Forum Oświatowe (Dec 2015)
Teacher Reflection in Recognizing Vocational School Youths’ Situation
Abstract
The definition of a person’s social position includes a wide spectrum of the areas of the person’s life. The school position of children and young people constitutes the basis for the educational work of pedagogues and teacher-educators in particular. Apart from the pupil’s role in the school, various social systems in the non-school environment need to be identified. For procedural reasons, the diagnosis of pupils’ needs is conducted in a narrow or problem-related scope. In the diagnosing process, it is necessary to include the multitude of educational stages among the causes of activities that are at times illusory. This necessity, in consequence, makes it impossible to conduct a comprehensive, individualized and complete diagnosis. Furthermore, the increasing didactic and examination requirements and the increasingly common engagement of teachers in bureaucratic processes reduces time for direct contact with pupils. Apart from the situation connected with learning and school, pupils also contend with many other problems, including economic and living conditions. Basic vocational schools are a case in point. At this stage, education processes, including an improvement of the social competencies of pupils, are highly limited, as research carried out among pupils from one of basic vocational schools indicates. Therefore, the abovementioned need for diagnosis focused on the entirety of the pupil’s life should occur as early as the first stage of education. Negligence in this area is characterized by specific dynamics, and once this negligence is fixed, its effects are irreversible. The quality of the school’s institutional determinants and the influences of school-related environments in the entirety of positive and negative impacts are determined by the facts and myths of the school position of children and young people.
