MAIN DIRECTIONS OF RESEARCH DEVELOPMENT OF GRIGORY VASHCHENKO PEDAGOGICAL FIGURE

Abstract

Among the famous Ukrainian scientists, prominent teachers, educators, public figures of the first half of the twentieth century a worthy place is occupied by Gryhoriy Gryhorovych Vashchenko (1878–1967), an outstanding representative of Ukrainian culture, statesman and public figure, writer, scientist-educator with his own understanding of ways to reform national education and school, teacher-practitioner, whose pedagogical heritage is more than 100 works and deserves in-depth study.Generalization and systematization of scientific research of historical and pedagogical direction of the late XX - early XXI centuries allow us to say that the figure, activity and scientific and theoretical heritage of Gryhoriy Vashchenko have become the subject of in-depth analysis, have caused discussion among scientists and the public. The aim of the article is to single out the main directions of elaboration of the researched problem of the pedagogical figure on the example of the outstanding Ukrainian teacher of the XX century Gryhoriy Vashchenko.To understand the origins of the formation of worldviews of the teacher, sound, consistent study of the chosen topic, we turn to sources: 1) which cover the history of formation and development of pedagogical thought, which influenced the formation of his original pedagogical position, ideas, beliefs; 2) which reflect socio-political, socio-economic changes in the history of Ukraine; 3) which contain methodological approaches, criteria for studying the problem; 4) which reflect the activities of the scientist, full of promising innovative searches, achievements in the development of non-standard approaches to upbringing, personal education, aimed at improving methods of teaching and educating young people; 5) historical and pedagogical researches of the times of independence of Ukraine, the authors of which fragmentarily investigated separate directions of activity of the scientist. The available source base allowed us to identify nine areas of elaboration of the researched problem: philosophical-methodological, historical-narrative, scientific-personalistic, historical-pedagogical, general-didactic, spiritual-conceptual, axiological-generalizing, archival-integrative, auxiliary-integration.In the course of the research it was established that G. Vashchenko first of all addressed the world history of pedagogical systems, understood the process of building the national education system as an extremely difficult and responsible task, called to take into account the experience of Ukraine’s education system during “the tsarist period”, and “bilshovyk rule”, and during the short and bright period of the “renaissance of Ukrainian education and schooling”, which fell, according to the teacher himself, in 1917–1923. G. Vashchenko was also convinced that it is necessary to use in a building of a national education system better achievements of Western Europe and America. Such a well-founded approach to the education of the scientist-statesman, which the historian of pedagogy and a contemporary of the reflected events left a rich and valuable factual material, was dictated by the care and love for his people. G. Vashchenko, based on research in the field of pedagogy and psychology of domestic and foreign scientists (V. Vakhterov, J. Dewey, P. Kapterev, V. Lay, P. Lesgaft, M. Montessori, G. Skovoroda, K. Ushinsky, etc.), enriched the domestic pedagogical science. His scientific proposals on ways to form a creative personality, the introduction of subject-subject relations in education, the processes of humanization, nationalization and democratization of education, the development of education are especially important today - during the development of the national school, revision of education, introduction of new forms and learning technologies.The concept of spiritual and moral education of youth, created by G. Vashchenko, now needs its awareness for the events of the early XXI century. The research does not cover all aspects of the problem and requires further study of the pedagogical heritage of G. Vashchenko.