Development Of Academic Optimism In The Style Of A Modern School

Abstract

This article is devoted to the consideration of the concept of academic optimism and its development at various levels of modern school. Based on a theoretical study of the concept of academic optimism, an understanding of the phenomenon of academic optimism is proposed as an integral characteristic of the modern educational environment, which forms a flexible-thinking and therefore successful student. The structure of the phenomenon of academic optimism highlights collective efficiency, trust, as well as academic emphasis, the key role in the implementation of which is played by pedagogical optimism, being the personal and professional quality of an individual teacher. A comparison of pedagogical optimism and academic optimism made it possible to identify common features of phenomena and their characteristics manifested at different levels of school structure, which can be used in future to work out the technology for the development of academic optimism in the professional learning community of a modern school.

Keywords: Pedagogical optimism, academic optimism, professional qualities of teacher, skill of creating a situation of success, values of a teacher, collective efficiency

Introduction

The main requirement of the dynamically changing modern world for the education system is the upbringing of a flexible-thinking child, who will be able to achieve success in any unfamiliar or difficult situation, based on the foundation of theoretical knowledge and practical skills obtained during the training process. Focusing on the success of the goal, regardless of the complexity of the circumstances accompanying this process, is the key quality of an optimistic person.

The emergence of the concept of optimism is on par with the theory of self-effectiveness of A. Bandura, implicit theories of intelligence K. Dwek and others (as cited in Gordeeva et al., 2017) indicates the relevance of the opinion, developing since the 1960s, on the influence of people's thoughts on their subjective well-being and success, one of the cognitive predictors of which is optimism. It, being both an attributive style (Peterson & Seligman, 1984) and a dispositional construct (Carver & Scheier, 1998), directly relates to psychological well-being, including indicators of depression, anxiety, life satisfaction, physical health, success and social functioning (Carver et al., 2010; Hu et al., 2015).

According to American philosopher M. Zeligman, by the age of 12, the optimism of the child is rapidly decreasing and it has every chance of never growing (as cited in Andreeva, 2013), if the appropriate actions are not taken in time. Therefore, the formation of such an important personal quality is the most natural in childhood. It is logical that the process of developing natural optimism in a child should be accompanied both by the appropriate orientated educational actions and by a demonstration of a personal example by a teacher. Professionalism of the way he will use one of the oldest principles of pedagogy - the principle of pedagogical optimism, influences the effectiveness of the formation of optimism in a child.

Problem Statement

Components of the external environment that positively influence the development of positive qualities of a person include:

• moral atmosphere of the family,
• communication with fellow students,
• an example set by adults,
• dialogue and cooperation of teachers and pupils,
• creating success situations (Andreeva, 2013).

In relation to education, 3 of the 5 mentioned factors for the formation of positive qualities of a person (the latter in the list) are presented directly in the educational environment, and can be transferred to students in the process of educational activity. The teacher, interacting with students, shows them the appropriate strategies of behaviour and thinking, for which he often resorts to the technique of creating situations of success. Indeed, one large-scale study demonstrated that the optimistic attributive style of explaining positive events (successes) is an important resource of schoolchildren's academic achievement (Houston, 2016).

However, even assuming that the teacher promotes a positive attitude to any life events in his educational activity, using his charisma and authority among students, the question of the sufficiency of his influence on the pupils remains open: after the lesson, the child from the optimistic teacher enters the society, which does not always have positive qualities. Let us note that the remaining two factors in the list above - the family and peer environment do not always contribute to the upbringing of the child, which corresponds to the goals of the school in general and the teacher in particular to the formation of positive qualities of the child. More precisely, it will be expressed as follows: the socio-economic status (here in after referred to as SES) of a student, the cause of which is the family, and the consequence - the environment of his peers, often has a greater influence on his educational result than the image and actions of the teacher.

In this case, even the most motivated, energetic and talented, but individual teachers are not able to achieve significant results in instilling optimism in the student, if they do not act together with colleagues and the administration of the educational institution, and also do not try to spread these measures outside the school through influence on the inner circle of the student. In this context, this becomes a problem of research, for the possible solution of which it is necessary to propose to carry out the processes of formation and development of optimism among schoolchildren throughout the school environment in a coordinated manner: based on the pedagogical optimism of individual teachers, extend their pedagogical culture to the entire professional pedagogical community, gaining the support of the administration and the trust of students and their parents. Formed jointly in this case, the structure of the educational institution acquires a characteristic called academic optimism.

Research Questions

To solve the problem of research, the author attempted to answer the following questions.

Purpose of the Study

Thus, the task of the study is to show the manifestation of academic optimism at different levels of school structure, as well as to show the medium-forming significance of the position of the teacher as a bearer of the principles of pedagogical optimism.

Research Methods

The article uses methods of retrospective analysis of the term "pedagogical optimism" to study the history of its development, content analysis to clarify the definition of this concept, as well as the method of essential analysis to consider in detail the structure of the phenomenon of pedagogical optimism. The method of theoretical analysis was implemented in order to study the concept of "academic optimism," and using the method of structural analysis, the elements that make up this concept were studied. The method of comparative analysis and the "mirror" technique were used to compare phenomena of academic and pedagogical optimism, while the criterion-evaluation base included value-target guidelines, the nature of the organization, and support (from the standpoint of a parametric approach).

Findings

An analysis of the term "pedagogical optimism" shows its connection with the names of Confucius, Plato, Vittorino da Feltre, K. G. Leibniz and others; a pedagogical interpretation of the term was given by Y. Comensky. In modern science the principle of pedagogical optimism can be defined as follows: finding and developing the strengths and positive aspects of the child, and sometimes their reorientation (strong-willed, risk aspirations, etc.) to personal and socially oriented development (Savchenko et al., 2020). At the same time, the principle of pedagogical optimism declares:

1. Approach to each pupil "with an optimistic hypothesis".

2. Reliance on positive child qualities.

3. The need to create a special optimistic climate in the process of upbringing: a mood of joy, upliftment, vitality, and at the same time, cheerful goodness, humour and passion (Golovanova, 2017).

The study highlighted two approaches to the definition of the concept of pedagogical optimism:

1) In a personal context (Andreeva, 2013; Arskieva, 2018), a synthesis of the terms most commonly used to describe pedagogical optimism in the form of synquein is presented:

Optimism

Necessary, stable, active

Motivates, accompanies

Teacher's professional and personal position

Belief

2) In the activity context: this is a system of influences carefully thought out by the teacher, based on hope and faith in the positive values ​of the student's life, and affecting his comprehensive development (Okon, 1998).

These approaches allow us to include in the structure of pedagogical optimism professional and moral improvement (development of oneself as a person), pedagogical culture and the skill of creating a situation of success (manifested in pedagogical activity) (Andreeva, 2013). According to another opinion, pedagogical optimism is a teacher as an example of optimism (personality as an example), competently organized encouragement and a competent reaction to mistakes (specific activity) (Arskieva, 2018).

Thus, pedagogical optimism is part of the teacher's pedagogical culture, constantly seeking self-improvement, trying to create success situations for each student, competently organize their encouragement and show the right reaction to their mistakes.

The listed activities are skills subject to a fairly highly professional teacher who uses his creative abilities to the maximum, the ability to go beyond the patterns of thinking and behaviour; to think non-standard.

Then, taking the point of view that pedagogical optimism - the ability to successfully and stably adapt to various professional situations, an alternative vision of the situation, the adequacy of the reaction to mistakes (own and others), it becomes logical that a constructively and flexibly thinking student will become the product of the pedagogical optimist's activity because, being a model, the teacher is able to convey the principle of optimism in activity to the student.

Consequently, the realization of the principle of pedagogical optimism implies:

• instilling in a young person a relatively stable tendency to perceive, explain and evaluate the world and the events that occur in it, in terms of positive rather than negative, and to develop in it a tendency to expect more favourable events than adverse ones (Mikoajczyk, 2004);
• formation of his ability and desire to tirelessly seek ways to overcome obstacles;
• influence on its basis of life strategy by leading to awareness of the multivariability of solving problems.

The above allows us to formulate the main goal of pedagogical optimism: the formation of a constructively and flexibly thinking student with an active life position by his own example.

As noted above, in order to achieve this goal, it is often also necessary to correct the adverse impact of the environment and family on the child, then it makes sense to turn to the concept of academic optimism, since it, according to Western researchers, is a possible solution to the problem of the external influence of the student's SES on its educational result.

The term "academic optimism" first appeared about 10 years ago (Eren, 2012; Hoy et al., 2006; Malloy, 2012;), and over the past decade has "steadily established as a powerful force that can educate a successful student regardless of his nationality, his social status or the social status of the school" (Hoy & Miskel, 2012; Wu & Sheu, 2015, p. 663).

The beginning of the development of academic optimism is associated with the search for an answer to the question about the possibility of controlling the dysfunctional SES of the student himself, his family, the school he attends, to reduce their influence on the educational result of the child (Kimmelman, 2006).

Now, academic optimism is a set of measures, the implementation of which is actively resorted to by educational institutions to solve the identified problem. Many works note that with a competent combination of the measures making this complex up: collective effectiveness, trust and reliance on academic achievements, the influence of SES is softened so that it does not dictate an educational result (Mitchell & Tarter, 2016). Let's take a closer look at these elements.

Conclusion

Phenomena of pedagogical and academic optimism have a point of contact through an emphasis on the academic achievements of all students, which cannot be realized without the teacher having love for his profession, broad interests and a rich spiritual life that gives him pleasure outside it. And thanks to this he receives recognition and sympathy from students, and over time he becomes an authority for them (Andreeva, 2013; Luczyn'ski, 2016), which becomes so organically his pedagogical optimism. Possessing it, the teacher becomes a medium-forming subject at different levels of the school's structure and equips him with academic optimism. That includes, in addition to focusing on academic achievements, collective efficiency and trust, and, as research shows, is a promising means to solve the problems of the negative impact of SES that are not subject to the individual personality of the teacher.

At the same time, the combination of phenomena stimulated jointly by the phenomena of pedagogical and academic optimism, focusing not on obstacles to success, but on positive feelings, is aimed at turning the student into a healthy, happy, flexible and productive person to improve the quality of his work and life in general.

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