(CZ) Problém pedagogické regulace školních mikroskupin
(EN) The Problem of Educational Guidance of Micro-groups of Pupils

Referring to the shortcomings of the contemporary school, the author points out that the school does not fulfil the task of a harmonious education of the youth and neglects the education in the narrow sense (i. e. ethical education). This is demonstrated by the traditional concept of classroom instruction, which still emphasizes the educational aspect only and does not make use of its possibilities in moulding social behaviour. Traditional classroom instruction also stresses the influence of the leading role of the teacher and underestimates the activity of the pupil’s personality. Therefore the efforts to bring the content and the educational media of school practice up-to-date are becoming more and more urgent. One of these media is group instruction. The author points out that in practice this problem is narrowed to a kind of didactic technique, while its connection with collective education, which is a specific task of the socialist school, is ignored. There is still another shortcoming, which consists in the fact that a sharp dividing line is drawn between classroom instruction and out-of-school education. With a view to this fact the author suggests linking up work with micro-groups of pupils in both these areas. The author goes on to compare Makarenko’s concept of the basic collective and the tasks of the micro-groups of pupils. He indicates what the substance of solution consists in: the point is to form desirable inter-personal relations in a small group of pupils where regulating, functional (formal) relations must play their part in addition to personally selective (informal) relations. For a more detailed explanation the author refers to his publication »The Problems of Collective Education of the Youth« (Prague 1965). In applying Makarenko’s teaching about the collective in the conditions of classroom practice the author also views in a new light the question of forming the group of activists and the process to be adopted in the formation of the collective. As a result of a theoretical analysis the author comes to the formulation a research task, the aim of which is to study the educational guidance of microgroups of pupils, especially in each class under the guidance of the form master both in classroom practice and after school. He formulates the hypothesis static that by means of small (informal or semi-formal) groups of pupils a higher integrated unit can be achieved within the framework of each class or school provided that the activities of these groups both in and out of school are suitably linked together. The author also assumes that it is possible to alter Makarenko’s notion of gradual formation of the collective in conditions of school practice by finding a group of activists first and then drawing the other members of the collective into activity around this core as follows: all the pupils participate in the work from the very start in the form of groups, in which activists gradually appear in an informal way and these activists later become the formal core (the elected organ) of the class. The author gives examples of researches in the 6th and 7th form of the Basic Nine Year School showing micro-groups were being formed under the guidance of the form master at school and after school. The conclusions arrived at confirm the above-mentioned hypothesis. The research is not concluded and is going on with the same pupils in the 8th and the form of the Basic Nine Year School.