Psychological characteristics of teachers. Features of teaching activity

Pedagogical activity is a type of social activity aimed at transferring from older generations to younger generations the culture and experience accumulated by humanity, creating conditions for their personal development and preparing them to fulfill certain social roles in society.

Peculiarities

2. The object of pedagogical activity is plastic, that is, it is susceptible to the influence of the subject, it is educable. He is constantly developing, his needs change (this is the reason for his activity), his value orientations, motivating actions and behavior develop and change.

It is right to say that the process of development of an individual is never completely completed. The content of pedagogical activity is built according to the concentric principle, or rather, along a spiral.

3. Pedagogical activity and process turn out to be very dynamic factors. The subject, taking into account the changing situation, is constantly looking for the optimal option for pedagogical actions, operations and means of pedagogical influence on the object of education. It combines science and practice, pedagogical creativity.

4. In addition to the subject-teacher, in pedagogical activity other, unregulated factors influence the development of the individual. For example, the surrounding social and natural environment, the individual’s hereditary data, the media, economic relations in the country, etc. This multifactorial influence on the individual often leads to the fact that the result of teaching activity diverges significantly from the intended goal. Then the subject has to spend additional time and effort to correct the activity so that its product (result) corresponds to the goal.

5. The subject and result of pedagogical activity are not a material, but an ideal product, which is not always directly observable. Its quality and level are often determined indirectly rather than by direct measurement.

6. Pedagogical activity is a successive and promising activity. Based on previous experience, the subject organizes it; at the same time, he focuses on the future, on the future, and predicts this future.

7. Pedagogical activity is of a searching and creative nature. This feature is explained and caused by several reasons: the activity of the object of activity, the multifactorial influences on the object, the constant changeability of the conditions and circumstances in which the teacher finds himself in his professional work (this has already been mentioned earlier). Inevitably, almost every time he has to re-construct methods of interaction with students from known and mastered techniques and means.

These are some of the features of pedagogical activity that distinguish it from other types. This leads to a number of features of the pedagogical process. Let's name some of them.

When determining the structure of professional pedagogical activity, researchers note that its main originality lies in the specificity of the object and tools.

N.V. Kuzmina identified three interrelated components in the structure of pedagogical activity; constructive, organizational and communicative.

Constructive activity is associated with the development of technology for each form of student activity and the solution of each pedagogical problem that arises.

Organizational activities are aimed at creating a team and organizing joint activities.

Communicative activity involves establishing connections and relationships between the teacher and students, their parents, and their colleagues.

A detailed description of the structure of pedagogical activity was given by A.I. Shcherbakov. Based on an analysis of the professional functions of a teacher, he identifies 8 main interrelated components-functions of pedagogical activity: informational, developmental, orientational, mobilizational, constructive, communicative, organizational and research.

A.I. Shcherbakov classifies constructive, organizational and research components as general labor components. Specifying the function of the teacher at the stage of implementation of the pedagogical process, he presented the organizational component of pedagogical activity as a unity of information, development, orientation and mobilization functions.

I. F. Kharlamov, among many types of activities, identifies the following interrelated types of activities: diagnostic, orientation-prognostic, constructive-design, organizational, information-explanatory, communicative-stimulating, analytical-evaluative, research-creative.

Diagnostic activity is associated with the study of students and establishing the level of their development and education. To do this, the teacher must be able to observe and master diagnostic methods.

Forecasting activity is expressed in the constant setting of real goals and objectives of the pedagogical process at a certain stage, taking into account real possibilities, in other words, in predicting the final result.

Constructive activity consists of the ability to design educational and educational work, select content that corresponds to the cognitive abilities of students, and make it accessible and interesting. It is associated with such a quality of a teacher as his creative imagination.

The organizational activity of a teacher lies in his ability to influence students, lead them, mobilize them for one or another type of activity, and inspire them.

In information activities, the main social purpose of the teacher is realized: the transfer of the generalized experience of older generations to young people. It is in the process of this activity that schoolchildren acquire knowledge, ideological, moral and aesthetic ideas. In this case, the teacher acts not only as a source of information, but also as a person who shapes the beliefs of young people.

The success of teaching activities is largely determined by the ability of a professional to establish and maintain contact with children, to build interaction with them at the level of cooperation. To understand them, and, if necessary, to forgive them; in fact, all the activities of a teacher are communicative in nature.

Analytical and evaluation activities consist of receiving feedback, i.e. confirmation of the effectiveness of the pedagogical process and achievement of the set goal. This information makes it possible to make adjustments to the pedagogical process.

Research and creative activity is determined by the creative nature of pedagogical work, by the fact that pedagogy is both a science and an art. Based on the principles, rules, recommendations of pedagogical science, the teacher uses them creatively every time. To successfully implement this type of activity, he must master the methods of pedagogical research.

All components of pedagogical activity are manifested in the work of a teacher of any specialty.

Pedagogical communication (Kan-Kalik) is a system of interaction between a teacher and children, the content of which is the exchange of information, personal knowledge, and the provision of educational influence. The teacher acts as an activator of this process, organizes it and manages it.

Based on these definitions, we can distinguish three main features (sides) of communication: - communicative, perceptual, interactive. It is important to note the unity and interconnection of all three sides, their harmony.

With all the diversity of pedagogical situations, it is customary to distinguish three types of pedagogical communication

1 Socially oriented (lecture, speech on radio, television), where the speaker acts as a representative of society, a team, a group, and the task he solves is a social task. It either encourages listeners to direct social activity, or unites them around a socially significant idea, develops or changes their beliefs and attitudes. In such communication, social relations are directly realized and social mutual influences are organized.

2 Group subject-oriented communication is included in collective work and its direct service, helping the team solve the problem facing it. The problem solved in this type of communication is also social, the subject and purpose of such communication is the organization of collective interaction in the process of work, in our case educational work.

3. Personally oriented communication - communication of one person with another, this is the starting cell of communication, it can different: business, aimed at joint activities, and essentially coincide with subject-oriented, perhaps. clarification of personal relationships and have no connection with the activity.

According to V.A. Kann-Kalik structure of the process of professional and pedagogical communication includes:

1. Modeling by the teacher of upcoming communication with the class (prognostic stage).

2. Organization of direct communication at the moment of initial interaction (communicative attack).

3. Management of communication during the pedagogical process.

4. Analysis of the implemented communication system and its modeling for future activities.

Often the teacher’s communication with the student itself is presented to him in a compressed form and is not differentiated by stages or the nature of the teacher’s activity.

What does a teacher need at each stage?

The modeling stage requires knowledge of the characteristics of the audience: the nature of its cognitive activity, probabilistic difficulties, and work dynamics. The material being prepared for the lesson should be mentally presented in the situation of the upcoming interaction and thought out not only on behalf of the teacher, but also on behalf of the students, if possible in different versions.

The “communicative attack” stage speaks for itself: you need a technique for quickly involving the class in work, you need to master the techniques of self-presentation and dynamic influence.

At the stage of managing communication, it is necessary to be able to support the initiative of schoolchildren, organize dialogic communication, and adjust your plan to suit real conditions.

Pedagogical activity has many principles and features that every teacher must remember and adhere to. We will try to consider not only the general characteristics of pedagogical activity, but also learn about its features, methods of construction, methods of working with children. After all, even a certified teacher cannot always know exactly every rule and concept.

Characteristic

So, perhaps, it’s worth starting with the characteristics of the teacher’s professional pedagogical activity. It lies in the fact that pedagogical activity is, first of all, the influence of the teacher on the student, which is purposeful and motivated. The teacher should strive to develop a comprehensive personality and prepare the child to enter adulthood. The basis of such activities is the foundations of education. Pedagogical activity can only be implemented in an educational institution, and its implementers are exclusively trained teachers who have completed all the necessary stages of training and mastery of this profession.

The characteristic of the goal of pedagogical activity is that it is necessary to create all the necessary conditions for the normal development of the child, so that he can fully realize himself as an object and as a subject of education. You can easily determine whether the set goal has been achieved. To do this, we simply compare those personality qualities with which the child came to school and those with which he leaves the educational institution. This is the main characteristic of pedagogical activity.

Subject and means

The subject of this activity is the very organization of the process of interaction between the teacher and his students. This interaction has the following focus: students must fully master sociocultural experience and accept it as the basis and condition for development.

The characteristics of the subject of pedagogical activity are very simple; the teacher plays his role. In more detail, this is the person who performs a certain type of teaching activity.

There are certain motives in pedagogical activity, which are usually divided into external and internal. External ones include the desire for professional and personal growth, but internal ones include a humanistic and prosocial orientation, as well as dominance.

The means of pedagogical activity include: knowledge not only of theory, but also of practice, on the basis of which a teacher can teach and educate children. It also includes not only educational literature, but also methodological literature, and various visual materials. This is where we can finish characterizing the content of teaching activities and move on to practical aspects.

Value characteristics

It has long been known that teachers belong to the class of intelligentsia. And, of course, each of us understands that it is the work of the teacher that determines what our future generation will be like and what their activities will be aimed at. It is in this regard that every teacher must take into account the value characteristics of teaching activity. So, these include:

The teacher's attitude towards the childhood period. Here the main emphasis is on how fully the teacher understands the peculiarities of relationships between children and adults, whether he understands the values that children now face, and whether he understands the very essence of this period.
Humanistic Only from the name it becomes clear that the teacher must demonstrate his humanistic position. His professional activity should be focused on the cultural values of all humanity, on building a proper dialogue with students, on organizing a creative and, most importantly, reflective attitude towards work. As a kind of application to this value, we can highlight the principles of pedagogical activity, voiced by Sh. Amonashvili, that the teacher must love children and humanize the environment in which these children find themselves. After all, this is necessary so that the child’s soul is in comfort and balance.
High moral qualities of a teacher. These qualities can be easily noticed by observing a little the teacher’s style of behavior, his manner of communicating with children, his ability to resolve various situations that occur in teaching activities.

These are the value characteristics of pedagogical activity. If the teacher does not take these points into account, then his work is unlikely to be successful.

Styles of teaching activity

So, now it’s worth paying attention to the characteristics of the styles of teaching activity, of which modern science has only three.

Authoritarian style. Here the students act only as objects of influence. When organizing the learning process, he acts as a kind of dictator. Because he gives certain tasks and expects his students to carry them out unquestioningly. He always strictly controls educational activities and at the same time is not always quite correct. And there is no point in asking such a teacher why he gives any orders or controls the actions of his students so tightly. There will be no answer to this question, since such a teacher does not consider it necessary to explain himself to his children. If you dig a little deeper into the psychological characteristics of this type of teaching activity, you will notice that most often such a teacher does not like his job, has a very tough and strong-willed character, and is characterized by emotional coldness. Modern teachers do not welcome this style of teaching, since there is a complete lack of contact with children, their cognitive activity noticeably decreases, and the desire to learn disappears. Students are the first to suffer from an authoritarian style. Some children try to protest against such teaching, go into conflict with the teacher, but instead of receiving an explanation, they encounter a negative reaction from the teacher.
Democratic style. If a teacher has chosen a democratic style of teaching, then he, of course, loves children very much, he likes to come into contact with them, in this way he shows his high professionalism. The main desire of such a teacher is to establish contact with the children; he wants to communicate with them on equal terms. His goal is a warm and calm atmosphere in the classroom, complete mutual understanding between the audience and the teacher. This style of teaching does not involve a lack of control over children, as it might seem. Control exists, but it is somewhat hidden. The teacher wants to teach children independence, he wants to see their initiative, teach them to defend their own opinion. Children quickly make contact with such a teacher, they listen to his advice, offer their own solutions to certain problems, and they develop a desire to take part in educational activities.
Teachers who choose this style of teaching are called unprofessional and undisciplined. Such teachers lack self-confidence and often hesitate in class. They leave children to their own devices and do not control their activities. Any student group is certainly pleased with this behavior of the teacher, but only at first. After all, children are in dire need of a mentor; they need to be supervised, given tasks, and helped with their implementation.

So, characterizing the styles of pedagogical activity gives us a complete understanding of how relationships between students and the teacher can be built and what the latter’s behavior will lead to. Before you go to a lesson with children, you need to accurately determine your preferences in teaching.

Psychological and pedagogical activities

In this topic, it is also necessary to pay attention to the characteristics of psychological and pedagogical activity, since it is slightly different from the pedagogical activity we have already considered.

Psychological and pedagogical activity is the activity of a teacher, which is aimed at ensuring that the subjects of the educational process develop in personal, intellectual and emotional directions. And all this should serve as the basis for the beginning of self-development and self-education of these same subjects.

A teacher-psychologist at school must direct his activities towards the socialization of the child’s personality, in other words, he must prepare children for adult life.

This direction has its own implementation mechanisms:

The teacher must present children with real and imagined social situations and, together with them, look for ways to resolve them.
A diagnosis is made of whether children are ready to enter into social relationships.
The teacher should encourage children to strive for self-knowledge, to be able to easily determine their own position in society, to adequately assess their behavior and to be able to look for ways out of various situations.
The teacher should help children analyze various social problems and design their behavior in cases where they find themselves in difficult life situations.
The teacher creates a developed information field for each of his students.
Any children's initiative is supported at school, and student self-government comes to the fore.

This is a simple characteristic of psychological and pedagogical activity.

Pedagogical activity of a teacher

Separately, in pedagogical activity, I would like to highlight the types of activities of a school teacher. There are eight species in total, each of which has soybean characteristics. We will consider the essence of each of the available types below. The description of these types can also be called a characteristic of the pedagogical activity of a teacher who works at school.

Diagnostic activities

Diagnostic activity consists in the fact that the teacher must study all the capabilities of the students, understand how high their level of development is and how well they are brought up. After all, it is simply impossible to perform high-quality pedagogical work if you do not know the psychological and physical capabilities of the children with whom you have to work. Important points are also the moral and mental education of children, their relationships with the family and the general atmosphere in the parental home. A teacher can properly educate his student only if he has studied him from absolutely all sides. In order to correctly carry out diagnostic activities, the teacher must master all the methods by which it is possible to accurately determine the level of education of the student. The teacher must know not only everything about the educational activities of children, but also be interested in their interests outside of school, study their inclinations towards one or another type of activity.

Orientation-prognostic

Each stage of educational activity requires the teacher to determine its directions, accurately set goals and objectives, and be able to make forecasts for the results of the activity. This means that the teacher must know exactly what he wants to achieve and in what ways he will do it. This also includes expected changes in students' personalities. After all, this is precisely what the teacher’s pedagogical activity is aimed at.

The teacher must plan his educational work in advance and direct it to ensure that children’s interest in learning increases. He must also voice specific goals and objectives that are set for the children. The teacher should strive to unite the team, teach children to work together, together, set common goals and achieve them together. The teacher should direct his activities to stimulate the cognitive interests of children. To do this, you should add more emotions and interesting moments to your speech.

Orientation-prognostic activity cannot be interrupted; the teacher must act in this direction constantly.

Construction and design activities

It is very connected with orientation and prognostic activity. This connection is easy to see. After all, when a teacher begins to plan to establish connections in a team, in parallel with this, he must design the tasks assigned to him, develop the content of educational work that will be carried out with this team. Here, the teacher will greatly benefit from knowledge from the field of pedagogy and psychology, or rather those points that directly relate to the ways and methods of organizing the educational team. You also need to have knowledge about existing forms and methods of organizing education. But this is not all that a teacher should be able to do. After all, here it is also important to be able to correctly plan educational work and educational activities, as well as engage in self-development. Because the ability to think creatively is extremely useful in this matter.

Organizational activities

When the teacher already knows exactly what kind of work he will do with his students, has set a goal for himself and defined the tasks of this work, he needs to involve the children themselves in this activity and awaken their interest in knowledge. Here you cannot do without the following number of skills:

If a teacher has seriously taken up the task of teaching and educating students, then he must quickly and correctly determine the tasks of these processes.
It is important for the teacher to develop initiative on the part of the students themselves.
He must be able to correctly distribute tasks and assignments in the team. To do this, you need to know well the team with whom you will have to work in order to sensibly assess the capabilities of each participant in the pedagogical process.
If a teacher organizes any activity, then he simply must be the leader of all processes and carefully monitor the progress of the students’ actions.
Students will not be able to work without inspiration, and that is why the teacher’s task is to become this very inspirer. The teacher must control the entire process, but so carefully that it is barely noticeable from the outside.

Information and explanatory activities

This activity is quite important in the modern pedagogical process, since now almost everything is connected with information technology. Here the teacher will again act as the organizer of the educational process. It is in it that children should see the main source from which they will draw scientific, moral, aesthetic and ideological information. That is why it will not be enough to simply prepare for the lesson; you need to understand each topic and be ready to answer any question from the student. You need to be completely dedicated to the subject you are teaching. After all, it will probably not be news to anyone that the course of the lesson directly depends on how well the teacher has mastered the material he is teaching. Can he give high-quality examples, easily move from one topic to another, and provide specific facts from the history of this subject?

So, we see that the teacher must be as erudite as possible. He must be aware of all the innovations within his subject and constantly communicate them to his students. Another important point is the level of his mastery of practical knowledge. Since it depends on him how well students will be able to master knowledge, skills and abilities.

Communication-stimulating activities

This is an activity that is directly related to the teacher’s influence on students at the time of learning. Here the teacher must have high personal charm and moral culture. He must be able not only to establish friendly relations with students, but also to competently support them throughout the entire educational process. You should not expect high cognitive activity from children if the teacher is passive. After all, he must show by his own example the need to demonstrate his labor, creative and cognitive skills. This is the only way to make children work and not just force them, but awaken their desire. Children feel everything, which means they should feel respect from their teacher. Then they will respect him too. They must feel his love in order to give theirs in return. During teaching activities, the teacher must be interested in the lives of children, take into account their desires and needs, learn about their problems and try to solve them together. And, of course, it is important for every teacher to gain the children’s trust and respect. And this is only possible with properly organized and, most importantly, meaningful work.

A teacher who in his lessons exhibits such character traits as dryness and callousness, if when talking with children he does not show any emotions, but simply uses an official tone, then such activity will definitely not be successful. Children are usually afraid of such teachers, they do not want to make contact with them, and have little interest in the subject that this teacher presents.

Analytical and evaluation activities

The essence of the characteristics of pedagogical activity of this type lies in its name. Here the teacher carries out the pedagogical process itself and at the same time makes an analysis of the progress of training and education. Based on this analysis, he can identify positive aspects as well as shortcomings that he must later correct. The teacher must clearly define for himself the purpose and objectives of the learning process and constantly compare them with the results that were achieved. It is also important here to conduct a comparative analysis between your achievements at work and the achievements of your colleagues.

Here you can clearly see the feedback of your work. In other words, there is a constant comparison between what you wanted to do and what you managed to do. And based on the results obtained, the teacher can already make some adjustments, note the mistakes made and correct them in a timely manner.

Research and creative activities

I would like to finish the description of the teacher’s practical pedagogical activity with this type of activity. If a teacher is at least a little interested in his work, then elements of such activity are necessarily present in his practice. Such activity has two sides, and if we consider the first, it has the following meaning: any activity of a teacher must be at least slightly creative in nature. On the other hand, the teacher must be able to creatively develop everything new that comes to science and be able to present it correctly. After all, you must agree that if you do not show any creativity in your teaching activities, then children will simply stop perceiving the material. No one is interested in just listening to dry text and constantly memorizing theory. It is much more interesting to learn something new and look at it from different angles, to take part in practical work.

Conclusion

This article presented all pedagogical activities that reveal the entire learning process as fully as possible.

Having much in common with other types of activity, pedagogical activity differs from them in some features. Let's look at them briefly.

Features of teaching activity

1. The object of pedagogical activity - an individual (child, teenager, young man), group, collective - is active. He himself strives to interact with the subject, shows his creativity, responds to the assessment of the results of his activities and is capable of self-development.
2. The object of pedagogical activity is plastic, that is, it is susceptible to the influence of the subject, it is educable. He is constantly developing, his needs change (this is the reason for his activity), his value orientations, motivating actions and behavior develop and change.
It is right to say that the process of development of an individual is never completely completed. The content of pedagogical activity is built according to the concentric principle, or rather, along a spiral.
3. Pedagogical activity and process turn out to be very dynamic factors. The subject, taking into account the changing situation, is constantly looking for the optimal option for pedagogical actions, operations and means of pedagogical influence on the object of education. It combines science and practice, pedagogical creativity.
4. In addition to the subject-teacher, in pedagogical activity other, unregulated factors influence the development of the individual. For example, the surrounding social and natural environment, the individual’s hereditary data, the media, economic relations in the country, etc. This multifactorial influence on the individual often leads to the fact that the result of teaching activity diverges significantly from the intended goal. Then the subject has to spend additional time and effort to correct the activity so that its product (result) corresponds to the goal.
5. The subject and result of pedagogical activity are not a material, but an ideal product, which is not always directly observable. Its quality and level are often determined indirectly rather than by direct measurement.
6. Pedagogical activity is a successive and promising activity. Based on previous experience, the subject organizes it; at the same time, he focuses on the future, on the future, and predicts this future.
7. Pedagogical activity is of a searching and creative nature. This feature is explained and caused by several reasons: the activity of the object of activity, the multifactorial influences on the object, the constant changeability of the conditions and circumstances in which the teacher finds himself in his professional work (this has already been mentioned earlier). Inevitably, almost every time he has to re-construct methods of interaction with students from known and mastered techniques and means.
These are some of the features of pedagogical activity that distinguish it from other types. This leads to a number of features of the pedagogical process. Let's name some of them.

Nuances of the pedagogical process

Since pedagogical activity is a goal-oriented activity, the process is predominantly controlled. Meanwhile, this process occurs not only in artificial conditions, that is, controlled, but also in spontaneous, uncontrolled conditions. Thus, there is a planned process, aimed at achieving a conscious goal, as well as a spontaneous one, leading to a random result, i.e. result desirable or undesirable, even neutral. And in this relationship, the controlled process does not always prevail; it happens that the uncontrolled process wins. And it is not surprising that the efforts of a teacher in educational work are sometimes supported, and sometimes destroyed by a spontaneous process. The teacher has to take this situation and conditions into account. And this is only possible with constant, rolling diagnostics.
The pedagogical process is a holistic process, simultaneously covering the physical, mental, social and spiritual development of the individual. In addition, an individual, living among people, interacts with them, and with the group, and with the collective. And it is formed not in parts, but holistically.
Teachers will be successful in their activities if they take a humanistic approach to students. Humanization of the pedagogical process and relationships with children means a respectful attitude towards children, the ability to appreciate the child’s unique identity, the formation of self-esteem and dignity.
Pedagogical activity necessarily includes not only the teaching and educational process, but also the communicative process. Therefore, the culture of communication plays a special role in this activity. She is able to create an atmosphere of trust, warmth, mutual respect, and goodwill in the relationship between teacher and student. Then the teacher’s word turns out to be an effective instrument of influence. But rudeness, cruelty, intolerance in relationships, tactlessness in communication create an unfriendly atmosphere. In such a situation, the teacher’s word irritates the student, is perceived negatively by him, and depresses him. Communication itself becomes joyless and undesirable for both the teacher and the student, and the word becomes an ineffective or even destructive factor.
In teaching activities there is also process and management guidance. Usually the process is built vertically: from top to bottom, from leader to subordinate, from teacher to student. This process contains significant opportunities for imparting to this activity an atmosphere of kindness, benevolence, and genuine mutual respect in the relationship between managers and subordinates. At the same time, the psychological barrier between them disappears; genuine cooperation is established between senior and junior, experienced and inexperienced members of the group. Of course, at the same time, the responsibility of the elders for the younger ones - moral, legal, psychological - remains, but it is softened, as if not noticed, and at the same time, it seems to be equally assigned to everyone.
The question of leadership style in general, of the style of relationships between managers and subordinates, is special and large. It is discussed in more detail in another topic. For now, let’s just say that the democratic style, in contrast to the authoritarian and liberal ones, is more preferable. The management style, which is based on unquestioning execution of orders, commands, instructions, which does not allow objections and discussions, creates a passive, irresponsible, and uninitiative personality.

Pedagogical activity is the most eternal and enduring sphere of human activity. It arose along with the needs of society to transmit to new generations the culture and social experience contained in it, expressed in the system of knowledge, methods of activity, values and norms accumulated by previous generations. A significant place in the structure of social experience is occupied by the experience of professional activity, the development of which by new generations ensures the preservation of the professional culture of society and the reproduction of its personnel potential, the formation of the personality of a specialist: his mastery of a system of professional knowledge, skills, professional values, the development of general and professional abilities.

For centuries, vocational training has been carried out through the inclusion of the student in the production process, in the creative laboratory of a master specialist. In this situation, the mentor was required, first of all, to be a professional in his field.

The intensive development of science and technology, their integration, the complication of the nature and structure of professional activity in the conditions of scientific and technological progress, the emergence of new technologies that require highly intellectual work, require specialists to have a broad general educational, scientific, technical, professional and cultural outlook.

The differentiation of sciences and disciplines that provide professional training for specialists, the organization of the process of vocational training outside the walls of a specific production encourages the teacher to build systems of their professional and pedagogical activities, in which special (professional) includes both, training content, which the learning process is aimed at mastering. Naturally, the nature of pedagogical activity is completely different from special activity; it has its own, clearly expressed, features.

Activity is considered in psychology as a specifically human form of activity aimed at transforming a person’s surrounding world and himself. Depending on the focus of activity on the production of material or spiritual values, two types are distinguished: material and spiritual. The differences between these types of activities are also manifested in their structure. If activity is considered not as a process, but as a certain substance, we can identify common structural components in any of them: subject, object (subject), means, product (result).

Table 1

Structure of production and teaching activities

Components	Activity
Components	Production area	Pedagogical
	Engineer, technician, worker
Object (subject)	Subjects of labor: materials, technologies	Formation and development of the student’s personality
Facilities	Equipment, mechanisms	Methods and means of teaching and education, the very personality of the teacher
	Material values	Spiritual values: education, well-mannered personality

The difference between pedagogical activity and any production activity lies in its spiritual nature, which determines the originality of all its components (Table 1).

At the center of any activity is the “subject” - the one who performs this activity, and the “object” - what this activity is aimed at, as well as the “product” - the transformed, changed object (subject) of the activity. The specificity of pedagogical activity is associated primarily with the characteristics of its “object” and “product”. Unlike any production activity, a pedagogical “object” can be called such very conditionally, since it is a process of formation and development of a personality that is practically not amenable to “processing”, changes without relying on its individuality, its characteristics, without including mechanisms of self-development, self-change, self-education. “Personality arises when an individual begins independently, as a subject, to carry out external activities according to the norms and standards given to him from the outside - by the culture in whose bosom he awakens to human life, to human activity. As long as human activity is directed towards him, and he remains its object, the individuality that he already, of course, possesses, is not yet human individuality,” states E.V. Ilyenkov. Thus, the teacher deals with the highest value - the personality of the student, who is the subject of his own activities for self-development, self-improvement, self-learning: without addressing its internal strengths, potentials, needs, the pedagogical process cannot be effective.

This requirement, being a necessary condition for any pedagogical process, is especially relevant in the field of vocational education, dealing with a person who has not only his own psychophysiological characteristics, but also a special social position that differs from the position of a schoolchild. The professional choice made by a student upon admission to a vocational educational institution determines his subjective position as a future professional: learning is perceived from the point of view of realizing the life tasks of a young person, which significantly changes the motivation for learning and increases the share of independent work in the process. At the same time, entering a new student role for a teenager is significantly hampered by a weak readiness for independent activity. A contradiction arises between new tasks (mastering professional activities) and existing opportunities, between the new system of relationships and the usual stereotypes of building such relationships at school. The very path of professional training dictates a very rapid change in the student’s role position: at the beginning of his studies he must cease to be a schoolchild, and by the end - a student. All this presupposes intensive social maturation and professional and personal development of students.

From this point of view, the pedagogical position, the teacher’s attitudes, which should be based on the perception of the student’s personality as an intrinsic value, attitude towards him as an active figure, orientation towards building "subject-subject" relations, i.e. relations of cooperation in joint creative activity in the learning process. In such conditions, the “object” towards which the joint activity of the teacher and the student is directed becomes not so much the student’s personality itself, but the process of mastering professional activity: mastering the knowledge and methods of activity necessary for its implementation, as well as the development of professionally significant personal properties and abilities. Thus, the essence of pedagogical activity lies in the “object-subject transformation of personality.” From this point of view, the statement of V. A. Slastenin and A. I. Mishchenko is true that the true object of pedagogical activity is not the student himself, taken out of the pedagogical process, but precisely “the pedagogical process, which is a system of interrelated teaching and educational tasks, in the solution of which the pupil takes a direct part and functions as one of the main components.”

“Transferring” a student into a subject position becomes possible in a pedagogical process in which the teacher acts primarily as an organizer and manager. The uniqueness of pedagogical activity, according to Yu. N. Kulyutkin, lies in the fact that it is predominantly managerial, “meta-activity,” as if adapting to the activities of students. If professionals in another field of activity are competent enough to perform their own activity, then the teacher is called upon primarily not to impart knowledge, but organize educational activities of students. One of the pedagogical truths is that a bad teacher tells the truth, and a good teacher helps to find it. The most common mistake is the belief of teachers of special disciplines that to teach them it is enough to be a good specialist in their field, know their discipline, be able to transfer this knowledge and organize the production process. Pedagogical activity has its own specifics, its own technologies, without knowledge and mastery of which a specialist in any technical field will not succeed as a teacher.

A special feature of teaching activity is its complex, ambiguous nature. The teacher deals with a developing individual who has his own individuality, and the teaching group usually contains a wide range of young personalities. Added to this are the factors of extraordinary, constantly changing conditions of pedagogical activity, the variety of pedagogical tasks that need to be solved. The creative nature of pedagogical activity requires constant personal and professional growth, nurturing and cultivating one’s creative individuality, and developing one’s general and professional pedagogical culture. Of course, creative search and a creative attitude to business constitute an important condition for the effectiveness of any professional activity, but specifically in pedagogical activity they are the norm, without which this activity cannot take place at all. The creative orientation of the teacher’s personality is especially necessary in the modern educational situation, when his role in choosing the conceptual foundations of teaching and building his own activities as an individual pedagogical system increases.

Pedagogical activity performs the most important creative social function: in the process of it, not only a specific personality is formed and developed, but also the future of the country is determined, its cultural and productive potential is ensured. The predictive nature of pedagogical activity determines the polyphony of its goals, focused not only on the current needs of the individual and society, but also on the future, on the readiness of young specialists not only to adapt to the conditions of social life and professional activity, but also to transform them. The outstanding teacher of our time, Sh. A. Amonashvili, called “the basis of the tragedy of education” that the teacher lives in the present, but builds the future. That is why it is so important for him to understand not only his narrow professional, but also large-scale social tasks, their personal acceptance, concretization and construction on this basis of the goals and objectives of his pedagogical activity.

The multifunctional and systemic nature of the pedagogical activity of a teacher of a secondary vocational educational institution is manifested in its multidimensionality: in the focus not only on students’ assimilation of professional knowledge and methods of activity, but also on the development and formation of the personality of a professional, on building relationships in the student group that create conditions for the implementation of data goals, to create an educational and developmental environment, etc.

The main directions and content of the activity of a teacher of special disciplines are determined by the qualification characteristics of the specialty “teacher of vocational training”, presented in the State Standard of Higher Professional Education. He must be ready to perform the following types of professional and pedagogical activities: vocational training; production and technological activities; methodological work;

organizational and managerial activities; research activities; cultural and educational activities.

All this presupposes the integration into the teacher’s personality of general and professional pedagogical culture, the development of both broad general cultural, managerial, special (in related fields of science and production), and psychological and pedagogical competence. The variety of functions of pedagogical activity allows us to consider it as a complex unity of various components, interconnected and mutually defining each other, ensuring the integrity of the educational process.

The staff of teachers in secondary specialized educational institutions is staffed and replenished mainly by engineers and other highly qualified specialists who have completed school work experience in production, in an institution, design bureau, collective farm, state farm, etc. Such teachers have this positive quality that they not only have the necessary stock of theoretical knowledge, but also have acquired through experience the skills and abilities to apply it in the conditions of economic activity. They know the production requirements for a future mid-level specialist. Many of them also received pedagogical education. But is this enough to become a real teacher? The experience of educational institutions convincingly shows that in order to successfully fulfill his professional duties, a teacher must have a complex set of specific traits and qualities that characterize him as a specialist and as a person endowed with a special social status - an educator of the younger generation. A teacher at a secondary specialized educational institution bears a large share of responsibility not only for training a highly qualified specialist who meets modern requirements of production or other spheres of public life, but also shapes a young person as a person. During the years of study at a technical school, young people should mature and consolidate all the traits and qualities necessary for a person who independently enters the life of socialist production teams, a person who is an active 73 12 * 339 conductor of the ideas and policies of the Communist Party, endowed with the moral, ethical and civic qualities of a member of a socialist society.
The success of a teacher’s work will depend primarily on the extent to which he himself is a bearer of these qualities. Ideological strength, political maturity, high communist consciousness of a Soviet teacher, his deep understanding of the goals and objectives of educating young builders of communism are an indispensable condition for success in work, the professional quality of a teacher. A real teacher educates students not only at the hours specified by the schedule, but always and in everything, with every step, deed, word and deed, with all their behavior.
Such requirements for a teacher, arising from the tasks of communist education, give rise to another feature of his profession - a variety of functions, forms and methods of work. The teacher deals with material of extreme complexity. The student is not a passive product of nature. He is an object and at the same time a subject of the influence of educators, teachers and a wide variety of factors in the natural and social environment. In the process of shaping the INFLUENCE of a teacher or a student, it is necessary to take into account not only the whole variety of external influences, but also the peculiarities of the psychological characteristics of his age, individual differences in inclinations and abilities, character and habits. Only the ability to penetrate into the psychology of each individual student and the group as a whole makes the work of a teacher useful and highly effective.
The profession of a teacher requires him to have a comprehensive and thorough scientific education. The teacher must not only have deep modern knowledge in the field of those sciences, the foundations of which he teaches to students, but also be comprehensively educated: know the foundations of Marxist-Leninist teaching, dialectical and historical materialism, the theory and history of the development of human society, the laws of class struggle, strategy and tactics of the communist and labor movement. The teacher must be a highly cultured person with developed aesthetic feelings, tastes and needs.
Life itself, the nature of his work, sets such demands on the teacher. Modern students live in conditions of rapid development of science and technology, which have a profound and comprehensive impact on all aspects of life. The development of various means of communication, including individual use, with the simultaneous development of means and methods of mass communication lead to the fact that students are able to receive a wide variety of information from the most remote areas of the globe.
In such conditions, the teacher in his teaching activities cannot limit himself to presenting the scientific material of the textbook. He must also be ready to answer the most unexpected questions from curious students. Constantly replenishing one’s scientific knowledge, as well as knowledge in the field of history, philosophy, politics, literature and art, will strengthen the authority of the teacher in the eyes of students and will help him be useful in the process of the always heated debates among young people on various issues of life. Since education is included in the professional responsibilities of every technical school teacher, one of the features of the teaching profession is love for children, students, teaching work, and the ability to properly build relationships with students. “Educating,” wrote M.I. Kalinin, “means behaving with students in such a way that when resolving the countless misunderstandings and clashes that are inevitable in school life, they develop the conviction that the teacher did the right thing.”1
In this case, an important role is played by the teacher’s observance of the principle of unity of respect and exactingness towards the pupil, such exactingness that externally and internally looks in the eyes of both: the educator (teacher) and the pupil (student) as an unchanging form of respect for him. A. S. Makarenko emphasized that in this way the Soviet school, the Soviet education system, the Soviet way of life are fundamentally different from the bourgeois one.
The work of a teacher requires great strength of waves, strong character, perseverance and sufficient endurance. Such traits are especially necessary for a teacher-mentor and youth educator.
A teacher who has a strong character, a strong will and at the same time fair, who always objectively evaluates the actions and actions of students, has a more effective educational influence on them than a teacher who does not sufficiently possess these qualities.
In order to instill in students courage, courage, and will aimed at overcoming difficulties, the teacher himself must possess these qualities. Thus, the profession of a teacher, like no other, puts him in the position of an example for students. He must be an example in absolutely everything, from the most ordinary behavior, appearance, manners and ending with high ideology and morality.
“...Teachers,” said M.I. Kalinin, “should be, on the one hand, highly educated people, and on the other hand, crystal honest. For honesty, I would say, is integrity of character, in the high sense of the word, it not only appeals to children, it infects them, it leaves a deep imprint on their entire subsequent lives.”2
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From this follows the conclusion about the exceptional importance in the work of a teacher of moral and pedagogical knowledge, beliefs and behavior, that is, the unity of moral consciousness and corresponding practice of behavior. Any deviations from such an understanding of communist morality in its concrete manifestation will not go unnoticed by students and will have a negative impact on a young developing personality.
Kalinin M.I. About communist education. M., “Young Guard”, 1956, p. 143.
Kalin and M.I. About education and training. M., Uchpedgiz, 1957, p. 261.
One of the features of pedagogical activity is the need for multilateral relations with the population. This is required by the tasks of educating students and training young specialists,
Communication with parents is an indispensable condition for the success of raising students. Constantly informing parents about the studies, participation in social life and behavior of their children creates more favorable conditions for their upbringing. Contacts between teachers and parents, the establishment of friendly relations between them open up additional sources of information for teachers in order to study students and, finally, communication with parents has the goal of pedagogical education of parents, including them in the sphere of active educational influence on their children - students of technical schools. The second direction of contacts between teachers and the population is the implementation of the principle of connecting education with life, the practice of communist construction. The specialist training system provides for the organization of practical work for students at different levels and for different durations in production together with adults. Teachers care about creating favorable conditions not only for students to successfully complete academic work assignments, but also a positive moral climate in the adult teams where students work. Through conversations with workers and leaders of work collectives, teachers do everything possible to ensure that the people and the entire environment where students undergo internships contribute to the education and development of communist consciousness and behavior in them.
Among the diverse connections with the population, a large place is occupied by patronage relations with production teams, military units, the leadership of specialists, student scientific circles, design bureaus, etc.
Such forms of connections between teachers and the population require the teacher to have a good knowledge of the life of the city, region where the educational institution is located, knowledge of the leading people of his area, specialists, the ability to communicate with people, that is, to develop high, positive communicative qualities.
Only the close connection of the teacher with the families of students, with wide circles of the Soviet public, and the active participation of the teacher himself in the public life of the country makes his work quite socially significant and valuable.
The need to train creatively thinking specialists requires modern mentors of students - teachers of creativity in work. Only a teacher who is constantly looking for new things in science, who is in love with the search, can ignite students, teach them to creatively apply knowledge in practice, and find new solutions to economic or other practical problems. The work of a teacher presupposes not only the ability to apply the methods and techniques of teaching and upbringing known in pedagogy, traditional means that help students learn the processes and phenomena of reality, but also analyze their own and other teachers’ experience, introduce into practice everything new that has been developed
pedagogical science and tested by experience, to be in constant search for ways and means of further improving the educational process, training of young specialists.