https://doi.org/10.53656/ped2024-6.06

Резюме. In the article, the author tries to provide the reader a view on the science of upbringing, training and education, scientifically based and supported by a number of scientific evidence. The overview of pedagogy and its main building blocks – upbringing, training and education was carried out through a number of authoritativeAnglo-Saxon dictionariesand scientific sources, incl.Online Etymology Dictionary, Cambridge Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Encyclopaedia of Higher Education, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Foundations of Philosophy, New International Encyclopedia of New York, etc. A brief historical review of the pedagogical idea from ancient times to the present day is made, and in conclusion the described pedagogical schools and concepts are separated into educational directions.

Ключови думи: upbringing; training; education; pedagogy; history; etymology

Introduction

The science of the upbringing, training and education of the personality as social phenomena, through which socially useful and personally significant experience is transmitted and assimilated and the overall development of the human personality is supportedwe identify as pedagogy science (Kostova, Delibaltova, Gospodinov 2008). Pedagogy is the science of specially organized conscious and systematic activities for building a person, for the content, forms and methods of education and training, for the purposeful process of transmitting human experience and activities for the inclusion of human beings in society. Basic subject of pedagogy is the overall pedagogical process aimed at the development and formation of the personality in the conditions of upbringing, training and education, and the object of the science is education as a conscious and purposeful process. Pedagogy is also a theory and practice of learning and shows how this process influences and is influenced by the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, understood as an academic discipline, is “the study of how knowledge and skills are transmitted in an educational context and considers the interactions that take place during learning” (Li 2012). It examines the regularities of the organization, implementation, content, forms, methods, concepts of the educational process.

Pedagogy is also often described as the “act of teaching itself”1 and includes many more items, for example the preparation of a system of criteria for objective evaluation, dealing with the problems of adolescent education, working with children with specific needs, preparation and obtaining qualifications by the pedagogical staff. The pedagogy moves from practice to theory and appeared at the dawn of humanity with the aim of meeting the needs of human society for the preparation of adolescents and the transmission of socially significant experience and knowledge from generation to generation.

1. Building blocks of pedagogical science and practice

The pedagogical idea has its origins in ancient Greek and Oriental theology and philosophy. For the first time, pedagogy went outside the system of philosophical knowledge at the beginning of the 17th century, and thanks to the English philosopher Francis Bacon and the Czech thinker and public figure, Jan Amos Comenius, considered the founder of modern pedagogy, it became an independent science. The word “pedagogy” originates from the Greek word “πα ιδ αγωγέω” (“paidagōgeō”), in which “πα ῖς” means “a child” and “άγω” means “to lead, guide”, which literally means “to lead the child”. In Ancient Greece, the term was associated with a slave who took care of supporting the education and upbringing of his master’s son (girls were not allowed to attend school). This requires taking him to and from school, taking care of his physical fit and his school equipment, which may include textbooks, learning aids, musical instruments, etc.2.

Carrying out a more thorough review of a number of Anglo-Saxon authoritative dictionaries, incl. Online Etymology Dictionary, Cambridge Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Dictionary, Encyclopedia Britannica, Philosophy basics, etc. we find the etymological development of the pedagogy term and its related concepts. According to Merriam-Webster Dictionary pedagogy is “the study of learning methods and activities”3. The etymological examination of the concept shows that the meaning “science of teaching” is known since the 1580s, of French origin from the word “pédagogie”, which in turn comes from the Latin word “paedagogia”, and from the Greek words “paidagōgia” – “education” and “paidagōgos” – “teacher”.4 The related term “teacher” appeared in the late 14th century with the meaning “pedagogue, teacher, teacher of children”. It came from Old French language with the meaning of “teacher of children” (from the 14th century), which derived from Latin word “paedagogus” and from Greek word “paidagōgos” meaning – “a slave who accompanies boys to school and supervises them”. The modern meaning of the term “teacher” or “trainer” originates from the Greek language and combined the words “pais” – “child”, “agōgos” – “leader”, derived from “to lead, drive, pull forward”5.

Upbringing, as the first building block of pedagogical science and practice, is a conscious human activity emphasizing the formation of the personality in its totality, characterized by purposeful and systematic impact, interaction between the subject and the object (for example, parent and child, teacher and student) in the process of socialization of the personality of the latter, exercise of personal example by the subject and use of various factors of social influence for appropriation by the object of general human virtues, ideas and concepts, views and understandings, feelings and emotions, beliefs, skills and habits, experience, knowledge. Upbringing is a two-sided process and depends on both the activity of the subject and the activity of the object of influence.

A person is educated from birth to the end of his life. The purpose of the educational activity is “to form a real, civically sustainable person, capable of contributing to the improvement of both society and oneself” (Boyadzhieva 2016). Education begins in the family as the process of upbringing. Parenting, raising children or upbringing is “the process of promoting and supporting a child’s physical, emotional, social, intellectual development from infancy to adulthood” (Brooks 2012). Parents’ social background, economic status, culture, income, parenting skills, values, and morals strongly influence parenting methods and subsequently the upbringing and development of the child as a responsible mature individual capable of contributing to the increase of social well-being.

In the etymological review and study the word “educate” cold be noticed in the middle of the 15th century as “educaten” meaning “educate (children), train”, originating from the Latin word “educates”, past participle of “educare” – “educate, bring up”. The meaning “provision of education” was first discovered in the 1580s. According to the Dictionary of the Century, the term “educere” is associated with reference to physical education or support, while the term “educare” is associated with education of the mind and refers to “to draw out or develop the powers of the mind”6.

The process of upbringing begins with the appearance of a new member of the family. Ginsburg argued: “a baby’s initial form of communication is crying, and parents quickly begin to recognize its different types, which represent different needs” and added “the baby responds enthusiastically to cuddling and caressing, which are the basis of attachment formation, which is considered the basis of his ability to form and realize mature relationships throughout his life“ (Ginsburg 2007). The children between the ages of 12 and 36 months are very active, curious and eager to explore the world around them. They learn by trial and error and often imitate their parents. At this stage, parents who have the opportunity to peek into the world of their children and build relationships of trust and cooperation that will be useful throughout the conscious life of both parties. Adolescence is a period where newfound freedoms can lead to decisions that drastically change the way teenagers live. According to Ginsburg, “Adolescents look to peers and adults outside the family for guidance and models of how to behave, but parents still have opportunities to influence their development. With established relationships of trust, adolescents tend to turn to their parents for help when faced with negative societal pressures” (Ginsburg 2007).

The famous modern Bulgarian scientist in the field of pedagogy Doncheva emphasizes that the style of upbringing of the young child and parental attitudes are of great importance from the very moment of his birth. “Disharmonious relationships in the family have an adverse effect on the young personality, which the children themselves showed unequivocally. Modelling good behaviour in any activity needs to be an element of everyday life, an example on the part of parents and a requirement for children” (Doncheva 2009, pp. 236 – 240).

The second building block of the pedagogical science and practice is training. Viewing education as a purposeful, organized, conscious, guided and managed cognitive process reflects its essential characteristic to the maximum extent. Training is a “multifaceted process in which the student moves from ignorance to knowledge, from incomplete and inaccurate knowledge to more and more complete and accurate knowledge, during which profound qualitative changes occur in his personality” (Kostova, Delibaltova, Gospodinov 2008). Training is a unity between teaching, which is the activity of the teacher, and learning, which is the activity of the student. In the conditions of training, learning is a purposeful and rationally organized process of assimilation of social experience in a generalized and systematized form, which leads to permanent changes in the personality.

Education, the third building block of the pedagogical science and practice, is the ultimate meaning of any action or experience that has a formative effect on an individual’s mind, character, or physical ability. It represents “a process by which society consciously transmits its accumulated knowledge, skills and values from one generation to another” (Kostova, Delibaltova, Gospodinov 2008). In this regard, the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights declared: “Education shall be directed to the integral development of the human personality and shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all peoples, racial or religious groups”7 and the European Convention on Human Rights 1952, obliges all countries under the agreement to guarantee the right to education for their citizens. Ensuring the process of transmission of socially valuable and personally meaningful experience, states and their governments are called upon to organize optimal conditions for the development of the human individual as a person and to support this process.

Etymologically the concept of education comes from the Latin language and the Latin word “educationem” and means „raising children, education“. The original meaning of the word was “learning a social code and acquiring manners”, and the meaning of “systematic training and training for future professional activity” appears from the 1610s.8.

Some of the first theoretical statements about education could be found at the judgments of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, in his concept of the ideal person who must be educated on high moral qualities such as humanity, honesty, justice, fidelity, filial respect and respect for elders. Plato expressed his ideas about education in The Republic, according to which the soul consisted of three parts – reason, will and feelings, one of which always prevailed over the others, as the emotions were basis for the education of children and the first childhood experiences were pleasure and suffering, that shaped which shapes children’s conceptions of good and evil. According to Aristotle, education is based on practicing moral actions through repetition, and parents are primarily responsible for the moral education of children. In Ancient Sparta, the education of youth was mental, physical and military, in Ancient Athens – aesthetic and moral. Ancient Rome laid the foundation for education, which benefits both the individual and society. Much later, during the Middle Ages era of human development, the church dominated everywhere, including in the upbringing of the child, child’s development, growth and educational preparation, which was why the education took place into two basic forms – religious and secular.

At the present stage of development of the science of upbringing, training and education “the term pedagogy means not only the process of teaching and learning of a certain range of knowledge, but the practical training and educational activities in problem-based practical guidance for it” (Doncheva 2020).

2. The pedagogical idea – a brief historical overview

Pedagogy is first practice. There is evidence of the emergence of writing systems developed by ancient civilizations around the world as early as around 3500 BC. Hieroglyphs were first used in Egypt in 3400 BC, and the oldest known alphabet was developed around 2000 BC in Egypt and it was of hieroglyphic type. Handwritten scripts had been found on stone monuments and on papyri made from reed stems (Fischer 2004, pp. 34 – 44). Other surfaces used for early writing include wax-coated writing boards, clay boards, sheets or strips of tree bark, parchments made from goat and calf skin, wax boards.9 In ancient Mesopotamia, the royal family and the sons of the rich layer of people as scribes, doctors, temple administrators, personal secretaries, lawyers had the right to be educated (Fischer 2004, рр. 34 – 44). In ancient Egypt, literacy was a priority of the educated scribal elite, with only people from certain backgrounds being given the opportunity to be educated in order to be in the service of the temples, the pharaoh, and the military authority (Baines 1983, рр. 572 – 599).

The Royal Library of Alexandria was built in the early 3rd century BC in Egypt and was among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. It was the largest library of Antiquity and the largest center of knowledge and science for its time. It was founded during the reign of Ptolemy II – ruler of Egypt. It is estimated that between 400,000 and 700,000 papyrus scrolls of laws and scientific knowledge were stored there (Murray 2009, р. 17). The library took care of the development of science and research activity and filled its funds with works on mathematics, astronomy, physics, natural sciences. The library of Ashurbanipal in Iraq, guardian of the science and culture of mankind, is named after an Assyrian king who ruled from the 7th century BC and is one of the first libraries in the world. The library contains about 30,000 clay tablets and fragments dealing with various aspects of history, religion and mythology, social and economic life, lists of kings and dynasties, laws, historical chronicles and religious-mythological works (Taylor 2023).

In Islamic civilization, schooling began in 622 in Medina, with free education for children from the age of 6. They had been taught the Quran, reading and writing. (Bar-Ilan 1992, рр. 46 – 61) In Baghdad, the House of Wisdom was opened, both a library and an educational center offering education in astrology, mathematics, agriculture, medicine and philosophy. The Al-Azhar University, founded in 975 in Cairo, provided knowledge on Islamic law, Arabic grammar, Islamic astronomy, early Islamic philosophy and logic (Alatas 2006, рр. 112 – 132). In the medieval Islamic world, the primary school was known as a “maktab”, which was often attached to a mosque. Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abdallah ibn al-Hasan ibn Ali ibn Sina or Avicenna (980 BC – 1037 BC) created the treatise for the role of the teacher in the education and upbringing of children as a guide for teachers working in maktab. He wrote that children could learn better if they are taught in classes rather than using one-on-one tutoring by private tutors. Children must be sent to school from the age of 6 and be educated in primary education until they reach the age of 14. During this time, they must be trained in the Noble Quran, metaphysics, literature, Islamic ethics and manual skills. Ibn Sina pointed to the stage of secondary education as a period of specialization when students should began to acquire manual skills. Children after the age of 14 should be given the opportunity to choose and specialize in subjects that interest them, whether reading, manual skills, literature, preaching, medicine, geometry, commerce, and others. Ibn Sina’s fundamental pedagogical view is that “human intelligence at the birth of the child is tabula rasa, i.e. pure potentiality that is actualized through education, and that knowledge is achieved through empirical familiarity with objects in the real world, as a result of which one forms one’s own universal concepts” (Rizvi 2006).

In ancient India, education was mainly through the Vedic and Buddhist education systems. In the Vedic education system, the child starts learning at the age of 5, while in the Buddhist education system, the beginning of the educational process is set at the age of eight. During the Vedic period from about 1500 B.C. until 600 BC, education was based on the recitation of hymns, maxims and incantations by priests (Gupta 2007, pp. 73 – 76). The emphasis of education in India was on the development of a person’s character by mastering the art of self-control and forming a social public consciousness. Among the subjects taught were art, architecture, painting, logic, mathematics, grammar, philosophy, astronomy, literature, Buddhism, Hinduism, economics, politics, law, medicine and physics. Women’s education is also important. They were trained in dance, music and housekeeping (Sharma and Sharma 2005, pp. 4ff).

In China, the beginning of the educational system is placed 2076 – 1600 BC. The government built schools to educate the ancient Chinese aristocrats, mainly in literature and archery. Students were taught rituals, literature, politics, music, arts, archery, and private schools trained students in agriculture and crafts at the public schools in the period 1600 BC – 1046 BC. The Chinese philosopher Confucius (551 – 479 BC) strongly influenced the life and thinking of the societies of Ancient China, Japan and Korea. The teaching of Confucius is based on the paternalistic concept of the state, according to which the ruler is the „father of the family“, and the members of the state are bound to each other as tightly as the members of the family, where the relationship is based on respect, devotion, trust and responsibility of people to each other (Confucius 2010). In 124 BC the Imperial Academy was established, the curriculum of which included the works of Confucius. From around the 13th century, children studied Chinese writing, grammatical constructions, elements of Chinese history, and Confucian morality (Kinney 2004, рр. 14 – 15).

In the city-states of Ancient Greece, parents could choose which school their children would attend, upon payment of a corresponding monthly fee. Most of them send their sons to study from the age of 7 to 14. Main subjects of study in ancient Athens were gymnastics, athletics, wrestling, music, poetry, drama, history and language literacy. The wealthiest students continued their education with the study of rhetoric, mathematics, geography, history, politics and logic. Girls did not receive formal education (Coulson 1999, рр. 40 – 47). The educational system of Ancient Sparta was completely different. It put an emphasis on creating perfect warriors and emphasized training in total obedience, courage and physical perfection.

Pedagogy in Ancient Greece is associated with the Greek tradition of philosophical dialogue, with the ideas of Socrates (469 BC – 399 BC), according to which „history and human destiny are the result of human actions“ (Chesters 2012, р. 35), and with the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle.

The educational philosophy of Plato (424/423 BC – 348/347 BC) was based on a vision of the ideal republic in which the individual lived in and obeyed a just society. Plato advocated the upbringing of children in special state institutions, with differentiated care for children of different castes, and where children of the highest caste received significantly more knowledge so that in the future they could act as rulers of the city and of the people of the lower castes. Plato believed that gifted children should be trained by the state in order to successfully assume the role of a ruling caste. According to him, primary education should be until the age of 18, followed by two years of compulsory military training, and higher education for those who successfully pass the primary education stage. Primary education consisted of training in music and gymnastics, and combined “the acquisition of both gentle and fierce qualities which should create the harmonious and balanced person” (Strunk 1998). When students reached the age of 20, a selection was made, and the best students were given the opportunity to study courses in mathematics, geometry and astronomy. On reaching the age of 30, another selection was made, and those who had passed the level of primary education continue with the training in dialectics, metaphysics, logic and philosophy for another five years. After undergoing military training, a man would complete his theoretical and practical education by the age of 50 (Strunk 1998, рр. 1 – 32).

In 387 BC in Ancient Athens, the ancient Greek school of philosophy Academy of Plato was founded. Although the academy was open to the general public, its primary students were upper-class men. There is evidence for lecturing, for learning mathematics, and for using dialogue as a form of discovering philosophical and life truths. (Schofield 2002, p. 32) Aristotle was also Academy of Plato’s student (Lindberg 2007, р. 70). Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) considered human nature, habit and reason to be equally important forces to be cultivated in the learning process, and a key tool for developing good habits is repetition. (Smith 2020) Aristotle advocated a general education that would be compulsory for all subjects of the state and believed that physical education should precede intellectual training. The subjects he specifically mentioned as important and which he argued should be taught are reading, writing, mathematics, music, physical education, literature and history.

Saint Jerome (347 – 420 AD) was the first to detail his views on the education and training of girls. He recommended teaching the alphabet through ivory blocks so that it could be learned through play a game.

During the Middle Ages, most of the universities were established as Christian monastic schools and later as cathedral schools that provided an opportunity for free education and became accessible to the wider strata of society (Koterski 2005, р. 83). The first medieval educational institutions are universities established at the end of the 11th and 12th centuries in Italy, France and England, where training in arts, law, medicine and theology took place. The Catholic Church established cathedral schools as centers of education that became the forerunners of modern universities in Europe (Blainey 2004).

Formal education was unusual for the Middle Ages, and its purpose was primarily religious, with an emphasis on the revelation of transcendental truths that would lead man back to God through the choice of a moral and religious life. In some cities, such as London, schools existed for both sexes, and girls and boys of noble birth were sent to receive a basic education. Priests taught them to read and write and introduced them to prayers. Girls are taught spinning and embroidery, as well as skills that prepare them for marriage. For younger students, learning began with the acquisition of reading and writing skills and progressed to the trivium of the seven liberal arts: grammar, rhetoric, and logic, and then to the quadrivium, which included arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music10.

Founded in 1088, the University of Bologna is considered the oldest existing university in Europe. The university was founded by a guild of students and was the first in the modern sense of an institute of higher education with opportunities to award educational and scientific degrees (Gaston 2010, р. 18).

The Renaissance in Europe ushered in a new era of scientific discovery. Jean Gerson (1363 – 1429) wrote: “the children are more easily governed by caresses than by fear”, and stated: “Above all, the teacher must endeavour to be a father to his students” (Compayré 1892). Around 1440, Johannes Gutenberg invented the printing press, which allowed works of science and literature to spread more rapidly. Exceptional progress during the Renaissance period in Europe was marked by educational innovations. From the 19th century, Europe began to provide primary education in reading, writing and arithmetic.

The views of Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 1592) for the education of children were very contrary to the general educational practices of his day.Montaigne believed that it was necessary for children to learn in different ways, not only by reading books, and the teacher should use the method of conducting a dialogue with the student, letting him or her to speak first and only then to take a position on the topic (Hall 1997, p. 61). Montaigne believed that successful learners are those who were encouraged to question any new information and considered that a child’s curiosity could serve as an important tool in the learning process (Worley 2012, pp. 343 – 370). Teachers must teach through experience, not just using textbooks and books, otherwise students will become passive adults, blindly obey circumstances and people, and lose the ability to think for themselves.

John Amos Comenius (1592 – 1670) is considered the father of modern education. The Great Didactics is his main pedagogical work, where he created the lesson system of education. The Didactica Magna, written in Latin, outlined a system of schools that was an exact counterpart of the currently existing American system of kindergarten, elementary school, high school, college, and university. In 1658, Orbis Pictus was published, his best known and most widely distributed textbook, which offers the application of illustrations to academic work. (Gilman 1905).

John Locke (1632 – 1704) is considered one of the most influential philosophers in post-Renaissance Europe. One of his most important works was written in 1689 called “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” where he introduced the term “tabula rasa”, a term characteristic of Avicenna’s educational philosophy, in European education, which he explains as a blank, clean slate. Locke believed that we are all born without knowledge, that learning is achieved only through experience, and that the mind is formed by experience, not by innate ideas. (Locke 1964) It is not by chance that Locke built his ethical and pedagogical views on the fact that the child’s soul is a tabula rasa on which everything from experience and acquired knowledge is written. It is a fact that changes in the child’s psyche occur as a result of child’s activity, which is carried out or assimilated at the given stage (Doncheva 2015).

While Plato believed that people were born with skills appropriate to different castes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1778) believed that there was a single developmental process common to all people. This is a natural process, the main behavioural manifestation of which is curiosity, which differs from the Locke’s „tabula rasa“ in that it is an active process arising from the nature of the child, prompting the child to learn and adapt to its surroundings. “All children are perfectly designed organisms ready to learn from their environment so that they grow up to be virtuous adults, but due to the bad influence of society, they often fail to do argued Rousseau.

Johann Pestalozzi (1746 – 1827) wrote his pedagogical works under the motto: “To learn with head, hand and heart”. Pestalozzi promoted educational reform, supported by the idea that early education was crucial for children and would lead to the formation of “a healthy person characterized by morality”. Johann Pestalozzi writes teaching aids and books for home-schooling and those containing various teaching methods (Horlacher 2011, pp. 65 – 75).

Johann Herbart (1776 – 1841) considered that learning was influenced by interest in the subject and the teacher so when presenting new information or material, teachers should take into account students’ mental skills, i.e. what they already know. Herbart presented 5 steps that teachers should use in the teaching process (Hergenhahn 2009):

1. Review material already learned by the student.

2. Preparing the student for new material.

3. Presentation of the new material.

4. Linking the new material to the old material.

5. Show how the student can apply the new material.

The period from 1890 to 1920 brought about significant changes in education. William James commented that teaching is an art and defined education as „the organization of acquired habits and tendencies toward certain behaviour“ (James 1983). He stated that teachers should train the student in behaviours that enable him to fit into the social and physical world (James 1983).

Alfred Binet (1857 – 1911) tried to apply the experimental method in education, looking for a way to distinguish children with disabilities and developmental problems from other children. The Binet-Simon test is the first intelligence test in the world that differentiates between children without disabilities and children with disabilities. Binet believes that in order to create a good learning environment, it is important for teachers to consider the strengths of individual students as well as the needs of the class as a whole (Zimmerman & Schunk 2003).

Edward Thorndike (1874 – 1949) pioneered teaching practices through empirical evidence and measurement. He was one of the first to argue that individual differences in cognitive task performance are due to stimulus response. It marked the beginning of formalized assessment by developing tests to measure outcomes in various academic subjects, which were subsequently standardized (Zimmerman & Schunk 2003).

John Dewey (1859 – 1952) stated that education in its broadest sense is “a social continuity”. Dewey believed that the classroom should prepare children to be good citizens and facilitate opportunities for creativity. He emphasized that learning material should be delivered in a way that is stimulating and interesting to the student (Dewey 1910). John Dewey believed in the active human mind that could be educated through observation, inquiry and problem solving.

Existentialist Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970) saw learners in a social context in which they have to confront the views of others in order to clarify and defend their own views and positions, which derive from the person himself and not from external authorities12. Exploring life through authentic thinking engages learners in a real learning experience. As an existentialist Russell opposed thinking of students as objects to be measured, tracked, and standardized.

Cognitive developmental psychology contributed to the fusion of education and studied the individual differences in cognitive processes and abilities.Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980) was one of the most important researchers in the field of the human cognitive development and believed that learning was inextricably linked to a child’s cognitive development (Zimmerman & Schunk 2003).

Benjamin Bloom (1903 – 1999) developed a taxonomy of educational goals, which he divided into three areas: cognitive, affective and psychomotor. The cognitive domain deals with how we think, the affective element deals with emotions and valuing, organizing and internalizing values, and the psychomotor domain deals with the development of motor skills and coordination of movements.Bloom believed that teachers could change student behaviour by systematically rewarding students who follow classroom rules with special stars or tokens that can then be exchanged for various real objects (Clark 1999).

Lev Vygotsky (1896 – 1934) founded the concept of the so-called “zone of proximal development”, (“proximal” – located closer to the center of the body), which explains as “the distance between the actual level of development determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development determined by solving problems under the guidance of adults or in cooperation with more capable peers” (Vygotsky 1980). According to his theory, with the help of another more knowledgeable individual, a child is able to learn skills or aspects of skills that are beyond their actual level of development or maturity (Vygotsky 1980).

The Montessori method arose from the discovery of Maria Montessori (1870 – 1952) about the true, normal nature of the child in the process of observing young children and giving them the freedom to work with materials for independent learning activities. (Montessori 2004) Montessori created an educational method based on the development of sensations and made an extensive use of interest and curiosity-provoking materials in learning. (Kramer 1976) The Montessori method emphasizes the importance of self-initiative and develops the child’s natural abilities through hands-on play. In it, learners learn through activities that include exploration, manipulation, order, repetition, abstraction and communication (Hainstock 1997).

Waldorf’s educational approach is a humanistic approach to pedagogy that emphasizes the role of imagination in learning and develops the thinking of learners by including both a creative and an analytical component. The main goals of the approach are to provide young people with the foundation on which they can become free, morally responsible and socially integrated individuals, and to help each child fulfil his or her unique destiny13.

In the modern world, high levels of education are essential for society, emphasizing the importance of its influence on the individual and his personal development, the cultural and social development of society, the achievement of high levels of economic growth. The modern education system is an organized group of institutions (ministries of education, local education authorities, schools, universities, training institutions, etc.) whose main purpose is to provide education to children, youth and learners of different age groups at appropriate educational conditions. Nowadays, the processes of the upbringing, training and education encompass not only traditional passive, but also interactive active methods of imparting knowledge. This is possible by the undoubted achievements of ICT and only a small number of examples include, but are not limited to: information technology, distance learning, on-line learning, use of virtual and augmented reality, use of mixed reality, cyber environment, various Internet-based social networks, etc.

Conclusion

The described schools and conceptions can be summarized in several educational directions. The classical education movement advocated a form of education based on the traditions of culture that was rigorous and systematic, dividing learning into three rigid categories – grammar, dialectic and rhetoric. By the late 18th century, in addition to the trivium and quadrivium of the Middle Ages, classical education encompassed the study of literature, poetry, drama, philosophy, history, art, and languages. Educational essentialism is another educational philosophy whose proponents believe that children should study traditional core subjects thoroughly and rigorously. Constructivism emphasizes the agency and prior knowledge and experience of the learner. People observe and practice the behaviour of other people, and adopt similar or similar actions, imitate behaviour, and gradually come to act in accordance with the norms of the practice they observe. Critical pedagogy is an educational movement driven by the desire to help students develop a sense of freedom and connect knowledge with power and the ability to take constructive action toward their awareness and development. According to educational existentialism, learners are not objects to be measured, tracked and standardized, but to be included in a genuine learning experience. Educational progressivism is the belief that education should be based on the principle that people learn best in real activities with other people. The democratic education theory promotes the creation of a school environment in which students and teachers will work together, in a spirit of cooperation and good-natured exchange of views and discussions on major issues related to life.

NOTES

1. MERRIAM-WEBSTER, 2021. Pedagogy, Merriam-Webster Incorporated. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pedagogy?utm_campaign=sd&utm_medium=serp&utm_source=jsonld, available 19.03.2021.

2. ONLINE ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARY, 2001 – 2021. Pedagogy, Douglas Harper. https://www.etymonline.com/word/pedagogy, available 20.09.2010.

3. MERRIAM-WEBSTER, 2021. Pedagogy, Merriam-Webster Incorporated. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pedagogy?utm_campaign=sd&utm_medium=serp&utm_source=jsonld, available 19.03.2021.

4. ONLINE ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARY, 2001 – 2021. Pedagogue, Douglas Harper. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pedagogue, available 20.09.2010.

5. ONLINE ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARY, 2001 – 2021. Pedagogue, Douglas Harper. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=pedagogue, available 20.09.2010.

6. ONLINE ETYMOLOGY DICTIONARY, 2001 – 2021. Еducate, Douglas Harper. https://www.etymonline.com/word/educate, available 20.09.2020.

7. ОБЩО СЪБРАНИЕ НА ООН, 1948. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ООН. https://www.cpdp.bg/?p=element&aid=32, available 28.04.2021.

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