The article analyzes peculiarities of the image of the world of participants of the educational process, their goals, motives, means and methods being used at present, ethical aspects of their behaviour. The author describes a classification of activities based on three parameters: assistance, resistance, performance/ reflection arguing that the proportion of each parameter in learning is determined by their correlation in the future activity for which a person is being trained. The article also discusses continuity and differences in approaches to education and development reflected in the works of A.N. Leontiev and contemporary authors.