1. Implement general education in middle schools. Although general education generally occurs in universities, there have been cases in history in which general education in middle schools is higher than basic education in ordinary middle schools. This mainly happened in capitalist countries that implemented dual-track education in modern Europe. In the advanced stage of liberal arts middle schools, which prepare bourgeois children for college, most of them implement general education; Vocational middle schools that prepare for the employment of proletarian children mostly implement vocational education. /kloc-At the beginning of the 9th century, Humboldt promoted "all-round education" in liberal arts middle schools, which is a typical general education in middle schools. It includes three aspects: first, classical culture education, with courses mainly in Latin, Greek and German; The second is the education of the latest achievements of modern human beings, and the courses mainly include mathematics and natural science; Third, history, geography and religious education. In addition, French and other modern foreign languages, gymnastics and music are optional courses for students. In this way, the students who passed the graduation examination of liberal arts middle schools not only mastered two classical languages and literature, but also exercised their minds. Moreover, through a lot of reading, they have gained knowledge of history and humanities, thus laying a good foundation for mathematics, natural science and two modern languages, and preparing enough conditions for them to specialize in any subject in the university in the future. In this way, Humboldt universities no longer vigorously carry out general education, but let students participate in scientific research and learning activities in the form of seminars. Undergraduates complete the training of "experts". However, there are two problems with this approach. First, the length of study should be extended, and college graduates are older, which not only brings problems to teaching, but also makes it difficult for students to find jobs later. Second, students' schoolwork burden is too heavy, and their spare time is occupied by a lot of homework.
Most liberal arts middle schools in Britain, France and other countries also implement general education, and these middle schools have always maintained a high academic level. Therefore, universities are not the key implementation stage of general education. In the first stage of his university (Grade One and Grade Two), it is not a general cultural basic course, but a basic course based on professional needs. In the first stage of science at University of Paris VII, the basic courses are set according to two categories: structural and material science, nature and life science; Medical students mainly study biology, physics, chemistry and medicine.
2. Implement general education in universities. In modern times, the single-track system in the United States has implemented general education at the university level. The elective system in American middle schools caters to students' different hobbies, but the general cultural knowledge level of middle school graduates is uneven. Therefore, American universities have to vigorously carry out general education in the first and second grades. The public basic curriculum plan published by Harvard University 1978 stipulates that college students should study five academic fields in the first year: literature and art, history, social and philosophical analysis, foreign languages and culture, mathematics and science. The second grade is used to study elective courses in other fields. This kind of American colleges and universities begin to study professional basic courses in the third and fourth grades. However, the proportion of graduate students in American universities is large, and professional education is completed at the graduate stage. After the war, Japan was greatly influenced by the United States, and its general education was also implemented at the university level.
With the high differentiation and synthesis of science and the rapid increase of total knowledge, universities tend to implement the mutual infiltration of literature, science and engineering and the integration of courses. In addition, various social problems are becoming more and more obvious, and the voice of strengthening humanistic moral education is getting higher and higher. Therefore, universities in Britain, France, Germany and other western European countries have also begun to strengthen general education. For example, some people in France advocate that the original practice of setting up professional basic courses according to majors in the first stage of universities should be changed to the first stage, and each student should study four courses in a unified way: (1) attitude, personality and methodology training; (2) Basic knowledge of mathematics, physics and chemistry; (3) economic humanities; (4) Others: oral and written expression skills, foreign languages.
(2) According to the type of course or the organizational form of the course.
1. Large comprehensive course. This kind of course mainly appeared in American universities in the 1940s and 1960s, and its content was mainly human cultural heritage. For example, the cultural heritage course of Bettis College in Maine covers many fields of human cultural heritage from ancient times to modern times, and integrates all kinds of knowledge and ideas contained in the masterpieces of cultural history, literature, philosophy, religion, art, music history and science history from ancient Greece to19th century. Such a wide range of comprehensive courses are jointly undertaken by teachers' groups in the above-mentioned fields (that is, the implementation of the teacher team teaching system). In addition, as early as 1930s, the General School of the University of Minnesota in the United States opened a comprehensive course-"Contemporary Culture", which included social, historical, scientific and cultural knowledge. In 1960s, many American universities also set up a comprehensive course called "Science, Technology and Society" (STS), which systematically applied the knowledge of political science, economics, sociology and other disciplines to analyze various social problems caused by the development of science and technology.
2. A series of small independent courses. This is a class type that replaced large-scale comprehensive courses in the 1960s. It decomposes the comprehensive curriculum of cultural heritage, and each subject area has its own curriculum. Due to the limited class hours, teachers take the means of "processing" to turn the knowledge of various subjects into "quick summary". This quick summary enables students to learn a lot of valuable knowledge about human society and culture in a limited time.
3. "satellite courses" closely related to the major. This course was added in the late 1960s and early 1970s to make up for the shortage of small independent courses. Focusing on students' majors, we should set up humanities and social sciences courses closely related to this. In this regard, British educator Ashby, for example, said that a student who wants to be a physicist may be impatient to spend time studying western cultural heritage. If we let him take physics as the learning center and discuss the influence of physics in history, the result of physics to society and the relationship between physics and ethics, he will pay attention. It is based on this view that many universities in the United States pay attention to the actual effect of general education through close cooperation with students' majors.
4. A research report class aimed at introducing discipline methods. Let the researchers explain the fragments of a subject in general education in detail, so that students can understand the thinking mode of the subject. This kind of general education is based on the understanding that the historical knowledge that a physicist needs to know and the biological knowledge that a linguist needs to know are not all the contents of this knowledge, but the way of thinking of this subject, or the unique scientific research method of this subject. In this way, for the purpose of general education, students only need to listen to one or two special reports reflecting the unique scientific methods of the subject, and do not need to read the subject extensively.
5. "Cluster curriculum mode". It was founded in Babson College in Massachusetts in the late 1980s. This kind of course combines professional education with general education around some value issues that are directly related to students' future career and personal life. Generally, three courses take part in a set of courses; These three courses are usually independent, but they will be taught together (or hold other activities) for a while. Before the joint activities, the teachers of the three courses get to know each other about the outlines of the three courses, and study the common themes, teaching materials, teaching time and even oral and writing plans of the three courses together. As of 199 1, the college has participated in various courses, including commercial law, general management, accounting, political science, philosophy, literature, history, movies, English writing, language exchange and so on. In addition, it is planned to combine philosophical ethics with business cases of courses such as marketing, finance, accounting and policy planning, combine different courses involving international and ethnic issues, and combine language and culture courses with vocational management courses.
In addition to the above-mentioned class hours and course types, the methods of general education also include compulsory method, limited elective method and free elective method according to the educational management system. According to the types of courses, there are also general education methods and professional education models under the Japanese academic group system (that is, the "single political theory course" method implemented before the Soviet Union in the 1970 s and 30-40 years after the founding of our country)