On the teleology of individual-based education and social-based education

I. Overview of the aims of education

(A) the meaning of educational purposes

The so-called "purpose" is a subjective setting of the results of activities that people hope to achieve or obtain. A fundamental difference between human practical activities and animal instinctive activities lies in whether there is a purpose.

Marx once said: "The activities of spiders are similar to weavers, and the ability of bees to build hives makes many architects in the world feel ashamed. However, the worst architect was better than the cleverest bee from the beginning, because he built a beehive with beeswax in his mind before he built it. The result to be obtained at the end of the labor process already exists in the appearance of the laborer at the beginning of this process, that is, it already exists conceptually. "

The purpose of education is to set the expected results for the educational subjects, specifically, to set the general quality standards and specifications for the talents to be trained in educational activities. Because the purpose of education is to answer the fundamental question of what kind of people education should cultivate, the purpose of education is the core of the whole educational work, and it is also the basis, evaluation standard, starting point and destination of educational activities.

Educational activities can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense. All activities that can convey human production, life experience and spiritual culture are (generalized) education. Before school education (narrow sense) came into being, human education was originally integrated with production and life. The earliest education of mankind was also intentional. This intentionality contains the educational purpose of early human beings. It can be said that purpose is one of the "class characteristics" of human beings, and educational purpose is the symbol of human cultural consciousness. The similarity between narrow sense education and broad sense education lies in that they both have a purpose, but the difference lies in that school education has a stronger purpose. This is manifested in the following points.

1. The school is a specialized educational institution, which is the product of the development of human culture to a certain extent and the accumulation of educational experience. When planning and engaging in educational activities, we will pay more attention to and reflect on educational purposes than ordinary empirical educational activities.

2. School educators have higher and more professional educational literacy than ordinary educators, including higher ability to set, reflect and understand the purpose of educational activities. Therefore, school educators can act more consciously according to the educational purpose and take measures quickly and consciously to correct the deviation from the educational purpose.

3. In terms of setting procedures, the state or school will have a more comprehensive consideration of the purpose of school education. The educational purpose of the school will more consciously, accurately and comprehensively reflect the requirements of the society and the times, more consciously reflect certain educational ideals, especially fully reflect the reality of the physical and mental development of educational objects, which is more scientific, predictable and effective than the general educational purpose.

Educational purposes can be divided into social educational purposes and personal educational purposes. The educational purpose of society mainly reflects the general requirements of society for the educational system, requiring education to serve the politics, economy, culture and development of a certain society. The purpose of individual education should consider the promotion of education to individual physical and mental development, and require education to serve the goal of individual's all-round free development and happy life in the future. The social purpose and personal purpose of education should be two interrelated aspects, which together constitute a complete whole of educational purpose. Effective social education goals must be achieved through the realization of personal education goals. On the other hand, effective personal education goals must also take into account social education goals, and take social education goals as the premise of setting and realizing them. Isolating or separating the relationship between them will form a one-sided educational purpose and even lead to the social standard or individual standard of the whole educational concept. Therefore, in the process of setting educational goals, we should fully consider the unity of social goals and personal goals; In practical educational activities, students should be encouraged to develop freely and in an all-round way, and at the same time, attention should be paid to guiding this personality development to combine with the needs of social development.

(2) Differences and connections between educational goals and educational goals and policies.

To correctly understand the purpose of education, we must carefully compare and analyze the concepts of educational purpose, educational goal and educational policy.

1. The purpose of education is the general quality standard and specification requirements of all kinds of education, while the educational goal is the specific task to be completed by schools of different nature, different levels and different majors, even the specific goal of each specific educational activity. The purpose of education must reflect the overall requirements of the times, society and individual development, and it is the embodiment of the highest ideal of education, which has certain ultimate; Educational goal is the specific direction of educational activities, which varies with the nature of schools and majors, different educational stages and objects, and different courses. In other words, the formulation of specific educational goals should not only consider the overall requirements of educational goals, but also consider the tasks and characteristics of specific school education, as well as the physical and mental characteristics and knowledge level of specific educational objects. Any ultimate educational goal must be transformed into a series of specific educational goals to avoid ambiguity; However, if every specific educational goal is not related to other parallel educational goals and their superior educational goals, but is ultimately related to educational goals, then every specific educational goal will become trivial, meaningless and valuable because it loses its integrity.

Peters, a British educational philosopher, once thought that many debates about the educational purpose in educational theory were not about the purpose, but about the "procedural principle". On closer examination, the ultimate abstract goals of thinkers are often "similar", and the difference is actually only the procedures and methods to achieve these goals. Therefore, what educators should really care about is how to realize the "procedural principle" of educational purposes. Here, we might as well think that paying attention to the realization of educational goals in education is one of the important "procedural principles". Of course, this does not mean that educational goals can replace educational goals.

2. Education policy is the policy expression of educational purpose. However, since the educational policy is often the general requirement of a country's educational work, it should also reflect the fundamental nature of a country's education, the general guiding ideology and the general direction of educational work. At the same time, the education policy is prescriptive and must be enforced in a certain period of time. Of course, the educational purpose it reflects also has certain stipulation or compulsion. This is also very different from the educational purpose that is constantly and objectively discussed in educational theory and practice.

The purpose of education is the theme and soul of all educational activities. British educator John? After talking about various educational purposes, White said: "Unless educators are clear about these educational purposes, the quality of the talents they train will definitely be affected."

(C) the function of educational purpose

The purpose of education is of great significance to educational activities. Specifically, the main functions of educational purposes are as follows.

1. Boot function

The purpose of education stipulates the quality and specifications of talents to be trained in educational activities, which is actually the biggest direction of educational activities. Educational activity is a systematic project. On the one hand, it is manifested in the establishment of educational system, the determination of educational planning, and the choice of educational activities, forms and methods. On the other hand, it must be the integration of education at all ages, the combination of school, family and social education, and must be guided by the direction indicated by the educational purpose in space and time. The establishment of educational system, the determination of educational content and the choice of educational activities and methods must take the educational purpose as the highest criterion; At the same time, kindergartens, primary schools, middle schools, universities, post-university education, schools, families and social education should also cooperate with each other, with the achievement of educational goals as the whole and the highest goal. As the general direction of activities, educational purpose is the soul of educational activities.

2. Adjustment function

From a macro point of view, the purpose of education plays a guiding and coordinating role in the establishment and adjustment of educational planning and educational structure in a country or region. From the microscopic point of view, educational purpose plays a leading, coordinating, controlling and adjusting role in the arrangement of specific educational content, the form of educational activities and the choice of educational means, methods and technologies. Under the condition of understanding and mastering the educational purpose, people will consciously act according to the requirements of educational purpose when designing the plan of educational activities, so as to overcome the blindness of educational activities; When educational activities deviate from the direction stipulated by educational purposes, educators will also consciously reflect and correct them.

3. Evaluation function

Since educational activities are based on educational purposes, the most fundamental criterion for testing the success of educational activities should also be educational purposes. Although it is possible and necessary to have very detailed and specific evaluation criteria to evaluate the effectiveness of the educational process, the performance level of teachers and the growth of students in educational activities, the highest value presupposition of all detailed evaluation criteria comes from educational purposes. The purpose of education is to integrate the spiritual core of all specific educational evaluation standards, and it is also the highest standard of educational evaluation. When the specific evaluation criteria are contrary to the educational purpose, it is necessary to revise the specific evaluation criteria.

Second, different educational teleology.

Because the purpose of education first embodies different educational values and ideals, different educators often have different educational purpose concepts and theories. The representative teleology in the history of educational thought mainly includes the following kinds.

(A) Social-oriented education teleology

The basic proposition of social-oriented teleology of education is that the stability and development of society is the highest purpose of education, and the educational purpose should be determined according to the requirements of society.

The teleology of social standard mainly reflects the characteristics and requirements of ancient society. "Xue Ji" said: "A gentleman who wants to turn people into customs must learn it." "The king of ancient times, the foundation of the country, the people put teaching first." China ancient education has always been based on self-cultivation, but the ultimate goal of self-cultivation is to "rule the country and level the world". When talking about learning Taoism, The Analects of Confucius said: "A gentleman learns Taoism and loves others, but a villain learns Taoism easily." Similarly, Plato also thinks that education should vary from person to person in the Republic, and the common class should cultivate the virtue of thrift and moderation; The brave spirit of soldiers should be cultivated; The education of the supreme rulers should make them have the wisdom to grasp the world and the characteristics of "the king of philosophy". In fact, Plato advocated that education should serve to maintain the social order of slave society.

In the history of modern education, there has also been the teleological thought of social standard. The most representative is the school of social function in educational sociology. They infinitely exaggerate the social conditions of human individual development and think that individual development depends entirely on society. Sociologist Nadep believes: "In fact, individuals do not exist. Because people are human only because they live in crowds and participate in social life. " Sociologist Durkheim also said: "Just as our bodies are nourished by foreign things, our minds are nourished by thoughts, emotions and actions from society. The most important part of ourselves comes from society. " On this basis, the school of social function believes that the purpose of education can only be social purpose. Nadulp believes: "Individuals have no value in the decision of educational purposes. Individuals are only the raw materials of education, and individuals cannot be the purpose of education. " Durkheim said: "Education lies in socializing young people-creating a socialized self in each of us. This is the purpose of education. " Kerschensteiner, an educator, said: "I clearly regard training useful citizens as the educational goal of national schools, which is the fundamental goal of national education."

Social-oriented teleologists believe that the highest standard to measure the quality of education can only be whether education can serve the stability and development of society and promote the existence and development of society; The educational purpose of leaving society is incredible and meaningless. Social-oriented teleology of education pays full attention to the restrictive role of society on individuals and education. However, this school does not see that society is composed of individuals. Without dynamic individuals, social existence is morbid. At the same time, without the purpose of individual happiness, social existence will lose its meaning. Society is the basic condition for individual existence and development, but society is not the ultimate goal of individual existence. Therefore, if the purpose of education only sees the existing conditions of the educational object, but does not pay enough attention to the needs of the educational object itself, it is definitely biased.

(B) the individual-oriented educational teleology

Contrary to the social-based educational teleology, the individual-based educational teleology holds that the individual value is far higher than the social value, so the educational purpose should be determined according to the individual nature and the needs of personal development. There are many educators who hold the teleology of individual standard. Representative figures include Rousseau, Froebel, Pestalozzi and others.

Individual-oriented teleology of education often emphasizes the natural nature of human beings, hoping that education will act according to human nature rather than against it. Rousseau believes that human nature is good, "there is no innate evil in human mind", and all human depravity is due to the negative influence of society. So "everything that comes from the creator's hand is good, but it is all bad when it comes to people's hands." "Naturally, children want to be like children before they become adults", so "treat your students according to their age". Rousseau therefore thinks that the best education is nature education far away from society. Froebel also believes: "Only after a thorough, full and thorough understanding of human nature, and on the basis of this understanding, we will naturally have all other knowledge necessary for conservation and education ... real education can blossom and bear fruit." Because they believe that human nature is good, individual-oriented educators believe that the fundamental purpose of education is to seek the free and all-round development of human nature. Rousseau said in his works that if he had to choose between shaping people and shaping citizens, he would choose the goal of shaping people. Pestalozzi also thinks: "The most valuable thing in life is development, which is to develop the inner strength of everyone's talent, so that after training, people can give full play to their talents and reach their due position in society." This is the ultimate goal of education. "

The individual-oriented teleology of education has strong humanitarian characteristics. Its theoretical heyday is 18.438+09 century. In this period, it is of great progressive significance to emphasize the needs of human nature and the free development of individuals and oppose religious theology, feudal autocracy and old-fashioned education under its influence. Because the individual-oriented teleology of education advocates the liberation of individuality and respects human values, which is reasonable, it still has an important impact on the education of all countries in the world today. However, just as the social-oriented teleology of education is biased, if the individual's free development is not combined with certain social conditions and needs of social development, the so-called free development in line with human nature will become a castle in the air. This is the biggest defect of the individual-centered teleology of education.

(C) Aimless education theory

This is mainly the view of American educator Dewey.

A controversial and unique aspect of Dewey's educational thought is his theory of "aimless education". Dewey once pointed out: "the process of education has no purpose outside itself;" It is its own purpose. " "When we discuss the purpose of education, we are not looking for a purpose outside the educational process to make education obey this purpose." "We assume that the purpose of education is to enable individuals to continue their education, or that the purpose and reward of learning is the ability to continue to grow. "

On the one hand, Dewey opposes the "purpose imposed from the outside" and the "educational viewpoint of emphasizing preparation for the distant future", and on the other hand, he firmly believes that education, especially moral education and the cultivation of political beliefs, is an important link in the realization and development of a democratic society. Dewey thinks: "Society is a collection of many people, who work side by side in the same direction, have a common spirit and aim at the same goal." "Society gives everything it has achieved to its future members through school institutions." Therefore, "education is a social process". "The standards of education criticism and education construction contain specific social ideals." Therefore, some people think that in Dewey's ideological system, "children are the starting point of education and society is the destination of education." Just as a straight line is formed between two points, an educational process is formed between children as the starting point of education and society as the end point of education. "

Dewey's thought-provoking theory of educational purpose lies in his connection between educational purpose and educational activity itself, which embodies the consciousness of the subject of educational activity; At the same time, he also noticed that the truly effective educational purpose must be the purpose that exists in education or is achieved through the educational process. However, if Dewey says that the purpose of education is to "enable individuals to continue their education" and "the ability to continue to grow", then this growth may be directionless. In fact, Dewey advocated the direction of training qualified citizens for what he called a "democratic society". It's just that he doesn't call this direction educational purpose. Therefore, the theory of "aimless education" does not advocate real aimless education, but advocates that there is no "external" purpose outside the educational process. Dewey's teleological thought has certain positive significance for us to correctly understand and determine the educational purpose.

Among many educational teleology, Marxist theory of all-round development of human beings is very important and has a great influence on China's education. In the second section, we will introduce this theory in detail.

Third, determine the basis of educational purpose.

Different educational teleology in history has proved that educational teleology has strong subjectivity, and the determination of educational teleology must first reflect certain value orientation and educational ideal. However, the subjectivity of educational purpose is based on objectivity, and the formulation of appropriate educational purpose must take into account the reality and requirements of social development and according to the law of physical and mental development of the educated. Therefore, the basic basis for determining the purpose of education can be summarized as subjective and objective.

(A) the subjective basis for determining the purpose of education

Subjectively, the purpose of education is first of all the value choice of people in educational activities. When people consider the purpose of education, they are often influenced by their philosophical concepts, human nature assumptions, ideal personality and other concepts and values.

Man is a natural "metaphysical" animal-on the one hand, everyone has a philosophical interest in asking the world; On the other hand, conscious or unconscious philosophical concepts (or world views) will have an impact on all human activities. The most important influence of philosophy on educational activities is its influence on the setting of educational objectives.

Plato believes that all sensory gains belong to phenomena, and the essence of the universe is absolute ideas. Therefore, if individuals want to pursue the truth, they should not resort to sensory experience, but should rely on reason. The purpose of education is not to instill knowledge, but to inspire reason and understand absolute concepts. Therefore, the cultivation of rationality has to become the core of Plato's teleology of education. On the contrary, Locke, an empiricist philosopher, believes that foreign things exist first and then sensory experience. So all knowledge comes from the day after tomorrow, and it has to go through sensory experience. Therefore, the purpose of education should be to cultivate people's interest in the external environment, including accepting the influence between people, thus forming what he calls a "gentleman." The educational teleology of ancient educational thinkers in China is often based on their fundamental views on the universe such as "heaven", "Tao", "reason" and "sex", and holds that the fundamental purpose of education is to teach students to understand the universe and the fundamentals of life, thus fundamentally cultivating their morality. Therefore, the determination of educational purpose will certainly be influenced by different world views or philosophical concepts.

The determination of educational purpose is also influenced by the human nature assumption of thinkers or those who make educational purposes.

Mencius believes that everyone has compassion, shame, resignation and right and wrong, which are the origins of the four virtues of benevolence, righteousness, courtesy and wisdom. Therefore, "there is no other way to learn, just ask him to rest assured." The purpose of education is nothing more than to make people find lost kindness, restore humanity and carry forward. Xunzi, who advocated the theory of evil nature, believed that "eyes are lustful, ears are good, mouth is good, heart is good, bones, body and skin are good, and fun is endless", so human nature is evil and its goodness is "false" (that is, artificial). Therefore, education should make people lose their sexuality and become false, and "accumulate courtesy and righteousness as a gentleman." Both Dong Zhongshu and Han Yu divide human nature into three categories: upper, middle and lower. What education can and should do is to make it possible to change the nature of "China people" or "China products" and keep pace with sages. Similarly, ancient Christian educational thinkers have also drawn the conclusion that children must be treated severely from the theory of original sin. On the contrary, Rousseau believes that "everything that comes from the creator's hand is good, but it goes bad when it comes to people", and the fundamental purpose of education is to seek the natural development of children. Therefore, the setting of educational purpose will be influenced by the basic assumption of human nature.

People always improve themselves with ideals and shape themselves with ideal personality. Since the purpose of education is to design the specifications of training objects, it cannot but be linked with the ideal of personality. Therefore, the setting of educational purpose will be influenced by the ideal personality concept of the subject.

Almost all schools have their common pursuit of ideal personality. From the perspective of the big cultural system, Buddhism advocates the personality of Buddha, Taoism shapes the immortal world, and Confucianism vigorously advocates the personality of saints. On the one hand, Confucianism, as the mainstream culture, has designed a perfect personality image, which holds that "saints belong to the people, out of their classes, outstanding" and "saints are the essence of human beings". On the other hand, Confucianism believes that "saints, like others, just do their best" and that "people who paint them are called saints". Therefore, for the ancient scholars in China, the overall goal of self-cultivation or learning can only be to become saints and sages. Mencius said, "I want to learn from Confucius." Xunzi said that a scholar should "be a scholar at first and a saint at last". Zhu pointed out: "People should take Yao and Shun as the law. Shooters are interested in both arrows and arrows, and those who miss are not skilled. " . Therefore, Confucianism regards sages as the fundamental purpose of its education. In the west, Rousseau advocated the natural development of human beings, Locke's "gentleman", Dewey's so-called citizens in a democratic society, etc., and also entrusted their yearning for ideal personality, which naturally became an important part of their understanding of educational purposes.

In socialist countries, the personality ideal of Marxist classic writers about people's all-round development is an important basis for determining the purpose of education.

Although the determination of educational purpose is obviously subjective, a reasonable educational purpose is always subject to the ultimate constraint of objective conditions and the ultimate test of social development. Therefore, the determination of educational purpose should also have its objective basis.

(B) the objective basis for determining the purpose of education

Determining the objective basis of educational purpose first means that certain social and historical conditions must be considered when determining educational purpose. Compared with the value orientation, the restriction of social and historical conditions on educational purposes is more fundamental and decisive. The determination of educational purpose is restricted by certain social and historical conditions, mainly by productivity, scientific and technological development, socio-economic and political system and historical development process. In addition, the actual and regular physical and mental development of the educational object is also an important restrictive factor in determining the educational purpose.

1. Social productive forces and the development level of science and technology

The development of productive forces and science and technology is the material basis for determining the purpose of education in a certain historical period. Different levels of productivity and scientific and technological development have different requirements for the quality standards and specifications of the educated. The purpose of education is to reflect the characteristics of social productive forces and the development of science and technology, and to embody the characteristics of this development. In ancient society, due to the low level of productivity and science and technology, it was impossible for all members of society to receive school education, and education and the right to education were controlled by a very small number of ruling classes. At the same time, due to the low level of scientific and technological content of social production, workers do not need special training in school education. Therefore, there is only one educational purpose of ancient education, that is, to train rulers with certain cultural literacy, that is, to train only clergy and management talents in politics, military affairs and law. With the arrival of the era of machine industry, social production has put forward higher requirements for the scientific and cultural literacy of ordinary workers. In modern society, whether it is a capitalist system or a socialist society, workers cannot adapt to modern social production without certain scientific, technological and cultural literacy. Therefore, after the emergence of machine industry, compulsory national compulsory education was generally implemented in capitalist countries, and school education began to become popular and democratic. The purpose of education must take into account the dual mission of cultivating educated management talents, mental workers with high scientific and cultural level, and manual workers or semi-manual workers with certain scientific and cultural literacy. The information age and knowledge economy age will put forward higher requirements for the cultural and scientific literacy of all members of society, so the future society will put forward higher requirements for equal educational opportunities and the cultural literacy of workers. This will inevitably affect the determination of educational purposes.

2. A certain socio-economic and political system

The influence of productive forces on educational purposes is also manifested in the control of educational resources determined by productive forces and the restriction of distribution methods on educational purposes. The relations of production based on certain productive forces play a decisive role in the purpose of education. Therefore, the determination of educational purpose must be related to a certain social, economic and political system. Marx and Engels once pointed out: "Class is the dominant material force and spiritual force in society. The class that rules the material means of production also rules the spiritual means of production. Therefore, the thoughts of people without spiritual means of production generally belong to this category. The dominant thought is nothing more than the conceptual expression of the dominant material relationship, but the dominant material relationship is expressed in the form of thought. " In class society, on the one hand, the ruling class will use its economic and political dominance to formulate educational goals that meet its needs and help consolidate this rule; On the other hand, they will also use their own economic and political power to safeguard their class's privilege in the possession of educational resources and ensure the realization of this educational goal. Therefore, the determination of educational purpose will reflect certain social, economic and political requirements, and it has a distinct class nature in class society.

3. The process of social and historical development

An important difference in understanding the purpose of education lies in the relationship between social development and personality development. As mentioned above, social-oriented educators often emphasize that the mission of education is to train qualified members for the society, and the core of educational purpose is to socialize the educational object and form a certain social personality. Individual-oriented thinkers often emphasize personal value and think that the purpose of education should start from human nature and seek the free development of personality and the full realization of personal value. In fact, there is a historical dialectical relationship between the cultivation of social personality and personality development, and between social development and personal development.

(1) Social development and personal development are unified in the whole of social and historical development. The important basis for judging whether the purpose of education is reasonable is to see whether it provides the greatest space for the free and all-round development of individuals within the scope permitted by certain social and economic conditions. An important difference between modern society and ancient society is that the social personality required by modern society must have more personality characteristics; The great difference between modern education and ancient education is that modern education can and should provide unprecedented conditions for individuals to adapt to the free and all-round development of nature.

(2) There are contradictions between social development and personal development, and between social personality and personality development. Social development regulates and restricts personal development, and society always requires people's personality to develop in a direction that meets the needs of social development; In a long historical period, different individuals have unequal opportunities in personality development. In the primary stage of socialism, people's personality development should receive unprecedented attention, but the contradiction between personality development and personality social cultivation still exists. Education should lead the personality development of educational objects to the direction of social development, strive to achieve the unity of personality development and social personality cultivation, comprehensively improve students' cultural literacy, and at the same time enable them to have certain professional skills to serve the cause of socialist modernization. This is an important aspect that must be considered when setting educational goals in China. Therefore, we should correctly understand the development of human personality in the unity with social progress. Social-oriented and individual-oriented teleology is the separation of this historical dialectical relationship.

4. The law of the physical and mental development of the educated.

Educational activity is an objective activity. Since the purpose of education is to design the quality and specifications of the training objects by the main body of educational activities, it cannot but be based on the law of the physical and mental development of the educated. Although the physical and mental characteristics and development laws of educational objects do not play a decisive role in the social nature and direction of educational purposes, they still play a very important role in restricting educational purposes. The purpose of education must be based on the training objectives of all levels and types of education, and should be summarized in a centralized way. At the same time, the purpose of education should be achieved through specific educational goals, so the purpose of education needs to reflect the common growth law of educational objects of different classes. It is not only wrong but also invalid to completely ignore the physical and mental reality and development law of the educated.