Indirect Educational Work in the Sphere of Culturally Educational Activities

In the epoch of constructing a developed socialist society the significance of formative processes on the borderline between (intentional) education and the functional formation of man is increasing. Varied culturally educational activities, in addition to explicitly pedagogical forms also comprise a number of primarily nonpedagogical processes which, however, have a definite educational aspect and can be included in the comprehensive national educational system by means of the conception of indirect educational work.
Its substance can be characterized (following up freely F. Kozel) in this way: the subject of the educational intention does not regulate the man being educated directly, but regulates the social formative forces and processes which — not being regulated with an educational intention — would otherwise form man in his social activity only spontaneously, functionally. The educational function here is not, as a rule, the dominating function (it is a question of education “in the forms of life itself’), the subject of educational work may also be a collective one and need not be in personal contact with the person being educated. The author points out that culturally educational activities, which are primarily a form of cultural life not only spreading but also creating cultural values, include a number of processes of indirect education in various forms of communicating and adopting cultural values by means of leisure time hobby activities in relatively small groups, by means of interaction in various forms of club life, social entertainment and the like. Taking controlled social entertainment with dancing as an example, the author points out the dangers involved but, above all, he underlines the great possibilities, hitherto not fully exploited, of making cultural environment pedagogical by means of organically stimulating the educational aspects of these external factors in their influence on man.