms , and behavioral practices. Each component has its own formation characteristics, but it must be remembered that this is a single mechanism and therefore, when forming one component, an influence on other components is necessarily expected.
Education is historical in nature, and its content changes depending on a number of circumstances and conditions: the demands of society, economic factors, the level of development of science, and the age capabilities of those being educated .
Consequently, at each stage of its development, society solves different problems of educating the younger generation, that is, it has different moral ideals of a person . , the education of collectivism became the most significant , in others - patriotism. Today, business qualities, entrepreneurship, etc. have become significant. And each time the ideal created by society has been extrapolated to preschool childhood , since the phrase “Everything begins with childhood”
not only journalistic and journalistic, it also has a deep scientific meaning and justification.
So, the second group of tasks of moral education reflects the needs of society for people who have specific qualities that are in demand today. If the first group of tasks is of a permanent, unchangeable nature, then the second is mobile. Its content is influenced by the historical stage, the age characteristics of the object of education , and specific living conditions. During the Soviet period, the tasks of moral education of preschoolers (for the second group)
were grouped into four semantic blocks.
It was necessary to educate : humane feelings and relationships; the beginnings of patriotism and internationalism; diligence, ability and desire to work; collectivism. At the present stage of development of our society, significant transformations in the formulation of semantic blocks, perhaps, have not occurred. They truly embrace all aspects of morality . But the specific content of each block and its meaning, of course, change and are clarified. to cultivate collectivism as a moral quality of modern man is being questioned education , and the view on patriotic and international education . However, these aspects do exist in the moral structure of the individual and therefore cannot be excluded.
1.3 Means and methods of moral education .
Moral education is carried out using certain means and methods .
Means of moral education of preschool children can be combined into several groups.
Fiction, visual arts, music, cinema, filmstrips and other media can be combined into a group of artistic media. This group of means is very important in solving problems of moral education , as it contributes to the emotional coloring of cognizable moral phenomena. Numerous studies (N. S. Karpinskaya, L. N. Strelkova, A. M. Vinogradova)
show that children vividly, emotionally and trustingly
perceive fairy tales , poems, stories read to them, and look at illustrations for books (V. A. Eliseeva, G. N. Panteleev)
.
A child is strongly impressed by the work of artists if they depict the world realistically and understandably for a preschooler . Artistic means are most effective in forming moral ideas and cultivating feelings children .
The means of moral education of preschool children is nature . Nature makes it possible to evoke humane feelings in children , a desire to take care of those who are weaker, who need help, to protect them, and helps to build self-confidence in the child. The impact of nature on the moral sphere of children’s personality is multifaceted and, with appropriate pedagogical organization, becomes a significant means of educating feelings and behavior (S. N. Nikolaeva, L. G. Niskanen, V. G. Fokina, V. D. Sych)
.
The means of moral education of preschoolers children’s own activities : play, work, learning, artistic activity. Each type of activity has its own specifics, performing the function of a means of education , but this means - activity as such - is necessary, first of all, when developing the practice of moral behavior . A special place in this group of means is given to communication, if it is followed by psychologists (M. I. Lisina, A. G. Ruzskaya)
considered a type of activity.
Communication as a means of moral education best fulfills the task of adjusting ideas about morality and cultivating feelings and relationships .
The means of moral education can be the entire atmosphere in which the child lives: the atmosphere can be imbued with goodwill, love, humanity or cruelty, immorality . The environment surrounding the child becomes a means of educating feelings , ideas, behavior, i.e. it activates the entire mechanism of moral education and influences the formation of certain moral qualities .
The choice of means of education depends on the leading task, on the age of the students , on the level of their general and intellectual development, on the stage of development of moral qualities (we are just beginning to form a quality, or are consolidating it, or are already re-educating ). As you know, the remedy becomes effective in combination with adequate methods and techniques of education .
In pedagogy, there are several approaches to the classification of educational methods (Yu. K. Babansky, B. T. Likhachev, I. P. Podlasy - in general and school pedagogy; V. G. Nechaeva, V. I. Loginova - in preschool pedagogy ) . To classify methods, researchers determine one basis. Thus, Academician B. T. Likhachev proceeds from the logic of the integrity of the pedagogical process, as well as the logic of its organization when solving problems of moral education and self-education . According to this basis, he distinguishes three groups of methods : methods of organization and self-organization of the educational team (collective perspective, collective game, competition, common requirements); methods of trusting interaction ( method of respect , pedagogical requirement, persuasion, discussion, conflict situations); methods of influence (clarification, stress relief, dream actualization, appeal to consciousness, feeling, will and action). V. G. Nechaeva distinguishes two groups of methods of moral education of preschool children : organization of practical experience of social behavior ( training method , demonstration of action, example of adults or other children , method of organizing activities); moral ideas in (conversations, reading works of art, viewing and discussing paintings and illustrations). the method of persuasion , positive example, encouragement and punishment in both the first and second groups The classification proposed by V. I. Loginova is built on the same basis as that of V. G. Nechaeva - on activating the mechanism of moral education - but it is more complete. The author proposes to combine all methods into three groups .
1. Methods for developing moral behavior (training, exercise, activity management)
;
2. Methods of forming moral consciousness (beliefs in the form of explanation, suggestion, conversation)
;
3. Methods of stimulating feelings and relationships (example, encouragement, punishment)
.
It is probably possible to choose other bases for classifying methods of moral education , although the most appropriate is the one that corresponds to its mechanism. the methods are , they give effective results only under certain conditions. Any method (group of methods )
must be humane, not humiliating the child, not violating his rights.
This applies to children of any age—infancy , preschool , and school; - the method must be real, feasible, it requires a logical conclusion. Sometimes educators and parents use the technique of promising a reward without thinking about whether it is real. And they don't deliver what they promised. What result can be obtained in the moral development of a child? Or, as often happens, a threat is used as punishment (which in itself is bad and has nothing to do with the method of anticipating the consequences of an act or action). Parents threaten the child with something that they will never actually do ( “If you don’t listen, I’ll take you into the forest and leave it to the wolves!”
).
At first, such threats may have results, but gradually the child will learn that there is nothing behind such words and that one can continue to disobey. In moral education, each method must be weighty and significant; — to use the method , conditions and means must be prepared in advance. For example, a teacher teaches children to take care of things and toys and for this he wants to use a method of organizing children’s joint activities - to organize a “toy repair workshop
.
In this case, he must prepare materials with which the children could work; — the method should not be applied in the same way, stereotyped way to all children and in any situation. If this condition is not observed, the method of persuasion may turn into edification and cease to bring the desired result; — education methods should be used tactfully. The pupil should not feel that he is being raised . Indirect influence is a great art, which a teacher masters if he knows how to treat a child with care. When selecting methods, the degree of complexity of the quality being formed should be taken into account. When designing and selecting methods , it is important to foresee the possible results of their impact on a particular child. If the teacher is not confident of success or anticipates too strong a reaction, the chosen method should be abandoned ; — the use of moral education methods requires patience and tolerance. When it comes to a preschool , you cannot count on instant and permanent results. We should patiently repeat the methods already used and select new ones , with an understanding that the result will not be achieved immediately and, perhaps, not quite in the form and quality that we expect; — methods that involve teaching the child methods of action should be the moral education of preschoolers If you only rely on awareness, understanding the significance of positive behavior and do not teach ways of such behavior, the desired results will not happen. So, let's turn to the well-known method of using an adult as a role model. to count on the impact of this method without organizing observation, as well as practicing the child’s behavior. The positive actions of an adult in themselves do not guarantee the same actions in a child; - methods are not used in isolation, but in combination, in interconnection. The basis for selecting methods that can and should be used in combination is the leading educational task and the age of the children .
1.4. Contents and methods of moral education of children of early preschool age .
Success in raising a free personality , and this is exactly the kind of personality we want to get, depends on the initial methodological position from which we look at the child. If you ask any person (be it a mother, father, teacher, etc. , whether he wants us to raise a happy child , he will probably be surprised at first, and then answer in the affirmative. Never in our domestic preschool of raising a happy child been set . Or maybe a young teacher should think about this? Think about how to change their view of the child and their role in his development. In American pedagogy there is such a principle - “ raise a happy personality "
.
A person should be because he was born, because he lives. Domestic concept: when raising a child , we seem to build a perspective for him: if you obey your elders, if you study well, etc., you will become a happy person. But the Americans “turned everything upside down”
: you were born a happy person and therefore you can study well, live happily, you will succeed, you can handle everything.
What moral qualities should a child have in order to feel happy? And is it really possible to contribute to the formation of a happy personality through pedagogical influences? There are many qualities that can be identified that make up the image of a happy child. A happy child is confident in himself, he communicates easily and with pleasure, openly and trustingly with people - adults and children. He is optimistic and takes everything with joy . He is inquisitive, etc. But to raise such a child if both parents and educators are imbued with deep respect for the child’s personality and teach him something very important: self-esteem and the ability to live among people.
The content of moral education of preschoolers includes the following semantic blocks:
— education of humanity as a personality quality;
— education of collectivism;
— formation of the principles of citizenship and patriotism;
- formation of an attitude towards work and diligence.
Education of humanity is the formation of such a moral quality , which implies sympathy, empathy, responsiveness, empathy.
The core and indicator moral education is the nature of his attitude towards people, nature, and himself. Research shows that such attitudes can develop in children as early as preschool age . The basis of this process is the ability to understand another, to transfer the experiences of another to oneself.
The formation of a humane attitude towards people and nature begins in early childhood. With systematic work aimed at nurturing a humane attitude of preschoolers towards the people around them and nature, children develop humanism as a moral quality . In other words, humanism is included in the structure of personality as its qualitative characteristic.
It should be emphasized that the education of humane feelings and attitudes is a complex and contradictory process. The skills to sympathize, empathize, rejoice, not envy, and do good sincerely and willingly are only developed in preschool age .
The education of collectivism as a moral quality of a preschooler is based on the formation of positive, friendly, collective relationships.
The main and only function of the children's team is educational : children are included in activities that, in terms of their goals, content and forms of organization, are aimed at shaping the personality of each of them.
For the education of collective relationships, the emergence of such a phenomenon as friendship has a meaning-forming significance. Friendship, as the closest connection between children, accelerates the process of effective awareness of social relationships. Mutual assistance and responsiveness are significant characteristics of collective relationships.
In groups of preschool children, there is a collective opinion. It not only manifests itself in the form of identical ideas about the norms of relationships, but can also be actively used as a personally significant factor of influence on each member of the team and as the basis of collective relationships.
Children's relationships are governed by moral rules and norms . Knowing the rules of behavior and relationships makes it easier for a child to enter the world of his own kind, the world of people.
Nurturing the principles of patriotism and citizenship is one of the most important components of the moral education of preschoolers .
The feeling of love for the Motherland is akin to the feeling of love for one’s home. These feelings are related by a common basis - affection and a sense of security. This means that if we cultivate in children a sense of affection, as such, and a feeling of attachment to their home, then with appropriate pedagogical work, over time it will be complemented by a feeling of love and affection for their country.
The feeling of patriotism is multifaceted in its structure and content. It includes responsibility, desire and ability to work for the good of the Fatherland, to protect and increase the wealth of the Motherland, a range of aesthetic feelings, etc.
The process of moral formation of personality occurs unevenly. In each period of preschool time, the child reaches qualitatively new levels of moral development .
In early preschool age, the first ideas about what is good and what is bad arise. This occurs in the process of forming a new type of relationship between a child and an adult. The development of a child’s independence at this time is accompanied by the need for participation in the lives of adults and joint activities with them. The desire for positive assessment, support and approval of one’s actions contributes to organizing the process of a child’s assimilation of moral standards .
In middle preschool age, the “defender” is clearly manifested.
standards of behavior, the standard of which is an adult.
As a rule, in their complaints, children mainly report that one of their peers did not comply with the adult’s requirements or rules of behavior. The first stage in children’s of ideas about good and evil, how to behave with other people, how to relate to their own and others’ actions, is associated with a direct emotional attitude towards the people who make these demands.
In older preschool age, moral feelings and knowledge are associated with a sense of duty. A child at this age is able to realize the moral meaning of his behavior. Internal moral authorities emerge (L. Vygotsky)
- the desire to lead in accordance with moral standards, not because adults (parents,
educators ) demand it, but because it is pleasant for oneself and others.
During preschool childhood, internal qualities such as self-esteem develop. The child feels pride in a job well done, worthy deed, one's behavior in general. A feeling of shame also appears. The child finds himself in the awkwardness that he experiences from an unsuccessful action, his own guilt - first under the influence of an adult's remarks (“Shame on you!”, And in older preschool age it is combined with self-esteem and becomes stable ( “You shouldn’t do something bad not because you will be punished, but because you are ashamed”
). The child is also ashamed when his dignity is humiliated. To avoid shame and remorse from adults, he can refrain from actions that will cause condemnation.
formed in preschool age largely determine the future of his or her life, and it is difficult or impossible to correct mistakes made by parents and teachers in the moral education of children .
The importance of moral principles in the mind of a child
In order for moral principles to be more firmly established in the child’s mind, a kindergarten teacher must teach preschoolers using specific examples, and in order for the child to show interest in the learning process, make wider use of the capabilities of the playing field, use games, scenes, fairy tales, cartoons, etc.
The most widespread work in this direction was in kindergartens of the Soviet Union. In modern Russia, this work was left to chance for decades, and now people have again come to the realization that it is time to resume educational processes and it is time to start teaching people morality again.
Moral issues should be included in kindergarten programs throughout the entire educational process. Moral education should be reflected and find a place even in creative activities: thematic drawings, songs, modeling, and so on.
First of all, appropriate contact must be established between the teacher, child and parents, their goals and objectives must be the same.
The team is the most effective means of education and therefore it is not worth keeping children reclusive at home before school in the care of a grandmother or nurse - kindergarten is the most suitable area for conducting educational activities.
In a team, a child is able to demonstrate his knowledge, share it with friends, and learn positive experiences from peers.
In kindergarten, children understand that collectively and together they can achieve a common goal and accomplish more tasks than alone. For example, one child cannot make a snowman, but with a close-knit and friendly group it will only take about an hour, or even less.
The lively children in the group become more humble, the shy ones become more sociable. In his activities, the teacher must be demanding, but not rude, and be able to make compromises in disputes - this is also part of moral education and an example to follow.
Discipline in kindergarten should not suppress initiative and positive emotions. The teacher can afford this if he himself is restrained and patient with the children. The child should feel and see only positive emotions on the teacher’s face.
Moral education of preschool children in kindergarten is aimed at developing moral qualities in various forms of activity. At the same time, teachers pay great attention to the personal development of children.
In kindergarten, various thematic events are often held, during which children learn the moral and ethical aspects of behavior in a peer group and with adults.
Moral conversations with children, both in kindergarten and in a family setting, help children understand why they need to behave in one way or another.
A good means of moral education for preschoolers is a fairy tale. The actions of fairy-tale characters will tell preschoolers what can await them in the event of immoral behavior.
Basic methods of moral education of preschool children
Moral education of preschool children is a complex process of forming the child’s beliefs and value system, implemented through certain methods, which include:
- Persuasion and Conversation;
- Inspiration to action;
- Appeal to sympathy and empathy;
- Encouragement;
- Punishment.
At preschool age, the child does not yet understand what is good and what is bad, but he is maximally open to the emotional perception of the situation. Therefore, in the early period of moral education of preschoolers, standard methods are ineffective.
Many parents, in the process of educating morality in a child, assign the main role to the mechanisms of reward and punishment, incorrectly interpreting these methods, reducing them to material reward and physical punishment or material deprivation. As practice shows, this tactic is also ineffective in the long term, since physical and material deprivation is a manifestation of external moral control for preschool children. Moral education is designed to stimulate the manifestation of internal encouragement (oneself) and internal deprivation (punishment - unauthorized refusal of encouragement, benefit).
The concept of moral education
Today, one of the most important tasks of any educational organization is the moral education of the child’s personality. The need for moral education is due to the ever-increasing role of moral principles and morality of the individual.
Note 1
The moral education of a child is a process aimed at the full and comprehensive formation of the child’s personality, the formation of a positive attitude towards the Motherland, society, the people around him, work and himself.
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In the process of moral education, a child develops such personality qualities as patriotism, camaraderie, an active and realistic attitude towards the surrounding reality, respect for work and people, understanding of his “I” and his position in society.
The goal of moral education is the formation in children of a system of moral relations based on moral norms and values.
Objectives of moral education:
- A group of tasks is aimed at the formation of a moral mechanism: ideas, habits, norms, feelings, behavior.
- The group of tasks reflects the need for people with a number of specific moral qualities.
