Axiological approach in pedagogy in the context of the problems of semiotics of culture

 

Svetlana Valentinovna Gerasimova¹ and Elena Vyacheslavovna Kulikova²

¹Assoc. Prof., The Kosygin State University of Russia/Kosygin University, RUSSIAN FEDERATION, metanoik@gmail.com

²Assoc. Prof., The Kosygin State University of Russia/Kosygin University, RUSSIAN FEDERATION, Elena@kulikova.pp.ru

Abstract

The purpose of the survey is to find out how modern students possess the basic values of culture. The article is written on the material of a survey   in which   first-year students of The Kosygin State University of Russia took part. The commandments remain the basic values of modern culture. They regulate interpersonal communications, form the basis of criminal law, and form the cultural contexts of art and literature. The survey was conducted in two phases. The purpose of the first phase of the survey is to find out whether students know the commandments and whether they have read the Bible.

The result of the survey: 43% of students can list some commandments, and 23% of students have read the commandments, but cannot list them.

Knowledge of the commandments varies from one social group to another. There is stratification even among the respondents. 33% of students replied they knew the commandments in one group, and 60% of students did the same in another one.

The survey found out not so much the real knowledge of the commandments, but the self-esteem of a person. Half of the students think of themselves as knowing the commandments. The following questions were formulated more specifically. They were asked to name associations to such images and stories from the Bible as Joseph the Beautiful, the parable of the Prodigal Son and the apostles Peter and Paul, offering to tell about them in as much detail as possible. The maximum percentage of knowledge relates to the parable of the Prodigal Son - 15%. (Another 8% of students testified that they read this parable, but do not remember it) The commandments for memorizing are much more difficult than the parable of the Prodigal Son, so it is surprising that students know the commandments better than the parable. This percentage difference indicates that students rate themselves as knowing the commandments, although their ideas are very vague.

Modern society lives according to the commandments, although a little more than half of the students do not know the commandments, having only a general idea about them.

I t is obviously that that the novels by great Russian writers can be a source of students’ ideas about goodness and evil. At the second phase of the survey the question was formulated as follows: «What authoritative texts have become a source of ideas about goodness and evil for you?» Next, it was listed: was it a favourite cartoon, movie or book? The movie text is also the text. In short, what was the main source of your knowledge about the commandments, until the moment of discussion in class?

The results of the second phase of the survey are as follows: 85% of respondents have heard the reputable sources that influenced their ideas about morality and the commandments from their parents and relatives, even though the emphasis was made on the novels and lyrics.

After pointing to the communicative source of ideas about good and evil, many students also indicated texts and film texts that preceded their knowledge of the commandments. The range of these texts is very wide. There are Disney cartoons, Nosov's stories, and Dostoevsky's novels here.

M.Yu. Lotman as the authoritative representative of the semiotics of culture in the Russian literary criticism defines culture as the sum of texts or as a sum of functions of these texts. We see that the main form of translation of the basics of culture is not texts, but communication.

It is impossible to put an equality sign between the knowledge of the commandments and moral behaviour. Modern culture, like a century ago, is based on the Biblical commandments. It is being modified, but its base remains the same. The semiotic system of modern culture is determined by the biblical dominants, but they are transmitted not through texts or even through the film texts, but through communication.

Modern education mainly involves memorizing texts, working with them. And modern youth mainly learns not what they have read, but what they have learned through communication. The maximum assimilation of the material is possible not through reading the text, but through the transformation of that had been read in the process of interpersonal communication. This principle applies not only to moral values, but also to intellectual ones. A modern person perceives culture not as a sum of texts, but as a sum of interpersonal communications that generate new communications. Students do not know what they have read, but what corresponds to the features of the modern cultural code, which is shifting from the field of book knowledge to the field of communicative experience.

The axiological approach in education is based on the tradition of A. S. Makarenko and K. D. Ushinsky. This tradition is developed by V. A. Slastenin and G. I. Chizhakova. The field of Axiology is of interest to many researchers nowadays. Modern education strives to go beyond the intellectual formation of the individual and become spiritually oriented. The axiological approach to education should be based on the achievements of the semiotics of culture, which studies the interaction of text and human behaviour in society. A text from  a textbook should form not only the knowledge base, but also the cultural basis of the individual, which is possible only in the process of interpersonal communication.

Keywords: Axiology, Bible, semiotics of culture, communication.