Courage to be or hardiness as a factor of existential self-determination of a future teacher

The article is devoted to the problem of professional education of a future teacher in conditions of transitivity. The sources of the research were the philosophical ideas of existentialism and psychological concepts of hardiness. The logical method, comparison, contrast, generalization, classification, modeling method, as well as theoretical analysis of the material are used. The methodological basis of the work was made up of dialectical, existential, and systemic approaches. The author considers the categories “courage to be” and “existential self-determination of the future teacher” in their dialectical unity. Courage to be is the ability of an individual to withstand difficulties and challenges, to remain optimistic and to find solutions in difficult situations. The existential self-determination of a future teacher is understood as a certain internal resource of a professional, reflecting, on the one hand, a person’s readiness for change, mobility, ability for non-standard work actions, responsibility and independence in making decisions that ensure professional effectiveness and the ability to constructively overcome emerging difficulties, and, on the other hand, it helps to understand the value of life, the search for inner meaning as the only strategy for development and overcoming the internal contradictions of the system. Accordingly, the future teacher’s bright existential self-determination helps to cultivate his/her courage to be, and the presence of vital stability helps him/her to understand better himself and his/her role in the educational process. It is noted that in psychological and pedagogical research, the philosophical problem of the courage to be is reflected in the theory of hardiness, where hardinessis a personal variable that characterizes the measure of an individual’s ability to withstand a stressful situation, maintaining internal balance and without reducing the success of activities; is considered as a factor in the existential self-determination of the individual. The article states that the author, having examined the level of hardiness of students at a pedagogical university, concluded that it is necessary to intensify work to increase its level, in particular, to stimulate a reflexive-subjective position among future teachers, which is one of the main psychological and pedagogical conditions for developing readiness to the existential self-determination of the student’s personality. It is proposed to introduce into the teacher training process a special course “Dominants of professional education at a university: existential self-determination of a future teacher.” Its content and structure are described.

future teacher, transitive society, professional education, existential self-determination