Development of younger schoolchildren’s interest in the study of orthodox culture

The article touches upon the problem of formation of cognitive interest among younger schoolchildren in the study of Orthodox culture. As you know, lack of interest entails passive participation of the student in the lesson, disinterest in obtaining new knowledge, and, consequently, low academic performance. However, familiarity with Orthodox culture should not be burdensome for a child, lessons should not be boring and incomprehensible. It is important that the students took an active part in a versatile search for knowledge, looked for answers to the questions posed, drew conclusions, and most importantly, had a desire to get in touch with this area more deeply. Teachers conducting classes on Orthodox culture are in search of suitable teaching methods that correspond to the content and specifics of the module. As a solution to this problem, the article presents and analyzes methodological developments for various author's programs of the module, carried out as part of student research at the Department of Pedagogy of St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University for the Humanities in recent years. The author comes to the conclusion that the described methods of teaching allow us to talk about the successful formation of cognitive interest in the lessons of the "Fundamentals of Orthodox Culture", which is confirmed by the results of pedagogical experiments conducted in the fourth grades of secondary schools.