The subject of the study in this article is the concept of liberal education in its connection with the formation of such a
concept as «critical thinking». The authors believe that the basis of liberal education is a phenomenon that modern researchers call
«German philosophy of the university», historically associated with the emergence of the Humboldt University model. By analyzing the texts of philosophers and educational theorists who were related to the «German philosophy of the university» the conclusion is made that the modern liberal concept of education and the concept of «critical thinking» emerge and are thematized within this tradition.
Accordingly, what modern pedagogy commonly refers to as «critical thinking» as an educational outcome is inextricably linked to the context of liberal education formation. Indirect evidence of this is also the connection between the ideas of «German philosophy of the university» and the pedagogical developments of such classics of liberalism as J. St. Mill and Dewey, whose connection and continuity of ideas are also analyzed in this article. From the point of view of the authors of this article, these conclusions may help to give a more detailed understanding of what is to be understood today by «critical thinking» in contemporary pedagogy and educational discourse.
Moreover, it is the historical-philosophical approach to the analysis of this notion that seems to be the most effective and topical, since it helps to understand the context of its formation and to outline the main interpretations that may help to form a conventional definition of what «critical thinking» is, the lack of which is now considered to be one of the main problems of applied pedagogy.

Pedagogical tradition, academic research and international reports of educational systems lead us back to teaching
practices. Many works are devoted to their normative and empirical description. In this article, we want to draw attention to the importance of describing effective teaching practices in the digital age. Who and how exactly achieves academic progress and wellbeing of students? How is such work “set up” at different levels: a teacher, a team of teachers, a school team? The authors analyze the current situation and conclude that there is a lack of high-quality empirical research on specific teaching practices with good results. The authors propose the ideas and design of an empirical study of effective teaching practices at different levels: individual, team, collective, and call for the creation of global cooperation to understand modern “teacher’s secrets”.

The article deals with the interschool curriculums of specialized training for high school students. The analysis of the
theoretical framework and practices of using the interschool curriculum in Russia, China and Great Britain allows to highlight the main basis of instructional design such programs. The authors focus on the components of the curriculum which are main and effective for schools with the increased educational migration. The result of this analysis is very useful to school principals, the municipality authorities, who can use the proposed methods and design to enable to form an opinion on the feasibility and desirability to organize the interschool curriculum according to context of territory.  

The aim of the presented study is to develop a scientific methodology for the index assessment of the personal and
professional stability of school teachers and its approbation on the basis of sociological research data. The author summarized
scientific approaches to the category of «personal and professional stability of teachers», as well as methods of experimental research of the relevant phenomena. On this basis, the concept of personal and professional stability was conceptualized as an integrative characteristic reflecting the result of the teacher’s use of nature resources (external and internal) for his professional growth. The study clarified the traditional structure of the teacher’s personal and professional stability. It included components of regulatory-emotional, conative, financial, institutional, competence-based and labor stability. The formed personal and professional stability is proposed using
the indicator of pedagogical stability (IPU). The algorithm for assessing the personal and professional pedagogical profession in the framework of sociological research is determined as the follow-ing steps: a point assessment of the level of components of personal and professional stability for each teacher in a separate work; calculation of a number of IPUs based on the summation of points for each component; determination of the level of formation of personal and professional stability on the basis of clustering indica-tors of the k-means method. In the course of approbation of the methodology on the example of the Russian region, the data of a sociological survey of representatives of the teaching community of the Vologda Oblast were used (n=272). Calculations make it possible to obtain a number of indices of pedagogical sustainability and levels of development of sustainability of Vologda teachers in their profession. In conclusion, referring to the category and focus of learning problems at the personal and professional level of schools.

The quality of interaction between children, parents, and kindergarten staff is becoming an important criterion for evaluating preschool
education. A few years ago, this trend was already reflected in the new version of the ECERS-R comprehensive educational quality assessment scale. In the study of the reasons for parents’ dissatisfaction with Moscow kindergartens conducted by the author of the article, the trend was confirmed: it was the criterion of «interaction» that was rated by parents significantly lower than other criterion groups. The study showed that extreme manifestations of negative interaction (rudeness and boorishness of teachers and administration towards children and parents, bullying and harassment, ignoring serious problems) lead to the decision to change kindergartens. The opinion of today’s parents, who are increasingly involved in the educational process and are becoming managers of their children’s education, requires special attention. Although kindergartens are not yet experiencing competition and are not struggling for parental satisfaction and loyalty and customer retention, competition in preschool education already exists. Unfortunately, in Russian kindergartens, insufficient attention is paid to interaction between all participants in the process, or the importance of this aspect is ignored in principle. There are few methodological recommendations on how to establish interaction, which also confirms the lack of attention to the issue. The quality of interaction can be improved through a comprehensive program of interaction with parents, strengthening their involvement, including through interactive programs; cultivating a person-centered model of interaction with
children and families; taking into account the high competition in the children’s environment and leveling it out through organizational moments and training children to build partnership models of interaction. In the article, the author examines in detail the aspect of interaction between staff, parents, and children, describing the findings of her study, and gives recommendations for establishing quality interaction, citing the development of methodologists and her own practical experience

The prerequisites for the development of public preschool education in the early years of Soviet power in Eastern Siberia
are analyzed on the basis of archival documents. The regional archival collections reflect the duration, complexity, and inconsistency of this process in the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The starting point in determining the main lines of development of preschool education is the recognition of preschool education as a subsystem of general education that has a definite structure: (a network of children preschool institutions of various organizational and legal forms, a system of institutions management, the content of programs of education and training), considering national and regional characteristics, the nature of life and work of the population. More emphasis is placed on the analysis of the development of the network of pre-school institutions of various types and education management departments. There are published normative documents and materials of the beginning of XX century reflecting one of the main values in relation to children — protection of motherhood and childhood, which do not lose their relevance today. The features of the organization and
financing of the training of the first pedagogical staff for the preschool education system are disclosed.