On the Issue of Aesthetic Education of Students Studying Without Interruption from Work

T. B. Glumova

Every year the life of the country presents new and ever newer demands on the generation of highly qualified specialists. At this stage these demands are predetermined by the full diversity and complexity of the tasks of communist construction.

To train and educate an excellent specialist, a committed communist, an all-round developed person—this is the goal of Soviet higher education.

To achieve it, many higher educational institutions in the country have scientifically developed and adopted for implementation comprehensive programs for educating students throughout the entire period of study. But they are designed mainly for full-time students, whereas more than half of highly qualified specialists are trained through the evening and correspondence systems. Thus, in 1967 there were 29 independent correspondence and evening institutes and 1,200 faculties operating in the country, where 2 million 383 thousand students were enrolled. The total student body of higher educational institutions during this period numbered 4.5 million.^1

^1 Higher Education in the USSR over 50 Years. Moscow, 1967, pp. 9, 21.

Since all categories of students, upon becoming specialists, will occupy an equal position in the system of production and public organization of labor, the differences existing as such do not allow substantial distinctions as to the quality of their all-round training.

Yet in the formulation of evening and correspondence education there are many vulnerable points. The various aspects of the educational process are imperfect and do not receive due attention. This applies especially to questions of the aesthetic development of student-workers, the importance of which, as it has seemed to us, is indisputable.

Communism, for us, is a social-aesthetic ideal, and in the achievement and realization of it an important role belongs to aesthetic education: to the cultivation of the striving for the beauty of labor, the beauty of human thoughts and relations, and the harmonious development of the human personality.

Aesthetic culture places before specialists of higher qualification higher demands as well. In addition to the fact that society compels them, like all its members, to develop harmoniously in accordance with communist ideals, such production and educational worker collectives must actively influence the aesthetic development of others: through the aesthetic perfection of the output produced, through the introduction of other elements of industrial aesthetics, through the ability to evaluate and direct aesthetic needs correctly, and so on.

But what, then, is the process of aesthetic education of a specialist of higher qualification?

It is known that aesthetic culture does not have its own specific closed sphere; therefore aesthetic education can be carried out with the help of the totality of all factors of a person’s life and activity, through a variety of forms and methods.

Students are educated aesthetically first of all in the course of the educational process.

Thus, the study of various sciences broadens knowledge of the world and creates the necessary basis for the development of an aesthetic attitude toward it. Of particularly great importance are the sciences that arm one with an understanding of social-political and moral-ethical ideals, the constant striving toward which expresses the essence of the progress of aesthetic culture.

Mastering a profession forms the preconditions for the emergence of aesthetic abilities and love for this type of activity. And participation in scientific creativity makes it possible to know the highest degree of enjoyment of labor, the joy of creation.

Marxist-Leninist aesthetics, of which production aesthetics is a component, contributes directly to the development of aesthetic views and tastes.

The intellect of teachers and comrades, good lectures structured according to all the rules of oratorical art, and discussion sessions also educate students aesthetically.

However, by means of non-artistic instruments alone, a person cannot master the true heights of aesthetic culture. Science, owing to the particular character of its modeling of social ideals, treats them in a way that is not sufficiently attractive, which reduces the effectiveness of their embodiment in life. The personal experience and contact with the world of each individual are limited in time and space. Art acts as a powerful lever of aesthetic development.

Recently, more attention has begun to be paid to questions of the aesthetic education through art, or artistic education, of full-time students. This may be judged from the educational programs being introduced in higher educational institutions.

Thus, in the program of the Tomsk Polytechnic Institute, the means and forms of artistic education are clearly defined, and some positive experience in this regard has been summarized²).

To be sure, there are many difficulties—both objective and subjective—on the path to introducing the program, but many forms of artistic education, developed in general outline with due regard for the specifics of different courses, are already gradually becoming established and are becoming traditional (lectures and talks on particular trends and works of art; acquaintance with the city’s cultural values; encouragement of independent creativity—in the first year; elective courses on problems of Marxist-Leninist aesthetics—in the senior years, etc.).

The organized forms of artistic education in relation to students studying without interruption from work are not an object of concern either for enterprises or for higher educational institutions³). There is a mistaken notion that student-production workers are “not concerned with aesthetics.”

Sociological studies, however, show that among this category of students the desire for association with art and with beauty in the sphere of production is great. Despite the fact that the budget

²) See: “Program for the Education of Full-Time Students for the Entire Period of Study at the Institute.” Tomsk, 1968.

³) It is possible that in individual higher educational institutions and at enterprises around the country positive experience of this kind has already been accumulated, but any published materials on it are as yet lacking.

among them an out-of-work time considerably more limited than that of young people who are not studying at all, they seek opportunities for the constant raising of their artistic culture, and the degree to which their artistic needs are satisfied is often even higher. Of course, they cannot compete with those who are not studying in the number of books read and films seen, but worker-students are distinguished by the many-sidedness of their aesthetic needs (see Table 1).

Table 1*)

Obviously, study in this case stimulates growth both in general and in aesthetic culture. Students studying without leaving production consciously prepare themselves for the transition to a new social group, to a new position in the system of the social organization of labor and production. Direct and constant contact with this collective, ideas about the level of its

*) The table was compiled on the basis of the results of a questionnaire survey conducted by the author at industrial enterprises in the city of Togliatti in 1966. 1,200 persons were surveyed (the survey materials are disclosed in the author’s dissertation abstract, “The Activity of the Gomel Regional Party Organization in Developing the Aesthetic Culture of Working People in 1959–1965”). For this analysis, two groups equal in number were selected. The proportions within them by age, sex, and family status are the same. Each group is taken as 100 percent.

**) Note. Only films seen in movie theaters were counted.

culture, an understanding of the importance of introducing the aesthetic principle into production, allows them to form a concrete idea of their own tasks in this regard.

However, no matter how great the significance of self-organization in the artistic education of students of evening and correspondence faculties, it cannot fully exhaust all the tasks of their artistic and aesthetic development, for this process requires guidance and maximum organization.

It appears that the need has already become ripe for the scientific development of an integral program for the education of student-production workers, in which a worthy place would be given to questions of their aesthetic development. In connection with the specific situation of this category of students, the functions for their aesthetic education should be divided between the higher educational institution and the enterprise, coordinated and subordinated to a single goal. In the future, the problem of the aesthetic development of highly qualified specialists will evidently find its proper place in the system of social planning, which will become a starting point in the scientific organization of this process as well.

For the time being, however, at enterprises and in higher educational institutions the first steps are being taken to increase the opportunities for the artistic development of student-production workers by expanding the limits of free time. But, unfortunately, preference is everywhere given to such a measure as freeing students of evening and correspondence faculties from carrying out public assignments. Indeed, outwardly this step seems to be a privilege, tangible for students and not burdensome for the enterprise or the higher educational institution (it is much more difficult to improve communal and everyday services, reduce unproductive expenditures of time, increase the effectiveness of the educational process, etc.). However, this “privilege” turns out to be in quotation marks. Here there is a one-sided approach to public work; only expenditures of time are taken into account. But many studies have shown that public activity stimulates the all-round, including the aesthetic, development of a person, even if it reduces the budget of free time. Having carried out a comparative analysis of student questionnaires—

students studying without interruption from production, we came to the conclusion that they are not in an equal position in this respect either (see Table 2).

Table 2

The “exclusion” of a significant share of evening and correspondence students from public activity also has a negative effect on other aspects of their training as specialists.

Obviously, the solution does not lie in their complete release from public work, but in the use of a differentiated method in the distribution of public assignments. For students studying without interruption from production, a special selection of assignments is needed—assignments that would stimulate their cultural growth to the maximum, help them acquire habits of working with a collective, and be feasible in terms of time expenditure.

It seems that the aesthetic education of students in correspondence and evening departments is part of the general problem of the aesthetic education of the entire Soviet people, and its successful solution predeter-

*) Each subgroup is taken as 100 percent. In quantitative terms, the subgroups are almost equal.

Note. Among those with public assignments, the percentage of married students is also higher (respectively 36.1 percent and 28.4 percent).

— here by the formation of new and the development of existing socio-economic prerequisites (the growth of material well-being, of the material base of culture and of the means of aesthetic influence, the increase in free time, etc.). However, objectively greater opportunities for the rise of aesthetic culture cannot be realized automatically, by themselves. The role of the subjective factor, of the guiding principle, must invariably increase, especially with respect to the category of students under consideration.