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The Experience of Calling: Educational Aspects and Cross-Cultural Comparisons by Yevhen Muliarchuk

experience of calling is rather personal and internal. That is not what we would talk in public. For teachers and pedagogic students the only real external personification of calling is mainly an image of children"s faces, of pupils whom they teach.

Although the experience of calling is akin to responsibility and sacrifice, people in Ukraine do not feel it like a heavy burden. The possible in America and Western Europe opinion that calling is a necessity even when one does not like it would rather not be supported on the base of our research in Ukraine. For example, we can find in the "Theological Dictionary" by Karl Rahner and Herbert Vorgrimler that any career, "even one that is disliked, can be a vocation, since one may have a duty to do what one finds difficult" [Rahner & Vorgrimler, 1965: 483-484]. Contrariwise, calling is rather a personal happiness than a duty for Ukrainians. Hard work for calling can be acceptable, but still it fulfills and brings happiness. Ukrainian students generally insist that freedom is the essence of calling. Moreover, some of them feel easy to say that callings can change during the life, because they are personal.

What is also different is that Ukrainians are very cautious about affirmation that they are chosen for their callings. That could mean the difference of the religion and culture in Ukraine comparing to the USA. Ukrainian believers would accept that God brings them into definite field of activity, gives them some gifts and will give the abilities to overcome the difficulties, but to say that they are chosen ones is too strong statement for the majority of them. Only 1 student of 10 and 1 of 5 teachers told directly that they did not choose their way themselves because the choice was in God"s hands.

The experience of calling as a career-motivating factor in Ukraine is rather not religious. It is about self-realization, social service and helping people, about goodness. Ukrainian students and teachers do not use the word "spirituality" when talking about their calling for pedagogic profession. During our interviews, the Ukrainian Christian believers did not tell that they were going to be teachers directly because of the religion. Our survey also showed a very little evidence of impact of the religion on the choice of teaching profession. Only 3% of students admitted that they got a religious calling to teach. At the same time love for children, desire to give knowledge, to benefit the society as motives are really important and it is evident that teaching profession cannot be a calling without them. Teaching as a career definitely needs calling, even though it is not true for some teachers. That is undoubted thesis for Ukrainians and for Americans as well. Maybe in Ukraine we need it even more.

I think that the cross -cultural studies of calling need further development as for the sub-ject fields, methods and procedures and present a big scientific and practical interest. More-over, the cross-cultural competence is a vital need of a contemporary world [Aleksandrova, 2016: 21]. Thanking the American colleagues form Liberty University for their research and for the impetus of my study, I hope that presented article has also added some knowledge and experience in the field of education and for general understanding of the phenomenon of calling.

Conclusions

Let us make a short summary of our findings. Calling as a phenomenon has a structure that can be presented as follows: Desire (Passion) - Talent (Abilities) - Realization - Social Benefit and Good. In case of religious belief, the structure of calling looks like this:

Faith - Gifts - Deeds - Religious or Spiritual Benefit. There could be no calling when it is a lack or a gap in it. Whatever structures can be invented, we feel that calling goes from

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The Experience of Calling: Educational Aspects and Cross-Cultural Comparisons by Yevhen Muliarchuk

the depth of human being and from the wonder of co-existence with people, or even from the transcendent being of God. Calling is a sacred possession or rather a gift that one is free to take or to lose.

The aim of transpersonal goodness is the core of the phenomenon of calling and gives the integrity of its structure. Calling is for good, it cannot ruin. It is a kind of participation in creation within this world. What is opposite to it is not an evil. It is human laziness and fears that can be overcome with faith, love and wisdom.

Because of free character of the phenomenon, calling cannot be a criterion for a formal assessment of teacher"s ability to work at school. That is rather a regulative idea for some more detailed instruments for the improvements and training of teachers and for the politics in education. Teacher"s calling is to bring young people to their own callings.

If the essence of education is raising people to the level of spirit out of the level of matter, the task of a teacher is to bring up that ability in the youth. That is the core the teacher"s mis-sion in the world.

Calling is not all in our life. It has its limits, its horizons of appearance and there is al-ways something else or someone else beyond it. That is why calling needs ethics and, as we can say, first of all calling needs faith. However, the attention to the phenomenon of calling is definitely a part of caring for the future of humanity.

 References

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