Environment-centered method to design recreation-and-health environment in educational establishment

Фотографии: 

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PhD Y.E. Gudkov1
PhD N.V. Mazitova1
PhD O.V. Gorbunova1
PhD T.V Stebliy1
1
Far Eastern Federal University, Vladivostok

Keywords: environment-centred approach, deadaptive behaviour, recreation and health environment, students.

Introduction. Such phenomena as "human body" and "environment" act as inseparable ontological opposites within one integrity called "Cosmos". The dialectical struggle and unity of these opposites generate an incredible variety of phenomena and processes in our world. Living organisms can origin, develop and undergo changes in the environment only. And vice versa, that which fills the environment changes and enriches its content.

As one of the theories on education, the environment-centred approach involves social and philosophical generalization and, at the same time, can serve as a pedagogical methodology used to organize the system of teachers’ professional actions and, thus, organize students’ activity as well [7]. The methodological toolkit of the environment-centred approach makes it possible to detect the problems of accidental, spontaneous, inhibitory influence of the environment on the growing human body. A.R. Virabova [2] brings out clearly that modern education significantly exceeds schoolchildren’s psycho-functional and physical abilities. I.A. Baeva [1] mentions among the significant psychological dangers in the educational environment dissatisfaction with the essential basic need for personal open communication and as a result - propensity for destructive behaviour.

It should be emphasized that "definition" – "school deadaptation" ("deadaptive behaviour") is a generally accepted notion associated with problematic behaviour in the school setting. G.M. Kodzhaspirova [3] defines deadaptation as a mental state caused by the discrepancy between the socio-psychological or psychophysiological statuses of a child and requirements of a new social situation. And that is where we approach the defining sense of the environmental methodology of Y.S. Manuylov [4]. This approach makes it possible to present an indirect control in the form of "selection" of proper environmental parameters or "design" of necessary environment in which the system operates as required [5].

If deadaptive behaviour is a result of overload and disruption of recovery (adaptation) processes, common sense guides us to consider a probability (possibility) of replacing such a behaviour with the "opposite", i.e. "restorative" ("adaptive") behaviour. However, the latter concept has no clear definition neither in pedagogical nor in medical science; therefore, we need to search for the semantic identity of the phenomena indicated by these concepts in the interdisciplinary epistemological areas of socio-pedagogical practice. We assume that such an area might be recreational and leisure activities, more fully and thoroughly worked out in the theories of socio-cultural activities, reflected in recreology and partly in the theory of physical culture. And since the word "recreation", in the well-known sense, means rest, restoration of forces after labour, it should be assumed that the concept of "recreational behavior" (in the most general sense) can denote: the activity of an individual aimed at satisfying the needs for restoration of psychophysical resources spent in the process of any activity.

  Therefore, the research problem concerns the needs of the pedagogical science and practice for a full-fledged and consistent study of the interdependence of environment and human body amidst the complication and intensification of modern life, especially in the educational sphere, where rapid adaptation of younger generation to steadily increasing civilizational loads (learning activity, information environment of innovative educational technologies), where children and young people become inflexible prisoners of civilizational challenges.

Objective of the study was to develop and substantiate a methodological platform based on an environment-centered approach to establish a hierarchy and co-subordination of knowledge in different epistemological spheres, highlight the essential, key aspects of this knowledge and "synthesize" the theoretical model of the problem field of the forthcoming scientific and practical research.

Results and discussion. The ideological doctrine of the study is the idea of ​​human integrity, his somatopsychic and sociocultural integration [6]. Due to this, the theoretical and methodological part of our work will be based on a set of basic philosophical spheres (categories): human, culture, society. The areas resulting from the intersection of these areas and decomposed to the level of pedagogical sciences reflect the unity and contradiction of the basic social and pedagogical objects of cognition. Taking the above-mentioned areas for an epistemological platform, let us specify (scale) their content to the parameters of this study. The phenomena formed in such a manner are expressed through the following concepts: "deviant (deadaptive) behaviour"; "humanistic social and pedagogical experience"; "physical culture"; "educational institution environment" (see Figure 1).

The research areas resulting from the intersection of the concepts presented reflect the following contradictions.

Area 1 – deviant (deadaptive) behaviour of 7-10-year-old schoolchildren as shown by the experience of humanistic pedagogics. The contradictions between these phenomena are expressed in the insufficiently developed practical means of "indirect" shaping in primary schoolchildren of behaviour that would conform with the norms of the environment in an educational establishment.

Area 2 - physical education and physical recreation of 7-10-year-old schoolchildren with deviant (deadaptive) behaviour. Here, the contradiction is in the insufficient use of spiritual-conversion and recreational functions of physical education in physical development and psychophysical rehabilitation of primary schoolchildren in the educational establishment environment.

Area 3 - physical education in cross-reference with humanistic pedagogics. Here, the contradiction lies in the need for scientifically substantiated integration (synergy) of physical education (recreational) means with practical aspects of humanistic social and educational experience for the purpose of "recreational enrichment" of the educational establishment environment.

Area 4 - logically "ties up" the above-mentioned contradictions in the research issue: insufficiently developed organizational and methodical aspects of diagnostics and modification of the general educational establishment environment based on integration (combination / synergy) of physical education means (methods) and practical experience of humanistic pedagogics in order to indirectly shape recreational behaviour in primary schoolchildren.

Since the phenomena and relations within Area 4 require separate, more detailed conceptual and methodological interpretation (in cross-reference with this research), we will give the corresponding reasons for the key (working) concepts in the next publication. Let us proceed to the conclusions.

Conclusions:

  • The environment-centred approach to the methodology of social and instructional design offers the scope for smooth extrapolation of general scientific (interdisciplinary) levels of social and humanistic knowledge to specific disciplinary (technological aspects) levels of modification of the educational environment in order to solve the problems of students’ adaptation to modern requirements and conditions of learning activity.
  • The environment-centred approach makes it possible to model, in an all-round and multisided manner, the theoretical and empirical elements of the recreation-and-health environment oriented on specific technological tools for its (environment) implementation.
  • The environment-centred methodology makes it possible to detect and "pull out" such parameters (components) of the educational environment that would sufficiently and comprehensively restore and compensate for the psychophysical resources of the students’ body (in terms of "training overloads") and shape recreational behaviour in them.

References

  1. Baeva I.A., Volkova I.A., Laktionova E.B. Psikhologicheskaya bezopasnost obrazovatelnoy sredy. Ucheb. posobie [Psychological safety of educational environment. Study guide]. Moscow: 2009, 248 p.
  2. Virabova A.R. Razvitie zdorovyesberegayuschey sredy v sisteme obrazovaniya na osnove integratsii resursnogo obespecheniya [Formation of health-promoting environment in educational system based on integration of resources’ provision]. Moscow: PROBEL-2000 publ., 2012, 292 p.
  3. Kodzhaspirova G.M., Kodzhaspirov A.Y. Pedagogicheskiy slovar Dlya stud. vyssh. i sred. ped. ucheb. zavedeniy [Pedagogical dictionary for stud. higher and sec. ped. ed. institutions]. Moscow: Akademiya publ., 2003, 176 p.
  4. Manuylov Y.S. Sredovoy podkhod v vospitanii. Dis. dokt. ped. nauk [Environmental approach in education. Doct. diss. (Hab.)]. Moscow, 1997, 193 p.
  5. Markov Y.G. Funktsionalny podkhod v sovremennom nauchnom poznanii [Functional approach in modern scientific cognition]. Novosibirsk: Nauka publ., 1982, 255 p.
  6. Nikolaev Y.M. Teoretiko-metodologicheskie osnovy fizicheskoy kultury. Dis. dokt. ped. nauk [Theoretical and methodological basics of physical culture. Doct. diss. (Hab.)]. St. Petersburg 1998, 351 p.
  7. Sulima I.I. Sredovoy podkhod kak metodologiya nauchno-pedagogicheskogo issledovaniya [Environmental approach as methodology of scientific pedagogical research]. Almamater. Vestnik vysshey shkoly, 2010, no. 7 (August). pp. 36-39.

 Corresponding author: nvmazitova@mail.ru

Abstract

The article opens up a cycle of studies to address the growing need of the educational theory and practice for an all-round systemic analysis of interrelations of the human body with environments in the modern increasingly complicated and intensive lifestyles, with the growing need for proactive and efficient adaptation of new generations to the fast growing workloads of the modern civilizations. In view of the high difficulty and polyphony of the subject matter, an objective of the study was to develop a methodological platform based on the environment-centred approach to model, in an all-round and multisided manner, the theoretical and empirical elements of the recreation-and-health environment in an educational establishment. The study was performed by a research team of the Physical Education Theory and Practice and Sports-and-health Recreation department of Far Eastern Federal University (Y.A. Gukov, PhD, N.V. Mazitova, PhD, O.V. Gorbunova, PhD and T.V. Stebliy, PhD).