HISTORY OF THE INNOVATION MOVEMENT IN UKRAINE’S EDUCATION (XX century)

Abstract

The paper covers some leading tendencies in the development of the innovative movement in the history of Ukraine’s education in XX century and the experience of educational innovation in modern school practice. Chronological boundaries of the research are from the 20ties to the 90ties of XX century. The major idea of the research is a scientific evaluation of the development of the innovative movement in the practice of Ukrainian school as a dynamic system which has a concrete-hisotrical nature and depends on social-political, socio-cultural and cultural-anthoropogical determinants. Leading tendencies in the development of the innovative movement in the history of Ukraine’s education of XX century were identified and revealed for the first time; the development periodization of the innovative movement in the history of Ukraine’s school education of XX century was grounded; essential characteristics of the concepts were specified: “innovative pedagogical movement“, “pedagogical inovation”; “development of the innovative pedagogical movement”. A system-chronological approach to the consideration of the innovative pedagogical movement in the history of Ukraine’s education of XX century was used in the research, which consisted in the combination of interconnected and complimentary components: administrative-managerial – initiation of some novelties from “the top”, the introduction of which was done by means of the system of administrative influence, legal acts, instructions, etc.; educational-practical – educators-practitioners were the the most important and powerful element of the innovative movement. Among them were outstanding, talented, exceptional, even genius figures in the Ukrainian education. They were the creators of the original ideas, leaders of unusual, non-traditional, innovative, author’s and alternative schools with an exceptional atmosphere of communication and teaching, relationship between children’s and pedagogical collectives. This trend was enhanced by its followers, advocates, teachers of village and city schools of a traditional and new type, whose performance was a significant source of innovative initiatives; scientific-pedagogical – the activity of the representatives of pedagogical science was characterized with the intention to give an objective estimation of various innovations, to study their essence, expediency, to identify positive and negative features, to define optimal conditions for the introduction of novelties. The activity of the scientific-pedagogical representatives facilitated, to some extent, the balance between innovative initiatives sent from “the bottom” and “the top”. The formation history of the views on the role of a teacher in the innovation processes and the implementation of the innovative ideas was studied in the paper. Researchers and educators-practitioners create an image of “an ideal teacher”, express their understanding of his personal features and stress the requirements to his professional level. Some negative tendencies in the development of the pedagogical innovative movement in the second half of XX century were underlined. The factors (anti-innovation barriers) which prevented a successful introduction of the advanced pedagogical experience in school practice of a certain chronological period were identified, namely: an internal psychological resistance of an educator, his stereotype thinking, fear of something new; a frequent and fast change of innovations, their excessive idealization, a poor previous experience of the introduction; the lack of methodological support, insufficient information in the sphere of pedagogical innovation; the lack of proper teaching logistics; a mechanical copying of the experience; the practice of innovation imposing; the transience of innovations and the fashion for them; when innovations become mandatory; when innovation search depends on an ideological factor. These problems do not lose their relevance, their presence during a research period of the innovative movement confirms an insufficient effectivemess of the measures aimed at their solution.