Позитивные изменения. Том 2, № 2 (2022). Positive changes. Volume 2, Issue 2 (2022) - Редакция журнала «Позитивные изменения»
"It is very important to have the right kind of people around the child. The school’s job is to develop the child’s circle of communication, to lay down the basic values, concepts, principles, to build up the child’s personality, to help him find his way, to help him in his development, in communication. Because that’s the society we are going to have in five years; that’s the environment we are all going to live in. That’s the future we are shaping," Yaroslava Kabanova says.
Here it makes sense to consider the pedagogical and methodological term "hidden content of education".
THE HIDDEN CONTENT OF EDUCATION
"Education is determined by the specific atmosphere at the educational institution, the 'school spirit' as much as it is by the set of academic subjects, specializations, the volume of material taught, etc.
The essence of this phenomenon is revealed by the term "hidden curriculum," used by many Western researchers. To me personally, the term "hidden content of education" seems quite acceptable. It can be accepted as a working definition precisely because in the very process of revealing its theoretical and practical content, we will inevitably come to answering the question of what is actually taught and what should be taught in school.
I side with the researchers of this hidden content in that it should include the following phenomena of school organization:
• various kinds of differentiation of students by to their abilities, including our domestic invention of recent years — remedial classes and special classes for gifted children (the "fools' classes" and the "nerds' classes", as children themselves refer to them);
• the real power structure in the school (totalitarian or hierarchical, democratic or liberal);
• the language of a class or school (not formally, of course, but by the actual semantics, tone, style, and volume of vocabulary in use);
• the established practice of telling the teacher what he or she expects vs. what the student actually thinks;
• ability to act in the situation of a test or exam (not the cultural forms of behavior in a test situation, but the established rules of cheating, peeking, guessing, etc.);
• the actual distribution of study time (not by curriculum or schedule, but by the time actually used by the student — some students really have 12 hours of study time a day, while others don't have even half an hour)."
Tubelsky, A. N. The way of school life — the hidden content of education // Voprosy obrazovaniya. — 2007. — Issue 4, pp. 177–181.
Alexey Semyonychev commented on the connection between the hidden content of education and soft skills development as follows: "Without even noticing, a child is taught other skills besides knowledge. When the teacher enters the classroom, everyone must stand up. Students talk to their teachers exclusively on formal terms and by their full names, while teachers talk to the kids informally, addressing them by first name only. Students must obey the teacher, no matter what he or she says. Students in class have no right to express their opinions. This results in a child raised into obedience, into "my opinion can wait" attitude. There is no need to learn to negotiate, because the teacher has the last word; you are not allowed to get creative during the class as you may get an «F» for that. Do the tests, nothing else, creativity is not required."
Table 1. The Big Five domains and their facets
Source: John OP, Srivastava S. The Big Five trait taxonomy: History, measurement and theoretical perspectives. Chapter 4. In: Pervin L.A., John O.P., editors. Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research. New York: The Guilford Press; 1999. pp. 102–138.
Heckman J. J., Kautz T. (2012). Hard evidence on soft skills. Labour Econ. Aug 1; 19(4): 451–464
WILL SOFT SKILLS TRAINING BE UNNECESSARY AT THE SCHOOL OF THE FUTURE?
We can say that experts agree that if the school is properly configured with "hidden educational content", then children will acquire soft skills naturally, as part of school life.
Svetlana Marzeyeva believes that it is not necessary to impose either «hard» or «soft» skills on children: "Any school that wants to meet the current trends must put aside control and evaluation and focus instead on helping students develop and master their personal educational goals; that is, children in today’s school must cease to be objects of educational activity. As soon they become subjects, the question of «hard» and «soft» skills will fade away by itself. It doesn’t matter what to teach, it matters who to teach. And that determines how they will be taught."
Alexey Semyonychev explains that if the principles developed in alternative education are implemented in practice, this will effectively mean that separate, special training in school for flexible skills will no longer be necessary. "Soft skills, democratic education, free education are parts of a common democratic concept. If the schools change towards alternative, informal education, as we are planning it, "soft skills" training will no longer be necessary. The school system itself, each teacher’s mode of instruction, the system of school organization — all this will work to ensure that the child grows up as a free and independent person, right from the start. In turn, freedom and independence themselves will give birth to all the ’soft skills’ you can think of," the expert says.
What can change and improve a school? The three slogans of the French Revolution — liberty, equality, fraternity — are as relevant here as never
