Lack of clarity of the educational goal as a reason for imitation of the educational process

Zubakhina Aleksandriya Alekseevna teacher, psychologist, Social Center for Continuing Education "Start", children's educational center "Lego Education" 352 831, Russia, Krasnodar Territory, village of Nebug, Vesennaya str., 26 azubahina@bk.ru

The whole life of a person is a series of actions (or "inactions", which in the philosophical sense are also actions) ^[8], a significant part of which is aimed at achieving some goal, as "an object of aspiration, something that needs to be accomplished" ^[7]. These actions make sense if there is a goal. It is obvious that the educational process should be focused on the educational goal. If it does not exist, then it does not lead to a learning outcome as an intended goal. The need for a goal in learning is noted by both domestic and foreign authors-teachers, defining the goal of learning as a planned result (R.H. Shakurov, E.O. Ivanova, I.M. Osmolovskaya, etc.) ^[9]. In psychology, the educational goal is studied mainly in the context of psychological age-related neoplasms of a student. Parents and teachers in the psychological and pedagogical aspect are considered as persons to a greater extent than other factors affecting the formation of educational goals in a child ^{[2, 3, 10, 11]}.

Being aware of his educational goal, the child should move in its direction and, as a result, assimilate the educational material, i.e. get the knowledge formulated in the educational goal. But…

A number of questions arise. Why do children not study equally well? What happens to the educational goals of modern children and adolescents? Do the educational goals of children, teachers and parents coincide? To answer these questions, it is initially necessary to understand how the student's educational goal is determined by his teachers, parents and the student himself. We believe that the problem may lie in the lack of clarity of the educational goal of the child, parent and teacher.

The collection of empirical facts on the problem of the presence / absence of a clear understanding of the educational goal of all participants in the educational process was carried out with the help of questionnaires "Formation of educational guidelines of the child" for teachers, parents, schoolchildren and experts. 86 teachers, 602 parents and 596 students took part in the survey. The study was conducted in secondary schools of the Krasnodar Territory and the Moscow region. The expert survey was used to clarify the data revealed during the survey. 36 teachers took part in it. The questionnaire "Formation of educational guidelines for a child" was compiled individually for each category of respondents: teachers, parents, schoolchildren. The questionnaire for Teachers consists of 27 questions: 5 questions – the biographical part; 24 questions with suggested answers and with the opportunity to give an open answer. The questionnaire for Parents consists of 37 questions: the biographical part - 9 questions; 28 open questions. The questionnaire for Students consists of 48 questions: the biographical part - 6 questions; 28 open questions with the opportunity to choose the proposed answer. Each questionnaire is accompanied by a written instruction on how to work with the questionnaire. The survey was conducted using the means of an electronic platform and by manually filling out questionnaires.

Mathematical methods ^[6] allowed us to identify significant features characterizing the attitudes of participants in the educational process to the goal of teaching a child at school. For clarity, we have divided the respondents' perceptions into two groups: the respondents' actual perception of the purpose of the child's education at school (i.e., what specific purpose of the child's education does the teacher, child and parent see?); attitude to the educational goal as a means of achieving an educational result.

In the course of an empirical study, it was revealed that the majority of teachers (79%) believe that the educational goal of a child should be the successful passing of qualifying exams by a student. At the same time, teachers clarified that this should be the goal of the student himself. The pedagogical goal (the teacher's goal) as the end result of the educational process is to teach.

Less than half of teachers (23%) formulate the goal of schooling for a child as an opportunity to enroll in higher education institutions. "Pass exams" and "go to university" are not the same thing. Clarifying the opinions of teachers, it becomes clear that not all children, having passed the exams, will continue their studies (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Teachers' ideas about the purpose of teaching children at school

According to the results of the study, it was found that the majority of parents (47%) see the opportunity to pass the exam at school as the main educational goal of the child. Less than 2% of parents described the result as not just "pass the exam", but pass for a positive assessment. At the same time, a smaller part of parents (10%) formulated the answer as "pass perfectly", and the rest – "pass normally" (Fig. 2). Probably, parents do not really care about the quality of knowledge acquired by the child at school. At the same time, they quite often complain about the quality of school education "in kitchens" and on social networks. The results of our empirical research reflected the fact that parents are dissatisfied with the quality of knowledge received at school. (fig. 2).

It turns out that parents are simultaneously satisfied with the school education of their children, or rather, they do not care, and at the same time they are categorically dissatisfied with the quality of school education. Additional data from our study allowed us to clarify the revealed contradiction. It turned out that parents do not really care what their child learned, how he learned the material, but parents are very worried about how the teacher "gave his best in class", and who is to blame that the child did not understand something.

Fig.2. Parents' ideas about the purpose of teaching their children at school

The essential features of students' understanding of the purpose of their education were also revealed. Highlighting the main goal of their own education at school, most of the children (68%) formulate it as "writing test papers". Interestingly, even with the clarification of this wording, less than 2% of the respondents during the interview paid attention to the desired assessment score when passing the exam. Their goal is a "positive" or "excellent" rating. The rest of the students, even indirectly, did not note the need for this criterion (Fig. 2)

28% of the surveyed children named the reasons related to family relations as the purpose of their education ("so that parents do not scold", "so that the mother does not bother", "so that they do not poke", etc.). We believe that it would be correct to interpret the data obtained in two directions: the peculiarities of child-parent relations and the lack of educational the goals of learning from a child. Both directions require additional study.

19% could not formulate the purpose of their schooling at all. According to the results of the study, such responses were mainly found in children with low school performance (average score less than 3.5). This may indicate a lack of educational motivation in children and adolescents.

12% noted that their main educational goal is to enter a university. Mostly these are students with average and high school performance. Most likely, this is due to the presence of promising plans for these children. It is important that these responses were recorded in high school students (Fig. 3)

Fig.3. Students' ideas about the purpose of their education at school

When comparing the data obtained for three categories of respondents, it was possible to record that the parents were unambiguous in their answers. Teachers and students, when formulating educational goals, gave more variable answers, assuming that there may be more than one goal. Teachers have repeatedly combined the goals of "passing the exam" and "entering higher education institutions." Most likely, this is a reflection of the general education system in which the teacher is located. His educational picture for the student is limited by final attestations and, as a result, the opportunity to continue his studies. According to teachers, not everyone is able (or has the opportunity) to continue their studies, which is why they divide these categories into two separate goals, not excluding their combination.

A more frequent combination found in children (Fig. 3) is "so that they do not get at home" and "there is no need". In our interpretation, these are indicators related to child-parent relations and lack of educational motivation ^{[4, 5]}. The total percentage of such students is almost half of the respondents surveyed (47%), which presents a rather alarming picture. Summarizing the data obtained, we see that a smaller part (no more than 12%) of schoolchildren understand why they study, know where they are going. At the same time, about 80% of students either have no purpose at all in their studies, or "somehow", which is almost equal to "leave me alone".

The data obtained confirm the assumption that schoolchildren, parents, and often teachers do not have a clear idea of the purpose of learning. It is important that this goal should be built relative to the main participant of this system – the student. Everyone else (teachers, parents) should build their educational activities around the child, for the benefit of the child, and most importantly, in a single direction. With such an organization of educational activities, the effectiveness of the educational process should significantly increase. The educational goal, as a component of the educational system, is focused on the development of educational material, obtaining knowledge and skills, the forms and scope of which are defined by the Federal State Educational Standard.

Thus, for the successful passage (movement) along the educational path, the child must have a goal, landmarks and a route. Let's assume that each student may have different life plans, but the educational goal, of course, should be to "master the educational material" and "acquire knowledge of the subjects being studied." Moreover, the same goal should be for the rest of the participants in the educational process (teacher, parent).

Let's consider a standard situation on the example of a comprehensive secondary school. When students in this class write a test paper or a control section about which they were not notified in advance, the picture of progress is the same. But if these same children write a test paper, about the date and topic of which they were informed in advance, most often the average grade score of the class is higher than in the previous example. We believe that this may be due to the fact that the children knew the goal and went to it more consciously. With all the variety of circumstances, the children who received the overall high score could be united by the fact of having a clear educational goal ^[1]. At the same time, we can assume that the goals in everyone's mind could be interpreted one way or another, but its main component was formulated quite clearly, clearly, unambiguously. Moreover, not only for the students, but also for the teacher.

Despite the banality of the statement, we note that if a child knows and understands his educational goal, then he is more successful in achieving it, i.e. moving in the direction of his educational goal. If not only the student, but also the teacher and parents know, understand, realize the educational goal of the student, and move together with the child towards this educational goal, then this can have a positive impact on the academic performance of the child. The statement seems obvious, but, alas, it has not become the norm of everyday practice.

The educational goal is the most important element of the educational process. The educational process should be much more effective with a clear idea of the purpose of all its participants. The recorded empirical fact of our research indicates the absence of a single educational goal for children and other participants in the educational process, which indicates the presence of a problem in the educational process system itself. This may be the reason for the low academic performance of children.

Our modest research has revealed the most serious problem of modern school education – the lack of a clear understanding of educational goals among a significant part of the participants in the educational process (students, parents and even teachers). And this in turn leads to imitation of the educational process itself: some pretend to teach, others pretend to learn. And the result? And the result is not in achieving the goal (it is unclear), but in the process itself, or rather in its imitation. And the process for the sake of the process is an imitation and a game. And the game is something that is made–up, not real. That's how we live. So we "learn" and "teach".