Plato: "What is education? Education is the training for future life, which can make people become kind and noble. " We can assert that education is not like what some people say. They can put knowledge into an empty mind, just as they can put vision into the eyes of the blind. "Education is a' spiritual turn'.
Comenius: "We already know that the seeds of knowledge, virtue and piety are born in us, but the actual knowledge, virtue and piety are not given to us in this way. It should be obtained from prayer, education and action. ..... In fact, a person can only become a person after proper education. " "Education is the preparation of life and can be completed before adulthood."
Froebel: "Human education is to inspire and teach people, as a self-awakening, thinking and rational creature, to consciously and self-decide, to perfectly express the internal law, that is, the spirit of God, and to point out the ways and means to achieve this goal." "The purpose of education is to show loyalty to responsibility, purity and perfection, so it is a sacred life."
Pestalozzi: "All human education is an art that promotes the development of nature in its own way." "Education means all-round development of people."
Spencer: "From the biological aspect of education, education can be regarded as a process of perfecting the structure of an organism and making it suitable for biology." "Education is to prepare people to complete their lives."
Dewey said: "education is life", "education is growth", "education is the reorganization and transformation of experience" and "school is society".
Baglai: "We define social evolution as a gradual process of accumulating and refining human knowledge. In the broadest sense, education is the process of transmitting this knowledge, or education is the process of transmitting the part of human knowledge that has eternal and immortal value. "
Sprenger: "Education is a cultural process."
Liang Qichao: "What is education? Education is to teach people to be human-to be a modern person. "
Tao Xingzhi: "Life is education."
The definition in UNESCO's International Classification of Educational Standards: "Education is an organized and continuous work of imparting knowledge."
Encyclopedia of China, Education (1985): "In a broad sense, any activity that enhances people's knowledge and skills and affects people's ideology and morality is education"; "Education in a narrow sense mainly refers to school education, which refers to the activities of educators to exert influence on the body and mind of the educated in a purposeful, planned and organized way according to the requirements of a certain society (or class), so as to cultivate them into people needed by a certain society (class)"; The word education is sometimes used as a synonym for ideological and moral education.
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As can be seen from the above statement, these masterpieces chose different angles when defining education. Some regard education as a system, such as school education; Some regard education as an action (activity); Some regard education as content; Some people think that education is a product.
What is education? What is education? Education. Why? This is the basic problem of education, or the essential problem of education, and an important unsolved problem in educational science research. According to statistics, from the British thinker Bacon to the important document "Learning to Live" of UNESCO, there are as many as 65 statements about the concept of education within the scope of the collected documents. Jaspers said in the book What is Education: "The purpose of education is to let yourself know the essence of education and your own will. Moreover, you can't find the purpose of education. " It's hard to make yourself clear about the essence of education.
Since the founding of New China, "education is a special superstructure" is beyond doubt. It will also come to the conclusion that "education is a tool of class struggle", and sometimes even regard education as a tool of class struggle and education as a tool of production struggle, which is regarded as incompatible education. With the shift of national work focus to economic construction as the center, the corresponding shift of educational work focus has become the general trend. Objectively, a new understanding of the nature of education is required, and the discussion on the nature of education arises at the historic moment.
1978 Yu Guangyuan took the lead in questioning the assertion that education belongs to the superstructure in the article "Research on Cultivating People". Since 1979, the so-called "educational essence" has been discussed in the education circle. In this discussion, the following viewpoints are drawn: first, the theory that "part of education belongs to superstructure and part does not belong to superstructure"; The second is the theory that "education belongs to productive forces"; The third is the theory that "education belongs to the superstructure"; Fourthly, the theory that education belongs to special social practice. ...
In practice, people are more concerned about such a question: What kind of education is a good education? It is such a question, and because people have different understandings and ideals of education, they have different answers. For example, should education meet the needs of society or promote people's own development? In the long run, the two are unified, but they are often contradictory in different historical development periods.
In fact, any definition of education cannot be true and objective. It can't get rid of the narrator's knowledge background, thoughts and feelings, and can't avoid the narrator's pursuit of value. Different understanding of society and human nature, different social status and life experience, different values and different ways of looking at problems will lead to different definitions of education. Therefore, their definition of education may often be what kind of education they want.