The role of personal and professional skills of teacher in professional activity

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All personal qualities of the teacher are closely interrelated and equally important. Since criterion of morality, the criterion of deciding, which action should be considered as good and which as evil, it should be the same for all people, it may seem that it should be sought in moral rules, that is in all external indications controlling our moral lives - state laws, customs, even moral rules revealed by God. On the ground of similar positions the difference between good and evil in our acts is derived from compliance with these acts and the external law, which not only is beyond us but also is established by virtue of someone else's will. These positions are numbered among systems of heteronomous morality - the criterion of morality is not within a man, but beyond him. However, as laws and customs are changing every day, there is no such system that could be able to justify stability and constancy of moral norms. On the other hand, we have systems of autonomous morality, which track the criterion of morality within the man, excluding more or less objective external norms. Some people understand this criterion as satisfaction caused by good deeds, others put emphasis on benefits, others pay attention to the moral sense present in every man, and except that it is always the individual who decides what causes satisfaction or brings benefits. As heteronomous morality cannot justify stability and constancy of moral norms, the autonomous morality only undermines unity and universality of moral principles.

Social and moral orientation is one of the most important qualities of a teacher. The system of Christian ethics does not get to extremes of heteronomous and autonomous systems and dominates over them, and by its universality it makes the morality of every act dependent mainly on its subject, that is the purpose, and the purpose is to action like action is to ability. Purposefulness is the most characteristic feature of human behavior, and the purpose itself can be defined as: “the result of giving the concrete processes its directions, even before it has been realized”. In everyday life wherever we go we meet purposefulness - when we see a new subject and we want to know what this thing is, we ask questions how does it work and what its purpose is. Human being is the only one who is able to know the goal, he is trying to pursue and is able to control his actions so as to successfully reach this goal. Animals do not have this ability and they act under the influence of instincts, even if they are aiming at something, they are not able to understand that this something is actually their goal. Awareness of the distance between the emergence of an idea to its implementation and the ability to reflect on intentions and possible ways of realization of intended goals makes the man responsible for its own actions and behavior. The aim comes first to our mind before we even start to act, however it is the last in the order of execution. Usually our aim can be any goods, things or properties that we want to acquire or make, or some positive state of (human) mind and spirit, which we want to evoke or a negative one which we need to erase. However at the same time, those goods we are aiming at and which activate us to action, give certain direction and value to these actions. That is why not formal factors of heteronomous systems, but concrete vivid purposeful factors are essential. Ideals and irrelevant models are something unattainable, far from realization; they act as guideposts, but are not action's inducement itself. In the moral life, in the first place, there are always goals being the impulse to action, models appear later on, indicating general norms of behavior and actions. What is more, the whole human behavior is composed not only of single actions irrelevant one to another, but of whole chains, in which goal of a single action is essential means of attaining later superior goals. If any good is not directly available, then we use means which will enable gaining it - this way means become indirect goals for specified supreme purpose. The supreme goal is the state of constant pleasure, thus happiness, which being the inducement to activity becomes the main impulse of moral activity. Happiness defined in such a way does not consist in temporary and partial satisfaction of desire, but in such satisfaction that would make us feel happy in all respects, both sensorial and spiritual. As it is emphasized by Bochenski, the only thing that can bring us such happiness is the infinite good, thus God.

While looking at moral life of a person mostly strikes the fact, that people endowed with the same psychical powers, facing the same situations, act differently. That is because one human nature manifests itself in many distinct tempers, even people from similar environments in different ways accomplish similar actions, they are more or less skilled, are characterized by higher or lower efficiency of powers, from which these actions emerge. The human nature's feature, which decides on formation of our constant tempers is its potentiality, present in humans to a larger extent than it is in animals. Aptitudes of particular human powers, which he possesses at the beginning of his life are yet not developed enough to enable him act in a satisfying way and just over some period of time, by repeating certain actions he gains more experience with them. Such process, eventually, impresses an individual stamp on him, as he enhances its activities, he gains such characteristics, based on which he can be easily identified. Of course, as far as human beings are concerned, the development of potentiality of all his aptitudes can never utterly deplete it. We always develop in only one particular direction or a few directions neglecting others and when one person reaches a complete development of a particular skill, others develop the same skill only partially, whereas in others it appears only rudimentarily.

The ideological conviction of the teacher determines its social and moral orientation, which is reflected in social needs, and moral values, and a sense of public duty and civic responsibility. The subject-matter of improving life's functions in the field of morality appears already in Socrates' and Plato's, but especially in Aristotle's works, who first noticed and defined efficiency in independent activity and behaviour in harmony with the moral law. Saint Thomas Aquinas elaborated on Aristotle's teaching, by distinguishing habitus entitativus, that is constant temper and habitus operatives - efficiency. At the end of Middle Ages the term of efficiency falls into oblivion until XIX century when Maine de Biran mentions it again, however he concentrated his attention not on the term of efficiency itself, but on a related term of habit. Efficiency and habit are very similar, thus easy to be confused, they arise by repeating the same actions, which consolidate the ability that enables performing similar activities but obstructs performing others. However, there is one significant difference between the efficiency and habits - habits appear mechanically and unwittingly that is why they act automatically and instinctively, whereas efficiency is the effect of a conscious effort and then they act consciously. In case of efficiency the moment of thinking is reduced to minimum, human brain using all the gained experience, makes instant decisions avoiding prolonged process of reasoning, however, because of acting consciously it can maintain moderation and tact, which unfortunately habits lack8. Moreover, habit almost entirely gets particular power under its control to such an extent, that in certain circumstances it instinctively accomplishes always the same actions, while efficiency directs power towards some actions, but it always leaves freedom of accomplishing other actions, even the opposite ones. As opposed to habits, moral efficiency, such as virtues and faults, induce us to do something but they never force and the accompanying element of consciousness is a guarantee of our freedom of action9. In spite of so many differrences, habits and efficiency are closely related and constantly permeate with each other. Although habit emerges without creating efficiency, and many times even preventing it from emerging, efficiency's feature is that it always forms certain habits, which later on start acting instinctively (unassisted).

We distinguish four groups of efficiency: first concerns the fields of physiological life, then there is cognitive efficiency, which divides itself into two groups - theoretical, that is intellectual and practical, i.e. technical, the last group consists of moral efficiency - virtues and fault. Excepting the first one, the other three groups are connected with intellectual power. Among theoretical efficiency we could count out another three groups, namely efficiency of supreme principles, which easily and without much thinking enables us to investigate the truths that things cannot `be' and `not be' at the same time, that the whole is bigger than its parts, that we should avoid evil and act in a good moral way. As far as these principles are concerned, reason begins to wonder about itself, its activity and entity and that is how the teaching of `improving the reason's ability to recognize certain category of wonders' starts. Above all those types of efficiency there is one supreme cognitive efficiency, which delivers knowledge of common factors of all being, i.e. metaphysics, which is commonly named wisdom. The reason's practical activity is based on the will, participating in opinions' and decisions' formation on one hand and on the intellectual power on the other hand. When the intellectual power improves it creates a separate group of technical efficiency, which consists of crafts, fine arts and logic.

Competence involves profound professional knowledge, skills and professionalism in the field of pedagogy and psychology, technique mastery of the educational impact. Intellectual and technical efficiencies are not subjected to the moral law and depending on their relation to this law; they are not divided into good and evil. They appear in us to various extent but they are still something good, as they facilitate accomplishment of our actions. They do not have to struggle with their contrasts as there are no virtues and faults here; there is lack of efficiency or its insufficient mastering. Where as moral efficiency depending on complying with the moral law, divides into good - virtues and evil - faults. The good ones support actions accordant with requirements of our rational nature, the evil ones on the contrary, fulfill desires of particular power and in this way object to requirements of human nature. The characteristic feature of moral efficiency is also its dynamism, development and constant wrestling, which consists in a virtue or fault getting overall control over a particular power and determining it in its own way. The Power, which is not controlled by a virtue or is not virtuously active, gains opposite inclinations and becomes a fault, eventually. What is more, as far as intellectual efficiency is concerned, the progress of knowledge depends on specialization in one field, while moral efficiency is distinguished by internal solidarity, which excludes the possibility of specializing in only certain virtues and neglecting others. The lack of one virtue destroys solidarity, as it means filling in the gap with a fault and its destructive influence on the other virtues.

Plato was the first one who from among numerous moral virtues distinguished four cardinal virtues - prudence, justice, fortitude and temperance - which prevail over others and are the framework, by which other virtues are ordered. The basis of such distinction of four cardinal virtues is classification of psychical powers to reason, will and emotions, while the latter divides also into lustful and impetuous spheres. Reason, which manages our practical life, is paralleled with the virtue of prudence, the virtue of justice is connected with the will, temperance is in charge of lustful power, while virtue of fortitude equals to impetuous power. The other virtues are only components of a particular cardinal virtue, which are necessary for its proper functioning, or are other types of a cardinal virtue; finally, many virtues can be numbered among cardinal virtues based on general similarity. Their common purpose is to ascend man in his earthly perfection on a higher level, which is possible by the activity proceeded by reasoning and thought, i.e. the essence of humanity.

Teaching ability is a set of mental characteristics of teachers required for successful mastery of teaching and its effective implementation. Above all virtues there is the virtue of prudence - `the supreme practical ability to control the whole life', so called virtues' driver. Its main task is to maintain proper moderation among all virtues and to unit them into one spiritual organization, called character. When there is a lack of this virtue, then others cannot function properly, as well as when there is a lack of any other virtue, because prudence itself is not able to influence on other virtues. It uses information of theoretical cognition concerning particular situations of moral life, preceding our actions with a selection means which can ensure reaching the purpose. To avoid changing into greed and cunning that is into a fault, the virtue of prudence has to have a virtue of integrity and should rest on the first principle of moral life, telling that it is necessary to avoid evil and do what is good and moral.

Prudence is this virtue that we cannot learn from other people, we have to gain it on our own, putting a lot of effort into it - as unlike theoretical reason, it is not concentrated on permanent, invariable things, e.g. mathematical rules. In theoretical cognition the inner essence of our opinions is beyond will's reach - will only decides whether we are interested in physics or biology, but once we choose the subject of our interests, it is the reason that should influence on formation of our opinions. In the practical cognition, on the contrary, the will acts as “the willing thinking” and from the inner it participates in decision and command making, which then control our actions and behavior. As far as practical reasoning is concerned, knowing truth of a particular object is not essential but the decision whether this object or activity meets our liking. Such decisions consist of features of certainty, but this certainty differs from the one in theoretical cognition, it is moral certainty and its source is “will's constancy in liking the chosen goal” and not “the subject's obviousness cognized by the reason”.

Specially-pedagogical competence of the teacher determines the level of his preparation in science, which accumulates in academic subjects and covers the scientific knowledge, skills and their practical application. Each activity is like a chain, in which all elements are the successive acts of will and reason. At first there is a thought of something that we like, which turns into intention and activates the will into gaining this thing and then the will induces the reason to start acting. The main task of the thought, which is paralleled with the virtue of consideration, is to consider all the means, by which we can reach the goal and whether and to what extent they are suitable for reaching it. Judicious person is someone who does not make use of any random measures, but tries to find more suitable ones, which do not come to mind as first. Then, from a few possible measures we choose one, the one which seems to be the best for attaining the goal - this is the intention, which is the equivalent of the virtue of sense and which together with the thought belongs to the first stage of practical activity, called the aim. The next reason's activity - command, concerns the stage of realizing and controls it until the goal is reached. This is the time when prudence appears, which searches for possible “paths of realizing the whole intentional actions”. Consideration measures the value of each action separately, sense compares them with each other, while prudence controls the activity's realization. Consideration and sense execute theoretical actions, analyze and take into pieces means and measures of each activity, then they compare them with each other and measure their value in the context of aim. Prudence as the reason's activity is fully practical and rests on the outcomes of the work of consideration and sense. It does not analyze anything but thinks over “the next” actions, which the particular life's conditions call for.

The system of natural and acquired qualities that reveal the teacher's ability to perform his duties and cover the base of professional knowledge and skills combined with the ability to actively create, operate, implement their intentions and achieve planned results is professional-pedagogical potential. As long as the will in the stage of intention was engaged in preparing the future action, now together with prudence is working on actual realization of that action, becoming a kind of a motive power. Before searching the measures that will help us attain the goal, it is important to desire it in the first place - when the desire is too weak, then there is not enough effort put into finding the best measures, whereas when the desire is too strong, then we want to reach the goal too fast by restoring to any random measures. The most important principle when considering the most suitable measures should be moderation, which guarantees the right choice of measures for pursuing the particular goal. What is more, as long as prudence is “the virtue of well educated conscience” then the will should be characterized by the mentioned integrity, thus should be directed towards real human goods, which are pointed by the theoretical reason. Therefore, the will's integrity depends on its relation with the aim, which is given in the human nature and which is being cognized by the theoretical reason, whereas measures leading to this aim are not given in the nature but should always be chosen according to the principle telling to avoid evil and do what is good and moral. The will's characteristic feature should also be diligence, which lies in putting as much effort as each activity requires. moral professional pedagogical

When investigating prudence at the angle of watching over the practical activity, we cannot forget about its elements, the most important of which is memory that serves the purpose of restoring experiences from the past in order to control current actions by their means. But it is not about remembering principles of behaving; rather it is about remembering numerous situations, attitudes and behaviour form every day life, in order to be able in every moment in every circumstances reach for the ready pattern of behaviour. This process proceeds well, when the saved experiences are permanent and ordered, and the memory itself is being kept in the constant suspense (by the will). Another component of prudence is so called “sense of reality”, thus intelligence. In all our actions we always should be guided not only by principles but also by various information among which and thanks to which we will be able to act. We should have in mind that those principles should be clear enough and the information should be understood plainly and distinctly, because imagination can sometimes transform sensory perception in such a way that in real life nothing equals to its creations.

The third element of prudence is willingness to take a piece of advise or instruction from another person, but there is no compulsion of complying with their requirements, they assume total voluntariness. No one can be forced to listen to somebody's advise, but we should take notice and memorize it, because, opposed to theoretical knowledge which we can gain on our own, practical knowledge can be derived only from other people's experience, due to limited nature of our own experience. Apart from another person's advise we should base on our own observation and draw our own conclusions of what is happening around us, what not always is obvious and clear. This element of prudence is called intuitiveness and at a higher “degree of initiation” it enables to see and understand apparently insignificant actions and perceive ulterior intents and behaviour. The last element of prudence is common sense, wittiness and it is connected with the stage of intention. General laws of logic underlie the common sense, which is responsible for reasoning and making wise choices. Practical reasoning, opposed to theoretical, dealing with constantly changing conditions of everyday life, cannot reach any objective certainty and thus cannot bring any essential conclusion - even if only one circumstance changes we have to change our opinion. As it is emphasized by Woroniecki, because of such problems, practical reasoning should also be characterized by flexibility that is ability of adjusting to any occurred situation.

The elements of prudence related to the stage of intention were about the past and the present, while those connected with the stage of realization are directed towards future and pay attention to carrying out resolution and to reaching the purpose. The first of them is the ability of predicting, that is so called foresight. To accomplish any action it has to be realized and preceded by the plan prepared in advance, which will be constantly present in mind and will be directing the aim at the right course. However, once the plan is ready and all steps arranged, we have to remember that it is always being realized in the whirl of everyday life - such plan's placing in concrete conditions, in which it will be realized, is called caution. The last element connected with the ability of predicting is forethought, which is about predicting possibilities that may stand in a way of realizing the plan and counteracting these adversities by means of appropriate measures. This virtue is so important, that not taking preventive measures, too long delay and the lack of presence of mind are able to ruin the whole plan.

Thus, the teacher is a defining figure in the education system. The success in teaching activities and in the development of society as a whole is defined by the level of development of its professionalism, moral and spiritual culture and skills. As cardinal virtues are complex, instilling them is not the easiest task and, thus, it has to take various forms depending on temper, temperament and the age of practicing person. Education brings good results, when the pupil agrees on it, consciously accepts the passed contents and is willing to change his previous views, attitudes and manners. Thus, as it turns out the final aim of education is a self educative ability, which consists of both - discovering basic values and gaining awareness helpful with understanding the role and place of a man in the world on one hand, and of effort of developing our potentials on the other hand. It is not enough to improve eyesight or hearing, enrich memory and imagination, but it is also necessary to learn how to control them in a way that they will be useful in reaching purposes indicated by our reason. When finally we acquire proficiency in using these virtues, we will be able not only to do well, but also we will become more efficient and perfect, and the fulfilling virtuous deeds will bring us inexpressible joy and satisfaction. The true teacher can be a person of high moral character and level of culture that understands that the path to the profession and the way in profession requires work on oneself, constant self-forming and self-improvement.

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