This is a serious, grand and even heavy topic. As a member of this industry, I naturally have nothing to say, but I'm afraid it's not so easy to be detailed and clear. I learned a lot from reading Whitehead's Aids to Education.
This is a collection of speeches about his education published by Sanlian Bookstore. The translator is Xu Ruzhou, and the title of the anthology is translated into Chinese: "The purpose of education". In fact, it may be better to translate it into "the function of education". If we say such a serious topic, only Whitehead's entire speech collection can give a systematic answer. It is neither a few simple words nor a simple and utilitarian low-level requirement. In the eyes of this British philosopher, mathematician and educator, education has two commandments: one is "don't teach too many subjects"; Second, "the subjects taught must be thorough" is debatable. He opposed it for a reason. He said that choosing a small number of subjects to teach will lead students to passively accept incoherent ideas and concepts, and there will be no cremation flicker of life.
From this point of view alone, Whitehead's educational thought is people-oriented and pays attention to individual development. Think carefully, choose some subjects, who will choose, how to choose, and what criteria will be used? Who will formulate these standards is actually a question worthy of serious reflection. The study of current subjects will determine the thinking, scientific and literary literacy and level of social groups in the next few years, and even the types of emphasis. For example, in the era of attaching importance to science, the average level of scientific literacy of social groups is relatively high. However, people always have limitations in the choice of subjects they teach, giving too specific restrictions on the subjects they teach, so that the original overall subject knowledge is artificially divided into several sub-subjects. This rude behavior not only separates the organic connection between humanities, society and scientific knowledge, but also destroys the combination of students' existing experience, life experience and knowledge, as well as their thinking experience of knowledge. Accordingly, his solution is to "eradicate the fatal separation between disciplines, because it stifles the vitality of modern courses." Education has only one theme, and that is colorful life. "Whitehead believes that modern subject classification does not show students the unique unity of life, but teaches them algebra, geometry, science and history, or language. As a result of this classified teaching, the course has lost its vitality and become boring, and students will also lose their ability to observe, think and learn independently. They only have the experience and theory inherent in books. The problem of discipline divorced from reality and life is not new today, but is becoming the focus of educational reformers' efforts to innovate: discipline learning must be properly extended to life practice.
On the road of education, both China today and Britain at that time encountered the same problems and multiple difficulties. Many departments and government agencies seem to think that schools can be mechanically divided into two or three rigid types, and each type of school can be forced to adopt rigid curriculum. Such a system is disastrous for education itself; Of course, perhaps, in today's China, there are special circumstances, such as the existence of the national unified college entrance examination for a long period of time. However, if schools and teachers are not given the right to design courses and learning behaviors according to the characteristics of their own schools and students, then education should be fundamentally innovated, just as Whitehead said, "from one formalism to another, from a group of stale and boring ideas to another group of equally lifeless ideas."
The vitality repeatedly mentioned not only exists in the study of courses and disciplines, but also permeates the cultivation of students by schools and teachers. The purpose of education is not necessarily simple and clear, but at least, it should activate the inspiration, perception and creation of life to a certain extent, so that human beings can keep moving forward; Being caught in a programmed, mechanized and modular education has killed a lot of talent, creativity and even vitality. How many "favored children" have ever thought of suicide? What are college students most worried about? The China Institute of Social Studies recently released the results of a survey on the mental health of 2,000 college students in Beijing and Shanghai. The data shows that the pressure of college students mainly comes from social employment. More than 90% students have no clear life goals after graduation, and 8.3% of them have thought about suicide. (Beijing News August 16)
There is a common saying that "graduation equals unemployment".
It is difficult for college graduates to find jobs. Many people have to adopt the way of "zero-wage employment" and give up their due labor income and social security rights, which makes me more inclined to think that the employment pressure of college graduates is really great. Contrary to "the pressure of college students mainly comes from social employment", the blind enrollment expansion of colleges and universities affects the coordinated development of higher education, and the relative lack of employment positions intensifies the contradiction between education and society.
What is education? The so-called education, in a broad sense, refers to social activities whose direct purpose is to influence people's physical and mental development. In a narrow sense, it refers to school education conducted by full-time staff and specialized institutions. As an individual, education is an indispensable means of human and social development. It is restricted by social politics, economy and culture, and also has an impact on the whole society and many aspects. Education should also obey the laws of individual physical and mental development. Education in socialist society is a powerful tool for building socialism and promoting the all-round development of individuals.
After more than 20 years of reform and opening up, China has made great progress in society and education, but at the same time, various social contradictions have followed, the most prominent of which is the disconnection between talent training and social needs. Bourdieu, a famous French sociologist, pointed out in his book "Reproduction of Education, Culture and Society" that it is far from enough for a society to have only educational capital. In order to successfully transform educational capital into a kind of social or cultural capital, actors must also have a certain amount of symbolic capital, which is used to being produced by the ruling elite and can only be obtained through families. Undeniably, with the advent of the era of popularization of education, diplomas have become easier to obtain, and the value of diplomas and various qualification certificates issued by schools has been greatly reduced. In this case, various selection criteria other than diplomas become an important part of symbolic capital. Therefore, the selection criteria have also changed, starting from diplomas to more realistic judgment criteria such as ability.
So now I am more and more familiar with a new term "early education". The word "early" should be said to be a concept of timeliness, which is relative to the middle and late stage of human education. Therefore, the nature of early education is different from that of hierarchical primary education. The time limit of early education includes three periods: infancy, infancy and infancy. Its education target is children from 3 to 6 years old, while the primary education target is school-age children after 6 years old. Early to receive basic education, early to enter the university.
Why do you want to go to college? What does the university want to study? What can I do after graduation? How do colleges and universities cultivate talents with sound personality and suitable for social needs? How to combine specialty setting in colleges and universities with social needs? Xue Yong said in "Who Does the University Belong to" that the purpose of education is to train qualified citizens, not to make "parts" of social engineering; Universities are places to provide spiritual resources, not places to train skills. They should "allow students to fully develop their personality and intelligence, and help them cope with various environments and challenges".
Speaking of what is the purpose of education, British educator Herbert? Spencer put forward the educational purpose of "preparing for a full life" in his educational theory. Spencer believes that life should be the core of educational value, and the purpose of education should focus on "complete life". "Enriching life" here not only refers to material conditions, but also includes how to treat one's body, how to cultivate one's mind, how to treat and educate one's children, how to be a good citizen, and how to make rational use of natural resources to enhance human happiness. On the other hand, we advocate all-round development and individual freedom, but the tendency of one-sided pursuit of intellectual development ignores moral education and character building, which seriously deviates from the original purpose of education.
Education is not a thing, but an endless process. The core of education is to train people, but the biggest problem in China's education is that we don't know how to train people, which leads to a great waste of talents. How to treat the "unreasonable structure" and "talent waste" of graduates trained in colleges and universities? How many colleges and universities in China are repeating the ineffective education of "asking for nothing in return" and are still producing "products" that society does not need at any cost? At present, the most prominent problem is the employment embarrassment of graduates. The crux of the problem lies in the fact that there is a considerable gap between the specialty setting, discipline structure and social needs in colleges and universities, and they are not committed to perfecting the shaping of personality and cultivating applied talents. There is such a situation that it is difficult to find a job because of the lack of practical ability, and many college students begin to embark on the road of continuing education. It is not that talents have not been cultivated, but that talents needed by social development have not been molded. Now everyone's solution is continuous re-education, that is, further study. Constantly increase the time for the first education. However, today's lifelong education will lead to our original smart and prosperous genocide. Everyone should realize that it is right for us to receive education, but we should enrich ourselves with knowledge and make it the driving force and tool for our progress, instead of becoming a burden and relying blindly and unilaterally on knowledge from time to time.
The ancients said that knowledge is power, but this power is driven by people, not by themselves.