On retrospective reflection of the individual educational way

The article presents a variant of studying of the individual educational path in the system of continuous education. The subject of reflection was the experience and results of the author's learning throughout life (the period from the mid-1950s to the present). Retrospective reflection is used as a research method. Attention is given to: a) a line of advancement in the system of formal education with the reasons and motives for choosing further route and forms of learning; b) the specificity of the life contexts of learning at its different stages; c) personal characteristics of teachers, which determined the value orientations in advancing along the professional pedagogical path. Among the conditions that stimulate the continuation of education are: the continuous expansion of the range of professional functions and activities; openness to intergenerational, interdisciplinary, inter-paradigm communication. Specific examples show the possibility for integrating any results of learning into the context of professional-pedagogical activities. The proposed logic of considering an individual educational path can find an expanded application both for research purposes and within the framework of self-knowledge.