Textbook for the course “The History of Ukrainian Culture”: question for discussion

Abstract

The article considers problems of teaching the university course “History of Ukrainian culture”.
The sources for the analysis were textbooks on this subject published during 2009–
2014, some of which are classified as approved by Ministry of Education and Science of
Ukraine, so they are reflecting the official position of the Ministry regarding the goal, objectives, structure and content of the course. Analysis is performed on such parameters as the course goals and objectives, expected results, compliance with the objectives of the modern educational process. The author notes extremely low scholarly and methodological level of the most of textbooks, recording discrepancy between stated goal, objectives and expectations and, on the other hand, the main content, structure of the course and needs of modern education. The textbooks show a genetic dependence on way of thinking and teaching established in the Soviet educational system for the set of “Marxism-Leninism” ideological disciplines, and desire to please the officials instead of benefiting the student inherited from the same source. Attention is drawn to the way of presenting material in these textbooks, being perfunctory, telegraphic and helpless in terms of language. In addition, these books contain egregious inaccuracies and errors. In the author’s opinion, the main reason for these defects is lack of a coherent, well-thought-out concept of the course, trying to tell ‘everything’ in one short book. The author offers a community of lecturers and researchers of cultural history to start a discussion about realistic and achievable goal of respective courses, about performable tasks and skills really useful for students.