Svitlana Chervonetska

candidate of pedagogical sciences,

senior teacher of the Chair of

Practice of Foreign Languages of

Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian

National University

moral upbringing of junior school age children by means of nature in the british family

In the article an experience of moral upbringing of children by means of nature in the British family is enlightened and generalized; actual questions concerning forms and methods of moral upbringing in the British family have been disclosed too; a special attention is paid to parents and school cooperation in this domain of pedagogical activity.

In Great Britain family preserves a high social status which is maintained by national traditions and legislative acts adopted by the government. A great influence on the perfection of laws directed at the defence of children, exerts the UN Declaration on Human Rights [19] and The Covention on Children’s Rights. On the basis of these documents the British Government has adopted “The Act on Children’s Support” [20]. Parents are made responsible for securing main needs of children, aimed at their defense and development. They are safety, health, welfare, full value food, healthy way of life, psychological comfort and also physical, intellectual and emotional protection and upbringing. In Great Britain ideals of human upbringing prevail in a modern family pedagogy. Their methodological platform rests on key principles of positivistic pedagogy, when a child is placed in the center of educational process and its ensuring has been realized in case of taking into account his psychological and physiological development, intellectual abilities, interests and gifts. Personally oriented approach to an amount of school load and expected results of educational influence is the main. A humanistic orientation of family upbringing is connected with traditions, founded in the Ages of Renaissance and Englightenment and their comprehension and further development in the epoch of dissimination of democratic ideals (the second part of the 19^th – the first part of the 20^th centuries) and neohumanistic values (the second part of the 20^th century till nowadays). Pedagogical ideals of J.A. Komensky, F. Bacon, J. Lock, J.J. Russo, G. Spencer, J. Dewy, J. Irving, R. Fletcher, M. Young [13; 10; 5; 3, p. 279; 21] and others promoted the formation of humanistic views in family upbringing. Their theoretical grounds and practical experience are of great importance for both Great Britain proper and many other countries, which chose a democratic way of development. These ideals make good conditions for upbringing a growing generation in a spirit of respect of humanistic values, understanding a child’s nature and respectful attitude to him. The investment of classical and modern pedagogics in the development of family upbringing of a growing generation is an extremely important. These ideas play a very great role in the implementation of qualitively new approaches to children’s upbringing and methods of influence them, inculculation of eternal virtuous qualities checked up by life itself. They are humanity, kindness, goodness, decency, honesty, morals, spirituality. The leading role in family spiritual upbringing belongs to nature. It is considered by British specialists as a model of imitation, an adoption of the most rational methods of organization of activity and its realization into practice. Great possibilities of nature in upbringing of a growing generation were underlined by J.A. Komensky (Check Republic), J. Lock, A. Sheftsberry (Great Britain), G. Skovoroda (Ukraine), J.J. Russo (France) [3, p. 279, 358, 344]. A Great role in the affirmation and realization of ideas of using nature with educational purposes belongs to an outstanding national educationalist K. Ushynsky. The views of these educationalists remain actual for the up-to-date theory and practice of the British family upbringing. They are being made more modern and they are being amplified and enriched with new ideas in accordance with achievements of pedagogical science and demands of society.

In a family upbringing of Great Britain natural factor has been traditionally used as an effective method of influence on a growing personality, his / her all-round development, preservation his / her psychological and physical health. Valeological qualities of nature are actively used for strengthening of a child’s organism, its resistibility to diseases, forming his psychomotor abilities as a basis for the development of thinking, imagination, emotional and sensual sphere. Natural environment, objects and natural phenomena in the British family pedagogy plays a very important role in upbringing typically national features of characters. They are fortitude, self-control, pragmatism, accuracy, clearness, responsibility, sentimental attitude to representatives of animal kingdom, the availability of aesthetic taste and its creative manifestation in forming landscapes and in the field of garden and park construction. In the affirmation of nature centered prevailing ideas a very important role belongs to John Lock, who grounded an expediency of using of nature in developing harmonious personality – a gentleman in his treatise “Thoughts of Education” [5]. A generalized image of a respectable man represents an educational ideal of the British society, which undergone a modification according to formal signs in compliance with demands of time and a level of development of pedagogical science, preserve its own distinctive features (morals, honesty, spirituality, reasonableness, foresightness, thriftness, refinement etc). John Lock’s ideas concerning the necessity of taking into account essential qualities installed in children by nature and their stimulation by means of nature and in nature were recognized by the British educationalists and they found its implementation in a family upbringing. John Lock’s views on nature as a motive factor in upbringing of harmoniously developed personality with practically oriented thinking got their further development in theoretical and empirical educational innovations of J.-J. Russo, J. Mill, H. Spenser, R. Baden-Powell, J. Dewy, A. Kelly, S. Bert and others [3; 8; 10; 21]. The Britons’ love to nature as a national character, projected in a pedagogy surface, permits to solve positively tasks of fostering moral qualities in children in a family, to impart them a sense of responsibility for consequences of their behavior. In the British family natural environment, every living creature and representatives of vegetable kingdom are actively attracted to an upbringing process so far as moral and spiritual experience of a young man is being formed in relation to them [7].

Pragmatic pedagogy meets the national character of Britons most of all, as far as rational (and practically oriented postulates, concerning teaching, upbringing and development of a growing generation in which the natural component comes first prevail in it. Here special attention is paid to creating psychologically comfortable and pedagogically appropriate conditions and abilities of children, their stimulation to a creative activity, a constructive self-realization and self-actualization in nature and in a society, i.e. it takes place in that living environment which meets vital needs of a man. Pragmatic pedagogy pays much attention to a family upbringing so far as a family is recognized to be a basis of society in which a future adult citizen with a high creative potential is being brought up and who is ready and who feels need in its use. He has a highly developed sense of responsibility for consequences of his activity in social and natural environment to his own conscience and a society [10]. British educationalists distinguish such priorities in a family upbringing which in their pithy filling replies common to all mankind concepts concerning care of children and national demands of using nature in inculcating respectable qualities on a growing generation. They are morals, spirituality, physical health, intellectuality, diligence, responsibility for consequences of one’s own activity in nature and in a society [19]. Distinguished priorities which are used in developing moral qualities in children of junior school age are realized in a family upbringing of Britons thanks to a constructive positivism which is based on a sense of civic responsibility, national proud, sensible conservatism, love to a native land, its nature and the way of life, respect, conservation and enrichment of national traditions. These priorities in fostering moral qualities in children of junior school age in a family are reached on condition that of respect and devotion of parents to national traditions of upbringing in which a natural component has been recognized as a basic one. It plays a very important role in fostering and strengthening moral qualities in children of junior school age. Its availability permits to enforce emotional influence on a growing personality, to stir interest to subjects and phenomena which make up the quintessence of spiritual life of a family and people on the whole, promote the development of sense of participation to it. In the British tradition of a family upbringing and fostering of moral qualities in children of a junior school age natural component permeate of spheres of vital activity, reflecting in a mode of life, solemnities, sports activity, recreation, aesthetic tastes, a working activity, nutrition, a manner of communication and in practical actions, connected with their protection. Being fostered in an atmosphere of sincere respect to nature children feel and understand its universal value and its everywhere influence on an established order and customs of life organization [18].

In upbringing moral qualities in junior school children British educationalists pay a great attention to the aesthetic values, recognizing them for a spiritual constituent of human life. In connection with it parents administer their children to an up to them work which is connected with an aesthetic arrangement of their room, caring of outward appearance of domestic and domesticated animals, securing of sanitary and hygienic conditions of their keeping, decoration of a holding with flowers and decorative plants irrespective of its seize together with their parents. The use of nature aesthetic potential is done with regard for age peculiarities of children what promotes chronological consequence of their development, lets solve fostering tasks in compliance with every stage of a child’s life. Parents’ community of Great Britain expresses a positive relation to including into a content of primary schools disciplines of aesthetic profile which favor to bring up in junior school children an aesthetic taste, introduce them in the world of beauty, help to expose creative abilities of children and to realize them in their practical activity [14, p. 337].

The widely used methods of fostering moral qualities in junior schoolchildren in a family, which the British educationalists differentiate in three main groups, are the following: methods of forming positive behavior in a process of activity, methods of socialization and development of social conscious, methods of stimulation of activity. The above mentioned groups of methods rest on following methods which are widely used in a family upbringing practice: an encouragement, a penalty, a stimulation, a choice of expedient behavior in alternative situations. In the British tradition of moral upbringing of a growing generation in a family the use of these methods is done proceeding from the principle of conformity to nature and the use of nature in strengthening moral qualities and spiritual forces of junior schoolchildren. In a practice of family upbringing these methods to inconsiderable degree are connected with involvement of children in different kinds of activity, more often it is care of domestic and domesticated animals, indoor plants, a work in a personal holding together with parents. Humane methods of pedagogical influence on a child prevails in a family upbringing of Great Britain, which do not infringe upon his human dignity, promote the development of his moral conscious, stimulate to self-perfection. Among methods directed at upbringing moral qualities in junior schoolchildren dominate the following: a pedagogical demand, a social opinion, an anticipation of pleasure, a reward of praise, an instruction, a caution and inspiring. In the British families children’s upbringing is mainly based on moral factor, when neither fear nor praise determine a child’s behavior but feeling of satisfaction from a well-done duty put on him. Therefore a main accent in upbringing moral qualities in children of junior school age is paid on developing of culture of conscious and apprehension of duties which, as the British educationalists consider, serve a stimulating motive to committing moral actions [21, p. 86].

In British families gaming plays a very important role in upbringing moral qualities in children of junior school age. The theoretical basis of an expediency of using games finds its reflection in works of the British thinkers and educationalists of the past and present, first of all D. Einen, J. Lock, J. Mill, T. More, R. Owen, H. Spencer. British educationalists underline that gaming helps to adapt and to acknowledge moral norms of behavior and culture of communication with other people, to understand values of things and materials. Role play is qualified by them as a school of preparing for the life in a real world [12]. Plots of role plays which find a reflection in children’s simulation activity broach a subject of everyday life, following a behavior and relations of lovely animated cartoon characters and cinematography, solution of separate aspects of social problems, in particular, health care, environmental protection, giving help to victims of natural calamities or children need help and charity. In the organization of gaming activity which is realized with an active support of teachers and parents in school, much attention is paid to developing aesthetic taste in children, forming in them the necessity in beauty, harmonious unity of spiritual and material values.

In the British family a great attention is paid to communication in fostering moral qualities of children of junior school age. It is considered as an indispensible method of positive influence on a growing personality, thanks to which a transmission of information from parents to children and vice verse takes place and mutual understanding is achieved, a psychological propinquity is established between them, friendly relations continue to strengthen and to develop further, a sense of mutual confidence and sympathy is deepened. British educationalists consider that through communication parents understand their children better, fathom interests and needs, feel changes which take place in a psychological development of junior schoolchildren. To a circle of effective forms of communication of parents with children of junior school age the British educationalists include general activity, strolls in quiet, aesthetically attractive natural nooks, going in for sporting games, reading aloud of Holy Scripture, children’s books, magazines or reviewing of children’s cinema, television or video or animated cartoon films with the following discussion or exchange of opinion, connected with interesting episodes or behavior of favorite characters. Responsible attitude of parents to communication with children dulling regard for their age peculiarities is considered as an important condition of their full value intellectual, psychical and physical development [28, p. 63].

In the British family in fostering moral qualities of children of junior school age particular attention is paid to religion. Respectful attitude to Christian values, their acceptance as the true spiritual orientation in a human life is brought up in a family and in a school. Religious upbringing is a very important component of school education and training. It is stipulated by the National Curriculum which is the basic document that determines a modern strategy of school policy in the country. Fostering of high moral principles in the process of religious upbringing sets as an object to develop in a growing generation a sincere desire to follow Testaments stated in The Holy Scripture, not to break them, to guide them at taking any decisions or expressing own feelings concerning realities of every day life [9, p. 12].

In the modern British family upbringing of moral qualities of children of junior schoolchildren is realized in the presence of such conditions which promote many-sided development of a personality and strengthening his/her spiritual forces. First of all it is a concern for children’s psychic and physical health, their spiritual and intellectual development; need for honest work, philanthropy, environmental activity, aesthetically decorated environment, keeping to laws, orders, traditions which guarantee a stable life and social rights; they discipline a personality and favor the development of his/her deontological culture [18].

In fostering moral qualities in junior schoolchildren parents and pedagogical community of Great Britain pay much attention to mutually coordinated activity which secure a unity of the goal and mental responsibility of methods of their achievement. In the British society an upbringing ideal has been defined, which serves as a pattern of preparing of a younger generation to life and fostering in youth universally recognized spiritual and moral qualities (honesty, responsibility, efficiency, competency, obligingness, discipline, sympathy etc.). In connection with it the British government through educational establishments, institutions, organizations, associations, societies, specialized centers promotes the loftyness of psychological and pedagogical literacy of parents. In this process a very important role is set on school, where parents get theoretical knowledge concerning age and pedagogical psychology. Special conferences, seminars, trainings, parents’ meetings and other practical kinds of educational activity are proposed for parents. Development of pedagogical culture of parents provides The Family Center which was created in 1990. It is an independent state structure which deals with working out and implementation of programmes and projects on a family strengthening, improvement and enhancement of family upbringing and bringing it in correspondence with modern demands of pedagogical science and practice [15, p. 91-94].

Summing up the above-mentioned theses concerning moral upbringing of a growing generation by means of nature in a modern British family it is possible to conclude that in Great Britain it has been created and works effectively a ramified system of qualified help to parents in this field of family activity. It is based on strong traditions in which nature has always played a very active role in inculcating upon children the best human qualities. Using nature as a means of upbringing British parents may solve in such a way very important educational questions concerning the preparation of their children to live and act effectively in a society, to be good citizens capable to overcome burning problems of nowadays among which environmental problems take the first place.

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