Abilities in the educational process
In general-psychological terms, abilities are a combination of naturally and socially determined individual and relatively stable mental abilities or properties that distinguish one person from another, provide him with conditions for success and high quantitative and qualitative achievements in one or several activities, reveal differences in dynamics of mastering the knowledge, skills and habits necessary for the job. They are not reduced to a system of knowledge, skills and habits, therefore they explain the ease and speed of their assimilation and develop and improve themselves in the process of acquiring and enriching personal experience. The problem of the development of abilities in the educational process will always be relevant, because there will always be such teachers who do not understand this problem, and there will also be those who, with their greater experience and foresight, have developed their own method and strategy for the guided of them learning process. But parents also play a very important role, namely to encourage and support their children in their creative endeavors.
Abilities have some common characteristics: almost all conceptions of this matter recognize their "innateness"; training and education as main or parallel factors play a major role in their development; abilities change as a result of their self-development.
In psychology, several basic criteria are distinguished by which we define personality properties as abilities. First of all, these are the individual-psychological features that distinguish children from each other. Capabilities are not reduced to knowledge, skills and habits, because the latter can be the result of learning. At the same time, between abilities on the one hand and knowledge, skills and habits on the other, there is an interdependent relationship that is also mutually transitive. Abilities are related to the performance of the learning activity in particular and related to the performance of activities in general. The productivity and efficiency of the activity are also criteria for abilities. Abilities do not function as independent mental entities. They are the result of the whole mental system of the person. The degree of mental potential that the individual includes in some activity is determined by motivation, by how much this activity has some personal meaning.
Abilities - innate or formed
There are conflicting opinions regarding whether abilities are innate or formed during the life development of the personality. Take, for example, a musician. According to one theory, he must be born, and according to the other, talent is 1%, and labor is 99%. My opinion is that both theories are valid.
First of all, one must be born a musician (or artist or singer, etc.). Because "if you don't have it in you", as the old people say, no matter how hard he puts in, the child will reach an average, mediocre level in the given field. On the other hand, however, even if one is born with talent, if one does not develop it and does not work, not only will one not achieve perfection, but the gift may stunt and disappear. Early discovery of a child's talent and gift also plays a big role in a high level of achievement and development.
Here, the family and especially the parents play a primary role. Their main task and priority is to look into their children, to understand and understand their essence (unfortunately, in recent decades, it is the exact opposite - caring for the child is reduced only to ensuring that it is well fed and clothed, that it is satisfied to the maximum material needs).
A student's abilities arise under the influence of a variety of external and internal factors. Of the three types of programs for the inheritance of marks - cosmic, genetic and social, so far in science the subject of research has been exclusively the last two. A few words can be said about the space. According to V. Kaznacheev, evolution is not just a protein-nucleic sequence. In all probability, there is a regularity in nature, by virtue of which the general human, cosmic intelligence in the form of a hologram (a functional field in which all the fields of the multibillion-dollar organization of the brain are united) is preserved without significant intervention. E.S. Vinogradov also points out that physical factors of the space environment significantly influence human intelligence. According to him, the frequency of solar activity has a big impact. He notes that the birth rate of gifted children is greatest during the years of moderate solar activity.
In contrast to cosmic inheritance, which is remote, biological inheritance is earthly, contact and implies direct transmission of material marks from ancestors, descendants, incl. and in a generation. Children can inherit traits of their grandparents through material carriers of heredity. According to K. Lovell, a parent can possess and pass on to his children genes that influence character traits that he himself does not exhibit. Anatomical-physiological features of the nervous-cerebral apparatus, the analytical systems, the basic processes of excitation and retention are exclusively biologically conditioned.
According to the law of regression to the mean, in a very small number of cases the offspring of a gifted person are as gifted as the parents, and almost as rarely are they completely ungifted. Each premise is ambiguous, i.e. on its basis, different abilities can be formed depending on the way of life and activity of the individual. But the latter may not be formed if the subject does not practice in the relevant field of activity. Endowments (genes) without the acquisition of socio-historical experience resemble a computer that has not been programmed. If the brain is not exercised, it scleroses, claims A. Jacques.
Gifted children are found in every school. They stand out from their peers due to their very high level of abilities in a certain field of activity - artistic-creative, technical, scientific-cognitive, sports, etc. In Pedagogical practice, they are often not paid attention to and their interests remain generally unsatisfied, their opportunities - insufficiently used, their further development - poorly stimulated or not stimulated at all. And it is known that the loss of unrealized abilities is a loss of the most valuable human capital and the greatest loss for society and the individual. A primary pedagogical task in school is to organize and guide the educational process so that, in addition to acquiring knowledge, skills, habits, useful habits are formed, creative abilities and positive character qualities are developed. An important aspect in the performance of this task is the systematic work and daily exercise of the abilities that, without training, not only weaken, but can even disappear altogether. Their development, practically unlimited by any limit or ceiling, is one of the main criteria for assessing the quality of the educational process. But working with gifted children is made difficult by the fact that such children and adolescents have some negative character traits: increased self-esteem, self-love, individualism, disdain for established standards and stereotypes, moral and social norms of life. Naturally, in the activity and behavior, above all, positive qualities are manifested - curiosity, the desire to fill all free time with reading or a favorite activity - music, literature, technology, drawing, etc., marked diligence in a preferred activity, combined with a high quality of performing tasks that require sustained willpower.
Among social factors, pedagogical factors are of primary importance. Human abilities are formed and developed in and through the activity - reproductive and productive. Abilities are formed not only in the process of assimilation of products created by man in his historical development, but also in the process of their creation (S.L. Rubenstein). There is undoubtedly a correlation between creative abilities and school success, but it is not linear in nature. With teachers with high creative abilities, gifted students achieve brilliant results, and those with weaker creative abilities - lower. If the teacher has a more limited creative potential, the gifted students do not realize their potential, while the success of the less talented ones turns out to be higher. The development of students' abilities depends on the teacher's personality and, above all, on the way of organizing and directing their activities.
Helping children develop - the seven lessons
Teachers, researchers, and parents alike spend a lot of time and resources deciding how to teach children to help them develop their abilities. In Wendy M. Williams and Robert J. Sternberg's article: SEVEN LESSONS FOR HELPING CHILDREN DEVELOP THEIR ABILITIES, the authors share seven lessons they believe are essential for anyone involved in teaching or educational research. These lessons were developed on the basis of research on the development of mental abilities in children and adults, and also on observations of children and teachers during the work on the project on the practical type of intelligence for school.
LESSON 1 - Teach children that the main limit to what they can do is what they tell themselves they can't do.
What not to do: Telling children that they don't have the ability to do certain things, or that they don't have the personality to do other things, or that they don't have the motivation to finish what they start.
What can you do: to tell children that they have the ability to meet pretty well any challenge that life might throw at them. What they must decide is how hard they are willing to work to meet these challenges.
LESSON 2 - Remember that it is much more important for children to learn what questions to ask than to learn what the answers to the questions are.
What not to do: Encourage children to see the teacher as the person who should ask questions and the child as the person who should answer those questions. To maintain the belief that the teacher's role is to teach children facts.
What can you do: Realize and make children realize that it is not the facts that children know that is important, but their ability to use those facts. Help children learn not only how to answer questions, but also how to ask them and how to formulate appropriate questions.
LESSON 3 - Help children discover what they are really interested in, remembering that it may not be interesting to you, or it may not be what you want them to be interested in.
What not to do: Working with kids to discover things you've always hoped they'd enjoy doing.
What can you do: You work with children to find things that they really enjoy doing.
LESSON 4 - Encourage children to take reasonable intellectual risks.
What not to do: Always encourage children to act cautiously, not to take risks in choosing courses, in various activities, with teachers, in intellectual challenges.
What can you do: Teach children to take intellectual risks sometimes and develop a sense of when to take risks and when not to.
LESSON 5 - Teach children to take responsibility for themselves and their successes and failures.
What not to do: Always looking for—or allowing children to look for—an external enemy to blame for children's failures (teachers,
the other students, the illness, etc.) always push the children because they cannot push themselves.
What can you do: Teach children to take responsibility for themselves. Help children build their own internal motivators so you don't have to push them, give them the opportunity to push themselves. It sounds a bit corny to say that children should be taught to take responsibility for themselves, of course everyone knows that. But sometimes there is a gap between what we know and how we turn thought into action. In practice, people vary widely in the extent to which they take responsibility for the causes and consequences of their actions.
LESSON 6 - Teach children how to delay gratification so they can wait for rewards.
What not to do: Always reward children immediately. Allowing children to expect immediate rewards, to get what they want right away. To emphasize the here and now at the expense of the longer term.
What can you do: Teach them that the bigger rewards are often the ones that come later. Give them examples from your life and tell them how those examples might apply to them. Focus on the longer term, not just the here and now.
LESSON 7 – Teach children to put themselves in each other's shoes.
What not to do: To teach children to form their own view, but not to try to understand the views of others.
What can you do: Teach children that it is important to understand, respect and respond to the views of others.
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Children's abilities are built brick by brick from and in the experience accumulated by the person. They stand on four foundations: aptitude, willingness to overcome difficulties, self-control and level of intellectual and creative powers. Education and upbringing are the driving force of mental development and the development of the child's abilities, influencing the formation of the personality.
© 2023 Iliana Dechkova