The prominent personality of Andriy Volodymyrovych Dombrovsky and the first national textbook of organic chemistry for the secondary comprehensive schools: pages of history

Abstract

The article describes historical background of creation of the first Ukrainian textbook

«Organic Chemistry» for secondary comprehensive schools created on behalf of the Ministry of Education of Ukraine by the team of the authors from the Department of Chemistry of the Nizhyn Pedagogical Institute. The key role of one of the authors in creation of the textbook – the prominent Ukrainian organic chemist A. V. Dombrovskyi, whose birthday had passed 110 years ago, has been revealed. Biographical information and the most important stages of his scientific work are highlighted, which strongly indicates non-accidental nature of his participation in creation of the textbook.

It has been demonstrated that the theoretical framework of the textbook «Organic Chemistry» was the Concept of a school textbook developed by N.M. Burynska, which established its personal orientation and a fundamentally new function – self-education. It is emphasized that upon picking up content to the textbook the authors followed general scientific principles, while simultaneously updated textbook’s didactic basis in accordance to the social, political and cultural conditions that have fundamentally changed in independent Ukraine.

The scientific and theoretical level of the textbook is analyzed as well as the reasons why throughout transformation of curriculum and following output to the arena of the next generations of textbooks, it was still using as an alternative one. It was in particular demand upon teaching chemistry in physics and math classes.

It is concluded that the viability of the textbook provides the numerous tests and tasks of three levels of difficulty. The principle of humanization of education gained significant development in the textbook. The principle of historicism is strengthened through the disclosure of the ukrainian context and activities of domestic scientists in development of chemistry. The principle of fusion of theory and practice, science and life is well expressed running through the entire course of organic chemistry. In order to create up-to-date environment-friendly thinking of students, the textbook covers the issue of use of common organic substances and their impact on the environment.

The authors present the basic concepts of organic chemistry in a logical way in terms of the modern structural theory. Discussing the idea of causal dependence of the properties of chemical compounds on their structure, the textbook implements a developmental function aimed at students mastering the methods of theoretical thinking. The educational function of the textbook runs through the disclosure of the similarity and «genetic» relationship between organic substances, the material basis of chemical transformations and the knowability of the world. The structural components of the textbook focus on encouraging activity and training students' autonomous work during the study of organic chemistry.