The article reconstructs one of the discussion lines concerning A.N. Leontiev’s work “Essay on the Development of the Psyche” (1948), basing on the unpublished material from the archives of the Russian Academy of Education. It deals with the methodology of school teaching and education, which is still topical. The author demonstrates how the representatives of the activity-oriented psychology and pedagogy (Leontiev and his scientific school, and Ilyenkov sometime later) opposed the dominating “educational-translational” paradigm of education by refuting key statements of the latter in theoretical and empirical planes. This paradigm stated that 1) knowledge (meanings) produces values and hence educates; 2) the main thing is to form the right worldview (system of knowledge), rather than the culture of thinking. The conclusion is made that, unlike the mentioned paradigm, called later “pedagogy of necessity”, A.N. Leontiev’s and E.V. Ilyenkov’s “pedagogy of freedom” is aimed at forming a personality in the narrowest and most exact sense of this word, not a social individual who uncritically and often very formally assimilates a limited range of meanings (knowledge), which can lead to disintegration of his mind when confronted with real life and the meanings it generates. In conclusion, some principles of “pedagogy of freedom” implementation in the upbringing and education of students at the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University in the early years of its existence are exemplified.
The article reconstructs one of the discussion lines concerning A.N. Leontiev’s work “Essay on the Development of the Psyche” (1948), basing on the unpublished material from the archives of the Russian Academy of Education. It deals with the methodology of school teaching and education, which is still topical. The author demonstrates how the representatives of the activity-oriented psychology and pedagogy (Leontiev and his scientific school, and Ilyenkov sometime later) opposed the dominating “educational-translational” paradigm of education by refuting key statements of the latter in theoretical and empirical planes. This paradigm stated that 1) knowledge (meanings) produces values and hence educates; 2) the main thing is to form the right worldview (system of knowledge), rather than the culture of thinking. The conclusion is made that, unlike the mentioned paradigm, called later “pedagogy of necessity”, A.N. Leontiev’s and E.V. Ilyenkov’s “pedagogy of freedom” is aimed at forming a personality in the narrowest and most exact sense of this word, not a social individual who uncritically and often very formally assimilates a limited range of meanings (knowledge), which can lead to disintegration of his mind when confronted with real life and the meanings it generates. In conclusion, some principles of “pedagogy of freedom” implementation in the upbringing and education of students at the Faculty of Psychology of Moscow State University in the early years of its existence are exemplified.
This work was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, grant number 20-18-00028 “Cultural-historical psychology in the archives of its creators”.