THE STUDENT’S LEARNING WORK IN THE LIGHT OF VALUE RELATIONS

L. S. KOPYSOV

In the educational process two sides interact—the teaching side and the taught side (the learner). The first exerts an educational and pedagogical influence, but its influence can be realized only through the activity of the second side. In a higher educational institution this side is the student, who acts, on the one hand, as the object of upbringing and education and, on the other, as its subject. And as a subject the student is an active, conscious force, manifesting his will, his interest, and having his own attitude toward various processes and actions directed at his upbringing.

The system of higher education, while devoting great attention to questions of improving methods of upbringing and education and to conditions that help increase the productivity of the educational process and its effectiveness, pays insufficient attention to the very essence of labor in learning, to its stimulating factors.

In our view, the effectiveness of the educational process and its productivity depend not only on rational organization, technical equipment, and the quality of teaching, but also on the activity of the student himself as a subject. The student’s own activity depends on a goal orientation determined by inclinations, interests, and his value attitude both toward the given labor process as a whole and toward its components, value attitude

to what is presented and how it is presented to him in this process, on his value orientations, conditioned by the level of prior upbringing and social existence.

In our philosophical and pedagogical literature there are no works in which educational activity is considered as educational labor. All the more so, there are no works illuminating the student’s educational labor in its value aspect. In a number of works of recent years, as a rule, learning is considered only from the methodological side—as the methodology for organizing a student’s independent work—or else the educational process in the higher educational institution as a whole is treated from the standpoint of higher-school pedagogy.

In the present article the task is posed, as a general formulation of the question, to consider educational activity as the labor activity of the student in terms of value, i.e., from the standpoint of its social significance and of the role it plays in the development of the student’s personality, from the standpoint of the possibility of influencing the student’s own educational labor through the upbringing and development of students’ value-based approach to the very process of educational labor. We know that education and upbringing are a single process. But where is the force that binds these two aspects? Such a force, acting as an inner process that unites education and upbringing into one, in our view, is value relations (economic, social, spiritual).

What, then, is the student’s educational labor? How does it appear in the light of value relations?

The student’s educational labor is a component part, the foundation, of the educational process in the higher educational institution. The educational process in a higher educational institution, in the narrow sense of the word, is carried out through the interaction of the learner (the student in our consideration) and the teacher, the instructor (the lecturer). In the broad sense, in addition, it includes the organization of this interaction, the educational program—the plan for training a specialist, the timetable, and so forth. As is known, the educational process in a higher educational institution in its entirety consists of the following components: lectures, seminar classes, laboratory work, practical classes, course and diploma design projects, consultations, tests, examinations, etc. It also includes industrial practice, carried out outside the higher educational institution but according to its curriculum.

If, however, one divides the educational process and singles out from it one aspect, i.e., the activity aimed at overcoming certain difficulties in cognition and at mastering skills and abilities (the student’s educational labor proper), then its components will accordingly be the following:

1) listening to and comprehending the incoming information and the creative recording of lecture notes;

2) reading literature, taking notes (excerpting, recording);

3) conversations and discussion of particular questions and problems both during seminar sessions and after them;

4) carrying out laboratory work, where the student applies certain previously acquired knowledge, uses instruments, reagents, exhibits, mechanisms, performs calculations, and draws conclusions;

5) course projects and diploma work, designing, describing, and executing technical drawings, as well as analyzing sources and documents with an evidentiary description and conclusions in accordance with the stated goal, topic, and actual results of the research;

6) current and pre-diploma work (practical), as well as work on reports, papers, etc.;

7) preparation for taking pass/fail credits, speaking at a conference, debate, colloquium, preparation for and taking of examinations, as the most intense nervous and mental activity of the student;

8) practicing practical skills.

From this far from complete list of the types and directions of the student’s educational work, it is evident that it is above all connected with the student’s independent work. Here, as nowhere else, the intensively active aspect has paramount importance, and as a qualitative property of the student it is valuable for the teacher. From the list of the student’s educational work given above, it is evident that in the course of its performance he uses and applies certain techniques, methods, and means that promote better assimilation of knowledge and the practice of certain skills.

In the process of learning, as one of the forms of cognition and of mastering (practicing) skills, a certain contradiction is overcome between the knowledge, abilities, and skills already possessed and that which must be studied, assimilated, and practiced. The process of resolving this contradiction through the expenditure of certain mental and physical efforts by the learning subject, with the use of certain means, is educational labor.

It should also be noted that educational labor contributes not only to cognition, but also to the cultivation of feelings, inclinations, and high morality.

All that has been said above makes it possible to give an approximate definition of a student’s educational labor, without claiming to be exhaustive.

A student’s educational labor is an objectively conditioned, socially and individually organized process, expressed in the application of certain methods, actions, and means, systemat—

...theoretical [means] used and applied by the student for the purpose of knowing and assimilating the laws of development of nature and society and of social reality, and also contributing to the development of his intellectual-creative activity, ideological-political maturity, emotional-aesthetic capacity, and a definite moral and physical perfection.

Academic labor is a purposeful social process. It is conditioned by the level of development of material production, by the level of social knowledge and culture, by definite social relations and needs both of society and of the learner.

It is organized and proceeds both individually (self-education) and, predominantly, through the system of education organized by society. In the latter case, academic labor is organized both individually and by the system that exists in one or another higher educational institution. As a specific form of mental labor, connected to a certain degree with physical labor, academic labor is part of the process of spiritual production in society and, moreover, such a part of it as itself, in turn, constitutes a necessary condition and prerequisite for the production of material and spiritual goods. As a result of academic labor, a person assimilates definite values of spiritual culture, which contributes to his development.

The concept of “academic labor” more capaciously than, say, “learning” or “independent work,” defines the social role of the learner as a person laboring in a definite way.

From an analysis of works devoted to the problem of values¹), it follows that, despite differing points of view, most authors agree in recognizing the definition of values given by V. P. Tugarinov: “Values are objects, phenomena, and their properties which are needed (necessary, useful, pleasant, etc.) by people of a definite society or class and by an individual person as means of satisfying their needs and interests, and also ideas and impulses as a norm, goal, or ideal”²).

What, then, does the value of academic labor consist in, presupposing a value relation to it?

¹) V. P. Tugarinov, On the Values of Life and Culture. L., 1960; The Theory of Values in Marxism. 1968; The Problem of Value in Philosophy, ed. A. G. Kharchev. L., 1966; I. Antonovich, American Bourgeois Axiology in the Service of Imperialism. Minsk, 1967; A. F. Shishkin, “The Social and Moral Values of Man.” Zh. Voprosy filosofii, 1967; G. D. Bandzeladze, An Attempt at Presenting a System of Marxist Ethics. Tbilisi, 1963.

²) V. P. Tugarinov, The Theory of Values in Marxism. Leningrad State University, 1968, p. 11.

As I. Antonovich notes, the “objective basis of the values of a thing should always be sought in the properties, features, and capacities of objects and phenomena of real reality to satisfy the needs of man’s social being”³).

From this point of view, learning work appears as a value, for it is an act of activity called forth by a personal and social need. And as an act of activity, it contains within itself diverse properties that have vital value for the developing person of socialist society, and therefore requires and presupposes a definite (value) attitude toward itself. A value attitude (the value approach) appears as a “practical determinant of the connection of an object with what a person needs”⁴).

In our view, a value attitude presupposes an object of evaluation, an evaluative judgment, and the recognition or non-recognition of value in the act of evaluation. It is carried out on the basis of a socially acquired and individually expressed material or spiritual need and is most closely connected with life, with practice (including the practice of cognition in learning work). When several objects possessing value properties are present, the value approach presupposes a definite choice of the object with the greatest presence of value properties or with a property that most fully expresses one need or another. Therefore, in the act of evaluation, an important role may also be played by the particular measure with which the value approach is carried out. For one subject, with respect to the same objects, it may be one measure, and for another—entirely different, despite the fact that both have a need for the given object. Measure is, as it were, present in the given need and determines its degree and force. In those cases when the choice is more stable, constant, and has an important significance in the life activity of the subject, it turns into his value orientation.

The principal objects of value for the student in learning work are knowledge (especially in the specialty), abilities and skills, information, the means of its delivery and its sources (the teacher, the book, etc.).

Each of these objects of value has diverse value properties (intellectual, moral, aesthetic, social, etc.) that are capable, to one degree or another, of satisfying the student’s various needs.

The acquisition of knowledge, the acquisition of abilities and skills is for the student a goal, a definite life ideal and, conse-

³) I. Antonovich. American Bourgeois Axiology in the Service of Imperialism. Minsk, 1967.

⁴) V. I. Lenin. PSS, vol. 42, p. 29.

...of activity, of a definite need, the actual satisfaction of which occurs as a result of his advancement up his own ladder of the educational process, corresponding to one or another of his activities in learning. This, it would seem, individual need is at the same time a socially necessary need. And only in this respect does it, this need, appear as a value.

Those bodies of knowledge which society as a whole possesses, but which the student, as an individual, does not possess and of which he has not the slightest notion, cannot serve for him as a value. Only when he hears or learns of them, if only in a general way, and relates them to his interests, conditioned by his general development and by previously acquired knowledge, only then will they acquire value significance for him. And only then can the student, under certain conditions, concentrate his will and direct it toward mastering this knowledge, toward assimilating its essence. “The knowledge and skills to be assimilated merely set requirements for the actions of the learner,” note P. Ya. Galperin and N. F. Talyzina¹.

Further, we often use such expressions as the “acquisition” of knowledge, “enrichment” by certain knowledge, “obtaining” knowledge, “assimilation” of knowledge. In essence this means that a certain circle of knowledge becomes the property of the given subject (the student). He has, as it were, consumed it—this knowledge—consciously reworked it (consciously reproduced it within himself), enriching his nervous and cerebral thinking capacity. This knowledge becomes the student’s embodied ideal at the given segment of time of academic work, within the definite limits and norms of the curriculum. It has become for him a value, into possession of which he has entered and at the disposal of which, in interests not contradicting society, he has obtained full freedom. In the process of academic work the student acquires not only knowledge, but also experience in obtaining and producing it; he also develops in himself a definite capacity for social activity. Consequently, the student’s academic work in an institution of higher learning contributes to the “production” of such a value for society as a creatively active specialist enriched with knowledge and skills. K. Marx also drew attention to this aspect when he wrote: “My own being is social activity, and therefore that which I do—

“...I make from myself for society, conscious of myself as a social being”^6).

Depending on what social and personal need is satisfied by one or another sphere (aspect) of concrete labor, the character of its value properties is also determined. In accordance with this, the various aspects of the value of labor are also determined.

Proceeding from the general theory of the aspects of the value of labor given in the indicated work by G. D. Bandzeladze, and taking into account the specificity of educational labor, as well as the educational importance of a differentiated representation (with consideration of individual properties) of the objective value of educational labor itself, the following aspects of its value may be defined: intellectual, social, moral, scientific, psychological, aesthetic.

As for the economic aspect, it should be noted that, unlike labor in the sphere of material production, educational labor, although it is an indispensable condition and prerequisite for the development of modern production and for increasing labor productivity, does not enter into the process of the direct production and increase of labor productivity, does not enter into the process of the direct production of the value of units of output. Consequently, it has no economic value. Although individual elements of the educational process are partly connected with material production (industrial or field practice of students at technical and agricultural higher educational institutions), it is not the production aspect but the educational aspect that is their intended purpose.

In this article there is no possibility of examining in detail all aspects of educational labor; therefore we shall dwell only on their brief content.

The very purpose of educational labor already presupposes the intellectual aspect of its value. The learner’s perception of various information and its processing in accordance with a definite need and goal intensifies and broadens his knowledge and thinking ability. If any labor, as purposeful, rational activity not contradicting society, is the primary condition for the development of human thinking, then educational labor, in addition, is the most effective path toward this. In educational labor, as in material labor, a definite stock of energy is expended; in K. Marx’s expression, there occurs “an expenditure of the human brain, nerves, muscles, organs of sense, etc.”^7). But, on the other hand, there occurs a development of brain activity;

^6) K. Marx and F. Engels. From Early Works. Moscow, Gospolitizdat, 1956, p. 590.

^7) K. Marx. Capital, vol. 1, p. 78.

scientific, creative, productive, and “self-productive” reasonable thinking of the learner (student), his intellect. Intellect develops, notes G. D. Bandzeladze, “in the process of self-movement, self-consumption. Here consumption is indeed production. The more we consume the mind, thinking, the more we develop it”².

The social aspect of the value of academic labor is determined by the place the student will occupy in the social system, thanks to his specific labor—the labor of learning—and by the extent to which his labor corresponds, or will correspond, to the progress of society and, at the same time, to the development of the student himself as a social unit, a “social type” (Lenin). The social value of academic labor is contained also in the possibility of obtaining through it a definite profession and specialty.

Speaking of the social value of a student’s academic labor, one must bear in mind that academic labor carried out by a student in a higher educational institution is a type, a condition, and a means that allow him, after graduating from the higher educational institution, to work in his principal profession at a high level of qualification. Consequently, it is, in the main, a potential aspect of the social value of academic labor, which consists in the fact that students, mastering ever-new scientific knowledge, skills, and abilities, play a significant role in the progressive development of socialist society, in bringing science, as a direct productive force, into production. It replenishes the ranks of the working intelligentsia, which ultimately leads to its quantitative and qualitative changes. And the latter has a positive effect on all other social groups from the point of view of raising the level of the cultural and technical development of society, from the point of view of assisting the process of erasing the essential differences between mental and physical labor. Academic labor leads to the intellectualization of labor in society as a whole. Thus, it is the student’s activity in mastering the knowledge accumulated by society in one area or another, with the aim of applying it in the interests of society, that chiefly determines his social role at this stage of life.

The moral value of academic labor is determined by the student’s subjective attitude toward it: to what extent he recognizes the usefulness of this labor both for himself and for society; to what extent he conscientiously and voluntarily gives the maximum of his strength and energy to this labor. Therefore, the final result of academic labor in a higher educational institution—that is, the depth, solidity, and level of the knowledge obtained—cannot

to characterize the academic work of one student or another from the moral side. Indeed, among two students of the same year and the same group, for example, who have unequal levels of prior preparation, unequal degrees and abilities of perception of one or another kind of information, both in depth and in speed, and both of whom apply all their efforts in academic work at the higher educational institution, the result obtained will be different. In this case, from the standpoint of the moral value of their work, they are equal. G. D. Bandzeladze also points to this aspect.³ It is understood that the evaluation of their actual knowledge and skills will be different.

The scientific aspect of the student’s academic work consists in the fact that, as labor connected with the acquisition of scientific knowledge, its creative reworking, and its logic, it lays the foundations of a scientific approach. It educates the student in a scientific understanding of the world, orients him toward a profound scientific analysis of particular processes or phenomena. Both in lectures and in the course of other forms of academic work, the student can become imbued with new conceptions, abstract himself, and at times create something new.

In academic work and through it, students, as the experience of many higher educational institutions in the country shows, are introduced to scientific searches and discoveries and learn to create scientifically, and not alone but in a collective. In this respect the words of A. M. Gorky are apt; addressing the students of Ural University in January 1921, he wrote: “Humanity has no values more substantial than the values of scientific thought.”⁴ It is precisely academic work that gives the opportunity to become aware of the value of scientific thought and to join in scientific creative activity.

The psychological value of academic work consists in the extent to which it promotes the development of the capacity for activity in general and for creative activity in particular, in the particular mental state of the thinking process, and in the emotions and feelings that it evokes. Academic work is connected with a definite mental state of the student at one or another moment of perception of information or of actions performed that contain varying degrees of influence, depending on the direction of his interest. It can evoke both sharp positive emotions and, at times, profound spiritual experiences.

In close connection with the psychological process is the aesthetic process. The aesthetic aspect of the value of academic work is determined by the extent to which it develops a feeling for the beautiful, har—

how much it contributes to the understanding of beauty in general and to the understanding of the beauty of cognition in particular, how much spiritual satisfaction it brings to the student from the awareness and self-perception of his constantly growing strength and will as an active, rational being of nature and society. The degree to which the aesthetic value properties of the process of learning work affect the student depends not only on how strongly these properties manifest themselves, but also on the ability and individual life experience of the student, conditioned by social existence and by the level of prior upbringing—that is, on the ability to grasp and cognize this beauty and to feel oneself within it.

Thus, revealing the student’s learning work from the standpoint of its value properties will make it possible, in the best way, to include both the teacher and the student in the system of value relations in the educational process. And this, in turn, will contribute to the cultivation of a definite attitude toward those values that learning work contains, to an understanding of one’s place within them, and, consequently, to the cultivation and development of social activity both in the process of study and in all social practice after graduation from the higher educational institution.

1. P. Ya. Galperin and N. F. Talyzina, “On the Foundations of Managing the Process of Assimilating Knowledge,” Vestnik vysshei shkoly, 1965, No. 6. ↩

2. G. D. Bandzeladze, Experience in Expounding the System of Marxist Ethics. Tbilisi, 1963, p. 315. ↩

3. G. D. Bandzeladze. An Attempt at Presenting a System of Marxist Ethics. Tbilisi, 1963, p. 324. ↩

4. A. M. Gorky, Letter. Zh. Krasnyi student, 1928, No. 3–4, p. 30. ↩