Existential turn in pedagogy and education: freedom, meanings, self-realization

Existentialism is as actual today as actual for a thinking person the fundamental life-meaning issues: freedom and responsibility, conscience, decisions and choices, the "temporality" of life, a person's destiny and attitude to his vocation. Issues of uniqueness and significance; contradictions between the inner world and the external, social world; alienation of a person, loneliness, "abandonment"; inner choice and freedom; being in creativity; possibilities and ways of self-realization - have their origins in the ideas of existentialism. Today existentialism has firmly taken its position in research issues of philosophy, psychology, pedagogy, interdisciplinary research, despite the historical rejection in the period of Soviet ideology. Socialist, Marxist-Leninist pedagogy rejected pluralism in science, left no room for other theories and approaches in education and training. The extremely socialist ideas of collectivism, intellectual development, public interest left no place for emotional experiences, manifestations of uniqueness and freedom of self-expression. The defining principle of upbringing in the Soviet education system was the upbringing of the individual in a team, the recognition of the need to build a special educational system in accordance with the goals of the society. These provisions were completely inconsistent with the idea of the "mythical" existence, the uniqueness of the personality. The aspirations of the personality for self-improvement were not considered in any way from the individual position but from the public position. Modern research, integrating the productive ideas of the Soviet ideology of collectivism and the existential ideas of individualism, turns increasingly to existentialism as the methodological basis of the theory and practice of modern education. Existential-pedagogical ideas about the deep values of life, the significance of man and his self-realization, the meaning of education develop and complicate the understanding of education as an existential phenomenon in human life.