ЄВРОПЕЙСЬКА ТА АНТИЄВРОПЕЙСЬКА ТЕНДЕНЦІЇ В СУЧАСНІЙ ОСВІТІ

Abstract

In today՚s education, there are two obvious tendencies that go against each other – the specialization tendency, and the ten-dency to universalization. We usually notice only the first tendency without noticing how specialization leads to self-denial, to the need for actually endless «re-specialization». After all, highly specialized knowledge is rapidly becoming out-of-date. There are also opportunistic proposals such as interdisciplinary, trans-disciplinary or multi-disciplinary approaches in science. But in fact, interdisciplinary branches of science are even more specialized than classical disciplines. For example, biochemist and biophysicist are not at all the experts in biology, in physics or in chemistry. These scientists and others like them specialize in only one aspect on the border between classical disciplines. Going further, some radical reformers have come up with an idea that a university is not needed in its former status and can be replaced by online courses and search engines on the Internet. The author disagrees with this point of view and proves that education and transfer of knowledge are not the same things at all. He claims a lecture to be not just as the transfer of knowledge in one way or another, but as the mental work of the students with the teacher who can collectively solve those problems that have no solutions on the Internet. And the solutions will never appear unless these students take care of these tasks. Another point of the article is that it is impossible to uncritically copy the Western educational standards since they are not always the best. The paradox lies in the fact that such an approach wasn՚t invented in the Soviet Union – it was based on the so-called Humboldt principles. Also, the Western European education was based on these principles and, first of all, German university education. Only one thing was added to this system in the Soviet Union. And it is the idea of the polytechnic and, first of all, of the total obligatory secondary polytechnic education, which, of course, also has European roots. In other words, now under the slogans of approaching Europe we are destroying a system of education based on the best European models, instead of creating the future of education on its basis.