Vasyl Sukhomlynskyi on the cult of the book and the cult of the native language at school: a view from the present

Abstract

The relevance of the article is determined by the fact that Vasyl Sukhomlynskyi's pedagogical concepts,such as the cult of the book and the cult of the mother tongue in school education,gain particular importance today. Of equal significance is the pedagogical management formulated in his works, aimed at introducing these cults into the modern school educational practice. That is due to the situation that has developed in recent decades, when a modern student spends a considerable part of their time not with a book, but with a smartphone or a tablet.

The purpose of the article is to provide a generalised analysis of Sukhomlynskyi's views on the educational function of books and reading in school education. In the process attention is focused on the following points: 1) the psychological and pedagogical validity of Sukhomlynskyi's views on this issue; 2) the peculiarities of pedagogical management in Pavlys’ka Shkola (School in Pavlysh) directed at enhancing the educational role of books and reading; 3) the crisis moments analysis on the decline of interest in books and reading in modern times; possible ways of solving them.

The article carefully analyses the views of the prominent scholar on the high educational power of books and reading. It is emphasized that in the context of the smartphone craze, having a detrimental effect on the psychological state of the younger generation (‘clip thinking’, inability to concentrate, loss of critical thinking skills...), quality literary education is perhaps the most effective way to prevent harmful influence of smartphones.

Based on the recordings of the lessons with primary school teachers and language teachers in Pavlys’ka Shkola (School in Pavlysh) attended by Sukhomlynskyi, his advice on fostering the cult of books and the cult of the native languagewith students is analysed.

Due to the oversaturation of school curricula in Ukrainian and foreign literature, a situation has been created where a teacher of literature is unable to allocate a sufficient amount of class time for the students to delve into the artistic content of a literary work, to experience it emotionally, to discover the secrets of its artistic impact. The fact that Ukrainian literature is not represented among the subjects compulsory for thethe National Multi-subject Testing has had a negative impact on the level of linguistic and literary education.