The Educational Aspect of Ensuring the Safety of Children from the Liberated Territories

Introduction

During summer holidays, the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation together with the Ministry of Enlightenment initiated a “University Sessions” project, within which about 11 thousand adolescents aged 12 to 17 years old from Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics (further – DPR and LPR) participated in thematic educational programs and got acquainted with the culture and history of Russian regions. Over 40 Russian universities took part in organizing the specialized sessions, among them Yaroslavl State Pedagogical University named after K. D. Ushinskiy ^[9].

On September 23–27, 2022, a referendum took place in DPR, LPR, Kherson and Zaporozhye oblasts on these territories inclusion in Russia. Inclusion of new territories in a country is accompanied by profound social-economic innovations and a value-conceptual reorientation of the educational system towards new standards, introduction of contemporary techniques methods and didactic approaches.

The Russian Federation, Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and the liberated territories are currently restoring the single educational space as an environment for implementing the opportunities for the children of Russia and Donbass. On the territories of the new subjects of the Russian Federation, educational establishments already use new academic, academic-methodological and didactic programs and materials based on the Russian educational standards.

Currently, the Department of State Policy and Management in the sphere of general education of the Russian Ministry of Enlightenment has elaborated methodological recommendations for ensuring the right to receiving general education for the children arriving from Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics; the objective is to support the children arriving from the liberated territories, which is especially important for their psychological and moral state as witnesses of wars and conflicts ^[5].

Specialized Educational University Sessions are a common educational program for schoolchildren from DPR and LPR and those living on the front-line or liberated territories. Its objective is personality development of children and adolescents in the emotional-value environment, by immersion into real and virtual historic and cultural activities and traditions of Russia.

Organization of the system of children’s rest and health improvement on holidays is one of the important functions of a social state. Specialized sessions for children from liberated territories are not only aimed at creative, spiritual and intellectual development of a child, but also play a role of social protection, which in the aggregate creates prerequisites for their successful socialization under modern realities.

There are numerous problems impeding satisfaction of a child’s needs for rest. Among them ^{[3, p. 99]}:

- unequal possibilities of families with children for obtaining high-quality services;

- insufficient transmittance of positive experience of implementing programs and projects, taking into account the national, ethnic, lingual, religious, property, social features of children and adolescents;

- lack of systematic work on organizing rest and leisure of children and adolescents with disabilities or special needs;

- inequality between rural and urban in children and adolescents in obtaining services in the sphere of culture.

Materials and methods

The participants of this federal project were children of equal social status – schoolchildren from the liberated territories, but among them we also distinguish categories of children with disabilities, children from single-parent families under guardianship, from families in difficult life situations. Undoubtedly, working with these categories of students is complicated by the presence of various physical, psychological, and social problems. At the same time, the emotional experiences of children living in frontline and liberated territories act as a kind of indicator of the responsibility of shift organizers for the psychological well-being and safety of students. It is important to emphasize that in the process of recruiting a contingent of students from the liberated territories, the principle of voluntariness was taken as a basis, allowing teenagers and their families to independently determine the mechanism for meeting security needs. As M. V. Pogodaeva notes: "The needs that determine the security of a person and his safe interaction with the outside world are represented by the need for physical security; the need for psychological security; cognitive needs; the need for information; the need for activity; aesthetic needs aimed at aesthetic perception of nature" ^{[6, p. 229]}.

Considering these circumstances, it is possible to formulate the basic principles underlying the organization of profile shifts for schoolchildren from the liberated territories:

Principle of cultural congruence. This principle, substantiated in pedagogy by A. Diesterweg as early as in the 19th century as a separate and most important postulate of personality development, implies taking into account of the ethno-cultural and historical features of the society in which a child is developing. A personality, as a carrier of sociocultural values, cannot be abstract; it is formed and developed in a certain society, a certain ethno-cultural field and for certain sociocultural needs. N. A. Berdyaev very accurately expressed this axiom: “A person joins the humanity through national individuality, as a national person, not an abstract person, as a Russian, French, German or Englishman. A person cannot leap over a whole step of beingness, otherwise they would have been impoverished and emptied. Culture has never been and will never be abstract-human, it is always specific-human, i.e. national, individual-people’s, and only in such quality ascending to a general human one” ^{[1, pp. 95–96]}.

Principle of social adequacy. It implies correlation between the content and means of education and the social situation and requirements of the society, on the one hand, and real needs and capabilities of adolescents, on the other ^[4].

Principle of creating an educational environment. It implies forming an organizational and psychological integrity of the educational environment (intellectual, will and emotional; behavioral, event-oriented, informational-cultural and object-spatial environment). This is, first of all, about the educational environment, which is created through pedagogical means and is capable of producing educational influence on individual and collective subjects being system-forming elements of the said environment ^{[7, p. 15]}.

Principle of value orientation. It implies conscious appropriation by an individual of socially approved patterns of behavior based on the formed need in doing good for others. The main function of values and value orientations is a regulative function, namely, regulation of a person’s behavior under certain social conditions.

Principle of motivational provision of informational-educational activity. It implies a set of consequential motivational states, during which the external motivational factors are interiorized into internal attitudes and values of an adolescent’s personality.

Principle of reflection. It consists in conscious necessity for a personality to analyze and assess their activity at all stages from goal setting to activity correction. It is essential to consider all kinds of reflections (situational, retrospective and prospective) as they are inseparably connected in the process of a personality formation as a citizen.

The educational space of the session was organized in university premises (technopark of universal pedagogical competences), as well as on historical, cultural, sports and leisure sites of the city. The “University Sessions” program implied inclusion of the adolescents from the liberated territories into the ethno-cultural field of the Russian society at cognitive, emotional-value and conative levels. That predetermined the organization of events along four main directions: educational, cultural-historical, sportive, and leisure.

To explore the degree of satisfaction with the program organization and implementation, after each session the adolescents were asked to answer the questionnaire about their motivational-value expectations and satisfaction with the educational events. The population was 109 people, the sampling population – 102 people, of which 49 were males and 53 females. At confidence probability of 95%, the sampling error is 2.47%. The main method used in the research was polling. The study included adolescents from LPR – 80 people and DPR – 22 people, aged 12 to 17 y.o. The average age of the respondents was 14.74 y.o. The gender and age distribution of the respondents is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Gender and age distribution of students

The Table shows relative sample homogeneity by gender. At the level of statistical significance p=0.05, Mann-Whitney U-criterion is equal to 18, which is larger than critical value; hence, we accept H0 – no statistical significance between the levels of the feature in two gender samples.

The sampling population can be conditionally divided into two groups by age: the first group includes children aged 12 to 14 y.o. – 34 people (33%); the second group includes adolescents aged 15 to 17 y.o. – 68 people (67%).

Results

Any opportunity to visit new places should arouse interest in a person, make them study about their future place of staying. However, only 57% of the respondents had gathered, to a more or less extent, additional information about Yaroslavl, while 34% learned nothing about the city they were going to visit. At that, the largest interest in the future trip was manifested by girls – 53% of the total number of those who answered this question positively.

Undoubtedly, staying in another city was short-term and mainly reflected on the emotional state of the children. This is testified by the assessment of emotional-sensual condition of the children before the trip. For example, 78% of children said they felt emotional elevation and interest when they learnt about the trip to Yaroslavl; 55% of them were females.

The period of staying in another city, the remoteness of one’s homeland, and the age of the respondents play a significant role in cognitive activity of young people, as was shown by the authors. For example, a research of 2017 among foreign education migrants (a sample of 102 people, average age of the respondents – 23.8 y.o.) showed that 84% of them had gathered information about Russia, the city and the educational establishment where they were going to study ^{[2, p. 126]}.

Satisfaction with an activity or an event is determined by the degree of coincidence between expectations and the result. Before assessing satisfaction with the “University Sessions”, one should define the children’s expectations of the future trip. The answers to the question “What did you expect of the trip to Yaroslavl?” were distributed as follows: 30% – to get acquainted with new interesting people, 24% – to spend good time with their friends, 21% – to get new knowledge about the history of the Yaroslavl land, 17% – to visit historical and cultural places. Thus, over half of the adolescents said their main expectation was to satisfy the emotional-communicative component of needs, which corresponds to the age-related needs of the sample under study. At that, only 4 people of 14 and 16 years old (1% of all respondents) answered that they expected nothing of the trip.

The efficiency of the events organized within the “University Sessions” can be assessed only by the answers of the children involved into the event-oriented space of the program. The question “To what extent was your stay in Yaroslavl within the “University Sessions” equal to your expectations?” was answered with marks “4” and “5” by the majority of respondents (85%), which indicates a high degree of the implementation of expectations. This, in turn, allows making a conclusion of the effective performance of pedagogues who developed and carried out the events of each “University Session”. At that, not a single child spoke about a complete non-coincidence between their expectations and the stay in Yaroslavl. Just 5% of the respondents gave a low mark (2) to the degree of their expectations’ meeting. Among those whose expectations were unsatisfied, the majority were girls of 14-15 y.o.

The events of the “University Sessions” were aimed, first of all, at forming knowledge about the history and culture of Russia. Hence, they were full of various excursions and meetings, sport events at hockey and volleyball grounds with master classes of world-class athletes, and the leisure hours were full of entertainment quizzes, music shows, etc. Most of all, the children liked evening leisure-time events (26%) and sport competitions (25%). Other events in the descending order of attractiveness were: visiting faculties of Yaroslavl State Pedagogical University named after K. D. Ushinskiy – 19%, visiting historical places – 16%, attending exhibitions and a theater – 13%. Just less than 1% of the children said they did not like anything.

Such distribution of event preferences among adolescents correlates quite well with the age of the children who came to the session. However, in the first age group (12-14 y.o.), the adolescents of 12-13 y.o. preferred historical and educational events, while the 14 y.o. adolescents – entertainment events. In the authors’ opinion, such different attitude is a result of social-psychological features of different age groups, their cognitive and entertainment models of behavior and communication. In the second age group (15-17 y.o.), the answers reflect common preference of sport and leisure.

In the end of the poll, the children were asked to assess their impression of the “University Session” and their stay in Yaroslavl. Most of the children (75%) gave an excellent mark, 23% – good, and just 2% – satisfactory. At that, there were no negative marks, even among those few children who initially expected nothing from the trip or gave a very low assessment of implementation of their expectations. One may say that such high marks testify to the efficiency of the activities implemented, which promoted both the children’s intellectual development and emotional discharge.

Thus, the “University Sessions” were based on event-oriented approach to education, which implies “value-meaning interaction of adults and children, which is only possible in the sphere of their common beingness (co-being), while the result will be the emerging common value-meaning space directing the personality self-determination and development of the participants” ^{[10, p. 187]}.

Discussion

Summing up the results of polling of the adolescents from DPR and LPR after the “University Sessions”, we can make a number of theoretical and practical conclusions.

First, the “University Sessions”, as an educational project, were aimed not only at forming cognitions in adolescents about the Russian history and culture, but also at forming positive emotional perception of the world, transferring the accents of the child’s psyche from anxiety about the uncertainty and fear for their and their relatives’ life towards emotional welfare and zest for living. Such event-oriented accentuation was due to the initially accepted idea of providing secure childhood for the adolescents from the liberated territories.

Second, the vast geography of the Russian universities taking part in the “University Sessions” program allows speaking of not only its scale and the number of children participating, but also of forming in the mind of the adolescents from the liberated territories of the life projects and professional plans in terms of educational mobility. Demonstration of the opportunities of the Russian pedagogical universities comprised tens of thousands of potential students within career guidance work. Undoubtedly, the children who visited Yaroslavl became interested in the possibility to study at pedagogical universities, and more than that.

Third, organization of specialized sessions for schoolchildren from the liberated territories was not spontaneous but systemic, based on a number of organizational-pedagogic principles: of cultural congruence, social adequacy and orientation, reflection, educational environment and motivational provision. The pedagogues and counselors who participated in the session implementation, guided by the above principles and relying on positive pedagogical experience, managed to auspicate the formation of adequate and positive historical and cultural knowledge about Russia, positive perception of the world around, and relevant motives of behavior in Donbass children. This is also proved by the high assessment of the degree of satisfaction with the stay in Yaroslavl.

Fourth, when organizing “University Sessions” in the future, it should be taken into account that the educational system of the liberated territories starts transition to the Russian educational standards of all levels. The school curricula will also fully reflect the issues of education by Russian cultural and historical examples. Hence, the activities should not form the relevant knowledge but develop, specify it based on the regional component. In that case, it is possible to involve schoolchildren into project activity, including socially oriented one, and to establish links not at the level of educational institutions but at the level of students through programs consolidating the children’s community.

Fifth, the presence of various age groups among schoolchildren males it necessary to account for their needs depending on the age, among other things. This by no means implies division into groups by age involved into different activities, but, on the contrary, uniting children of various ages through their accomplishing tasks according to their capabilities within a single project field on the basis of role allocation of responsibilities.

Conclusion

In general, it is worth emphasizing that the implementation of the “University Sessions” project gave the opportunity to take a new glance at the capabilities of pedagogical universities in applying the available positive experience of organizing a common historical-cultural and event-oriented environment for the children of our country. The main focus of these capabilities is to implement the child’s right to safe and socially well-to-do childhood, as V. I. Slobodchikov accurately noted: "In order to provide a child with a healthy and spiritually fulfilling life, an adult is needed. Because adults without children are meaningless creatures, and children without adults cannot exist by definition" ^{[8, p. 101]}.

Acknowledgements and funding. Theresearch has been carried out within the frameworks of a state order of the Ministry of Enlightenment of the Russian Federation on “Mechanisms of assessment and support of the process of providing social and psychological security of adolescents in an educational establishment” (073-00109-22-02).