Primary school teachers' viewpoint on education (formation) of respect towards life

Įvairių kultūrų bei skirtingų etinių krypčių atstovai skirtingai žvelgia į gyvybę, jos vertę. Vieni teigia, kad bet kokia gyvybė yra verta pagarbos. Gyvenimas yra šventas savaime. Kiti mano, kad vienintelis užuojautos objektas yra žmogus. Gyvūnai - tai tik drauge su mumis egzistuojantys Dievo kūriniai. Dar kiti pasakys, kad gyvybė yra vertinga tiek, kiek ji teikia naudos. Vienas iš pagrindinių pradinės bei bendrojo lavinimo mokyklos programų tikslų - pagarbos gyvybei ugdymas. Tačiau pasaulio pažinimo vadovėliuose nepakankamai dėmesio skiriama pagarbos gyvybei formavimui. Kai kurios temos akcentuoja tik gyvūnų naudą (pragmatinis aspektas). Trečiosios ir ketvirtos klasės pasaulio pažinimo vadovėliai labiau teikia pažintinę medžiagą. Mažai juose dėmesio skiriama pagarbos gyvybei ugdymui (vertybinis aspektas). Šiuo požiūriu mokytojų nuomonė yra itin svarbi. Straipsnyje analizuojamas pradinių klasių mokytojų požiūris į pagarbos gyvybei ugdymą. Pateikiami empirinio tyrimo rezultatai. Tyrime dalyvavo 110 pradinių klasių mokytojų, tyrimas atliktas 2003 metų sausio-balandžio mėnesiais.It is obvious today, even without deep investigations, that we are suffering a total decline in moral culture, accompanied by amorality, disrespect towards human life expressed through aggression, brutality, coercion and rudeness. Such humiliating forms of disrespect are characteristic to the today's young generation, even the teenagers. Psychologists consider that such feelings as love, sensitiveness, assistance should be nurtured in primary forms since this is the period for some forms of behaviour to be learnt and consolidated. Behavioural patterns acquired in this period often are maintained throughout one's life. Therefore, nurturing of respect towards life is especially important in primary school. The main tasks of the investigation: to analyse teachers' attitude of respect towards life in the primary school; to disclose possibilities of making respect towards life more efficient.110 primary form teachers participated in the investigation; to summarize the results a descriptive statistical method was employed. Statistically significant differences in the responses were established using x² (square chi) criterion; correlative relationships were established using the Spearman rank correlation factor rho. The following conclusions may be drawn after the investigation: most of the teachers think that the formation of respect towards life is an important factor in the education process, but they fail to integrate the content of the world cognition and other subjects or to organise practical activities seeking to induce respect towards life well enough; educating respect towards life an important role is played not only by school, but also by the family, social environment, nature, mass media; the teachers have noted that a bad example of adults, violence on TV, lack of information make a negative effect; teachers should give more attention to the formation of respect towards life. In textbooks for primary school there are not enough themes intended for the formation of respect towards life