Senior teacher of chair
of pre –
Primary school education
and pedagogies
Of KazNPU Alimbekova A.A.
The Formation and Development of Didactics in
Kazakhstan during the World War II
The president of Republikc of Kazakhstan in his
message «From crisis to renewal and development» in 2009, mentioning that now
the world is experiencing economic crisis, says: The crisis will pass off but
such values as the soveriegnty of the state, national haritage and future of
the generation will remain forever. Our people must get education. All the people over the world have
opportunities to study and master necessary prafession. » The importance of
education worried the people even during the war.
In 1941 the Fascist
Gaermany attacked the Soviet Union and broke the peace of the nations. The
strong malice to fascits united the people of the Soviet Union to defend their
motherland, and Kazakhstan also took part in it. In the time of war, Kazakhstan
as many other countries,within a short time had to make some changes in many spheres
of agriculture, from the beginning of the World War II the activities of all
educatinal institutions of our republic was reformed.
One of the main
objectives in 1930s – 1940s was to define the methods of improving education
and upbringing in the country. Realizing these objectives, great educators as
Kozhakhmetov S., Zhienbayev S. and many
others studied the problems of education and upbringing and devoted many of
their books to the given issue.
There is some important information in the author`s works
on history of pedagogies during the war that highlights some changes that
caused the problems of didactics : «During 1940-1941 and 1945-1946 the number
of pupils reduced to 30% and the number of teachers to 14% ». In June the Council of National Commissars
of Soviet Socialistic Republics adopted a serolution on techhing boys and girls
separately in towns, regions, in the centers of autonomous republics and large
industrial cities in 1943-1944».
«In 1940-1941 there were
already 7790 schools and the number of pupils in these schools was 411000. The
number of girls in schools had grown at a quick pace.
In 1940-1941 there were
250 formed budget boarding schools were affiliated to Kazakh secondary schools
where 29000 children could be brought up. Aiming to solve the problems of
teaching in the end of the year only in specialized secondary schools the
number of pupils had reached 26321. It was much more in comparison with the
figures of 1927-1928 {Kunanatayeva, p.28}.
During the war between
1941-1945 many scientists from Moscow,St. Peterburg, Kiev, Minsk came to
Kazakhstan and it enabled our country to develope social and human sciences.
After the World War II in 1946, on the basis of Kazakhstany department of
Academy of Sciences of Soviet Socialistic Republics, there was formed the
Academy of Sciences.
In these years the books as
«Problems of pedagogies», «Teaching children consciousness» by S. Kozhakhmetov
(1940) and «Children's collective and teaching discipline to collective» by K.
Mukhamedzhanov were published. In 1941 were issued the programs for secondary
schools on literature for 5-8th and for 7-10th forms.
In its decree on 30 July,
1941 the goverment pointed out the
measurements that had to be taken to attract all the children of school age to
keep the schools suitably for studying form. According to the resolution of
Council of National Commissars of Socialistic Republic of Kazakhstan on 8
August, 1943, it was adopted to admin children to school from the age of seven
beginning from 1944-1945 academic years. This act of the government became an
important one in the history of the country.
In 1944 the decree about
«Taking census of children between the ages of 8 and 15 and controlling the
execution of the law of compulsory education» was issued.
Single-sex schools were
formed taking into consideration the physical development of girls and boys in
accordance with the circumstances of the war time.
In the part «Mother
tongue» of this book «Pedagogics» S. Zhiyenbayev gives valuable advice on
upbringing and teaching children, how to teach and how to organize a lesson and
about the literature for children. In his article «Methods of teaching mother
tongue to adult learners» he sets certain requirements for teachers, saying:
«In order to be really well-educated it is not enough just to be able to write
and read, it is also important to learn to express your thoughts both in
written and oral forms». Also his book «Methods of teaching Kazakh language» is
valuable for its pedagogical basis of teaching of mother tongue, methods and
aids of teaching, written tasks, types of analysis and tasks for working with
the book and advantageous, ways of explaining teaching materials. At that time
after the war there was a great necessity in educated people who could be helpful
in prganizing and administrating, reforming and developing. That's why teaching
and educating the adults was one of the most important tasks of that time.
S. Zhiyenbayev pointed out the necessity of
dividing the process of teaching adults into two parts. «Teaching adults should
be divided into two parts: the first is to teach illiterate people to
write and read. The second is to work
with those who are educated only by half». This kind of approach to teaching is
suitable in this case, because working with literate and illterate learners in
one group will take more time and it will be difficult to get a desirable
result. Teaching learners with different levels is advantageous for its
enabling to take into consideration the skills of the learners.
He dividies the process
of teaching of mother tongue to literate learners by half into the following
stages.
-
To
train to read;
-
To
train to write
-
To
teach orthography
-
To
teach grammar;
-
To
speak correctly;
-
To express opinions in written form;
-
To train to read newspaper. (ntropo,p.198)
The main aims of teaching of writing skills are to
teach to write and teach the techniques of writing, to teach orthodraphy and to
express their thoughts significantly in written form (Antropo,p.198)
Nevertheless in practice it is impossible to use them
separately from each other as all of them are closely connected.
During the post war time a Russian educator A.S. Makarenko
started to write his books on pedagogies. In his works he called Kazakh teachers
to prepare future active working members of Soviet Union who would be
well-educated: «That's why it is
necessary to pay attention to the content of writing while teaching writing, skills
orthography and grammar and it does not matter if it is a young or adult
learner.Each word should be meaningful….» (Antropo,p.198)
A great scientist and educator in his book which is
called «How to teach mother tongue» says: «In order to give a lesson in the way
we want it is necessary for learners to know the aims of the lesson. If a
person does not know why he is going to do this or that task he may not have a
motivation for doing it. » That's why in teaching any subject first of all it
is required to set the aims. If the aim is not defined clearly the process of
teaching can hardly be successful. If the aim is set clearly and properly
teacher will certainly succed.
The author suggests the following methods of teaching:
«Before starting a lesson it is important to let learners know what are they
going to do and what types of tasks they will do during the lesson and get them
understand if it will cover new language material or if it is just a revision
of the previous topics. A teacher should spare a few minutes for it before each
lesson.» It can be named as an organization
moment or introduction to the lesson.
We have already mentioned that one of the main
objectives during the years of formation and development of Kazakhstany
pedagogies (1930-1940) was to define the methods of improving the works of
upbringing and teaching, and many Kazakh educators and scientist such as
A.Baitursinov, ZH. Aimauitov, M.Dulatov, M.Zhumabayev, SH.Aizhanov,
K.Berzhanov, A.Sembayev and the others played a big role in the development of
Kazakh pedagogies and studied the problems of teaching and upbringing, they wrote
a lot of valuable works.
In is important to mention that while getting
acquainted with the materials of archives the problems of didactics took the
first place as pointed S. Kozhakhmetov in his works. S. Kozhakhmetov based his points of view on the problems of didactics
in Kazakh schools as well as on the opinions of Czech educator Y.A. Komenski
and Russian educator I.D. Ushinski.
In didactics the achievements in psychology of
teaching, in begining cognitive skills of learners in the process of learning
are also used. According to the great scientists and educators such as L.S
Vigotski, S.L. Rubinshtein, P.Y. Galperin, D.D. Davidov, Zh.Aimauitov,
K.Zharikbayev, Zh. Nanazbayeva and many others cognitive activities of learners
are complicated and analytical-synthetic process.
The above mentioned psychological aspects can be also
seen in S. Kozhakhmetov's works. For instance, he points out that the process
of thinking consists of several activities. They are memorizing, attention,
concentrating, interest and etc. His viewpoint connects one of
the ways of motivating learners to study, the peculiarity of concentration,
with cognition. Proving that sometimes learner`s cognition doesn't coincide
with their skills in concentrating, he says: «The learners interest, cognition
and skills in concentrating don't always coincide. This Fact proves that
pcychological factors of a person and the psychological feature of one person differ
from another's». {19,p.24}.
Doing different complex tasks a learner begins to find
the ways of solving them. During these tasks the peculiarities of each learner
is determined, so when the teaching process is organized properly the
peculiarities of each learner's skills can be shown clearly. Investigating the
level of skills of a learner during teaching process he says: «It is true that
the learners' skill levels in memorizing, understanding and concentrating
greatly differ from each other» {19,9.33}.
Then he highlights that the tasks for getting learners
active should arise in learners motivation, in their interest in the subject
and should develop cognitive skills as well. «Motivation is a moving power to work,
a kind stimulus, because the interest makes person jolly, active and eager to
learn. If person has motivation he will do the task with eagerness and he will
not feel tired or exhausted, so motivation makes his ability to work better and
stronger. Motivation of a person or a learner is not an inborn skill it occurs
as a result of his material desires, and pupils' motivation is the product of teaching
and upbringing. Pointing out that studying is a big task for a learner, S.
Kozhakhmetov emphasizes that the task done with eagerness always gives good
results. Acquiring of such features by learner mostly depends on teacher, so he
writes «Arousing learner's motivation gives fruitful results. If learners are
motivated they will assume the information easier. Motivation plays a big role
in bringing up an independent child with a strong character. A motivated eager child can easily deal with the
difficulties in his work; he behaves himself independently and tries to improve
his strong points. »
Also he underlines that during the cognitive
activities a learner develops his skills: «A skill is an ability to put one's
knowledge into practice. A person is not always able to put all his knowledge
into practice at once, a skill comes with experience and is closely connected
with knowledge. That's why a teacher should assess learners' knowledge not only
in a formal way but check their skills through certain tasks». By giving such directions he makes it clear
that a successful combination of a learner's motivation, interst, abilities and
skills during the process of learning will be helpful in getting profound
knowledge.
For example, the scientist in his book which is called
«What should be the textbook? » demands:
«Teachers should teach children in dialetic-materialistic way of looking at
things basing the teaching materials on science. In order to meet these demands
a teacher should explain each rule from the book in an available for a learner
way.
So, the educator and scientist S. Kozhakhmetov in his
works points out the necessity to look at the development of learners'
resourceful views, their cognitive skills, interest and behavior and their
mental develoment from a psychological point of view.
According to pedagogical rules a textbook must be
based on teaching program and there are some certain demands for each kind of
textbook. A school textbook must meet all the reguirements of that time from
the point of didactics, pedagogies and methodology. In connection with it he
suggests the following reguirements by analizyng the materials for a textbook.
The problems of teaching during the development of
didactics in Kazahstan in 1920-1940s of 20th century are shown in S.
Kozhakhmetov's works. Analyzing his works we can see that he tries to define
didactic principles from pedagigic-scientific view point. He defines concepts
such as «didactics», «teaching process» and the connection between them.
S. Kozhakhmetov examines didactic principles
separately in his works. The proof of it is his master's thesis on «the main
didactic principles in Soviet schools» in 1939. His opinions on the principles
of teaching will be discussed in the following chapter.
In his works S. Kozhakhmetov pays much attention to
lessons. A lesson is an indicator of both a learner and a teacher's work,
saying that it is the result of these main «characters» works he concludes that
«a lesson is determinative factor in didactics». He explains it in this way: “If
a teacher is the main figure in pedagogical process, the lesson isthe main type
of this pedagogical process”. That's why a lesson becomes the form of this
process. » Further he continues his views on the lessons: «Learners get new
knowledge at that lesson and they learn to work constantly. That's why a
teacher should improve the guality of his lessons. » Also he underlines that
the guality of the lesson depends on a teacher's ability to base teaching
materials scientifically and bring about to learners properly.
List of
Literature
1. K. Kunantayeva. Development of the system of education in Kazahstan
(1917-1990). Almaty-1998
2. K.B. Zharikbayeva. Anthropology of Kazakh educative ideas. Almaty-2005
3. S. Kozhakhmetov. Problems of pedagogies. Kazakh school press, Almay 1940