Specifics of the professional start of educators in the conditions of children's school clubs

Specifics of the professional start of educators in the conditions of school children's clubs The issue of children's and youth's free time is an area that has occupied the attention of experts from many fields, as well as laymen, for several years. Above all, due to global changes in society, which significantly and in many areas have a negative impact on the development and maturation of young people. Free time has a very significant value for an individual. Above all, it provides space for cultivating uniqueness in the sense of developing personality qualities through personal interests. With its psychohygienic effect, it positively affects the overall quality of life, brings a feeling of self-satisfaction and joy.

Free time is most often understood as the time that an individual has left after fulfilling all (work, study, etc.) obligations, it is a time of freedom, a space for self-realization. According to J. Pávková (2002), free time is "the time of all possibilities - from positive possibilities of self-realization to participation in socio-pathological phenomena". In this context, it emphasizes the socially necessary intervention in the free time of children and youth in the form of direct and indirect educational action. We agree with this statement and at the same time add that the intervention in this space should be implemented not only by the parents of the children, but also by qualified pedagogical workers - free time educators, or educators. In the system of upbringing and education in the Slovak Republic, many institutions and organizations provide education in free time, including the Children's School Club.

The educator is a decisive factor that affects the course and results of educational activities. The profession of educator is legislatively defined by the Act on Pedagogical and Professional Employees No. 317/2009 Coll. and Decree of the Kindergarten of the Slovak Republic no. 437/2009 Coll., which establishes qualification prerequisites and special qualification prerequisites for individual categories of teaching and professional employees. According to these documents, an educator is a pedagogical employee who carries out pedagogical activities in the implementation of an educational program.

Challenging personality and qualification requirements are placed on the personality of the educator. In general, the fact that it is a mission rather than a profession is emphasized. The opinion that one must be born to be a teacher has long persisted in professional and lay circles. The process of becoming a teacher is a demanding, long-term process, and its roots in many cases go back to childhood. B. Kasáčová (2005, p. 83) also emphasizes that this process does not begin or end with undergraduate preparation for the profession.

Of the personality requirements, which B. Kasáčová (2004) refers to as talent for the profession, positive relationships with children and youth and overall personality maturity are emphasized above all. Among the positive character traits, the most important are justice, morality, honesty, responsibility, consistency, tact, etc. A teacher should be characterized by a high level of creativity. Due to the fact that the profession of an educator belongs to the category of helping professions, its social dimension is also obvious. The basic prerequisites for the development of a positive relationship with children are empathy, authenticity and congruence.

If we wanted to characterize in more detail the competences of an educator, as a professional working in the sphere of leisure pedagogy, we could start from the competence profile of a teacher, which was formulated by the authors B. Kasáčová and B. Kosová (2006, p. 37) based on several European legislative documents and approaches. This competence model is based on the interaction model of education, i.e. the basic dimensions are the teacher, or educator, pupil and the educational process taking place between them. Based on this model, we can specify the competences of the educator in three dimensions as follows:

a) The child/pupil dimension – contains the definition of professional competences oriented to the identification of the child's developmental and individual characteristics, psychological and social factors of learning processes and the socio-cultural context of the child's/pupil's development; b) Dimension educational process – contains the definition of professional competences oriented to the course of the educational process, specifically controlling the content and methodology of educational activities, planning, designing and implementing educational activities, evaluating the progress and results of the educational process; c) Dimension pedagogic worker – contains the definition of professional competences oriented towards the planning and implementation of professional growth, self-development and the process of identification with the professional role and the school.

Z. Helus (2009, p. 264) states that a sign of the professionalism of every teacher should be overcoming routine practicalism, which is based on best practices, some kind of proven "recipes" for how to treat children and how to approach them. The author emphasizes the need for constant self-education, self-improvement. He states that "the professionalism of a teacher is based on the competencies that make him a creator of educational events, able to clarify, justify, defend and improve his pedagogical actions. And bear responsibility for them - before the school authorities, the school management and especially before the children, their parents and their own conscience". Specifics of the professional start of educators

As we mentioned above, the development of a teacher's professionalism is a long-term, demanding process that takes place simultaneously with the process of personality formation. Enthusiasm, enthusiasm and expectations towards the school environment bordering on the ideal are characteristic of a beginning teacher. In addition, a young person comes to school sufficiently theoretically prepared, but unfortunately with a low or insufficient level of practical skills and minimal experience. Nevertheless, from the first day he finds himself in the reality of the school and is forced to deal with a number of pedagogical situations that require immediate intervention and solution. J. Průcha states (2009, p. 208) that a beginning teacher usually finds himself at odds in the following areas:

• Contradiction between knowledge and experience
• Conflict between personal aspirations and the interests of the organization
• Contradiction between the current position of the worker and the perspective that opens before him.

One of the specific phenomena of the professional start of a teacher or educator is the so-called reality shock. R. Švaříček (2011, p. 254) believes that it is usually caused by a contradiction between idealistic visions acquired during preparation for the profession and a different, unfriendly situation in the classroom, or at school. At the same time, it offers two different interpretations clarifying the emergence of this phenomenon. The first of the theories explains the reality shock as a result of insufficient and low-quality undergraduate training. The second interpretation points to a more challenging phenomenon, namely insufficient identification of an individual with a professional identity. Professional identity, i.e. the degree of identification with the role and with the organization, according to B. Kosová (2006, p. 10), is characterized by "a high degree of self-awareness, autonomy and self-control of the professional community when performing the profession and also a high awareness and experience of belonging to it". The formation of a professional identity is a demanding and long-term process and does not arise spontaneously upon starting a job. Lack of identification with the role of a teacher can have various causes. One of them is that the teacher did not originally plan to work in the profession and chose university studies only because he was not accepted at another school. In the extreme case, it can happen that a young person does not identify with the role of a teacher at all and subsequently leaves the profession.

According to S. Kariková (2004, p. 20), the process of adaptation to the profession can also be influenced by various life events of a young person, e.g. starting a family and the related new social role. In the case of women, teachers, or for female educators, the period of starting a family and the birth of children can be significantly emotionally exhausting, which in turn negatively affects adaptation to the profession.

The most common problems of beginning educators

Currently, many researches are oriented towards examining the position and work of the beginning teacher. However, the problem of the novice educator is sporadically addressed. In this context, however, it should be noted that, just like a teacher, an educator, or any other pedagogical worker working in a school environment, encounters similar problems and difficulties resulting from the characteristics of the professional start stage. Analogously, we could derive the individual areas of problems of the professional start of educators from the area of ​​problems that trouble teachers (they are listed, for example, by J. Průcha, 2009, B. Kasáčová, 2004, O. Šimoník 1995), but in the case of an educator, these areas will be determined by the specific nature of the sphere of free time in which the educator operates. For this reason, we conducted research in which we focused on mapping the most common professional and personal difficulties that accompany the professional start stage of educators working in School Children's Clubs. We collected data using a questionnaire, and then we carried out a description of the most common professional and personal problems that beginning educators have to solve after entering the workforce. In addition, we also investigated the level of cooperation with the introducing educator and interest in further education.

The research sample consisted of 42 beginning educators who work in children's school clubs in the Nitra region. Despite the fact that the category of beginning teaching staff is legislatively defined for a period of two years (adaptive education usually lasts one year, but at most two years), we included educators with a maximum length of teaching experience of five years in our research set. However, the questions in the questionnaire were oriented towards the first year of practice. The average age of the novice educators we approached, or he was a teacher for 28 years. The questionnaire was divided into several areas. The first area was aimed at finding out the subjectively perceived fitness of educators with respect to individual areas of professional performance, the second area mapped the real difficulties that educators had during the adaptation phase, and the third area ascertained opinions on professional readiness and interest in further education.

Through open-ended questions, we found out what educators were most afraid of in connection with starting a job. The answers showed that novice educators were most concerned about being accepted by the children themselves (as many as 21.43% of respondents said so). Among the areas that educators were worried about before starting their jobs, acceptance by colleagues, teaching staff and other school employees came in second place, and concerns about maintaining discipline were the third most frequently mentioned. We can conclude that these are the areas in which educators feel the least competent. Among other answers, we can mention the area of ​​cooperation with the family, instilling respect in children, as well as administrative activities related to the management of pedagogical documentation. Almost 6% of the interviewed educators said that before starting practice, they were not worried about any of the areas of their profession.

Furthermore, we found out which of their expectations were positively confirmed, or which positively surprised them after starting practice. We found out, in our opinion, an alarming fact, namely almost 30% of the respondents stated that nothing at all surprised them positively in the first months of the teaching profession. This is a very surprising figure, which may reflect to a certain extent the relatively good preparation of the graduate for the real life of the school, but on the other hand, it may be a signal that the beginning educator does not have high expectations for the school as an institution and thus cannot evaluate any of its elements positively. Furthermore, the respondents appreciated the positive acceptance by colleagues at the beginning of their teaching practice, or by other teaching staff and also acceptance by the pupils themselves. After starting practice, the educators also identified interest in cooperation on the part of parents, sufficient material equipment of the school as well as the possibility of applying their own creative procedures as positive.

To the next question, what was the biggest disappointment for you after starting practice, 13 respondents said that it was the low level of discipline of the children in the educational group. The issue of maintaining discipline was the third most common area that novice educators were most concerned about. We can therefore state that the educators' concerns have been confirmed, or that the issue of guiding children's behavior and their discipline is a matter of authority, which the teacher builds during his work. The formal authority with which a beginning educator comes into practice is insufficient in the case of guiding children's behavior. The second most frequent answer to the question of the greatest disappointment was the answer poor preparation from school, or only theoretical knowledge. Although the young pedagogue has rich theoretical knowledge, decision-making in everyday situations requires him to possess certain schemes of action, which are formed in the course of pedagogical practice on the basis of concrete experiences. And the beginning educator does not have them, which significantly affects his actions. As other answers, the respondents mentioned a lack of time for individual activities. We believe that this fact is rather determined by their own incorrect time allocation during the implementation of educational activities. Cooperation with older colleagues and children's lack of interest in something new appeared among other areas that represented disappointment for the educator.

With the questions in the questionnaire, we also focused on finding out which of the pedagogical activities caused the greatest problems for young teachers in the first months of their profession. In the first place, it was again a problem with maintaining the discipline of children and the resulting educational problems. The second most common answer was the high number of children in the groups. However, it can be considered a surprising finding that up to 8 of the interviewed respondents stated that the biggest problems were caused by the motivation of children, while it was in the area of ​​children's motivation that beginning educators felt sufficiently theoretically prepared by university. In this context, it can be concluded that the educators have come to the above-mentioned contradiction between the level of the theoretically mastered issue and its actual implementation in practice. Two respondents stated that they also had problems compiling written preparations for educational activities and carrying out their own self-reflection. The issue of keeping pedagogical documentation appeared less often in this question.

In addition to the areas of problems related to adaptation to the performance of the profession, we ascertained the respondents' opinions on undergraduate training. We found out for which professional activities they were theoretically sufficiently prepared by the university, or unprepared and to what extent. Educators were considered to be the best prepared in terms of motivating children in educational activities. Up to 31% of respondents identified children's motivation as an area for which the university prepared them excellently. Nevertheless, the very process of arousing the interest and maintaining the attention of children caused them problems in the beginning of the practice (see above). Another area in which the educators felt that they had sufficient theoretical and practical undergraduate training is the planning and preparation of educational activities and the creation of a positive climate in the educational group. Beginning educators were considered to be completely unprepared in the field of keeping pedagogical documentation, providing advisory and consulting activities to parents of children, and working with children with specific educational needs.

Beginning educators were very keenly aware of the need for further education. We found out in which specific areas. Most of those interviewed feel the need to supplement their education in the field of pedagogical diagnostics, advisory and consulting activities. It can be assumed that this finding is closely related to the range of problems related to the solution of discipline and educational problems, which were mentioned by the respondents as the most frequent and problematic at the beginning of the teaching profession. And that is precisely the area of ​​solving educational problems and maintaining discipline. Beginning educators also feel a significant need for further education in the methodological area, especially in activities aimed at preparing for teaching.

In connection with adaptive education, we were also interested in the level of cooperation between the beginning educator and the introducing educator. More than half of the respondents rated the cooperation with the introducing educator as very good. From the answers of the respondents, it clearly emerged that the most merit in their adaptation to the working environment was given to the introducing educator. Unfortunately, 6 respondents said that they did not have any introducing teacher assigned.

Discussion and Conclusion

The mentioned facts force us to think and look for the causes of the mentioned problems related to the professional start. Similar to what B. Kasáčová (2004) states in her publication, we could categorize the most frequently occurring problems, think about their causes and, of course, look for possible solutions.

In the first group of problems we can include those that are determined by the personality of the educator himself. It is the professional start that represents a kind of "test" of personal endurance, maturity or competence. Psychological characteristics such as moderate extroversion, emotional and neuropsychic stability, self-confidence, ambition, adaptation, integrated personality are embedded in innate dispositions, thus creating a kind of assumption of a stable and balanced personality, which the educator must be. The beginning of a professional career is a stage of increased mental load and stress, and these qualities can make the professional start easier for a beginning educator. These personality characteristics determine the solution, e.g. problems with children's discipline, communication with colleagues or parents, solving educational problems or the very process of adaptation to the work team or work pace. These are precisely the areas that, even in our research, appeared most often among the problematic areas and more difficult to manage precisely at the beginning of the profession. One of the possible solutions to eliminate the existence of these difficulties is the consistent selection of applicants for pedagogical education. However, we are aware that at present the situation is more than serious, young people who do not plan to work in the educational environment of the school are applying to the pedagogical faculties more and more often.

The second group of problems consists of those that are directly related to the professional competencies of the educator and are determined by the quality of undergraduate training. The ratio of the theoretical and practical components of university studies is unbalanced, although the novice teacher is sufficiently theoretically prepared, he feels a significant lack of practical experience. Current practice shows that students of university study programs have few direct practical hours in the real school environment. Even if they participate in practice, they are placed in groups together with other classmates, or they carry out their pedagogical practice outside the city where their university operates, for that reason they lack contact with their methodologist, or a teacher from a university. A network of training schools would clearly help solve the given situation.

The third category is represented by a range of problems that stem directly from the operation of a given educational institution. Beginning educators felt that the high number of children in educational groups was a problem, which did not allow them to apply an individual approach and made the process of getting to know the children as well as cooperation with the children's parents difficult. In this category, it is mostly about problems that are beyond the direct reach of the beginning educator.

Despite the established facts, we are asked to point out the fact that almost 60% of our respondents would repeatedly choose to study the same field of study again and would also apply repeatedly to the same university. To a certain extent, this means that despite the problems resulting from the adaptation phase of the profession, the profession of teacher fulfills them.

Although we consider these findings to be only partial, we believe that they represent a kind of probe into the personal and professional readiness of educators for the practice of the profession and are currently of great importance. Above all, because all higher education institutions are preparing for a comprehensive accreditation process, which also enables the innovation of the content of the undergraduate training of educators and other teaching staff. It is the duty of every higher education institution to reflect not only on the demands of society and the labor market, but also on the professional competence itself, which is subjectively felt by teachers.

Authors: PaedDr. Lívia Fenyvesiová, PhD. PaedDr. Dana Kollárová, PhD. PaedDr. Gábor Pintes, PhD. Department of Pedagogy, PF UKF in Nitra Literature:

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