On the Problem of Creating a Model of the “School of the Future”

Abstract

How would we like to see the school of the future? The answer to this question is searched in many countries, including Russia. The proposed conceptual solutions are based on different theoretical foundations, and this determines the key differences between them. The scientific school of developmental education has produced a model of the school of the future for primary school age, known as the “Elkonin-Davydov system”. The adolescent school model is still under development. Having based on the key provisions of the developmental education’s theory, the article proposes a vision of what the goals, content and forms of education in a adolescent school should be. The formation of the ability to be the subject of various types of socially significant activities is defined аs the central line of adolescent development. Thus the principal new psychological formation shaped by adolescent school is practical consciousness and the corresponding reasonable (meaningful) practical thinking. It is argued that in adolescent school, socially significant activity is implemented though project activity (designing). Project activity can become a form of development for students if, in the process of its implementation, they master this very activity. It means that the content of education should include both subject and meta-subject elements. Accordingly, the structures of action in learning activity should unfold in two dimensions: subject and meta-subject.