No 3 (2024)

The article begins with two literary examples from the works of one author. One example is a quote from Harper Lee's first published book. The content of the quote suggests a way to understand another person (“… climb inside of his skin and walk around in it”). The second example is the title of the author”s last book, Go Set a Watchman, which quotes a biblical exhortation. These examples are interpreted in the context of the lesson topic. The actions expressed by the words climb into, walk around, go, and set are emphasized. These emphases and interpretation illustrate the formulation of the research problem: identifying the conditions under which changing the classroom configuration is effective. The search for relevant ways to solve the problem is based on two circumstances. The first is the interpretation of each idea of morality as an impulse that organizes social structure, in particular, the structure of educational space. The paper focuses on such a semiotic result of ethics as the name “classroom” for one of the types of the room layout for holding parliamentary debates. The second is the concept of semiotic diagnostics (Irina Melik-Gaykazyan), which establishes correspondence between self-organization phases, information process stages and forms of the sign. A relevant methodological solution to the declared problem is a conceptual model of information generation that demonstrates the correspondence between the stages of transformation of two different spaces. In the phase space, scenarios of nonlinear dynamics of the system are competing. In another space, these same scenarios compete in the sizes and configuration of the distribution of their supporters (information carriers). Within the framework of a thought experiment, we present a “point” proposed to be interpreted as a locus of a potential “semiotic optimum”. At this point, there is an intersection of phase trajectories, while the intersecting trajectories refer to alternative scenarios. This optimum point creates an illusion of coincidence of positions; however, it is precisely overcoming this illusion that creates the basis for understanding and mastering different positions. We conclude that the first condition (1), under which a change in the configuration in a classroom is effective, is the need to discuss questions leading to alternative but equally correct given answers. Such a necessity arises during discussions on moral issues and when students master the essence of ethical dilemmas. The model demonstrates its sensitivity to a change in positions (a transition from one distribution to another), which reveals the second condition (2): the necessity of training for proactive socialization. The same sensitivity reveals analogies between the change in the configuration in a classroom and the syntax of ethical positions, between the organizational context and discursive strategies in discussions. The validity of this analogy is confirmed when comparing the author results and the results obtained in research fields of “language and learning”, “language and education”. We find that the problem we have set and the solutions we have proposed are pertinent for fulfilling another condition (3): the necessity of gaining experience in recognizing the ethical differences between educational strategies and acquiring professional skills within them. Configuration examples are provided as an illustration. We conclude that the use of the information generation model serves as a basis for thought experiments when designing lessons which educational goals include compliance with the conditions (1–3). The proposed model enables its role of a constructor for “reproducing” – in real classroom time – of intellectual history fragments in which a change of paradigms took place and specific teachings were created as a continuation of those paradigms; as well as enables also a retrospective tracing of shifts in the meanings of morality ideas on stable and unstable trajectories of social history.

The formation of a holistic (internal and external) image of a teacher must be created and developed in future teachers even at the stage of their university education; it is a prerequisite, a condition for the creation and development of their own “teacher self”. The image of a teacher is not just an image that gradually emerges in the student’s mind from the beginning of receiving pedagogical education, but deep subjective connections that are gradually and consistently transformed into values, thoughts and actions. Their complex is manifested in the teacher’s appearance, style of thinking and activities, where the regulator is the visualized “teacher self”. The limitations of full-scale studies of the image of an initiative teacher are obvious, which is due to the lack of a universal definition and unified understanding of the essence of a teacher’s professional initiative. The aim of this article is to study deep and superficial interpretations of the image based on a comprehensive analysis of philosophical and pedagogical sources focusing on theoretical justifications of iconic models, characteristics of the concepts “image”, “ideal” in relation to educational activities, to the teacher and generalization of the collective image of a proactive teacher through the eyes of teachers themselves (experienced and future). Research objectives are: clarification of the concept “image” and related concepts; systematization and generalization of ideas about a contemporary proactive teacher; specification of examples of manifestation of initiatives in educational and extracurricular professional pedagogical activities; identification of the ideas of future teachers and experienced teachers about the image of an initiative teacher; determination of the positive characteristics of such a teacher, the connection between professional pedagogical initiative and the quality of teaching and education, the specifics of the perception of such a teacher by students of a pedagogical university. The value of the conducted research lies in expanding theoretical knowledge, ideas about the image of a teacher in the minds of students (future teachers) and its detailed characteristics, in capturing young teachers’ vision of the essence of a teacher’s professional initiative. Research methods include analysis and synthesis, specification, generalization, grouping, oral surveying of experienced teachers and surveying of future teachers (students of a pedagogical university). An image is often associated with stereotypical associations, including in the educational environment, since stereotypes are a schematic image of an object, stable and emotionally charged. An oral survey of experienced teachers and teachers of a pedagogical university (Tomsk, 96 people) revealed a number of positive characteristics of the image of an initiatice teacher: constant development, concern, activity, passion, uniqueness, etc. Surveying of future teachers (students of Tomsk State Pedagogical University, 104 people) showed that an initiative teacher, as a rule, does not have clear gender and age boundaries, although it is more likely to be a young woman. Such teachers are competent, smart, highly qualified, and have a sense of humor. Their external beauty, passion and activity visible to everyone are not so important. The school administration respects and supports them, yet can “use” them for one purpose or another. Every fourth student has the opinion that in a team an initiative teacher may be disliked by his colleagues, but, on the contrary, respected and supported by students. There is a relationship between a teacher’s initiative and their ability to teach well (almost 70% of the respondents think so), to be a good class teacher, mentor (this was indicated by almost 80%). The examples given by students of the manifestation of initiatives by teachers in educational and extracurricular teaching activities indicate that they often replace initiative with activity. Thus, many activities designated as initiative are not such and are considered traditional and widespread. The results of the study can be used to correct the content of pedagogical disciplines and pedagogical practices in the professional training of teachers, and to develop career guidance activities.

The aim of the article is to study the concept of novelty in relation to the visual components of the city discourse. There exist different forms of novelty, and they can be generalized and conceptualized through the retrovisual method, which allows carrying out procedures for recreating visual images of the “new” formed in the past. The retrovisual urbanistic “fate analysis” makes it possible to identify three forms of novelty in the city discourse: reconstruction in combination with quasi-innovation, innovation, and upcycle. Examples of quasi-innovation are skyscraper piles, which, in their technical design, lagged far behind the projects of avant-garde artists or early modern architects of the first third of the last century. Recreating the past (sculptural and architectural creations lost during extreme events: revolutions, wars, and natural disasters) is one of the most popular trends in designing the future today. In addition to the well-known restoration (restoration of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow or the monument to Alexander III in Irkutsk), one can observe specific variations of reconstruction: post-reconstruction and reconstruction relocation. Post-reconstruction involves the creation of urban landscape objects that did not exist before, but which could have existed if history had developed differently (for example, the monument to Admiral Kolchak in Irkutsk). Reconstruction relocation (full or partial) is the localization of lost objects in new areas (for example, the transfer to urban localities of buildings that were previously located in places flooded as a result of the construction of hydroelectric power plants). On the one hand, the restoration of the lost can be considered as a form of historical continuity. On the other hand, reconstruction also often contains an element of destruction: the memory of the period when the lost structures were temporarily absent and in their place there were other, possibly also significant, objects is erased. Using the example of the so-called “cities of the future” (for example, Arcosanti in the modern USA or Akhetaton in Ancient Egypt), the thesis about the “curse of innovation” is put forward. Attempts to create something fundamentally new often end in failure; innovative cities turn out to be “non-functional projects”. Creative upcycle means a new life of ideas and projects from the past and, in our case, implies a creative urban project based on a certain pattern. St. Petersburg is an upscale of Amsterdam, and Helsinki, Makhachkala and Poltava are upscales of St. Petersburg, but Amsterdam is also an upscale of Antwerp, which, in turn, repeated the structural combinations of cities of the early Middle Ages. Creative upcycle as an integrative form of novelty in the discourse of the city is often more meaningful and durable than reconstruction, reproducing the past for the future, or innovation, rejecting and devaluing the past. The retrovisual method makes it possible to identify and conceptualize the forms of novelty that realize themselves in the discourse of the city. The same method allows one to model the success parameters of urban design. A four-dimensional coordinate system of the city discourse is modeled, including vectors of social communication and cognition, on the one hand, and vectors of subjective activity and creativity, on the other. It is established that, in quasi-innovations, reconstructions and innovations as forms of novelty in the discourse of the city, these vectors are extremely unbalanced, while in the technology of upcycle these vectors often turn out to be quite balanced and, therefore, ensure the viability of urban projects.