The problems of psychological education in pedagogical university

Last decade in Russia is characterized by the increasing interest in psychology: the quantity of educational institutions and faculties preparing psychologists is growing; psychological courses and disciplines take an essential place in the field of preparing of the specialists of non-psychological specialties; psychological practice develops intensively. However, this concern at the present moment has not received an adequate degree of conciseness and manufacturability and the actual practice of teaching of psychology has more experimental and investigative nature. Especially psychological education in pedagogical university is known for it.

Today in the majority of pedagogical universities of Russia the psychological education is connected: With preparing of psychologists (speciality - 020244 "«Psychology", 030900 « Preschool pedagogics and psychology », 031000 « Pedagogics and psychology », 031900 « Special psychology », 032000 « Special preschool pedagogics and psychology ») in the programs of post-academic studies and preparing of the specialists of magistracy;

With preparing of the teachers of different specialities, where the psychological disciplines are included into the complex of obligatory disciplines and into the optional courses;

With preparing of other specialists (as a rule, socionomic professions), where psychological courses and the disciplines are included both in the complex of obligatory disciplines and into the optional courses and in the disciplines of specializations.

The analysis of the standards, educational schedules and programs demonstrates, that the objectives and aims of psychological education of these specialists remain vague both for the implementators of the programs, and for the faculty staff. There is a peculiar approach to training of psychology - using descending scale: the psychological education of the teachers - psychologists is, as a matter of fact, a reduced version of the academic speciality « 02.04.00. Psychology ». In its turn, the program on psychology for the students of pedagogical specialities is cut out from the schedules and programs of the program of training of the teacher - psychologist. The psychological education of other specialists often looks as a parody version on psychology, because its contents is taken according to the subjective preferences of separate teachers and there is no scientific or system character. As an example it is possible to give the contents of the standard on a speciality 230600 "«Housekeeping", a specialization 230602 « Domestic education », where among central (by the number of hours) such special scientific (!?) disciplines as physiognomics and kinetics are taught.

Moreover, It’s obvious, that the psychological education of the psychologists, teachers, specialists of other specialities should differ essentially. The problem is not in reducing total number of hours of teaching of psychology or in reducing the educational programs, having eliminated “excessive” subjects, but to find the aspect that will integrate achievements of psychology with the reference to the given sphere of human activity. For the present situating of educational practice it is rather a difficult task.

Psychology in a pedagogical university is a special educational subject. Firstly, it is difficult for learning. The concern only to the contents of psychological disciplines is often suppressed by the concern to studying of the psychological features of a person. Personally neutral educational disciplines (physics, mathematics, philosophy etc.) are always in contrast to the psychological courses, which are personally significant and are colored by the own experiences of a student. It is especially important on the first courses of the university, when the problem of personal self-determination is more relevant than professional knowledge, abilities and skills. Secondly, the applied aspects of theoretical psychology concerning the pedagogical practice are not clearly worked out. With a rare exception, there are no education-methodical complexes on psychology of a teacher, on the psychological contents of the general methodic of teaching and the methodic of teaching of separate subjects, and the contents and bases of practice are not worked out. Thirdly, teachers often do not know the contents of pedagogical work at school to answer independently the questions of applicability of the postulates of the academic science to the problems of pedagogical practice.

In our opinion, the solution of these problems will allow to change the quality of psychological education in pedagogical university significantly, on the one hand, not substituting preparing of the teachers by preparing of the psychologists, and on the other - not transforming the psychological contents in pedagogical education.