A Humane Paradigm as the Conceptual Core of Education in the Age of Information Society

Abstract

The article, based on a systematic analysis of the problems of national education in the age of information society and digitalised education, reveals the significance of the human paradigm, which is the conceptual core and the major platform for the educational process under the regime of aggravation. The convergence of education and information technology produces not only new areas of knowledge, pedagogical tools and teaching methods but also large-scale transformations in social practice. Like any social change, the digitalisation of education has a variety of consequences – from positive to negative ones. It is shown that the digitalisation of education, which meets great hopes not only in Ukraine and Poland, can be productive only if an anthropocentric algorithm is dealt with. Along with the huge and not much-studied possibilities of digitalisation of education, it is proved that many problems and risks are associated with the total introduction of the “digital” in the educational system. These are social, psychological, health, organisational and methodological risks, and some problems with the reduced quality of education. However, the ethics-related risks are perhaps the most dangerous among them. As regards this, it is proved that the humane paradigm, as a paradigm of the integrity of knowledge that provides values and goals of education, is a guarantor of the harmonisation in many processes related to translating information and knowledge into a digital form. The humane paradigm is the basis of the genetic connection of knowledge, skills, digital literacy, moral imperatives, and life values, which in a synergetic algorithm contribute to students’ effective development, systematic thinking, and socialisation. The three most important blocks of educational problems in the discourse on modern cyber-socialisation (transformation of the worldview component of education, reconstruction of the content of education, imbalance of educational and didactic processes) are outlined, and the ways and mechanisms of solving them are suggested. Implementing integrated strategies within the humane paradigm (which is the nourishing source of each of these blocks) might result in the idea of the so-called “new humanism” in education.