Pedagogy
Pedagogy (педагогіка; pedahohika). The discipline which studies education, learning, and child-rearing.
The earliest expression of pedagogical ideas is found in the folk oral literature (epic folk songs, folk tales, proverbs) of Kyivan Rus’. Some pedagogical notions were subsequently expressed in the Testament of Prince Volodymyr Monomakh, Poucheniie ditiam (Instruction for [My] Children, ca 1117). In the 11th and 12th centuries several collections appeared featuring native Kyivan Rus’ writing, as well as translations of classical and Byzantine authors on the moral and religious rearing of children.
After the collapse of Kyivan Rus’, centers of education and culture shifted to the brotherhood schools in Lviv (see Lviv Dormition Brotherhood School), Lutsk (see Lutsk Brotherhood of the Elevation of the Cross School), Ostroh (see Ostroh Academy), and later, Kyiv (see Kyiv Epiphany Brotherhood School). The emergence of printing in the mid-16th century was a powerful impetus to the development of educational and instructional literature. The need to defend the Ukrainian Orthodox church brotherhood schools and the values they upheld from encroachments from Polish Catholic institutions and the Jesuits served as a further stimulus to pedagogical thought in this period. Major figures of the brotherhood schools, such as Yov Boretsky, Meletii Smotrytsky, Kyrylo Stavrovetsky-Tranquillon, Ivan Vyshensky, and Lavrentii Zyzanii, published works which dealt with the principles, form, and methods of instruction, and which extolled the benefits of education.
The Kyivan Mohyla College (transformed into the Kyivan Mohyla Academy in 1701) was the center of pedagogical study in Ukraine, beginning in the second half of the 17th and continuing through the 18th century. Its professors and graduates played an important role in the development of pedagogical thought in Ukraine. Noteworthy among them were Ioanikii Galiatovsky, Innokentii Gizel, whose work Sinopsis (1674) was the first textbook to be published in Ukraine, and Simeon Polotsky, who emphasized the importance of learning and supported the principle of visual methods of instruction.
The educational ideas of Hryhorii Skovoroda had a considerable influence on the development of pedagogical thought in the second half of the 18th century. He defended the principle of the development of a person’s natural abilities and demanded that education be made available to all classes of society, including women.
The rise of populism, a movement which stressed popular enlightenment, brought the question of education to the forefront. But, the development of pedagogy as a discipline and research on the history of education began on a significant scale in Russian-ruled Ukraine only in the 19th century. A chair of pedagogy was created at Kyiv University in 1850 and was occupied in 1851 by Sylvestr Hohotsky, a philosopher and the author of works on the theory and history of education. Important figures in the development of pedagogical thought in the second half of the 19th century were F. Bemer, an advocate of humanist and purposeful instruction; Mykola F. Levytsky, who developed a methodology for elementary education; and most important, Konstantin Ushinsky, who wrote prolifically on the theory of education and instruction and played a leading role in the establishment of pedagogy as a separate discipline. Notable contributions were also made by the Russian physician and educator Nikolai Pirogov, who was active in Ukraine and advocated the idea of a uniform system of general education; Baron Nikolai Korf, an organizer of zemstvo schools in Ukraine; and Illia Derkachov (Derkach), a Ukrainian follower of Ushinsky and the author of over 50 school textbooks. Toward the end of the 19th century Khrystyna Alchevska developed ideas on adult education, Tymofii Lubenets wrote on elementary education, and Sofiia Rusova wrote on public education.
Important questions of pedagogy, such as the organization of schools, instruction in the native language, improvement of the content and method of instruction, the education of women, and professional and vocational education, were discussed in various periodicals which appeared in the second half of the 19th century, such as Osnova (Saint Petersburg), the weekly Chernigovskii listok, the journal Pedagogicheskii vestnik (published in 1881–3 in Yelysavethrad), the newspaper Shkol'noe obrazovanie (Odesa 1889–92), and the journal Kievskaia starina. (See also Pedagogical periodicals.)
Research on the history of education and schools in Ukraine also began in the second half of the 19th century. Significant contributions were made by Nikolai Lavrovsky, Oleksander Lazarevsky, Mykhailo Drahomanov, and Borys Hrinchenko.
The chairs of pedagogy at Kyiv University, Kharkiv University, and Odesa University became increasingly active in the early 20th century under the influence of modern trends and methods of education initiated in Western Europe. S. Ananin, a professor of pedagogy at Kyiv University and the author of numerous treatises on education, was the chief exponent of these trends and methods. The Pedagogical Museum in Kyiv (1901–17) became an important center of educational research.
Pedagogical thought in Russian-ruled Ukraine from the beginning of the 20th century until the Revolution of 1917 focused primarily on problems of public education, in particular on the use of the Ukrainian language in the elementary schools. Works on this subject were written by Borys Hrinchenko, Viacheslav Prokopovych, Stepan Siropolko, Mykhailo Chaly, Yakiv Chepiha-Zelenkevych, Spyrydon Cherkasenko, and Hryhorii Sherstiuk. After 1910 the Ukrainskyi Uchytel society became the leading center of educational research; it published Svitlo (Kyiv), the first Ukrainian-language pedagogical journal in Russian-ruled Ukraine.
In that period there appeared important works on the history of education. An account of education from the earliest times was written by Mykhailo Hrushevsky in the first volumes of his Istoriia Ukraïny-Rusy (History of Ukraine-Rus’). Kostiantyn Kharlampovych wrote a broad analytical study of the history of education from its beginnings to the mid-18th century.
In Western Ukraine (under Austrian rule) questions of education and child-rearing occupied an important place in the work of the Ruthenian Triad in the 1820s and 1830s. The first major work in Western Ukrainian educational literature was Oleksander Dukhnovych’s Narodnaia pedahohiia v pol'zu uchylyshch i uchytelei sel'skikh (Public Pedagogy for the Use of Village Schools and Teachers, 1857). Toward the end of the 19th and in the early 20th century, research on the theory and history of education was pursued by Ostap Makarushka, V. Biletsky, I. Demianchuk, Konstantyna Malytska, Ivan Yushchyshyn, and others. The development of educational theory and practice was spurred with the founding of the Ruthenian (subsequently, Ukrainian) Pedagogical Society in 1881 (see Ridna Shkola society) and the publication of its semimonthly periodical Uchytel’. Other organizations, such as the Ukrainian Teachers' Mutual Aid Society, established in 1905, as well as the society’s journal Uchytel’s’ke slovo, also contributed to the development of pedagogical thought. The Ukrainska Shkola society was the principal educational center in Bukovyna, and in Transcarpathia the journal Uchytel’ (1867), founded in 1867, was the venue of pedagogical thought.
In the wake of the collapse of the tsarist regime in March 1917, Ukraine witnessed the large-scale development of elementary schools and secondary schools, as well as of institutions of higher education. Because much of the growth occurred spontaneously at the local level, it also highlighted the need for a more systematic approach to educational reform. Consequently, practical considerations, notably the drafting of plans and programs for a uniform system of education (the unified labor school), spurred the development of pedagogical thought. The Society of School Education, committees of the General Secretariat of Education of the Central Rada and later of the Ministry of Education of the Ukrainian National Republic, as well as individuals such as Sofiia Rusova, Volodymyr Durdukivsky, Hryhorii Ivanytsia, Stepan Siropolko, and Oleksander Muzychenko, played major roles in the elaboration of new models of education. The journal Vil’na ukraïns’ka shkola was an important forum for discussion, as were congresses of the All-Ukrainian Teachers’ Association. The Ukrainian Pedagogical Academy, founded in 1917, became a center for research in education and teacher training.
In the first years of Soviet rule in Ukraine, the elaboration of the model of a unified labor school was continued by a group of pedagogues centered in the pedagogical section of the Ukrainian Scientific Society in Kyiv, and from 1921 in the Scientific-Pedagogical Commission of the historical-philosophical section of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences (Ovksentii Korchak-Chepurkivsky, Oleksander Doroshkevych, and others).
The first half of the 1920s in Soviet Ukraine was characterized by the rise of several competing schools of pedagogical thought, many of which borrowed freely from advanced Western educational theory. Yakiv Chepiha-Zelenkevych advocated the principles of a liberal education; Yakiv Mamontov was a prominent theorist of esthetic education; Oleksander Muzychenko developed an approach which emphasized the comprehensive development of individuals; Adriian Volodymyrsky and his group stressed the natural development of children and adapted the principles of reflexology to pedagogy; Oleksander Skovoroda-Zachyniaiev, as director of the Laboratory of Reflexology and Experimental Pedagogy at the physico-mathematical division of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences, also played a major part in advancing new educational ideas.
Authorities, however, chose a different course in the development of education. A unified system of education was implemented, which stressed social education and professional training. The theorists of this system (which was unique to Ukraine) were Hryhorii Hrynko and Yan Riappo. An important center of pedagogical thought in the period was the Scientific Research Institute of Pedagogy of Ukraine founded in 1926. Among the leading journals were Shliakh osvity and Radians’ka osvita (Kharkiv). During the 1920s important research was done on the history of education by scholars such as A. Savich, Teodor Titov, A. Gotalov-Gotlib, and D. Krakhovetsky.
The pluralism which characterized pedagogical thought throughout much of the 1920s came to an abrupt halt with the consolidation of Stalinism in the 1930s. Most of the individuals, research centers, and journals active in the 1920s were silenced in the early 1930s. The unified system of social education was radically reorganized. Theories of labor and collective education as advanced by Anton Makarenko, N. Dadenkov, and Sava Chavdarov became the established orthodoxy in pedagogy. The development of pedagogical thought in Ukraine in the 1930s was also stymied by the centralization of educational decision-making. Soviet Ukraine’s distinctive system of education was abolished, and a unified model was imposed by Moscow. School curricula, textbooks, and programs were now decided upon centrally. Emblematic of this development was the establishment in 1943 of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR. During the 1920s Ukrainian educationalists attempted to establish an academy of pedagogical sciences in Ukraine but were denied permission. The Russian Academy of Pedagogical Sciences became a fundamental formulator of Soviet educational plans and pedagogical methods for the entire USSR.
In Polish-ruled Western Ukraine in the interwar period, the most important center of pedagogical thought was the Ridna Shkola society, which also published a journal by that name, Ridna shkola (Lviv). Among those who addressed questions of methodology were P. Bilaniuk, Ya. Bilenky, Ivan Levytsky, M. Matviichuk, and Bohdan Zaklynsky. Contributions to the history of education were made by Ivan Krypiakevych, Amvrosii Androkhovych, Ivan Fylypchak, and Yevhen Hrytsak.
In the immediate post–Second World War period pedagogy in Ukraine focused on the ideological and political education of pupils. Nikita Khrushchev’s educational reform of 1959 unleashed a debate on pedagogy in Ukraine, and the science was criticized for its lack of innovative thinking. In the 1960s and early 1970s significant research was done by Vasyl Sukhomlynsky, I. Fusenko, Mykhailo Marchenko, and Mykyta Hryshchenko.
In Soviet Ukraine pedagogical research was carried out by the Scientific Research Institute of Pedagogy of Ukraine, pedagogical institutes, and at 10 universities. Several pedagogical periodicals were published in Ukraine. A large-scale debate on questions of pedagogy was opened in Ukraine in 1987, as a result of the political changes taking place during Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika. It resulted in growing public pressure for less authoritarian, more innovative approaches to education.
An important center of pedagogical research outside Ukraine in the interwar period was the Ukrainian Higher Pedagogical Institute and the Ukrainian Pedagogical Society in Prague. The leading scholars there were Sofiia Rusova, Vasyl Simovych, and Stepan Siropolko. After the Second World War a chair of pedagogy was established at the Ukrainian Free University in Munich, and the post was held by Hryhorii Vashchenko. Questions of methodology have been addressed by various pedagogical societies in Canada, the United States of America, and Australia. In Canada, with the development of the Ukrainian bilingual education program, innovative research into second-language acquisition and language instruction methodology has been conducted at the University of Alberta by Olenka Bilash, and by the curriculum branch of the province of Alberta’s Ministry of Education. A Ukrainian Language Education Centre exists at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Siropolko, S. Istoriia osvity na Ukraïni (Lviv 1937)
Narodna osvita i pedahohika v Ukraïns'kii RSR 1917–1967 (Kyiv 1967)
Mitiurov, B. Razvitie pedagogicheskoi mysli na Ukraine v XVI–XVII vv. (Kyiv 1968)
Rozvytok narodnoï osvity i pedahohichnoï nauky na Ukraïni, 2 vols (Kyiv 1987)
Bohdan Kravtsiv, Bohdan Krawchenko
[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]