training creative teachers in the union of soviet socialist republics

V. A. Slastenin

Training creat ive teachers in the Union of Sov ie t Social ist Republics

Educational activity is creative by its very nature. In attempting to solve the countless recurring and new educational problems that arise, a teacher, like any research worker, arranges his activity in accordance with the general rules of heuristic investigation: in other words, he analyses the educational situation, planning the result he hopes for by comparison with the initial data, analyses the available resources for checking his initial hypothesis and achieving the desired resuk, works out the actual process to be used in teaching and puts it into effect, evaluates the data obtained and defines what must be the next stage. The gnostic aspect of a teacher's educational activity has been in- vestigated by N. V. Kuzima, V. P. Chubukov, A. I. Shcherbakov, and other research workers. Work in the fields of logic, heuristics and psychology (V. F. Asmus, A. Y. Ponomarev, V. N. Pushkin, B. M. Teplov and others) has contributed to an understanding of the essence of a teacher's scientific and creative abilities. Foreign research workers, too, are giving this problem serious attention. The criteria for scientific creativity proposed by the Institute for the Study and Evaluation of the Personality (University of California) are of particular interest, these criteria being a willingness to

experiment the desire to accumulate all new experience, aesthetic impressionability, flexi- bility and independence of thought and action, great creative energy, the ability to concentrate one's creative efforts and the desire to solve increasingly difficult problems. 1

Our occupational study of a teacher's work in terms of job descriptions leads us to the conclusion that effective educational activity, for which we are training our students, is possible only if a person has the following qualities, abilities and skills: a desire to know, an active in- tellect and a readiness to learn on his own; a knowledge of generally applicable working methods derived from the analysis of past experience; the ability to reach conclusions by deduction, induction and analogy and to deter- mine the sequence of operations and actions in practice, construct and verify a hypothesis and prepare a programme of observation, trial and experiment; and the ability to establish the principal links and relationships between objects and phenomena, process and systematize the data obtained, think out and formulate conclusions, take independent, scientifically based decisions, and express his thoughts clearly, accurately and concisely. Modern educational thinking is acknowledging the deductive approach to

11. A. Slastenin. Ministry of Education of the R.S.F.S.R.

I, cs A. Matveiko, Uslovija Tvorceskogo Truda (The Conditions for Creative Work), p. I4-r 5, Moscow, z97 o-

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education, which is rightly seen as a necessary ingredient in the students' acquisition and use of the methods of obtaining scientific knowledge. Analysing the educational process from this standpoint, W. Ok6n notes that there are many points where it touches on the process of research. Finding independent solutions to problem tasks contributes to the development of creative capabilities. ~Solving problems of this kind' he writes, qeads to scientific discoveries, inventions, artistic production and new views on social life':

It may be taken as an established fact that the education and the scientific creativity of university students converge not only with regard to the mechanics of the process but also as regards the intangible aims and results. Like the acquisition of scientific knowledge, higher education is a multi-level process. At the first level one learns about the surrounding world, about other people and oneself under the guidance of teachers, while at the second level, one masters the system of knowledge through independent activity. The learning process in higher education is a fairly complex system which means that everything new leading to structural, functional and qualitative changes, must also be made to fit into it. The appearance ofnewmeans, forms and methods of education is a perfectly normal phenomenon. One must, nevertheless, show a certain circumspection and caution in this regard. The improvement of higher teacher training and changes in the strategy and tactics of education must be based on a positive analysis of past and present experience. No innovations can be made in the way education is organized until one is quite certain that the quality of training purveyed will not suffer in any way.

Over the centuries, university education took on a dogmatic character. As a rule, the end product of such education was formal knowledge. At the same time, however, an explanatory type of instruction also developed, the ad- vantage of which is that not only the student's memory develops but also his capacity to observe

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and reflect. Explanatory teaching pays consider- able attention to the application of knowledge, and makes wide use of exercises and practical work. Among all the exercises, however, working to instructions, or according to a ready- made model, predominates. Explanatory teaching is widespread in modem higher education and has many unquestionable advantages. It nevertheless puts all the emphasis on reproductive thinking and does not contribute to the development of creative (productive) thinking in students. One should not, of course, oppose reproductive to creative thinking. On the other hand, if there were nothing but explanatory teaching to be found in the university, we should produce specialists of a contemplative kind. These would be teachers able to assimilate knowledge and reproduce the truths of science, but failing in situations which require independent thought and unable by themselves to acquire knowledge and tackle the job of education cre- atively. Teachers like this need models showing how to tackle this or that educational situation correctly, and are happiest if they are given notes showing the methods to be used for every lesson and even for work out of school.

A system of education which lays stress not on the communication of knowledge as information but on the organization of ways for its independent acquisition is currently springing up to take the place of dogmatic and explanatory university teaching. The student does not receive information in a ready-made form but, with the teacher as a guide, has to find it out for himself. The most recent research (S. I. Arkhangelsky, V. P. Bespalko, I. Y. Lemer, M. N. Skatkin) has established the principal levels of instruction which, like a kind of ready-reckoner, can be used for deter- mining the state of the educational process in higher education: (a) the level of identification,

I. 'Osnovy Problemnogo Obucenija' [The Fundamen- tals of Problem-Oriented Education], Prosvescenir (Moscow), I968, p. 42.

Training creative teachers in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

the characteristic of which is that the student only distinguishes and identifies the objects of study from a number of other similar objects, and works with representation; (b) the level of reproduction, where the student works with concepts; (c) the level of the generalization of signs, representations and concepts (the ability to apply in practice the knowledge which has been acquired; and to obtain new information using the kind of activity which has been mas- tered); (d) the level of transformation and the free use of abstract concepts and abstract scientific symbolism making it possible to arrive at new situations and develop a new programme of activities which differs in principle from pre- vious ones.

This classification by the levels rests on a certain sequence in the process of instruction and the acquisition of knowledge, and implies the possibility of evaluating the results and the quality of teaching. It also provides a basis for correcting and diagnosing the students' knowledge, abilities and skills.

The problem of the relationship between knowledge and thinking in the educational process is being fairly widely debated at the present time. In the heat of the argument, some authorities are maintaining that all the contradictions of present-day education will be resolved if efforts are concentrated on developing the mental faculties of young people. There is a tendency to believe

that in order to find one's way through the infor- marion maze one does not need a store of hard facts. At the philosophical level, a view of this kind has its roots in relativism, which is incompatible with dialec- tical materialism. From the practical, educational standpoint, it leads to an extremely negligent attitude towards skills and to the acquisition of basic scientific knowledge without which there is not, and cannot be, any science, any industry or any ability to assimilate the flow of information. 1

Knowledge is not only the end-product of cognition but is the means of and way to cognition.

Any result of cognitive activity (concepts, theories, ideas) contains knowledge and a mode of activity. These are various facets of the single process of cognition, but in this process, the leading role falls to knowledge.

What, then as far as education is concerned, are the psychological factors most conducive to the development of creative, heuristic thinking? In its most general form, the answer to this question assumes the following sequence: The students do not learn separate, uncoor-

dinated knowledge but a system of knowledge which, so far as possible, reflects the structure of modern science.

The systems learnt by the student are in a state of perpetual motion, being linked with other systems and constantly reshaped in the light of what is actually involved in acquiring knowledge and the specific circumstances in which it is applied. At the same time, it is not simple transition from one system to another which takes place but a wide generalization of the system of knowledge formed, the establishment of new systems, a broad transfer of knowledge acquired to the most varied circumstances of life.

The students assimilate not only knowledge but ways of using it and also methods which assist in acquiring it.

The curricula of higher teacher training colleges are full to the brim with purely informative material. This is because neither in theory nor in practice has a scientifically based 'signal-to- noise' ratio been laid down. At the same time, the principles and ideas of cardinal importance in science are relatively stable. To master a given law or theory, there is no need to over- burden the student's memory with a large number of facts. This is something which mili- tates in favour of more stress being laid in university education on the role and importance

I. A. I. Danilov,'Vosnove---Leninskie Principy' [Leninist Principles are the Foundation], Udtel'skaja gazeta, 22 ~a_vlu~y I97o.

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of theoretical generalizations. Only by mastering what is general and normal is it possible to arrive at an understanding of the infinite richness of what is isolated. Theoretical generalizations help in finding principles for solving not only the problems on the basis of which the generalizations were made, but also all other problems relating to the field in question and encountered in practice.

It is not enough, however, to define the content and structure of knowledge. A no less important task is the finding of adequate methods of assimilating it. Knowledge is frequently transmitted in a ready-made form and independent analysis is needed to acquire it. Apart from dearly and unambiguously formu- lating the structure and content of the main themes of the course and the scientific concepts employed in it, it is necessary to ensure that the teaching is structured in such a way that it will lead to the assimilation of large sections of the framework of science and not facts for facts' sake. Only instruction of this kind develops generalized methods in the students, those basic informational components in regard to a sub- ject which, according to the definition of I. F. Talizina, result from identification of the invariant elements in a system of signs. One of the conditions for improving the theoretical level of teaching is to leave a measure of incomplete- ness in the information supplied about the problem under discussion. The axiomatic nature and completeness of information provided in education is art obstacle to the students' independent, creative search necessary for scientific understanding. Elements of difficulty in a lecture stimulate those listening to it and dispose the students not only to assimilate the material but also to think their own thoughts, make their own guesses, hypotheses and deductions and come to their own conclusions. This process works especially well if, during his lecture, the lecturer does not make fiat statements but dis- cusses, muses, weighs up the problem and at times seems to argue with himself, acquainting

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the students with a variety of sometimes op- posing points of view and not being in a hurry to give them his own opinion.

Observations and surveys conducted by V. E. Tamarin (in Barnaul) and D. S. Yakovleva (in Vladimir) showed that a significant pro- portion of the students displayed an abiding interest in the applied material of the education course. A practical scientific problem thus arose which was how to find ways of re-stimulating the students' purely cognitive interest and of developing in them a leaning towards theoretical knowledge. The research undertaken gives fairly reliable grounds for thinking that the following methods of training student teachers in theoretical cognitive activity have proved their worth: bringing into the open and subjectingto all-round criticism pre-scientific ideas that have taken shape in the students' minds in the process of ordinary learning at school and in their everyday life; putting questions and problems to the students, the process of solving which reveals the limitations and at times even the complete unsoundness of ordinary knowledge about educational phenomena; the students' encounter with different points of view on various educational problems (in situations of this kind, the students' attempt to find at least some scientific grounds for rallying to one or other view frequently leads him to acknowledge that his theoretical knowledge is inadequate); demon- strating to the students that a critical analysis of bourgeois concepts, which are scientifically groundless and reactionary with respect to their class nature, is possible only on the basis of an all-round mastery of educational theory; the consequent clarification of the role of science in improving school work and in revealing the nature of educational facts and their prediction; systematic attention to the requirements of educational logic as a means of analysing and mod- elling the instructional and educational process; including in the curriculum of practical work, seminars, tests and examinations a variety of educational problems involving identification,


refutation and proof or discovery of the laws and relations of cause and effect, such as will encourage the student to engage in theoretical reflection on the problem in question; and ex- tending (within reasonable limits) the range of compulsory reading for the students, mainly publications on the methodological and theoretical problems of the science of education.

In a decision taken by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers concerning measures for the further improvement of higher education in the country (z972), the need was stressed for the systematic renewal of all subjects on the curriculum, the active introduction of new, progressive methods of educating the students using technical means, and the development, in all possible ways, of methods for the creative acquisition of knowledge. In supervising the complex social process which is the moulding of a human personality in society, the genuinely creative teacher is called upon to solve a countless number of educational questions and problems. In preparing themselves for their lessons and giving them, in drawing up and carrying out plans for educational activities and in coming into daily contact with their pupils and exercising an educational influence on them, teachers at literally every step of their practical work, bring to light and solve a variety of problems in regard to the func- tioning of their community. A teacher must be trained to deal with problems of this kind while he is still at college. The task consists in naming the problem, defining it in accurate and unam- biguous terms and pointing out possible theoretical solutions, and among these the chief and most appropriate one. The initial definition of a problem may be what a person does not know and what has to be discovered.

Nevertheless, not everything which is unknown to us constitutes a scientific problem, this being not simply a matter of acquiring knowledge but our awareness that we do not know. The posing of a problem of necessity includes knowledge of how it can be solved. 1

In the course of their professional training student teachers must be given adequate instruction and practice in analysing various educational situations and solving educational tasks and problems in a scientifically correct manner. This will assist them in finding scientifically valid ways of directing the educational process and selecting the correct methods and ap- proaches for exercising educational influence in order to attain the aims laid down. Teacher training institutes are starting to make much wider use of active ways of analysing problematical educational situations. Students learn how to apply methods for the empirical and creative acquisition of knowledge in order to penetrate to the heart of educational phenomena and at seminars and practical sessions they begin to tackle a variety of educational problems and exercises which stimulate the development of their professional thinking as future teachers. They are thus given the opportunity to develop their ability to analyse educational facts and compare and classify them, and on the basis of these operations to make appropriate deductions and constructive generalizations. In the early stages of teacher training, it is particularly important to teach students to construct a mental image of this or that educational phenomenon and to be able to find an answer to situations from the point of view of this or that pupil or teacher. It is also necessary to show the future teacher how to create favourable conditions under which the educational process can take place most efficiently and its specified objective be achieved. In order to transcend the purely intuitive method of solving educational problems and to give this activity a creative, investigative character, it is necessary to elaborate an organon which would help students and teachers in analysing educational situations and working out the most appropriate procedure to follow. Work on developing such an organon is being

I. P. V. Kopnin, Filosofskie idei V. L Lenina [Lenin's Philosophical Notions], p. 299, Moscow, 'Nauka', z969.

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conducted. We hope that its use will provide a certain degree of guidance for the analysis of problematical educational situations and help to ensure that educational problems are kept under constant review, as well as facilitating the collection of information about the students' intellectual progress and their developing cognitive learning and professional teaching abilities.

Various types of task for seeking and acquiring knowledge are possible. We shall mention some of them, which can be classified according to how the underlying problem arose and what the students' independent work involves: Tasks underlying arising from a problem re-

flecting a complex phenomenon and contain- ing real or apparent contradictions. Thus, one lecturer sets the following problems at his seminar on education: 'Can the fact that a teacher is successful be explained by what is the essence of the art of education and what is the relationship of this art to educational theory?'

Tasks connected with the existence of a variety of evaluations of one and the same phenomenon. The students are required to select one of the evaluations and provide a justification for it. It is possible, for example, to test the students' knowledge of Friedrich Engels' 'Role of labour in the transformation of monkey into man' and their ideas on anthropogenesis by putting this question to them 'straight'. There is another possible way of reaching the same objective, however. The student is given a card with a statement of one of the modern theories concerning the origin of man, propounded by the bourgeois British scientist A. Hardy, with the question: 'Do you think the hypothesis about anthropogenesis put forward by the British scientist A. Hardy is convincing? How does it resemble and how does it differ from the hypothesis by Friedrich Engels in "The role of labour in the transformation of monkey into man"? Does it bear on the crux of the question or only on its secondary aspects?'

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Tasks underlying which is a problem assuming the proof of refutation of some particular evaluation of the phenomenon: 'Anti- communists deny the inevitability of the great October Socialist Revolution, consider- ing that its success was purely fortuitous. Using all the arguments at your disposal, refute this point of view.'

Tasks underlying which is a problem arising when the material being studied is such that contradictory evaluations can be made about a particular phenomenon. Here the teacher himself projects these evaluations. I f one evaluation seems to be right, the students' task is then to justify it. Teachers set their students such questions as: 'Can Maxim Maximovich in "'A Hero of Our Times" be regarded as Lermontov's ideal?'

Raising cognitive problems with students is greatly helped if each teacher refers to material in contiguous subjects. In this connexion, the Vladimir Teacher Training Institute has had interesting experience in devising and using integrated exercises and problems in the courses on historical materialism and education. Their aim is not so much to verify specialized philo- sophieal and educational knowledge as to ensure that the two are harmoniously blended in such a manner as to facilitate 'transfer' from one sphere to the other, avoiding the mechanical introduction of philosophical knowledge into the educational syllabus as well as any eclectic combination of the two domains. Problems of delimitation between historical materialism and education can be formulated as hypotheses which require independent consideration and thorough argumentation leading to conclusions, on the basis of both original and specially composed expository texts. For example, a hypothesis is put forward concerning the emerg- ence of a specific educational form of social consciousness embracing those ideas, theories, emotions, feelings and volitional stimuli which accompany the educational process. The students are set the task: 'Give your own argu-


ments for and against the hypothesis in question.' The students' learning activity increases con-

siderably if the learning process is consistently individualized. Stressing this, A. I. Berg wrote:

Once higher education uses really scientific methods which reflect the most up-to-date stage of the development of knowledge and take into account the indi- viduality of every student, one can be sure that practi- cally all graduates will receive high-quality training. Adaptive instruction offers a genuine prospect of achieving what is today a vital necessity, namely that every graduate should be able to supplement and renew his knowledge throughout the whole course of his life. 1

Student research work organized as part of the educational process, provides inexhaustible but as yet not fully recognized possibilities for developing creativity and an investigative attitude in teachers. Basing themselves on the related nature of teaching and research work, the staff at the Gorky Training Institute for Teachers of Modern Languages get students following their education and psychology courses to carry out research from both angles into the reasons for the successful eradication of pupil failure at schools in the Avtozavodsky district of the city. One teacher training institute organizes its work in a similar way, getting its students to investigate a variety of problems in the field of educational science, such as: 'Op- timizing the learning process with the aim of preventing pupil failure', 'Motivating pupils' learning' and 'The influence of ideological, political and moral education on pupils' attitude to study'.

The idea of the unity of students' educational and research activity finds its fullest and most consistent expression in the practical supervision of course and degree work. In doing this work, the student, more than in any other part of the learning process, can show his initiative, powers of observation and interest in the problem on which he is engaged, and his capability to set up a scientific or educational experiment,

draw conclusions and compare them with pub- lished data.

The training of creative Soviet teachers ur- gently requires the further expansion of the content and organizational framework of research work conducted by students outside study hours. At the present time, one student in two is engaged on scientific research in the teacher training institutes of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (R.S.F.S.R.). Over 4,ooo future teachers have been awarded medals, diplomas and certificates in all-Union, republic, regional and city competitions. Last year, about 1,2oo scientific reports written by students on the findings of research were printed in various publications. In I973, about r,4oo olympiads, competitions and conferences were held in the R.S.F.S.R.'s higher educational establishments. Students gave nearly Ioo,ooo lectures and papers in schools, industrial enterprises and collective and State farms.

A correct approach is shown by those teacher training institutes which involve students in research work from the very start, getting them to write abstracts, reports and pr6cis, review papers and carry out laboratory and practical work on individual tasks in order to master particular steps in the methodology of scientific research and experimentation. At a later stage in their course they learn some of the procedures used in scientific inquiry. The idea that suc- cesses in scientific investigation depend to a significant extent on research method was epit- omized in I. P. Pavlov's emphatic assertion that:

What comes first and foremost is method. On method, on one's maimer of proceeding, depends the whole essence of research. It is entirely a question of method. If you have a good method, even if you are not a very talented person you can do a great deal. But if you have a poor method, even though you be a genius, your work will be in vain and your findings will be inaccurate and of little value.

I. 'Tvorceskij Specialist i Adaptivnoe Obucenie' [The Creative Specialist and Adaptive Instruction], Vesmik Vyssej Skoly, No. 3, 1971, p. 16-17.

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The need has become apparent for the establish- merit of a special educational organon or tool which would provide the initial guidelines for systematic, goal-oriented scientific research. This organon must reflect the unity and at the same time multiplicity of contemporary scientific research as evinced in a model such as that afforded by the genetic link between Marxist- Leninist methodology and fundamental and applied research. Here the methodology provides a way of acquiring new and hence fundamental knowledge. In its turn, fundamental research reveals the essence of a phenomenon while applied research shows how the knowledge acquired can be applied in practice. A model for contemporary scientific research will combine the functions of these three components. As scientific work by students is their first step on the path towards science, it must be assessed as representing a first approxi- mation to such a model. The conclusion has been reached in many teacher training institutes that students do their best research work if it is possible to give this work a collective or group character. Life itself requires the cumulation of creative capabilities and the development of group work by students as being the most productive manner of proceeding in line more- over with the objective trend towards the growth of a social, collective principle in creative activity. This in no way means that individual scientific work is being ousted. It is simply taking a new turn and is drawing students into a system of mutual dependency and responsi- bility. Group work gives the teacher maximum opportunity for bringing out the students' creative talents and training scientific groups united by a common methodology and common procedures for research.

The expansion of collective forms of student scientific activity makes it necessary to involve in its supervision and organization not just individual scientists but whole departments as the most important structural subdivisions of higher education. To give an example, this is

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how the Russian Language Department of the Yaroslavl Teacher Training Institute organizes its work.

All the teachers in this department set the students tasks connected with their lessons, the completion of which contributes to the development of research skills. During the academic year, every teacher trains a minimum of one or two speakers to lecture at meetings of the linguistics club or at one of the students' scientific conferences. In analysing its experience, the department came to the conclusion that the following would be a desirable way of organizing the students' scientific work: Every student in the second year (in the first

year in individual cases) is given a research topic. He writes his course work on this topic and this, at a later date (after it has been expanded and made more detailed), may be submitted as a report to a seminar or as a scientific paper or thesis.

One intake of students starts to tackle a given problem and another intake completes the work.

The involvement of students in scientific work must go hand in hand with a gradual increase in the degree of complexity and independent judgement called for in their solution of research problems.

Student participation in scientific work ends with their being given actual research to carry out, however little.

Every piece of scientific work completed by a student must be written up with complete observance of all requirements laid down for publications.

Teacher participation in student scientific work involves basically the following: setting the topic; noting the research methods; indicating what materials must be used in the study of this topic while conducting the research, and what kind of results the student should arrive at; indicating the principal literature, bearing in mind the opportunities actually available to the student and keeping a regular check


on the progress of the student's work whilst not suggesting any ready-made solutions and conclusions.

The growing role and importance of educational and scientific research work by students during the process of training them to be creative teachers poses a number of problems of an organizational and educational nature. The curricula of teacher-training institutes do not, of course, make any special provision for research work by students. And although the academic councils nominally have a number of lesson periods which can be used by the institutes at their discretion, including for student research work, this makes it very difficult to introduce the principle of creative scientific work at all stages of the educational process. Proposals have accordingly been made for curricula and students' report books to contain a separate section entitled CEducational Re- search Work'. This seems to us a wise sugges- tion. It would be desirable in this connexion to make provision, in particular, for a short intro- ductory course on research methods and procedures as well as compulsory research work by the students, followed by the defence (also compulsory) of this work in the form of a thesis. For this purpose not less than two months should be set aside for the students and up to thirty lessons for the teachers. Another way of organizing student research work which has proved its worth and viability are students' scientific societies, and these should be given statutes defining, for instance, the part to be played by the chancellors' and deans' offices, the various departments and outside bodies as well

as the rights and duties of the society's members. There is also a need to devise and introduce measures which will provide the moral and material encouragement to those teachers who achieve good results in supervising their students' educational and scientific research work.

In order to produce graduates capable of creative work every teacher training institute must be imbued with a spirit of scientific discovery and enthusiasm for science among staff and students alike; the atmosphere must be conducive to the establishment of working links between students' scientific societies and schools, out-of-school institutions for children and the State education authorities, to the long- term planning and development of the various forms of collective scientific work by the future teachers and to the development of criteria by which to evaluate the effectiveness of student research work. N. P. Blonsky, one of the foun- ders of the Soviet theory of teacher training, wrote: 'A real teacher is not an encyclopaedia but a Socrates'. 1 The education of such creative teachers--teachers who are also thinkers, who engage in research and have a sure mastery of the Marxist-Leninist scientific method of acquiring knowledge--is a practical scientific task stemming from the decisions of the twenty- fourth Party Congress and the edicts of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the U.S.S.R. Council of Ministers in regard to secondary and higher education.

I. Collected Educational Works, p. 618, Moscow, Izd-vo APN R.S.F.S.R., 1961.

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