Self-esteem as an essential characteristic of a teacher’s self-developing personality

The research focuses on the issue of studying self-esteem as a basis for teacher self-development and personality development. The concept of self-development is defined; the author’s definition of teacher self-development is formulated as an activity of a mature individual realizing their life-meaning and professional goals, ideals, improving personal and physical properties, capabilities in their consistent correlation with externally given requirements in the context of creating oneself as an individual, professional, citizen, and person of the world culture. The concept of personal self-esteem and its priority derivative characteristics – self-acceptance, self-respect, and self-affirmation – are revealed. The personality characteristics of a teacher with a developed sense of self-worth are highlighted. The functions of self-esteem as a trait in the structure of a teacher's self-developing personality are defined and disclosed: psychological support for the teacher's inner mental world in harmonizing the entire system of personal and professional values, priorities, and principles; accompanying support in the life of the teacher’s personality, “carrying” the opportunity to live their individuality with a sense of inner harmony; providing opportunities and assistance to the teacher's personality to “be themselves”, to express themselves authentically in the outside world and to realize their own potential; guiding the individual's definition and choice of life path, actions, and the basis for their attitude to life as such; initiating the teacher's personality toward positive and progressive self-development (intention toward harmonious, full self-realization) etc. An empirical study of teachers’ self-acceptance (N = 48, Voronezh, 2023) was conducted using S.R. Pantileev’s self-esteem methodology. The results showed that, in the identified general self-esteem profile, most of teachers are characterized by average-level values for the self-esteem parameter. The semantic aspects of scientists' appeal to the issues of studying self-esteem and self-development of a modern teacher are noted.