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Harmonization
of international relations at school
as the way to the World culture and tolerance
At the time of information exchange and of social and
economic cooperation between different nations and states,
mankind realizes the necessity of people's solidarity and
affirmation of the culture of peace as the basic human
value. Its main components are human rights and personal
freedom, democracy, avoidance of confrontation, tolerance.
Human values are defined by the contribution of different
nations and different epochs to human development. At all
times progressive thinkers, philosophers, teachers connected
the idea of peace with education of people, considering
peace loving education to be the most important means of
increasing trust, mutual understanding and peace between
nations and states.
Nowadays more and more people in the world realize the
catastrophic consequences that may happen as the result of
global war conflicts, pollution of the environment, violence
and intolerance in relations, as well as violation of moral
and ethic principles of coexistence.
Mankind starts realizing the necessity of keeping and
developing peace, the necessity of transition from the logic
of force and fear to the logic of mind and love, and that it
will realize our human right to enjoy peace in the whole
world. All these expectations of different nations are
represented in the culture of peace.
Affirmation of
peace culture shall bring mankind to quite new understanding
of the world. In
accordance with its basic goal, i.e. to spread and develop
in people's minds the idea of peace defence, the culture of
peace assumes that education must be the main means in the
solution of the problem. That is why, one of the prior
tendencies in this field will be successive development and
improvement of education process in tight connection with
students upbringing that will develop their estimation of
peace culture; as well as creation of pedagogical systems
and programs that will more fully comprise peace-loving
traditions.
Education is the basic means of forming peace culture. It is
necessary that the ideas of peace culture should penetrate
into the whole system of education and all information
floods including press and electronic mass media. Continuous
process of education inseparable with the idea of peace
culture as well as consistent and joint forces play a very
important role. Our point is that the process of forming
peace culture has two aspects. The first one implies the
development of national self-awareness in students` minds on
the basis of their own national culture. The second aspect
implies acquisition of the system of human values and of
world culture achievements. In this way students will
understand the variety and correlation of different cultures
of the nations inhabiting the Earth. That will develop the
global way of thinking and understanding that we all live on
the same planet and we must love and save our planet which
is called Earth.
In order to make decisions concerning integration of peace
culture ideas into the process of upbringing and education
it is very important to consider the differences between
regions and the variety of national cultures within the
country. The
multitude of different cultures in the world is the reality
of present day life. It is also quite evident that the most
frequent and serious problems and conflicts between
different ethnic groups and cultures appear in multinational
countries. That is why the key point is to achieve social
agreement, peace and harmony in international relations.
The most
important problem in the field of international relations
improvement is represented by a number of questions
concerning the development in the minds of young generation
responsibility for the future of their Motherland, desire to
save the environment and peace, desire for friendship and
mutual assistance. In this case the role of school which is
a necessary stage for all young people in the country is
very important. Present day life makes it evident that it is
necessary to revive the humane aspect of internationalism
that has already passed the examination of time. The essence
of this aspect should be revealed through declaration of
priority of human values, their development in students
minds, feelings and behavior. Psychologists pay great
attention to emotional response of children and point out
their extraordinary sensitiveness towards their relations
with other people. The fact that the feeling has appeared is
not enough. It is necessary that it should become the motive
of an action. These are prerequisites which may serve as the
basis for the process of forming the culture of
international relations. The culture of international
relations will be impossible without historic memory that
reveals the experience of relations of previous generations.
It is important that teaching the culture of international
relations should start in the family, continue and
strengthen in kindergartens and further develop at schools
and institutions of higher education.
Our research and
the experience of progressive schools show that the process
of forming and developing ideas of internationalism in
multinational school society may be successive on condition
that such process of education and upbringing is held
permanently and has its own system
The system of teaching the ideas of internationalism at
school includes different stages connected with each other.
The first stage implies revealing of the fact whether the
students have the idea of internationalism and are educated
in this field. This is very difficult work that requires a
deep study of the inner world of children, of their
knowledge and viewpoints. We should also study the
correlation of their opinion and feelings with their real
actions and behavior. Revealing of the level of students
development in the sphere of internationalism a rather long
process which demands the use of various methods. None of
the methods being taken separately can be the source of
absolutely reliable information. The experienced teachers
practice very actively different methods. They observe
students behavior, get acquainted with their ideas, concepts
and interests in the process of education and upbringing
both at school and in the family, use questionnaires in
order to study relations between students of different
nationalities, private talks and group discussions,
compositions and analysis of the creative work of children,
etc. When
revealing with the help of different methods the level of
students development in the sphere of internationalism,
great attention should be paid to the analysis of real
relations that exist in multinational children society. What
kind of relations are they? Do they form on the basis of
friendship, affection, respect? Or is there isolation? What
is the position of each student in the multinational society
if we take the system of the personal relations? The
knowledge of such position is especially important if we
keep in mind that we study multinational society, i.e. the
society that consists of representatives of different
nationalities.
The second stage
implies the process of education and upbringing and social
activities. The process of education and upbringing should
be filled both apparently and invisibly with the ideas of
friendship, mutual respect, understanding and assistance and
values of peace culture. We should also use our efforts so
that the knowledge, skills and experience acquired by the
students should be used in social activity and put in
practice in real life.
The third stage implies creation of a general working
program which may happen only in case if parents really help
the teachers. In
order to make the starting social experience valuable it is
very important that school knowledge should not differ from
life experience and this depends to a great extent on the
personalities of teachers, parents and public
representatives. In order to form and develop humanity,
devotion to the Motherland, culture of international
relations, negative attitude towards nationalistic tendency
– the teacher should share all these views himself.
We touched upon
some aspects of such a many-sided problem like harmonizing
international relations in multinational school society.
Everything mentioned above can serve as a proof that because
of specific nature of the profession the personality of a
student of pedagogical university must meet strong
requirements. The student will become a teacher in future
and will create the inner world of a young person.
That is why the students training at pedagogical
universities should have two aspects.
The first one is to form the personality of a student so
that he will obtain the features of character that were
mentioned above. The second one is to help them acquire
skills and experience necessary for their work at school.
Such serious problem may be solved within the whole system
of university education and upbringing.
Peace is the only
option for mankind to chose in the efforts to eliminate
conflicts and tension in modern world. More and more people
understand now the necessity of joining efforts and
activities to save peace. The feeling of common fate and
realization of mankind as a whole will help people to form
global consciousness. It means that a person will estimate
himself as an individual person, a social person and a
person belonging to the whole world. This and the
realization of unity and integrity of the world will help a
person to adapt easily to the complicated world that changes
rapidly. It will promote his desire for self education and
self-cultivation. The person then will live in accordance
with human values that comprised all the best of the
previous epochs.
The achievement of such goals will be possible with the help
of unified education system that forms and develops the idea
of world unity and integrity, and with the help of the
creation of international peace loving training system. It
is a long process and may be the work of several
generations. But today we must sow on our planet the seeds
of future safe and prosperous world. The guarantee of
success lies in joint efforts of teachers, scientists, men
of culture, artists, organizations standing for peace,
ecology, pedagogical organizations and many other
organizations and movements.
I have been working at these problems for more than 50 years
and now I can see and feel pleased that our Movement of
peace makers increases and strengthens. And the present
Global Symposium proves this fact. |
