The author briefly expounds the essence of education, the ideal of education, the essence of university and the ideal of university from a professional perspective, and puts forward some concrete measures for university reform, which has certain reference significance.
Finally, the author's view throughout the book is that there should be an equal relationship between teachers and students, and the purpose of education is to maintain independent and free personal will and unremitting pursuit of truth.
What is education? Different theorists at home and abroad have different views on education. One of the views I agree with most is that education is communication. In our country, it has always been recognized as a halo view. What are the aspects of education? Starting from the pressure of children, of course, it also includes prenatal education, as well as family education, school education, social education and environmental education. The metaphor of educational image is to turn a blank sheet of paper into a form. It's full of words. There are changes and mistakes in it. Waiting for you to revise and supplement.
About the definition of education, educators, thinkers and some people at home and abroad have their own "quotations", which are summarized as follows:
Confucius said, "The way of a university is to be well-known, to be close to the people, and to stop at perfection."
Lu Xun: "Education is to cultivate people." Children's education is mainly about understanding, guidance and liberation.
Cai Yuanpei: "Education is to help the educated develop their abilities, improve their personality and do their part in human culture, rather than making the educated a special tool."
Tao Xingzhi: Education is a "life education" based on and for life, which cultivates people with action ability, thinking ability and creativity.
Huang Quanyu: Education "The important thing is not to load the car, but to fill the tank with oil."
Zhong Qiquan: Education is the basis of "student development" and "personality growth".
Qin Wenjun: "Education should be a door. Open it, full of sunshine and flowers. It can bring confidence and happiness to children."
There are also many wonderful and incisive expositions on "education" abroad:
Marx and Engels: Education is to promote "the free development of individual originality"
Kant: Education is a process of individual self-design, self-selection, self-construction and self-evaluation. It is the development of self-ability. It embodies the social will and mechanism that educators and educatees explore together in an equal, free, prudent and serious way. It is not "instigation" or "substitution", and it is not to let the young butterflies in the cocoon cater to or yield against their will.
Einstein: "What is education? When you forget all the education, the rest is education. " Howard gardner: What is education? Education is to let children experience and discover what the world is like and what role educators can play in it.
Montessori: "Education is to stimulate life, enrich life, help children survive with their own strength and help them develop this spirit."
Amicus: Education is "education of love".
Jaspers believes: "The so-called education is nothing more than the communication between people (especially between the older generation and the younger generation), including the imparting of knowledge content, the understanding of the connotation of life, the norms of will and behavior, and the source and foundation for awakening people's souls through all the cultures in the existing world, rather than primitive derivatives and mediocre knowledge (except, of course, the ability, language and memory content as the basis of education). Real education never allows rote memorization, nor does it expect everyone to become a thoughtful thinker. Education is the education of human soul, not the accumulation of rational knowledge. "
Various interpretations, each with its own merits, all lead to the door of truth from a certain angle. The education research report submitted by the International 2 1 Century Education Committee to UNESCO said: Education is "to ensure that everyone enjoys the freedom of thought, judgment, emotion and imagination needed to give full play to their talents, and to control their own destiny as firmly as possible."
As an educator, figuring out what education is is of great benefit to understanding the essence of education, clarifying one's own functions and responsibilities, and finding the way forward. This is not a question of walking into a dead end after talking. Because there is no rational consciousness, it is impossible to be a conscious educator in practice.
Education is something that appears and develops with the activities of human society, not the object created by human beings.
Therefore, the definition of education is suitable to use the genetic definition method of "species difference plus genus", which is defined by the characteristics of the defined thing in the process of occurrence or formation as "species difference" and the similar "genus concept" to which the thing belongs.
Observing some generally recognized educational activities such as teachers' teaching to students and parents' guidance to children, we can find that the ways and means of speaking, writing and demonstrating used in these activities are actually spreading information, while students and children receive corresponding information through auditory, visual and tactile channels, so these educational activities can be classified as information dissemination activities. Information dissemination and communication is a part of social activities and the foundation of social existence and development. Taking information dissemination activities as the "general concept" of educational activities conforms to the requirements of the definition rules. Moreover, taking "information dissemination" as the characteristic of educational activities can be distinguished from learning activities characterized by "receiving information".
However, not all information dissemination activities are educational activities, and people have various motives for disseminating information. Suppose that publicity activities are based on expressing opinions, while teachers and parents engage in educational activities based on changing the quality and ability of students and children and making them grow up. Therefore, taking "paying attention to the quality and ability of others" as the motive feature of educational activities, that is, "seed difference", can distinguish it from other information dissemination activities.
Because people's quality and ability include both physical and psychological aspects. People stimulated by information can trigger their physiological reactions, such as forming conditioned reflex, which should belong to the characteristics and functions of training activities. The effect of educational activities is the spiritual world and psychological state that affects people's thoughts, concepts, knowledge, emotions and other related consciousness. Therefore, adding "affecting others' spiritual world or psychological state" as another feature in the definition of education can distinguish educational activities from training activities that affect physiological functions.
To sum up, the following definition of education can be formed: education refers to information dissemination activities that focus on the quality and ability of others and affect their spiritual world or psychological state. The information disseminator in educational activities is called educator, and the object of information dissemination is called educational object. In reality, there are not only simple educational activities, but also education is often combined with other things to form compound activities, such as education and training activities, publicity and education activities, entertainment and leisure activities and so on. They not only have the characteristics and functions of educational activities, but also have the characteristics and functions of other things, making the forms of educational activities rich and diverse.
China has undergone many teaching reforms in recent years, and now both schools and teachers are carrying out Socratic education-in the sense of education, teachers and students are in an equal position. Both teachers and students can think freely, and there is no fixed teaching method. Only through endless questioning can they feel that they are right about the absolute truth.
Know nothing. Therefore, teachers inspire students' sense of responsibility to explore knowledge and strengthen this sense of responsibility.
China has a saying: It takes ten years to plant trees, but it takes a hundred years to cultivate people. It reveals the fundamental value of education, that is, to provide the country with talents with lofty beliefs, noble morality, honesty and law-abiding, exquisite skills and extensive knowledge, to create scientific knowledge and material wealth for the country, family and society, and to promote economic growth, national prosperity, world peace and human development.