This paper first introduces the meaning of general education in broad sense and narrow sense, then expounds the main understanding of general education, then discusses the practical significance of general education, and finally puts forward some reasonable suggestions for developing general education in colleges and universities for your reference.
General education, university higher education
The Significance of General Education
In recent years, many universities in China have implemented general education programs, such as Peking University? Yuanpei plan? Kuang Yaming College of NTU and Boya College of Sun Yat-sen University. General education, like professional education, is a talent training model. Pass? Refers to access, infiltration,? Do you know? Refers to knowledge and experience. The so-called general knowledge is comprehensive knowledge. Broadly speaking, Dr. Li pointed out that general education is an integral part of higher education, and it is a kind of extensive and non-professional education, aiming at cultivating new citizens who have a sense of social responsibility and can actively participate in social activities. General education emphasizes that people should not only have strong professional knowledge and ability foundation, but also understand the main fields of human knowledge. The ultimate goal of general education is to cultivate people's noble sentiments, broad interests, positive emotions and healthy, rich and unique personality, so that people can get comprehensive, harmonious and sustainable development and progress.
Second, the main understanding of general education
1. Correctly handle the contradiction between generalist goal and specialist goal.
Wang Yizhen, a famous scholar, pointed out: Higher education? what's up Broadcom? With what? Specialization? Reflected in the means of talent training? Generalist? And then what? Professionals? . Generally speaking:? Generalist? As far as all-round quality training is concerned, it is required to cultivate knowledgeable, comprehensive, stable social value and sound personality charm; ? Professionals? Refers to a person with a solid professional foundation, skilled professional skills and practical operation skills? Professional depth? Type talents. Although general education and professional education have different starting points, they are not antagonistic. The former is an idea and thought, and the latter is a side of the whole education, a way and means, which belong to different levels of education. In the era of knowledge economy, is society right? Professionals? Demand is more urgent, more prominent and more natural? Generalist? The goal has become distant and vague, and it is an important challenge to cultivate talents with all-round development in morality, intelligence, body, beauty and labor. Advocating general education in colleges and universities, discussing the differences between them in theory, and attaching importance to the connection between general education and professional education from the perspective of the integrity of university education have laid a foundation for correctly handling the contradictions between them.
2. General education is a kind of humanistic education.
Chen Chunsheng, president of Sun Yat-sen University, stressed the importance of general education? Education? Instead of. Teaching? . There is no rigid professional division in this educational model, and the nutrients it provides are diversified, mainly from the endless stream of social knowledge. Therefore, general education is a non-functional education, and what it breeds is true? People? Instead of. Product? . In a sense, general education is a basic education with humanistic education as the main content to cultivate and improve human nature.
3. The progressive role of general education.
First, explore the category of basic knowledge and comprehensively improve thinking ability. College students should have knowledge, on the one hand, they should dabble in various disciplines and knowledge fields, learn from past experience, explore all levels of these disciplines and knowledge fields, obtain truth and understand their respective values. On the other hand, college students should realize that human knowledge is endless and what they know is only the tip of the iceberg. They should explore and discover through continuous learning. General education can enhance students' confidence in exploring unknown areas.
Second, know your social existence value. Every society is a historical existence, and students need to understand the contemporary social system, cultural background and other factors in order to find their place in a diversified world. General education can help college students gain an understanding of life, perceive the current society with positive thinking, learn to respect society and life, actively broaden their horizons, and assume certain social responsibilities in their study and work.
The Practical Significance of Three General Education
1. Give full play to human potential
To mobilize students' subjective initiative, education is directly facing people. Some people think that the original meaning of education is? Discover human value, develop human potential and develop human personality? If humanistic education focuses on discovering human value, then general education focuses on developing human potential. The human potential is extremely rich and needs to be developed. Everyone is like a mineral deposit with rich potential, but even great men with outstanding achievements have only developed a tiny part of themselves. This potential is often hidden in the depths and varies widely, and can only be developed through erudition, understanding, stimulation and induction. This is the mystery of education.
For a long time, in college? Professional counterparts? Or? Vocational education? Narrow views make majors and courses excessively pursued? Practical? Or? Fashion? After entering school, students are often fixed in a single professional direction, which leads to a narrow visual threshold and restricts the development of students' potential and personality. General education? Broaden the basic communication arts and sciences? , so that students can broaden their horizons, broaden their thinking, and be influenced by the scientific spirit and humanistic spirit, so that they can discover and exert their potential. This not only improves the breadth and depth of professional education, but also makes students more flexible in employment and more competitive in job hunting. Cultivating and displaying one's own personality can stimulate students' subjectivity in teaching and is conducive to cultivating all kinds of high-quality professionals on a broad and solid basis.
2. It provides a guarantee for the implementation of cultural quality education.
General education and cultural quality education complement each other. General education emphasizes extensive and common cultural education for students through scientific courses, thus providing students with comprehensive knowledge and vision. It not only attaches importance to imparting knowledge in all fields of human society, but also emphasizes cultivating students' abilities, methods and temperament. It makes students familiar with different ways of thinking, cultivates students' ability to understand different disciplines and cultures, and cultivates students' ability to see the overall situation; It provides the necessary preparation for the multi-directional development of one's life. More importantly, through a wide range of cultural choices, it enables students to understand the relationship between themselves and society and between themselves and nature. Therefore, in this sense, general education is the concrete embodiment of cultural quality education. Only by implementing general education can we truly realize cultural quality education.
Four Suggestions on Rationalization of General Education
1. Adjust the goal and establish a correct concept of general education.
General education emphasizes? Foundation? 、? Literacy? Right? The contribution of society? It embodies the value orientation of modern education. Its training system should be based on cultivating students' basic quality and ability, pay attention to each student's life value orientation, let each student receive a good humanistic quality education, draw inferences from various knowledge, inspire students' awareness of general education, and strive to create a campus cultural atmosphere of general education.
2. Establish a reasonable education mechanism and construct a new model of general education in universities.
First of all, we should break the bottleneck of the current system in the implementation of general education, establish a distribution mechanism conducive to the optimization and integration of educational resources, fully mobilize teachers' enthusiasm for education and teaching, reasonably set up the core courses of general education, and build a good general education system. Relevant departments should refine the general education from the system and supporting measures, put the concept into specific work such as teaching, assessment and management, and promote the reform and innovation of general education. Then, open the receiving channel of general education, cultivate students' adaptability, innovative thinking and general awareness, change the previous single practice mode and emphasis form, learn from the experience of general education in developed countries, and combine the national conditions to build a new model of general education in universities with China characteristics.
3. Completely abolish utilitarian exam-oriented education.
Examination-oriented education stifles students' interest and fun in learning. In order to get high marks, students have to cope with exams, and many disadvantages of learning itself will make them lose themselves. Through general education, students can constantly discover themselves, believe in themselves, know themselves, improve themselves, stimulate the motivation of learning, and release the greatest learning energy of the human body.
In a word, general education is a creative overall optimization model, which focuses on cultivating learners' practical ability and innovative spirit, and on stimulating and cultivating learners' creative ability on the basis of receiving a complete and comprehensive education.
refer to
[1] Wang Yun. Reflections on General Education for College Students [J]. Vicissitudes, 2008(5)
[2] Zeng Zhaowei. Higher vocational colleges cultivate students' entrepreneurial ability [D]. Huazhong Normal University, 2007
[3] Dong Xiaohong. Research on the management mode and quality evaluation of general education in colleges and universities [D]. Tianjin University, 2009