The labor origin theorists of education believe that education originated from human productive labor. The evolution from apes to humans and from nature to society is also a process in which education gradually comes into being. Labor forms people and society, thus becoming an indispensable condition for human survival and social development. For the continuous development of human beings and society, every individual action and improvement of methods must be widely spread among groups in labor, so that personal knowledge and experience can be transformed into human experience and passed down from generation to generation.

At the same time, in order to coordinate productive labor and social life, people need to follow certain norms, including various experiences, customs, etiquette and traditions of groups in social life. These are all spiritual wealth created by the collective, which must be preserved, passed down and accumulated. These all need education objectively, and the means of preservation, transmission and accumulation are mainly tools and languages created in labor, which are the conditions of educational activities.