People's Folklore Influence On The Development Of Schoolchild's Personality

Abstract

The article examines how people's folklore influences schoolchild's personality progress. It concludes that starting from an early age, children are naturally included in the folk tradition as its bearers. Folklore becomes a subject of mastering in preschool and school education. The term "folklore" in the literal translation from English means folk or national wisdom. This is poetry created by the people and existing in the people, reflecting the work of people, the way of society and everyday life, knowledge of life, nature, culture and faith. Folklore represents the beliefs, standards and desires of people, their poetic imagination, a rich world of ideas, emotions, worries, discontent against exploitation and oppression, dreams of a rightful and happy life. Folklore is an oral art that involves sayings, tall tales, fairy tales, legends, myths, parables, tongue twisters, riddles, epic poems, and so on. Perceiving works of people's folklore, children develop in all aspects, thereby accomplishing the pedagogical tasks of upbringing, development and education of each child. Teachers face an important objective: to create a favorable emotional background and organize a natural, positive interaction with children. It is noted that there are successful and useful guidance papers proposed by teachers to study folklore material in secondary schools. Therefore, in our opinion, folklore teaching in terms of its educational potential, which cannot be underestimated, still needs to be paid more attention. It is necessary to align teaching materials, to check and verify them, to think through the presentation logic.

Keywords: Folklore, folk tale, literature, oral folklore, personal development, schoolchildren

Introduction

Every parent wants their child to have a happy childhood, which will be remembered for fun, bright, emotional moments that accompany him/her for life. To recreate such moments, adults can use fairy tales, riddles, tongue twisters, counting-out rhymes, nursery rhymes and many other forms of oral folklore. This is close, understandable to children.

Folklore constantly accompanied the way of life of the people, was an important part of everyday life, it beautified the holidays and helped on weekdays. The first plowing and the last sheaf gathering in the field in autumn, youth celebrations, Christmas holidays and spring meeting, weddings, the birth of a child and funerals – all the events of the people's life were accompanied by rituals. Since ancient times, rituals have been associated with processes in the natural world, with the family way of life, with various everyday circumstances.

Folklore is an oral art that involves sayings, tall tales, fairy tales, legends, myths, parables, tongue twisters, riddles, epic poems, and so on. A special place is occupied by children oral folklore. Folk art inspires, and also attracts with its beauty and historical content. But it is always in progress, constantly being studied and analyzed. Native speech, which sounds in fairy tales, eloquent intonations of Russian songs, colorful folk toys are an indispensable means of educating the children's love for the world around them, facing the child from birth. The Russian language, with which children get acquainted first of all through fairy tales and through the expressive intonation of folk songs, is an important means of educating children to respect and carefully treat the world around them and each other. From an early age, children are engaged in a natural way in the folk tradition as its bearers. Folklore becomes a subject of mastering in preschool and school education. According to the state educational standard, schools do not have a separate academic subject “Folklore” or “Oral Folklore”, unlike higher educational institutions. At schools students somehow encounter folklore and, more broadly, folk (traditional) culture in its individual components in the lessons of music, environment, technology, world art culture, the Russian language, and history. However, within school philological education, a more systematic acquaintance with folk literature is provided in the lessons of literary reading and literature in separate blocks. In addition, the conversation about folklore continues at a new level when studying works of literature, in which the authors refer to folk traditions – from ancient Russian literature and up to modern one. The study of folklore by schoolchildren expands and enriches the perception of national literature.

Problem Statement

The article deals with the problem of influence of people's folklore on the schoolchild’s personality development. Today, children communicate very little, preferring text messages to live communication, and computer games to outdoor games. In this regard, in their speech they scarcely use counting-out rhymes, riddles, sayings, nursery rhymes and other genres of folk art. Therefore, teachers are faced with an important task – to introduce and interest schoolchildren with folklore material that contributes to the development of their personality, expands knowledge about their native culture, and fosters a sense of patriotism and respect for their native language.

Research Questions

The subject of the studied problem is people's folklore, which affects the development of schoolchildren's personality.

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of the work is to study the people's folklore influence on schoolchildren's personality development.

Research Methods

Working on the article, we used the following research methods: analysis of information and educational resources, analysis of recommendations, practices and experience of learning folklore material in secondary schools.

Findings

The term “folklore” is translated from English as folk or national wisdom. This is poetry created by the people and existing in the people, reflecting the work of people, the way of society and everyday life, knowledge of life, nature, culture and faith. Folklore represents the beliefs, standards and desires of people, their poetic imagination, a rich world of ideas, emotions, worries, discontent against exploitation and oppression, dreams of a rightful and happy life.

Proverbs and sayings are a special type of oral poetry that has absorbed the work experience of many generations over the centuries. They used imagery to record the experience of existence with all its diversity and inconsistency.

Guessing and making riddles also has a beneficial effect on the development of children’s speech component. To create a metaphorical image in the riddle, various verbal means of expression are used: epithets, comparisons. With riddles, the child's vocabulary is enriched due to the polysemy of words.

Nursery rhymes, tongue twisters, proverbs, sayings contribute to the development of a sense of rhythm and rhyme, as well as formation of intonation expressiveness of children's speech.

Folk games include expressive vocabulary, as well as figurative conversational forms. The folklore contained in them contributes to the development of speech of preschoolers. For example, a fun game “Ladushki-Ladushki”, in which an adult person asks, and a child answering performs imitation movements.

Folk lyrical song distinguishes itself significantly from other types of folk forms. Its structure is more diverse than that of heroic epic, fairy tales, and other genres.

Lullabies, pestushki (baby-talk), nursery rhymes and all the songs that came from the adult repertoire to the children's one (carols, ritual songs like vesnyanki, zaklichki, and play songs); songs invented by the children themselves are childhood songs composed by adults specifically for children.

There were precisely many children's games. It can be noted that children often imitate the life of adults in their play activities, while performing suitable songs. For example, in the game "daughters-mothers", a girl can put a doll to sleep by singing a lullaby to her.

Children's folklore also includes rhymes, jokes, tongue twisters, and fairy tales. A fairy tale is the most structured and most subject to certain rules. When telling fairy tales, knowledge of special utterances is assumed, for example: “Soon the fairy tale is told, but not soon the matter is done.” At the same time, a fairy tale would not be a fairy tale if it allowed the villain to defeat the innocently persecuted people. Such an ending is common to fairy tales. There are various misfortunes that heroes of fairy tales get into, but there are also no misfortunes that they do not take away themselves from. Good wins, justice prevails. (Alekseeva & Nikiforova, 2018).

So fairy tales teach children to disobey and challenge the evil, not to give up when problems arise, but to bravely fight with difficulties and overcome them. (Chistyakova, 2017).

Russian round dances are divided according to the seasons, idle days and are accompanied by special songs and games. Round dance games reflect the Russian people’s difficult life.

Folk dance is the people's bright, picturesque creation, representing an emotional artistic specific reflection of everyday way of life, character, thoughts, emotions, aesthetics and understanding of the beauty of nature. The basis of round dance is considered performing together a round dance song by all its participants.

Children are provided with foundations of cognitive activity, they develop visual and imaginative thinking, imagination, speech, state of mind is enhanced by experience, obtain ability to perceive the world and act according to ideas. The emergence of generalized knowledge about objects and phenomena can be considered an important condition for introducing children to the world around them using the means of Russian people's folklore.

Pavlova argues that folklore is an effective way to humanize upbringing of children, since it includes many stages of pedagogical influence on them in accordance with their age capabilities. Purposeful and systematic use of the works of Russian people's folklore allows us to form the basis of psychophysical well-being of children, which determines the success of its adaptation to educational organization. (Pavlova, 2014).

Consequently, the means of people's folklore cause joyful emotions, coordinate the movements of a child, develop fine motor skills of hands, teach children to overcome fear. Pestushki (baby-talk) and nursery rhymes that accompany the movements during a game are so-called link to communicate with the child. They allow children to get to know each other, to get closer to each other; to establish an open сonfiding relationship between the teacher and the child. Folklore in games and everyday activities significantly expands the vocabulary, makes children's speech emotional and expressive. (Khomushku & Kyrgys, 2018).

In games and everyday activities, the use of folklore significantly enriches the vocabulary of children, enhancing and making their speech emotional and expressive. Playing a variety of situations with the help of hand motor skills, body movements, the child is calm and not tense. (Molchanova, 2017).

In conformity with current federal state educational standards, Russian school is designed to implement a personality-oriented learning model at all its levels. As the analysis of psychological and pedagogical research shows, personal orientation is understood as an approach to learning, in which the teacher's attention is focused on the formation of a learner's holistic personality. The latter, in turn, implies the development of not only the intellect, but also spiritual component of the child's personality, which requires creation of a special educational environment in the classroom.

School literature course implies that children study folklore works mainly in the fifth - sixth forms, and the main load in this regard falls on the fifth form. Folklore share in the content of further education is noticeably reduced, which, in our opinion, is inexpedient, because as a person grows up, he/she must gradually master folklore more and more deeply (there is a wider layer of folklore material in the authentic tradition in the adult environment) (Gutieva & Kaitova, 2016).

With the existing approach, schoolchildren have erroneous impression that, firstly, folklore is only an archaic art (in fact, folklore existed in the early modern and modern history, exists up to this day, before our eyes new, modern genres are born, and the old ones have not lost their meaning), and secondly, that folklore is designed only for children's perception – in fact, it traditionally existed and exists in different age groups, different genres have age “bindings”, but ritual folklore as a whole is universal, it unites adults and children.

The article by Starostina considers the study of folklore in school highlighting the main stages of the study of folklore and describing the methods of teaching folk art in the 19th-20th centuries. The author notes that at present “the middle school is offered new aspects of its study: axiological, cultural, local history, interdisciplinary relationships are actively used”. Also Starostina emphasizes that the logic of methodological research is adjusted “from reading and analyzing individual genres to considering works of oral literature in the aspect of folk culture” (Starostina, 2006, p. 163).

It seems that everything is fine, but after a conversation with middle school students, it turned out that the children's knowledge of folklore and its genres is relative. School children mostly remembered proverbs, riddles, fairy tales, epic poems. As for ritual folklore, the only thing they know well is what rituals are held during the celebration of Maslenitsa (Pre-Lenten festival), but many of the students do not understand the ancient meaning of ritual actions. However, middle school students do not realize how deep the roots of folklore go, how complex and ambiguous the semantics and pragmatics of folk rituals are, as well as the symbolism of calendar songs, how variable and multifunctional they are, how fancifully they have changed over time.

It is worth noting that in recent years, interest in folklore studies has increased along with the search for advanced models of training, and the best examples of folk pedagogy have been revived. Folklore is rightfully recognized as one of the most efficient and brightest means, with great educational opportunities. Teachers are aware that familiarity with the works of folk art enriches the speech and feelings of children, forms a value attitude to the world around them, and plays an invaluable role in all-round development.

Russian language and literature teachers formulate almost the same tasks: working with folklore is aimed at fostering a moral and aesthetic sense, forming a student's personality, educating children to feel civic consciousness and love for the Motherland, fostering a sense of respect for folk traditions, introducing children to universal values, and forming ideas that Russian folklore is an integral part of world culture.

However, unfortunately, most often children at school do not show interest in folklore and folk culture. Here, of course, much depends on teachers, their interest and level of training. Modern education, focusing on innovation, forces teachers to look for new ways and approaches to mastering the material aimed at solving cultural, aesthetic, and educational tasks. The teacher strives to find new pedagogical and methodological solutions, but the degree of the teacher's talent, the degree of his/her education and understanding of the essence of folklore itself are also of great importance here.

But equally essential, much depends on the textbook, which teachers have to work with in schools. Let us consider as an example, the tasks on folklore offered in school textbooks.

Tasks in literature for the 5th form (textbook edited by V.Ya. Korovina “Literature”): "With the help of a textbook and explanatory dictionaries, define the following genres of oral folk art: pestushka (baby-talk), nursery rhyme, lullaby, ritual songs (zaklichka), facetious saying, joke, counting-out rhyme, tongue twister, riddle." One would like to ask: is it too much to find so many definitions for a schoolchild of the 5th form?

Another example of the task offered to students of the 6th form: “Write an essay-reasoning on the topic: “What is the beauty and wisdom of Russian rituals?” (60 words). The proposed work plan is as follows: “What phenomena of life of our ancestors are associated with Russian rituals. Reflection of the work, national way of life and calendar of our ancestors. What holidays are associated with Russian rituals? Are they related to the change of the season? What is the beauty of Russian rituals? (The most beautiful Russian rituals is... (Prove your point)). What is philosophy and worldly wisdom of my favorite folk ritual? How do Russian rituals survive today?”

It is worth noting that it is proposed to highlight favorite ritual and explain the beauty of the ritual (from the student's point of view). How to understand what beauty is, especially in the ritual? In addition, is a student of the 6th form able to discover worldly wisdom, characterize it and at the same time explain philosophical essence?

A noteworthy detail is that teachers often and more productively work with folklore in the format of group work (this is more relevant to the junior level of school) and during extracurricular hours. So far, this direction is developed in our country much better than the study of folklore in literature lessons. It seems to us that valuable methodological experience gained in this area can and should be used selectively during class time.

For example, there was developed a program for extracurricular activities for students of forms 1-4 “Folklore in primary school”, designed for four years’ period and aimed at in-depth acquaintance with folk song-music and ritual traditions. (Antonen, 2019) The content and structure of proposed program is based on the idea of school musical and aesthetic education based on song folklore and creative activity. Ritual folklore in this program is studied from the 2nd to the 4th forms. In the 2nd form, attention is paid to the types of folk songs: lullabies, recruit songs, round dance songs, etc.; in the 3rd form, special attention is paid to calendar ritual poetry: “People's Calendar. The origin of holidays, their connection with nature”; “Winter holidays. Christmas”; “Maslenitsa”; “Spring calendar holidays”; “Summer calendar holidays”; “Autumn calendar holidays”. In the 4th form, students study family ritual folklore. This program puts the folklore work at the center of the cognitive process as a result of creative activity, as a cultural phenomenon.

Conclusion

Direct perception of people's folklore works is a very complex process that is formed in the child’s internal activity, where at the same time such mental processes as imagination, perception, attention, thinking, memory, emotions and will take part, they play a significant role and perform their functions in the personality’s development. The works of people's folklore enter the life of children from the first days and remain with them for the whole of their life. Perceiving the works of oral people's folklore, children develop in all aspects, thereby accomplishing the pedagogical tasks of upbringing, development and education of every child. Teachers’ key objective is to create a favorable emotional background and organize a natural, positive interaction with children.

The role of folklore and literature is considerable in the formation not only of a child of a younger age, but also of a middle school student, primarily because it determines cultural and moral component of the personality.

There is no doubt that the basis for the formation of a personality is its cognitive development. And on this path, it is necessary to take into account the peculiarities of people's folklore. Usually this is well done in music schools in the folklore field, but folklore study in a modern comprehensive school as a whole cannot be called satisfactory.

Also worth highlighting is the fact that there are useful guidance papers proposed by teachers to study folklore material in secondary schools. The guidance papers are for both lessons and extracurricular activities, programs of club and group activities. However, unfortunately, these are insufficient. Therefore, in our opinion, teaching folklore, in terms of educational potential, which cannot be underestimated, still needs to be paid more attention. It is necessary to align teaching materials, to check and verify them, to think through the presentation logic, and also to consider the teachers training for working with folklore materials.

References

  • Alekseeva, L. L., & Nikiforova, D. N. (2018). The use of people's folklore in working with children of senior preschool age. Traditions and innovations in preschool education, 4(7), 25–27.

  • Antonen, O. A. (2019). Folklore in elementary school. Extracurricular activities program for students in forms 1–4. Retrieved from: https://infourok.ru/rabochaya-programma-po-vneurochnoy-deyatelnosti-folklor-v-nachalnoy-shkole-2317900.html

  • Chistyakova, D. A. (2017). Russian folk tales as a means of developing figurative speech. Bulletin of the Central Russian University Educational Consortium. Series: Humanities, 10, 48–50.

  • Gutieva, M. T., & Kaitova, I. A. (2016). Moral and ethical ideas of the people in Russian, Ossetian and English proverbs and sayings. Social sciences, 1, 90–95.

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  • Starostina, M. E. (2006). The problem of studying Russian oral folk art at the lessons of language arts and literature in the works of Russian methodologists of the 19th – 21st centuries. Azimut of scientific research: Pedagogy and Psychology, 5(3), 162–167.

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Publication Date

29 November 2021

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978-1-80296-116-4

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117

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Cultural development, technological development, socio-political transformations, globalization

Cite this article as:

Edilsultanovna, M. K., Akhmadova, Z. M., & Isaeva, L. A. (2021). People's Folklore Influence On The Development Of Schoolchild's Personality. In D. K. Bataev, S. A. Gapurov, A. D. Osmaev, V. K. Akaev, L. M. Idigova, M. R. Ovhadov, A. R. Salgiriev, & M. M. Betilmerzaeva (Eds.), Social and Cultural Transformations in The Context of Modern Globalism, vol 117. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences (pp. 1014-1020). European Publisher. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2021.11.135