Mendive. Revista de Educación, april-june 2019; 17(2):193-203

Translated from the original in Spanish

Didactic model for the aesthetic formation of Marxism-Leninism and History students

Modelo didáctico para la formación estética del estudiante de Marxismo-leninismo e Historia 

¹University of Pinar del Río "Hermanos Saíz Montes de Oca". Pinar del Río, Cuba. Email: yohany.peralta@upr.edu.cu 

Received: December 12^th, 2018.
Approved: March 3^rd, 2019.

ABSTRACT 

The aesthetic training of education professionals and in particular students of the Marxism Leninism and History career is an aspect to be addressed in their initial training to ensure a teacher who responds to the demands of the professional model, in line with current needs and the role that this teacher plays as the driving force behind the politics of the Communist Party of Cuba. For these reasons, the objective was to propose a didactic model for the aesthetic formation of the student of the degree in Marxism Leninism and History of the University of Pinar del Río, so that it contributes to their sensitivity and spirituality. The proposed model showed as a novel element the correlation between the aesthetic categories and the components of the teaching-learning process in the disciplines of the historical cycle according to their social order; It was implemented in practice based on a didactic strategy, which involved teachers and students. For this, mathematical, theoretical and empirical and statistical methods were used. The evaluation of the scientific result was carried out through the application of the methods: expert criteria and the experiment, in its pre- experiment variant, whose results demonstrated its scientific validity. The didactic model led to the use of the potential of the disciplines of the historical cycle as a space for the exchange of experiences from aesthetic and historical knowledge; depending on the cultivation of sensitivity and spirituality. 

Keywords: learning; spirituality; aesthetic; teaching; aesthetic training; sensitivity.

RESUMEN 

La formación estética de los profesionales de la educación y en particular de los estudiantes de la carrera Marxismo Leninismo e Historia constituye un aspecto a tratar en su formación inicial para garantizar un docente que responda a las exigencias del modelo del profesional, acorde con las necesidades actuales y con el rol que juega este profesor como ente impulsor de la política del Partido Comunista de Cuba. Por tales razones, se planteó como objetivo, proponer un modelo didáctico para la formación estética del estudiante de la carrera Licenciatura en Marxismo Leninismo e Historia de la Universidad de Pinar del Río, de manera que contribuyera a su sensibilidad y espiritualidad. El modelo propuesto mostró como elemento novedoso la correlación entre las categorías estéticas y los componentes del proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje en las disciplinas del ciclo histórico en función de su encargo social; se implementó en la práctica a partir de una estrategia didáctica, que implicó a los profesores y estudiantes. Para ello se emplearon métodos del nivel teórico, empírico y estadístico matemáticos. La evaluación del resultado científico se realizó mediante la aplicación de los métodos: criterio de expertos y el experimento, en su variante prexperimento, cuyos resultados demostraron su validez científica. El modelo didáctico propició el aprovechamiento de las potencialidades de las disciplinas del ciclo histórico como un espacio para el intercambio de experiencias desde los conocimientos estéticos e históricos; en función del cultivo de la sensibilidad y la espiritualidad. 

Palabras clave: aprendizaje; espiritualidad; estética; enseñanza; formación estética; sensibilidad.

INTRODUCTION 

The current world is marked by commercial propaganda and advertising promoted by the great imperialist powers, which are supported by the formal appeal of the products that originated with the kitsch; it's about the management of sensationalism; the intentional use of simplified clichés that make use of sentimentality, in its "patriot", chauvinist or romantic version, of proven efficacy. 

The above, implies that from the social aestheticization there is a kind of an overflow of the beautiful, that when being standardized and lightened by the filters of the cultural industry and consumerism; It has become widespread and distributed as "the beautiful", so it loses all the supposed "height" and dignity that was object in the tradition and seen in a pejorative way, and is interpreted as an aesthetic of bad taste. 

The current Cuban society is not exempt from the above, it corresponds to the educational institutions the formation of truly educated generations, defenders of their roots, of their identity for the sensible appropriation of knowledge and aesthetic values, from of the active participation of teachers and students as promoters and defenders of the most genuine cultural traditions from their school or their social environment. 

In response to Unesco's call on education for the 21st century, focused and oriented towards achieving that students: learn to know, learn to do, learn to live together and learn to be, as pillars on which it focuses The development of the person. 

Corresponding to the above, the training of professionals of Marxism Leninism and History (MxLH) in this new scenario requires special treatment. It is not about imposing tastes, ideologies or archetypes, but about placing the student in a position to discover this universe for himself, to facilitate the possibility of creating, reading the different types of languages and developing their creative potential from the process of teaching-learning (PEA), based on the laws of beauty. 

Authors of issues related to the EAP, of the disciplines of the historical cycle (DCH),  Romero (2015),  Leal (2002) and  Álvarez de Zayas (1997), refer the significance of these subjects in the context of student training.  Rodríguez (2014) considers the aesthetic, not only as an element of teaching, but also as an integrating component of the process of personality formation. It is necessary to achieve from the class of the DCH, a formative process where the student lives, feels and thinks; so that sensitivity and spirituality are cultivated, before the appropriation of historical content, developing aesthetic taste, based on ideo-aesthetic values.        

 In line with the above, the idea of the professor Diaz (2002) who asserts is assumed. «The word of the teacher and all the means of teaching have to strengthen the heroic, the emotional, influence the feelings, and reconstruct what the men did». p.4. 

To verify the performance of the students, an exploratory study was carried out with the application of empirical methods, among which are: document analysis, observations on the educational reality of the school, interviews with students and teachers. The main weaknesses evaluated in this order are the following: 

• Incorporate intentionality based on knowledge and enjoyment of aesthetic reality from the PEA into students and teachers in the training objectives of the DCH. 
• Offer an educational response for students to appropriate from the sensitive historical content emotionally and creatively. 
• Incorporate into the educational practice the results of research conducted aimed at ensuring that students are able to perceive aesthetic categories as a feature that characterizes historical content. 
• Make the most of the teaching of history as a propitious space to meet the needs and spiritual interests of the students in order to achieve the appropriation of the historical content in an emotional and creative way.  

These weaknesses point to the need for a new dynamic in the aesthetic formation of students, so that future generations can understand the new aesthetic ways of interpreting the world. As expressed by Hart (1972). "This in turn demands the need for the aesthetic training of educators and the aesthetic training of the population." p.92.  

In response to these situations, the present work is prepared, which aims to propose a didactic model for the management of the PCH of the DCH focused on the aesthetic training of the students of the MxLH career. 

MATERIALS AND METHODS 

To carry out the diagnostic study, during the 2016-2017 school year, the 97 students of the MxLH career from 1st to 3rd years of the day course were intentionally selected ; as well as the 12 professors who teach the subjects that correspond to the disciplines of the historical cycle, eight managers and a member of the National Career Commission. 

In carrying out this study, the dialectical-materialist method was assumed as a general method, which allowed analyzing the phenomenon under study, its causes, contradictions, development trends and relationships. All this, supported by theoretical, empirical methods, as well as descriptive and inferential statistics. In addition, a pre-experiment was carried out to implement the didactic model developed in educational practice. 

The use of these methods allowed to issue criteria on the essential aspects of the object of study. For this, the following were specified: 

• Limited didactic knowledge that teachers have for the development of the process of aesthetic training from the PEA, in students from the DCH. 
• Little development of skills in students for the aesthetic assessment of facts and processes from the subjects of the historical cycle. 
• Little use of the aid offered by the group as a social mediator depending on the aesthetic training process.   

RESULTS 

Aesthetic training in MxLH students has important achievements; however, there are shortcomings in the process of aesthetic assessment from the subjects of the DCH, which limit the fulfillment of the purpose and objectives of this education, in correspondence with the purposes to which it is intended. 

The historical study of the process of aesthetic formation from the PEA, revealed how it was evolving, from one stage to another, the assessment of the need to improve the process of aesthetic formation. 

The documentary analysis of the programs of disciplines and subjects allowed us to appreciate that there is a tendency to treat historical contents outside the aesthetic dimension, which is evidenced by not referring to the system of aesthetic categories in content analysis historical. 

In the literature, aesthetic assessments of historical contents are not explicitly recognized and aesthetic categories are not intentionally used in the treatment of historical processes and events. There is little reference to beauty as an articulating element in social phenomena in their multiple relationships and the contemporary literature linking the aesthetic and the historical is insufficient. 

It is especially important that in subjects like Cuban History, morality is given greater weight and aesthetic values are not sufficiently addressed, such as the beautiful, the ugly, the tragic, the comic, the sublime, the ridiculous 

It was possible to verify in the methodological orientations of the programs that the use of audiovisual media that reflects the historical contents is recommended, but how to correlate the work with the media system with the aesthetic categories is not oriented. 

In 89 % of the sampled classes the objectives lack an aesthetic approach, so that, from the axiological they respond essentially to the ethical, the potentialities of the content for the cultivation of sensitivity and spirituality are not exploited from the I work with the aesthetic categories when the historical content is valued, so that the heroic, the tragic, the beautiful, the sublime are not always part of either the vocabulary of the teachers or the actions and operations that are developed in the PEA. 

In 93 % of the classes observed, the conception of teaching tasks that require the student a creative solution to the problem from the laws of beauty, which do not transit through levels of complexity, attending to the aesthetic development of the student is insufficient. 

Aesthetic training is not recognized as an organic system and unit in the development of personality in the three essential dimensions of this process: instructive, educational and developmental. 

Aesthetic elements are not always sufficiently addressed (the beautiful, the ugly, the tragic, the comic, the sublime, the ridiculous), as aesthetic attitudes that men have assumed throughout their historical evolution and there is no strategy that emotionally and creatively contribute to an aesthetic formation. 

Based on these results, a didactic model for the process of aesthetic training was elaborated, whose objective is to improve the process of aesthetic formation from the PEA of the subjects of the DCH, so that an emotional and creative appropriation is achieved of the historical contents and the cultivation of the sensitivity and spirituality of MxLH career students. 

The proposed methodology aims to offer a way for the teacher to develop the process of aesthetic training of students, based on the diagnosis, characterization and use of didactic categories (mainly methods, teaching methods and forms of organization) , so that this can conceive a system of flexible classes from the planning of actions aimed at the cultivation of sensitivity and taste based on aesthetic categories, to the same extent that the possibilities that the contents of the historical cycle are exploited and their contexts could provide. Its structure includes the general objective, four stages with its objective, methods and actions for its implementation. 

First stage. The diagnosis allows to obtain information on the real conditions in which the didactic model is contextualized and to specify the mediators that intervene to reach the proposed objective.

Objectives: To determine the level of development achieved by students in terms of their aesthetic training. 

Determine the level of theoretical-methodological knowledge of the professors of the DCH on the aesthetic training from the PEA of their subjects and the ways to achieve it. 

Actions to develop

  • Use of methods such as documentary analysis, class observation and survey to obtain information. 

 • The existence of objectives and methodological indications in the DCH program regarding aesthetic training. 

 • The state of opinion of the teachers on the knowledge they have in relation to aesthetic training from the PCH of the DCH and the ways to achieve this purpose. 

 • The level reached by the students regarding their aesthetic training.     

Second stage: planning of the didactic model for aesthetic training from the PCH of the DCH for MxLH students.

Objective: Design a didactic model for aesthetic training from the PEA of the disciplines of the historical cycle for MxLH students. 

Actions (short term):

 • Selection of the teachers who will direct the actions included in the didactic model. 

 • Selection of the group of students for the application of the didactic model, based on the characteristics of the pedagogical diagnosis. 

 • Theoretical and methodological preparation for teachers and students on aesthetic training from the PEA of the DCH. 

 • Conduct of methodological work sessions on the aesthetic training of MxLH students from the PCH of the DCH   

Actions (medium term):

 • Development of teaching materials, in order to guarantee the aesthetic training of MxLH students from the PCH of the DCH. 

 • Conception of a training program for DCH teachers: Aesthetic training in the MxLH student from the PCH of the DCH. 

 • Preparation of a program of an optional course for MxLH students entitled: Aesthetic training in the student of Marxism Leninism and History. 

 • Planning a system of professional aesthetic workshops.     

Third stage: the execution stage allows the planned actions to materialize and lead to pedagogical practice.

Objective: Implement the actions designed in the previous stages based on the aesthetic training of MxLH students from the PCH of the DCH. 

Actions:

 • Application of the instruments developed during the diagnostic and strategic planning stages for the collection of the necessary information on the aesthetic training process. 

 • Implementation of training for DCH teachers: Aesthetic training in the MxLH student from the PCH of the DCH. 

 • Execution of the optional course: Aesthetic training in the student of Marxism Leninism and History. 

 • Execution of the system of professional aesthetic workshops. 

 • Actions (long term): 

 • Socialization of the system of professional aesthetic workshops.     

Fourth stage: evaluation provides feedback on the practical validity of the actions carried out and makes it possible to make the necessary adjustments in the didactic strategy, so that it can be redesigned in order to achieve the proposed objective.

Objective: To assess the validity of the actions carried out for the practical implementation of the didactic model. 

Actions:

 • Assessment of the validity of the actions implemented in the strategy in terms of contributing to the aesthetic formation from the PEA of the DCH. 

 • Verification of the changes occurred in students, teachers and the group in relation to their aesthetic training from the PCH of the DCH. 

 • Qualitative assessment of the results achieved. 

 • The monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of the strategy and the model in general are carried out permanently. 

 • It was necessary to verify the theoretical and practical validity of the strategy and the didactic model for the aesthetic training of the MxLH student from the PCH of the DCH for which the criteria of experts were used.      

DISCUSSION 

The results obtained with the application of the exposed methods and the search of bibliographies on the subject demonstrate the need to deepen it, due to the importance of the professional training and for the development of aesthetic taste in the understanding of the facts and historical phenomena. 

The use of teaching resources is promoted, the experiences of students in different contexts are taken advantage of, and the pedagogical help is structured in correspondence with methodological details that allow its design and regulated adjustment at different levels according to the needs of these young people. Substantive elements of the discussion around aesthetic training. 

This training process occurs within the framework of the activity, which is consistent with what was stated by the researchers referred to above when considering aesthetic activity as a special type of spiritual practical activity aimed at creating and performing in consciousness, in action or in the semiotic-material form, the prototype of the desired objective desired and affordable according to the possibility and the need, supported by integrity, structuring, symmetry, rhythm, utility and harmony, as manifestations of the objective law that serve the man as a reliable reference point in the outside world and allow us to guess and capture the hidden essence of things. 

According to the previous ideas, the authors of this research; coincide with the recognition of the dual nature of aesthetic, practical and spiritual activity, also in relation to its purpose and the achievement of the desired ideal objective.  Cabrera and Frómeta (2017) define it without entering into contradictions with the previous one as a specific type of activity that operates from the sensitive, it is expressed in oriented actions in correspondence with the feelings, perceptions, values and ideals that the individual develops in the accumulation of aesthetic experiences and the evaluative or estimative capacity that presupposes the existence of a valuation orientation in the aesthetic awareness.  

The sensitive and creative appropriation of the historical contents, correlated with the categories of aesthetics, based on the confrontation between the ideal and the real of the historical fact, through the aesthetic as an essential way to achieve an aesthetic relationship allows to recognize the rest of the categorical apparatus, in the context of the PEA of DCHs among which are the best known: the beautiful and the ugly, the sublime and the ridiculous and the tragic and the comic; seen as values or antivalores in which the ideal and reality are related. 

Thus, the analysis and understanding of the phenomenon of the formation of professionals within the framework of the theory of aesthetic activity allows revealing its impact on a formation of an aesthetic nature and the consequent contribution to its humanistic formation. 

It corresponds to the Aesthetics as a science, to achieve greater humanization, which is in line with the role that corresponds to the DCH, in that sense and that very rightly wields it Romero (2006) when he states. «The world in which we live demands to raise the human condition of men, to cultivate their sensibility, based on a humanistic formation, based on an approach to the best of the culture of humanity. In this direction, historical learning is essential ». p. 39.  

That claim increases and becomes more complex in the contemporary given a marked tendency to avoid the teaching of history, to get rid of the past, which leads to retaking a reflection made by the important Spanish writer of the twentieth century,  Unamuno (1962) when expressed. « (...) we live in and by the memory and our spiritual life is not in the end but the effort so that our memories are perpetuated and become hope, so that our past becomes future». p.25.  

This warning places the importance of the cultivation of historical memory, but this must be done from an aesthetic perspective, teaching to perceive in human reality the human, the progressive, the fair, the socially shared values. 

At the discretion of the authors, in the History class, training strategies must be sought in order to develop the spiritual world, promoting an aesthetic relationship between the student and the historical content in question; which presupposes that it assumes an attitude that corresponds to its social and personal ideal, which will allow it to make an aesthetic assessment of the phenomenon itself. 

To respond to social demands regarding the training of the MxLH career professional, it is necessary to keep in mind the ideas of Suárez (2015) who points out:  

« You must learn, above all, to read the unseen, take into account that everything that is visible, concrete and functional is nothing more than a` `bridge " that tends to homo sapiens to move towards what is behind of appearances ... »p.57. 

For what is considered that the aesthetic relationship of the student with the formative reality must be characterized, above all, by the pleasure caused by the sensitive and creative appropriation of the contents before the study. The aesthetic interpretation of the world is in the highest degree; a forming element of the personality since it is able to cover the whole man, to move him. 

The authors agree with Sánchez (2005) in stating that in formation, aesthetics is not a "pretty ingredient" for a process, It is the basic and middle component of the socialist formation of man. Without a total apprehension of the aesthetic "side" in the process of knowledge and the life of man, one cannot speak of harmonious, creative and integral instruction and education.  

It is considered that there is a process of aesthetic formation where the aesthetic aspects of the training process are connoted, consciously and systematically, oriented to the development of the capacities to value and create in accordance with the laws of beauty from the correlation of aesthetic categories and the contents of DCH. 

The need to form a man capable of scientifically understanding the world, order and harmony of nature, human thought and creation, the character of relationships and their aesthetics is derived. Returning to  Martí (1889 ). « (...) he who knows the beautiful, and the moral that comes from him, cannot then live without morals and without beauty». p.281. 

When recognizing the aesthetic formation as an organic system and unit in the development of personality, specific reference is made to the formation of the aesthetic attitude, which is revealed in the three essential dimensions of this process: instructive, educational and developer in correspondence with what was put forward by  Horrutiner (2006) when referring to this training process.  

Taking into consideration the criteria of  Díaz (2006)  when affirming. «Teaching History, if it is a contribution to human improvement, it is precisely to place the human essence of these disciplines at the center of pedagogical work». p.35. 

In addition, the need is assumed that in the class of the disciplines of the historical cycle; the representation of the facts, the action of the characters, to be able to imagine as faithfully as possible their social and cultural context in which the events occurred constitute a reality. 

The above is possible if an aesthetic situation is created from the use of methods and procedures that promote beauty and significant learning in students. 

The aesthetics of teaching is immersed in the didactic. Without the planning and organization of its aesthetic part, the teaching process is not totally effective. Therefore, the aesthetic component of teaching must be organized as a process. The structure is linked with the creator and the formation (...) ».  Klingberg, 1972, p.167. 

For this author the didactic and the aesthetic have historical and logical origins. Didactics and aesthetics are based on the relationship of content and form. In a work of art as in a beautiful kind of history, content, idea and theme are determinations for method and form. 

Corresponding to Kleinberg (1972). «The class structure presupposes not only the scientific approach and didactic abilities, but also an organ for its balance and didactic harmony, for its rhythm and melody, in a word; for its aesthetics (...) ». p.168.  

For what the authors consider from the above outlined that it would be important to conceive the PEA of the DCH from and for the aesthetic from the relationships established from the dynamic components and their protagonists, so that it is established an aesthetic relationship through activity, to contribute to the sensitive and creative appropriation of historical content. 

The proposed model surpasses the actuator, by offering a training program, an optional course, a system of workshops and learning tasks aimed at the development of aesthetic training, organized by stages and actions, in close relation to the moments of organization of the activity 

The novelty of the didactic model is that it responds to the current requirements of the PEA in the DCH, in which aesthetic training is promoted to understand and assess in different social contexts facts and personalities, which influences the preparation for social life of MxLH students. Variants to the didactic categories are also offered which lead to the appropriation of concepts, categories and the laws of beauty to understand situations from the historical point of view in different social contexts. 

The systematization carried out made it possible to verify that the process of aesthetic training has been a topic widely debated at the national level, where the presence of different approaches is highlighted, aspects of great value for the formative work in Pedagogical Higher Education, directed fundamentally to the cultivation of the sensitivity and spirituality of the student based on the potential offered by the content. 

The didactic model for the process of aesthetic training of the student, allows the use of the potential of the PEA of the DCH as a space for the exchange of experiences from aesthetic and historical knowledge; depending on the cultivation of sensitivity and spirituality.  

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