The article is dedicated to one of the major fields of scientific interest of V. A. Sukhomlinsky - to the self-development of personality of the adolescent school child. The author draws attention to the important terms of the teenager’s self-development: the attractiveness of a life ideal, clarity of life values, the necessity of a moral choice and overcoming oneself. The article emphasizes the importance of the ideas of the outstanding pedagogical scientist for the assertion of the national pedagogical values in the contemporary Russian education.