(CZ) O podmínkách a činitelích výchovy
(EN) About the Conditions and Factors of Education

With the efforts aimed at modernizing the content and methods of the Czechoslovak school the problems that are in the forefront of interests are those of ethics, world outlook and political education as well as the function of the school in developing the personality and the character of the young person. A question worth considering is, among other things, that of the specificness of education in this restricted sense of the word and the factors which put educational aims into practice. Even though all the pedagogical phenomena and processes are characterized by certain subjectivity resulting from their relative subject-object nature, the individualization of educational factors is even more obvious. Education is concerned with character and moral values whose acquisition is of another nature than the acquisition of knowledge. A considerable role is also played by the child’s readiness for educational influences, differences of temperament, will, emotional receptiveness and finally also the environment the child comes from. The wide range of factors conditioning the effects of education raises the question of considering the limits and Possibilities of the school in the field of ^oral education. Many disappointments previous years were due, among other things, to our overestimating the possibilities of the influence of moral education at school. Moral education also suffers from the adequacy of the theoretical foundations, especially of the anthropologico-philo-sophical aspect. The dynamic nature of Marxist philosophy and the orientation on the creative, productive substance of Personality are being made little use of the concept of moral education. Even socialization is a starting point for educational influences, what is being underestimated, especially in the field of civics, is the question of individual responsibility and readiness to take an active part in public life. Verbal explication predominates at the expense of organizing activities and individual experiences of the child. Factors of education form a link between the teleological and methodological fields of the educational process. They bring to life the starting points for the targets of pedagogical theory and the educational system. We separate them from the conditions and organizational forms of education. The content of education is an independent pedagogical category, too, but in the broader context it is also a factor of education. The study deals with three selected factors of education: teaching, the social climate of the school and the system of controlling educational work. There has never been any doubt about the role of teaching in forming moral qualities and character. The controversial question has been rather that of the extent of possibilities attributed to teaching. Sometimes teaching has been regarded as the decisive factor in education (Herbart’s school with its concept of indirect moral influence of intellectual education), sometimes a certain scepticism predominated (with the followers of the active, working, dynamic school). At present the question of the possibilities of moral education in the teaching process is being raised again in connection with the stress laid on the formative aspect of education, with enhancing the logical and structural aspect of the subject-matter, with distinguishing educational contents from educational values. The effectiveness of the moral education in the teaching process is conditioned by the awareness of the specificity of processes of moral and intellectual education, a clear description of educational contents and moral values in curricula and textbooks, enhancing the philosophical and anthropological elements in the content of education, clarification of mutual relationships among subjects, and, above all, a clear idea of the educational aim specified according to the possibilities of particular subjects. An organic component of the curriculum is also the subject giving pupils a systematic education in civics and ethics, which by introducing a citizen’s moral values helps to give a rational substantiation of civic and human relationships in a socialist society. The school is also an important factor in the social development of the pupils. It teaches the children to live in a new social climate, which is going to surround them throughout their lives (meso-climate of working groups). It depends on the atmosphere and the spirit of the school whether the children adjust themselves well in these broader groups, how they form their relationships to adults, to social authority. One-sided interpretation of collectivist education ignored a number of significant questions, such as personal interrelationships of teacher and pupil, the adequacy of school life as to the children’s interests and needs, free sociability in unorganized groups. It would be good to lay greater stress on individual pedagogy (pedagogical diagnostics, guidance, self-education). An urgent question is that of pupils’ self-government as an important medium in the activation and moral education of pupils. In conclusion the study deals with the control of the school as an educational factor.