Asthetical Educational Paradigm As The Paradigm Of A Specialist Of The Future

The perspective of replacement of humans at their working place by robots is one of the oft-and-interestedly debated issues which are practically significant for the young people looking for occupation and thinking of acquisition of a second, third and so on professions.

In response to the educational necessity being formed in this direction, - (already not only from the institutions of vocational education but also on the part of business), ready-made solutions for the efficient teen-age orientation in its great variety and unusual variability of occupational choices of the future are offered.

Obvious is, however, the necessity of the educational paradigm of a specialist of the future originating in its goal-setting from both the interests of a specialist’s personality and from common cultural problems. Such educational paradigm of a specialist of the future cannot do without principles and methods of the humanitarian thinking.

In this article we will try to demonstrate on what conditions and in what state it gets involved in the decision of practical tasks.

Both the theoretical attempts to guess the Future and the practical efforts in training for the new professions within the framework of the appropriate institutions are undertaken these days with significant problems in the background (methodological, aesthetical, political etc.). And the fact that solutions to them are still not found, seriously complicates both the selection of a paradigm and the practically-pedagogical prevision of those knowledge and skills a specialist of the future should be in possession of. Here is why it is important to examine the semantic area of the occupational education and the professional culture as a complex space of close encounter of the two main “directions of attention”.

The first one is connected with the practically technological solutions of problems about how and what exactly knowledge and skills it is necessary to teach first a high schooler and then a student, a specialist of the future, so that he\she could competently enter the processes at the origin of which starts inexorably spreading such kind of new reality as “Artificial Intelligence” and, what is important, when required by the labor-market driven necessity to change profession in the course of the whole career and in the course of the life-time. In the practice of occupational education at that there also becomes actual the problem of the corresponding conceptual “marking” of the supposed results of a specialist’s training (capabilities and skills sets).

The second “direction of attention” in which the professional culture becomes a subject-matter of the philosophical knowledge, is the problem of an “exit” of issues (traditionally classified as “abstracted” ones, however acquiring critically vital sense for the occupational education today) into the field of practical application. Philosophy clarifies essential definitions and the participation of professional culture in cooperation of several complex systems (“Man-the Nature”, “Man -|Society-Culture”, “Man-Artificial Intelligence”), relates a “pedagogically practical” approach and that of an “abstractedly philosophical” one in premeditation of newly common paradigm attitudes of occupational education.

As one of the “reference point for the actionable life” (such is one of the variants suggested by Heidegger (1993) as a response to the question about what “thaught” is) philosophical solutions help a specialist of the future to retain such properties as subjectivity, educational motivation and human species and image proper – within the framework of educational paradigms.

From this point of view the necessary unity of the vision of the professional culture and that of the fundamentals of the educational paradigm of a specialist of the future is achieved within the contexts and the principles of intuitively comprehensible but rather complicated element in the function of modeling problem of the educational paradigm, that is “humanitarian thinking”.

“Middlesskills”.

Defining problems is implemented via setting the observable and certain objectives by teachers. Usually their point of view is measured by the constant increase in technology complexity level like in one of the typical projects, such as “Education for a Changing World” (Lobl, Creenaune, & Hayes, 2018). A future specialist in such an educational model, besides the professional literacy, aimed at a “medium” level of skills (“middleskills”), is also taught a right way of “navigation” in a changing world of professions as well as some methods of communication (in their work and at the labor-market). It is argued attitudes (with the help of the data) that specialists of a “medium” level represent a group of most persistent to the twists and turns employees on the market. The efficacy of pedagogical work in this project is corroborated by methods of precise measurements of “physical interactions” (Cukurova et al., 2017).

Humanitarian thinking” as a method and universal capabilities as potential prerequisite of mastering of any type of activities and of the profession.

The perspective of real particularities of impetuous renovation of the processing medium on the whole, with all its influences for the complex systems of cognitive problems, moral imperatives, aesthetical aspects of activities and, more broadly, for all changing variety of values of culture, observable already today, makes actual the development of much more broader range of human brainpower, abilities to become familiar with various approaches to the matter, modes and methods of thought. Among them there is a method of the “humanitarian thinking”. A future specialist chooses an institute of occupational education and a faculty according to his/her capabilities as internally peculiar to his qualities. The capabilities are traditionally studied by psychology and pedagogics of the occupational education as a base of personal professional activities of a specialist. The multi-level character of the semantic content of the capabilities concept becomes also a subject of philosophy and theory of education, culturology, anthropology and etc. These branches of learning reveal stable responses of the capabilities concept raising a question of the “universal capabilities”. That is they make use of an abstract term about capabilities regarding them as an action potential of the human being with his proper human work method, his image and species. “Universal” or ancestral capabilities, is what a human possesses, insofar as he is born human and what is peculiar for all people (what translates it into Hegelian understanding of “cultured person”: as one who is “able to do all that others are able to do”). Education as phenomenon of culture intentionally fulfils the “transfer” of capabilities of a universal type: converting them via various educational procedures and the organization pedagogical activities into personally mastered. Specifically, problems of professional culture formation and the attitudes of the future specialist in such a way that on the basis of personally obtained skills he/she could succeed in the labor-market, preserving, at that, his personal motivation “to become a man of education”.

“Capabilities” and “competencies”.

The interpretation of the ratio of “capabilities” and “competencies” in common practices shows a certain logical failure, when “competencies” in the working programs of occupational education are unfolded throughout contextual sense of capabilities (as one or another “skill”).

Each of the competencies reveals oneself with the help of the concept “capabilities” but not as more general concept (according to the rules of formal logic), but rather as denomination of concrete “skills”. But skills are utilized in certain actual situations (which may not be repeating in future, so that the given “skill’’ will be not required anymore) and by themselves represent the practical side of what a specialist had learnt during the years of training. On the contrary, the concept “capabilities” expresses only the would-be condition, which in other words is not yet accomplished and achieved, existing only as “readiness”. In every sense of the word “universal capabilities” bear in it namely those attitudes which in every moment can become actual allowing to preserve the competency of a professional action in the new, often unexpected situations of the professional sphere. From this point of view in the concept of capabilities it is important the underlined by Rubinstein L. S. (in a known article “The problem of capabilities and the issues of psychological theory”) their connection with “development”, their role as the inner conditions of growth: “… on the one hand… capabilities cannot be simply forced into application from outside, … in the individual there should exit prerequisites, inner conditions for their organic growth, and, on the other hand, … they are not predetermined, not given in a ready state before and without any development” (Rubinstein, 1960, p.3). Capabilities (as something inner and potential) take shape in competency, acting only as a form of application for the capabilities, a result and expression of all the complex of capabilities made outwardly finding continuation for them in the actual, substantive work of a specialist.

The “hard problem” of converting the “capabilities” into a modification of “competencies”.

The multi-level character of the semantic content of the capabilities notion becomes also a subject of philosophy and theory of education, culture, anthropology and etc. These branches of learning reveal stable responses of the capabilities notion raising a question of the “universal capabilities”. That is they make use of an abstract term about capabilities regarding them as an action potential of the human being with his proper human work method, his image and species.

“Universal” or ancestral capabilities, is what a human possesses, insofar as he is born human and what is peculiar for all people (what translates it into Hegelian understanding of “cultured person”: as one who is “able to do all that others are able to do”). Capabilities (as something inner and potential) take shape in competency, acting only as a form of application for the capabilities, a result and expression of all the complex of capabilities made outwardly finding continuation for them in the actual, substantive work of a specialist. Wherein this ratio doesn’t come into account, - there is disoriented, in our opinion also the training of a specialist on the whole. And the term “competencies” begins to appear casual and not sufficiently provided with some concrete content (in spite of popularity and official recognition). Besides, conversion of “capabilities” into modification of “competencies” makes insufficient also the concept of integrity and completeness of educational paradigm of a specialist of the future. To combat that, there are undertaken attempts to “specify” the notion of competencies. For example, by way of completing the pedagogical task with formation of “flexible skills”, or differencing the competencies for “common cultural” and “professional”; and also by way of introduction of the notion “universal competencies”, “global competencies” and so on (Frumin, Dobryakova, Barannikov, & Remorenko, 2018, p.15). We believe that not only in modeling of the educational paradigm of a specialist of the future but also in occupational education on the whole it is necessary and possible to take away the inconsistencies in usage of the term “capabilities” in correlation it with the notion of “competencies” with the help of ideal model of “universal educational paradigm”. In its “framework”, at the expense of interpretation of competencies through an abstract concept of “universal capabilities” it is managed, (as we believe) not only to maintain the conception of education as a phenomenon of culture but also to train in the best possible way a specialist for the different kind of changes and abruptness in formation of the career.

More importantly, in this way are created the possibilities in order to train a really competent specialist (even if only for the “navigation” under labor-market and profession condition).

The condition and the measure of success here appears a positive response to the question: whether the theory and the practice of the special education retains its connection with the concept of the universal capabilities as potential prerequisite of mastering of any type of activities and any profession? The difficulty of achieving in practice the optimal ratio between the concepts of “capabilities” and “competencies” nevertheless finds its resolution namely from the point of view of this criterion: that they are not only different between themselves but also appear in a unity and interaction. Absence anyway of the logically balanced ratio of “the competencies” and “the capabilities” fairly criticized as negative, breaking the connection of education with culture. About that writes Pruzhinin noting that, ignoring “the cultural phenomenon of education as such” by economic forecast leads to the fact that the changes and amendments, which are important for the education today, (and fulfilled without any taking in consideration the motivation of students”) only result in quantity growth of the office work force, … and not of the specialists in the sphere of information productions” (Pruzhinin, 2018, p.7). We believe that in a number of concepts ignored by “the economic prognosis” there are “motivation” and “universal capabilities”. In real processes of learning a profession the universal capabilities appear the necessary elementary item and the prerequisite of improvement of all the skills and abilities necessary for a professional: psychological, cognitive, communicative, technological, aesthetical and etc. Education as phenomenon of culture intentionally fulfils the “transfer” of capabilities of a universal type: converting them via various educational procedures and the organization pedagogical activities into personally mastered. Specifically, problems of professional culture formation and the attitudes of the future specialist in such a way that on the basis of personally obtained skills he/she could succeed in the labor-market, retaining at that his personal motivation “to become a person of education”.

Educational ideal of the Enlightenment and pluralistic cultural type.

Their common trait remained the close connection with the educational ideal of the Enlightenment and it’ educational paradigm with the known standards of cognition and conduct of the individual (with scientific truth, moral imperative, aesthetic ideal). Under the conditions of modern pluralistic cultural type the adherence to this ideal in education is complicated by the growth of great variety of semantic spaces and value actualization belonging to the alternative contexts. The existing attempts to conceive the complexity of educational ideal of the Enlightenment as a whole turn to be rather like patchwork of many different variants of understanding of the cultural practices. With statistically recorded tendency (Naukkarinen & Bragge, 2016) knowledge about culture give priority to the local problems, focusing on diverse, at times unexpected and provocative situations especially communicative, aesthetical, verbal, musical etc. strategies and attitudes of modern culture (Lee, 2016; Vihalem, 2018). And it becomes also fixed the instability of the discourses themselves of the “cultural studies” (Hickey, 2017). This gives evidence of the very agile line of the valuable horizon of culture and the knowledge about it (unlike the stability of orienting points, thought by the traditional educational paradigm, connected with cultural ideal of the Enlightenment).

The principles of “humanitarian thinking” are the common paradigm.

Making no pretense to the completeness of description of this complex subject, being aware also of the impossibility to say in brief about the understanding of it by Bakhtin (1986) (to his ideas namely traces back this rather broadly distributed in a modern humanitarian knowledge concept), - we will nominate here only a small number of connected to each other concepts with the help of which the thinker talks of the “humanitarian thinking”. According to the texts of Bakhtin M, in the notes “The problem of text in linguistics, philology and other humanitarian sciences, An experience of philosophic analysis” and “To methodology of humanitarian sciences” (Bakhtin 1986, pp. 297–325; 381–354), those are: “interpretation”, “dialogue”, “understanding”, “context” – together with the concept of relationship to the world not as to “the ready being” but as to “event”, or “event of being”. These are not the reflection of exclusively communicative subject, but also the necessary conceptual denomination of the “humanitarian thinking” principles. In particular, in creating by Bibler (1998) (together with a group of scientists and practicing teachers) of a rather well-known in Russia educational project called “A school of the dialogue of cultures”. First of all as a source beginning of thinking, responding to the state of world “as betweenness” and, respectively, to the problems of dynamic and “multicenter”, modern type of culture with its global problems, multi-culturality, urgent principles of “justice, solidarity, stability” and so forth. In the real educational process and the modern culture, a dialogue as a principle of “humanitarian thinking” appeared as an alternative to violence of any kind, opened new ways of work for the teacher, which were determined already not as “influence” but as a dialogue of teacher and student, - the parts of which are the subjects equal in their intentions to understanding each other, equally involved into the “event” of the world and equally responsible in the semantic field of the culture.

As a “mode” of the humanitarian thinking the principle of a dialogue gradually became an orienting point not only for the high school but also for the occupational education. In the humanitarian thinking “artificial intelligence” appears only as a partly substantiation of capabilities of the human thinking. But not as its complete copy! A specialist trained in the “framework” of the universal educational paradigm built on the principles of the “humanitarian thinking” adopting this way of thinking and understanding it as accessory to his professional activities, acquires the capability to reconstruct his “subjectivity” in its human qualities and manifestations. Ability for “humanitarian thinking” thus appears as an alternative to the interpretations of the human as a resemblance of machine (computer program), as biorobot and so on, to a sense of the human character and potential, subjectivity, communicativeness, dialogueness, attitude towards the world as to the “event”. Communication with practice by such posing the question is manifested also in the fact that the principles of the humanitarian thinking make the educational paradigm responding to the most full criteria in the necessary “humanitarian expert report”, allowing to create also a rather full scoring system for the educational paradigm of the specialist of the future in view of increasing influence of the “artificial intellingence”.

“Humanitarian thinking” as the method.

It is necessary to underline that we are not talking of some kind of instrumentalization of such “abstractedly” formulated principles of the humanitarian thinking in the sense it is the resource providing this or another requirement (Turoma, Ratilainen & Trubina, 2018). The necessity of formation the integral universal model of a specialist of the future consists of other things. That said, in practical adjustment of the educational model for the perspective of the professional culture, the principles of “humanitarian thinking”, laid at the basis of the educational paradigm take on the role of method but in no way only in the role of “useful” for upbringing the instruments in the form of the philosophical ideas or works of art.

In the methodology of the “humanitarian thinking” it is somewhat other understanding of the role of the “aesthetical activity” that makes the educational paradigm of a specialist of the future more precise.

In the educational project of Bibler who determined (subsequent to Bakhtin M.M.) the “aesthetical activity as the most important source of thinking through which a certain personal “me” is being intensely built, and which serves at that as a “mediator” in relation to the thinking on the whole” (Bibler, 1998, p.70); the “aesthetical activity is a way to thinking of “a dialogue type”, “humanitarian”, or the method of shaping them by one of “the universal capabilities” to the creative thinking, liberating them from the unilaterism of only “technological” approach. Resource-based view of the values of the culture in known theories of “aesthetical upbringing”, certainly, poses and solves problems producing its results. It’s not by chance, for example, that the aesthetic upbringing of the students of a technical university is being regarded as “their occupational education factor” or a factor of “professional mobility”. As a source “element” of creating the educational paradigm of a specialist of the future the principles of the “humanitarian thinking” present somewhat other posing of question than the widely spread today acceptance of the need and the “utility” of humanitarian constituent of occupational education (Liberal arts and the professionalisazion of knowledge, 2015, pp.131-144).

The main thing in relation of the “aesthetical activity” to the sources of the humanitarian thinking, - is its capacity to add to the thinking a creative character. And not only on a “personal” basis of special capabilities, but, first of all, in a common cultural sense and in that meaning of which Bibler wrote: “…Dialogic philosophical thinking preserving its generality, should together with that have “near” itself (in an opposition to it) “the aesthetic activity, aesthetically formalized consciousness as that its source, which should again and again be built and annihilate” (Bibler, 1998, p. 74).

Exactly this source each time “is again built and annihilated” implying the perspective of “the dialogic reason”. Today the “aesthetical activity” as part of the universal educational paradigm of the specialist of the future serving as a prerequisite of the humanitarian thinking turns also to be a real possibility to carry through all “nihilations” and “annihilations” of culture – the “essence of the human” (both in his sensual and rational nature).

Value-based data bank of modern cultural and educational projects such as "public humanities" receives criticism because they continue to proceed from “the Victorian values even when these values appear to be largely losing their force as an element of politics and education (Mullen, 2016) Another pole of criticism (and its object) is the nightmare of the future, foretold by P. Sloterdijk, with his idea of a "human zoo" where education is transformed into a new "kind of taming" in a negative sense: “Humanistic culture is viewed as a kind of taming in a negative sense, where people put themselves in parks, zoos, cities, space stations and domestication structures so that the best will emerge as those who dominate the flock” (Long, 2017).

Important, however, is the idea of Heidegger from the "Letter on Humanism" that the criticism of humanism may not at all mean "a rampant inhumanity" (Heidegger, 1993, pp. 192-220). The principles of "humanitarian thinking" as part of the educational paradigm of a specialist in the future are, in fact, a kind of "annihilation" (Bibler, 1998), or the search for new ways to "be and remain human" in an open, multidimensional process of constant mutual repulsion and mutual attraction of different cultural worlds, and "manifestations" of thinking entering dialogue - requiring the establishment of "dialogical relations" and ... the work of humanitarian thinking! Within the professional culture, this search leads to the result in the form of "skill" in its relationship to "art" and aesthetic activity.

Its annihilistic character speaks only about the necessity to find those forms of establishing which may become rather broad search-field of “integral way in order to be human (“whole new way of being human”). Today such a field becomes also occupational education. As a response to these practices, the principles of the “humanitarian thinking” consisting of the educational paradigm of the specialist of the future appear as an original “pitchfork” with the help of which the educational paradigm as the “universal” one is tuned for the true, man-oriented essence of culture and education, finds man-sized instruments to interact with the world and “hints” the ways of formation of the universal educational paradigm of the specialist of the future, beginning with its source point: in this role act the principles of the “humanitarian thinking”.

The principles of humanitarian thinking in formation of educational paradigm of a specialist of the future form into the method allowing to create the educational paradigm, responding to the unity of various types of thinking within the framework of which practical-pedagogical solutions provide primarily the universality of the capabilities of a specialist of the future. It is the model of the aesthetical paradigm of education.

Reflecting the conditions of shifting to the pluralistic culture being built on principles of “humanitarian thinking”, the aesthetical paradigm of education appears as the “pre-theory” of the humanitarian thinking, capable of solving the problems of training a specialist on its principles (dialogue, understanding, “world as event”). According to many parameters the best answer for these problems is the aesthetical paradigm of education. In its framework: a) terms are created responding in the most precise way to both the universality of capabilities (most required of them are the capabilities for creative solution of problems) and the necessity of overcoming by a specialist of the future a medium level of skills and abilities; b) a necessary base for the storage and maintaining the universal capabilities realized in a number of competences is created. Within the framework of “the aesthetical paradigm of education” the universal capabilities appear as a basis of professional competences allowing a specialist to preserve the stability (under the conditions of the occupational mobility) and for the education on the whole to retain its essential definitions as a phenomenon of culture.

Aesthetical paradigm of the education appears as a condition of actualization of the key principles of the humanitarian thinking and one of the possible common practical solutions mostly adequate to the culture creative nature and to the problem of education. The beginning of the implementation of such a model may be made by creation of appropriate system of pedagogical training (lecturing the courses, except special pedagogical ones; those are specially elaborated courses of philosophy, culturology, interaction of cultures, history of culture and others concerning the problematics of this article in pedagogical universities and in institutions of post-graduate studies and of additional education).