Образ человека будущего, Том 7 (СИ)

To sum up the ethical part, calling itself has a transpersonal benefit as its aim. Therefore, the external to individualistic point of view on calling is possible and necessary. That is why there is a room for an ethical reflection about calling,

5. Calling in the practice of teaching

Teaching as a calling

Teaching is not entirely a dynastic profession. Although every 2 of 3 students in our target survey who said that they feel a calling for teaching were from pedagogic families, at least 1 of 3 came from the other surrounding. Teaching is not a destiny. It is a calling. Why calling is so important for teaching? Because on teacher"s work depends the future generations of people. Teacher is involved in a twofold process of "1) education as a purposeful cognitional activity of gaining knowledge, abilities, and skills and their improvement, 2) upbringing as a purposeful methodical forming of proper features of a person..." [Beregova, 2016: 36] The result is a social maturity, responsibility, creativity of young people. For the development of the personality of pupils a kind of caring is expected from teachers. It is impossible without an internal motivation of calling.

Calling requires self-development from a teacher and makes him or her able to develop youth, otherwise a teacher is a cause of degradation and lost interest of pupils to study. As for every other profession, for teaching is true what our interviewee-students stated. For example, Jane said: "The work in calling is creating and the work without calling is ruining of oneself and others." Mary reasoned: "By calling one brings harmony. One acts with love." John noted that, "working by calling one gets moral satisfaction, joy and gives the same to the others."

Calling is responding. A called person is responsible for the profession and for the others who involved in it, teacher is responsible for pupils. Let us get again to our students" opinions. Daria: "If I become a good teacher, it means that I will realize my calling and I will have a responsibility for my profession and for the children." Faina said: "We do not need even to say "calling" when we mean responsibility, ability to do something really good and to overcome difficulties. That is just a human life." Is it enough to be just a responsible professional without a calling for teaching? Not at all! Our interviewees would not agree that calling is no use at schools.

Do we have to demand any evidences of calling from teachers? Formally, we do not need such a requirement. Fortunately, there is a kind of natural selection at schools: not so many teachers can stand the difficulties of the profession without a calling. Those who see that they are not happy with that job usually quit teaching after the first years of practice. It is a common response from teachers we interviewed: teaching without a calling cannot be an attracting

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The Experience of Calling: Educational Aspects and Cross-Cultural Comparisons by Yevhen Muliarchuk

profession. One of our students, Tanya, says expressively: "Work with children is a nightmare without a calling." For those lazy and passive people who would have stayed in teaching job the assessment procedures would be a peril. Actually, they never have good results at their work. Teaching, when it is really successful, is not only a profession. It involves all the person-ality of an educator. Just having skills is not enough. "One can get all the certificates, pass all the exams, but his or her lessons are unbearable", student Andrew says from his school expe-rience. Why? Because there has to be something more than formal responsibilities in teaching, something personal and even transcendental what we try to catch in the word "calling".

Calling cannot be measured and certified. It is even unethical to require proofs of calling from candidate for a job, because calling is free and because the person who enters the profes-sion should have a credit of time and chance to try it. To add more, at the low level of salaries at schools we mostly have teachers by calling, because they survive the difficulties. We would say nothing about the minority of those who do not do their work honestly. However, when we try on calling every beginning teacher we will never have a sufficient amount of teachers at schools.