MAJOR AWARD FOR MAKARENKO STUDIES
National
recognition for important new scholarship

Each
year the Russian Government awards prizes for education, to an
annual value of ten million Roubles. Last week Prime Minister Dmitrii
Medvedev announced this year's winners. One of the four lauréats
awarded this year goes to the Makarenko Pedagogy of Upbringing
Research Laboratory at the Kozma Minin University in Nizhnii
Novgorod:
This
prize recognises a programme of work called 'A. S. Makarenko. the
school of life, labour, upbringing: a text book on the history,
theory and practice of upbringing', carried out from 2007 to 2017.
The
prizewinners were Anatolii Arkadievich Frolov, Sergei Ivanovich
Aksyonov and Elena Yur'evna Ilaltdinova.
In the view of UNESCO, A. S. Makarenko
was one of the four pedagogues who determined the path of pedagogical
thinking in the twentieth century. The others were John Dewey, Georg
Kershensteiner and Maria Montessori.
The study
One
of the project's main objectives has been to assemble a complete
collection of A. S. Makarenko's works. This has not been done in the
post-Soviet era. Over ten years of work, the researchers from Kozma
Minin University have published this work in nine parts, with the
materials in chronological order, presented with their their own
commentary and additions, along with elaborated educational and
methodological materials for use in the educational process.
This
programme of study reflects long-term research work on generalisation
and critical analysis of the results of the development, and the
theoretical and practical use of A. S. Makarenko's heritage in the
USSR, Russia, and other countries over the period from 1939 to the
present day. A. S. Makarenko appears in this work as a reforming
social educator, a classic of pedagogy – organically combining the
qualities of practising pedagogue, thinker and writer, creative
writer, publicist, and public figure.
Collected
works, and more
This
new edition of the works of A. S. Makarenko contains the author's
pedagogical, artistic-pedagogical, literary and journalistic
materials, and documents on his practical activities, personal
letters, records, etc. The publication includes detailed academic
commentaries, educational materials, a personal index of people
involved in his activities, and illustrations. The publication claims
to present every one of his works presently known to researchers,
along with various author's materials, and documents on his
activities.
Unlike
previous editions, all the above texts are accompanied by academic
commentaries that not only explain the main content of each item but
also give analytical evaluations, link it with other documents,
report the time and circumstances in which it was written, and
indicate the meaning of specific terms.
A.
S. Makarenko's legacy has huge academic and practical potential, and
merits in-depth research and generalisation, in philosophical-ethical
and social-pedagogical relations. It permits critical analysis of
historical and pedagogical experience, to approach modern problems of
upbringing and education in a new way.
The
work's target audience is students, undergraduates, graduate
students, academics, specialists in general pedagogy, the history of
pedagogy and education, and the theory and practice of education –
as well as those working in the field of culture, fiction, sociology,
psychology, ethics and aesthetics, and academic methodology.
The above account has been extracted from
the website of Kozma Menin Pedagogical University:
Phew!
A
heroic act of scholarship and devotion – not least as these three
scholars must over these ten years have felt the strain and the
responsibility of keeping alive a torch that very few cared should
live or die. UNESCO rated A. S. Makarenko extraordinarily highly in
the twentieth century. In the twentieth, however, politics and
history may have made it seem that his light has been flickering out
fast, not least in the lands of the former Soviet Union where most of
his practical heritage has been largely lost in reformed school
systems.
That
these scholars' labour and its fruit are officially recognised in
2017 is no chance. President Putin and his government need a
different kind of reform now, a different pedagogy and a different
upbringing. This prestigious and prominent award recognises some
extraordinary scholarship. It should send a strong signal to meet and
greet the new school year, one that Kremlin-watchers around the world
might also heed.
Labels: Makarenko, Russia, Upbringing
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