Home, family, school: on the pupils' aloofness from their school

Z. Peteva, V. Filipova, B. W. Toshev

University of Sofia «St. Climent Ohridski”

Bulgarian

English

pupils' aloofness, chimerical social groups, family disintegration, history of school

Web Article

Parents, Policy Makers, Teachers, Researchers, Young People, School Directors.

1 - 20 pages

The presented material deals with important issues, which could seriously influence students’ behavior as well as curb the manifestation of unfavorable activities. The authors start with the thesis that more often students fail to develop a specific emotional bond with their school. This alienation from the school is most certainly not in favor of the educational process. Within the article are being analyzed the main reasons for the appearance of this unfavorable factor, namely the appearance of the so called chimera social groups, created as a result of strong and sustained migration processes in society and the degradation of Bulgarian family, which to a very large extent is due to the same reason. Getting the students acquainted with the history of the school they study at, with some of its famous “old” students and teachers, could, according to the authors, have very positive effects on changing the attitude of the students towards their school. This idea has been tested in the town of Dobrich, where the history of education is particularly intriguing due to the fact that for prolonged periods of time the organizations and implementation of the educational process followed the rules of two different countries – Bulgaria and Romania.
The authors are convinced that if the teachers try to present to the students the history of the school and previous students/teachers to the contemporary students the attitude of the latter is going to change considerable and this will yield positive educational effects. A preliminary research conducted by the authors however proved that most of the contemporary teachers are also alienated to a certain extent and are not ready to dedicate a part of their time for such additional and unregulated activity.

The usefulness of the reviewed publication is contained mainly in the presentation and discussion of several important issues, which correspond to the formation of personality from early age. The authors are paying attention to the development of a historical memory of the students and development of historical competences – ability to evaluate the past. This could best be described through the three elements included in the historical narration – form, content and function. With regard to the content the authors speak of a competence for historical experience – developing abilities to receive and contain specific historical information, the more refined version of which is the so called historical sensitivity. With regard to form the authors speak of competence for historical interpretation, which is developing a competence for bridging between the past, the present and the future.
Finally, with regard to function, comes the competence for historical orientation – development of a capacity to use this kind of information for the purpose of personal life ideology, orientation and behavior.
Undoubtedly the students’ alienation from school, the lack of positive emotional attitude towards the school is bad for the educational process. The reason for this alienation according to the authors is the migration of population, which lead to the appearance of the so called chimera social groups and to the disintegration of the family, which are the main factors for the appearance of the so called cultural trauma in a great number of people and entire social strata. Cultural trauma is considered to be the conscious or more often spontaneous loss of identity and lack of a certain behavioral system of values.
The proposed recipe for healing the cultural trauma at school is an informal presentation of the history of the school and previous students/teachers to the present students, which could happen in many different ways – appropriate stories for the past of the school, for certain historic moments, visiting archives and museums, gatherings with ex-students and teachers, collection and archiving of stories, inclusion of the parents in such research activities. This should not be implemented only by the history teachers, but by all teachers, regardless of their professional orientation. Such activities can reveal the human face of the school, while the presentation of curious facts for the teaching of the different subjects could additionally increase the interest towards them.
At present however Bulgarian teachers do not have the necessary preparation and motivation to undertake such additional teaching responsibilities. At the same time according to the authors the participation of teachers in the development of the described historical competences could be among the most important tasks at school. This is probably not sufficiently accepted yet since this kind of competence is not among the recently specified key competences, which Bulgarian school should promote among its students. The acquisition of such a competence at school most surely requires efforts and time, the expected result however – termination of the destructive processes in society – justifies them and makes them particularly necessary. This is a challenge which should be considered not only on a national, but also on a common European level.

http://khimiya.org/pdfs/KHIMIYA_20_1_PETEVA.pdf

31_alienation of children from school.pdf

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