As the name implies, what it teaches is "the art of freedom". The courses of liberal education in ancient Greece included rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry and so on. Its educational purpose is to teach people how to think independently, how to express accurately, how to argue rationally, how to communicate with others, how to tolerate and compromise. ...
The ancient Greeks believed that as a free man, only by accepting this kind of "free education" could he really be qualified to participate in the public affairs and activities of the city-state as a free man.
When we tried to translate this kind of education into Chinese, the embarrassment appeared: there is no similar concept in China culture.
China people pay attention to strict order and hierarchy, to "the monarch and his son", to the absolute authority of superiors over subordinates, and to the obedience of subordinates to superiors. As for "the art of freedom", what the hell is that? There is no need for independent thinking, self-expression and equal argument.
China people worship the great sage Confucius and regard him as a model of educator.
But in The Analects of Confucius, Confucius always appears as a "guru" and a "successful scholar". He is above the students and teaches them "indisputable" knowledge. Generally speaking, he lacks reflection on his knowledge because he is always right. He knows all the knowledge he needs to know, but what he doesn't know is what he doesn't need to know.
This randomness is reflected in his dialogue with students, but there is no real "dialogue".
Students' questioning is just the beginning. In order to elicit Confucius' teaching, the way of teaching is to give ready-made answers directly. Confucius will not elaborate further on how this conclusion was reached, what is the process of thinking and what is the basis. He does not welcome students' questions and discussions, let alone students' questions and refutations. He only hopes that students can sincerely accept his teaching.
Under the education of "I speak and you listen", if someone expresses his independent opinion against the teacher's intention, it will be regarded as heresy. And when everyone is crawling on the ground looking up at the "teacher", who can surpass the concept of "teacher"? No wonder China's culture of two thousand years, under the guidance of Confucius, has been spinning around.
Because there is no similar concept in China culture, if we literally translate "free education" into "free education" or "free art education", it is difficult for most people in China to understand its meaning. Therefore, different translators try to translate it into different words, such as "humanistic education", "liberal education" and "general education".
However, due to their literal meanings in Chinese, these words have caused many misunderstandings about "generalist education".
Humanism is an ideological concept and spiritual concern formed during the Renaissance. Its meaning mainly includes: attaching importance to people, caring for people, caring for people, safeguarding people's rights, defending people's dignity and pursuing people's value.
It is not difficult to find that the word "humanities" is very close to the connotation of "liberal arts education" that pursues independence. Therefore, I prefer to translate it into "humanistic education". As the political philosopher Leo Strauss said:
However, in the mass context, people often confuse "humanities education" with "humanities" and mistakenly think that humanities education is liberal arts education. This is a misunderstanding of humanistic education.
"Liberal education" is another translation of humanistic education. It expresses the spirit of pursuing broadness and elegance in humanistic education, and reveals that humanistic education focuses on cultivating "educated people".
And the two words "Bo" and "Ya" in Chinese can easily make people see the meaning of literature. For example, when they hear "Bo", they are associated with learning a wide range of knowledge in various disciplines; As soon as I hear "elegance", I associate it with learning elegant skills such as piano, chess, calligraphy and painting. This is another misunderstanding of humanistic education.
Humanities education is sometimes translated into "general education". This is another misunderstanding of humanistic education. Humanistic education and general education are two different concepts, one is "general education" and the other is "general education".
General education is to broaden students' knowledge and increase their professional knowledge in many subjects, such as mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, environmental science, economics, anthropology, history, politics, literature, foreign languages and so on.
Humanistic education is to increase people's intelligence and train people's thinking. Its focus is not to impart knowledge in specialized fields, but to enable people to acquire the ability of independent thinking and communication and expression through the education of reading, discussion and writing.
"Sinology" is a vague and broad concept, and a more accurate expression should be "China traditional ideology and culture". Some people mistakenly think that humanities education is "Chinese studies education", which is a misunderstanding of laymen.
As mentioned earlier, China's traditional educational philosophy runs counter to humanistic education. Humanistic education can choose China's traditional cultural classics as reading materials, but its core lies in critical thinking rather than old-fashioned indoctrination and rote memorization.
Similarly, humanistic education is not "classicism". Classics are literary classics that study ancient Greece and Rome. Modern western humanistic education often chooses the classic works of this period as reading materials, but this does not mean that humanistic education is equivalent to classicism.
Because the reading materials of humanities education are not limited to the classical period, you can choose many classic works later. China people's humanistic education can also select more materials from China's traditional culture, as long as they insist on taking critical thinking as the core.
"What is humanistic education" and "What is humanistic education" become clear.
Humanistic education is an education that pays attention to people's intellectual growth, not just the accumulation of knowledge. It focuses not on "knowledgeable people" but on "intelligent people" and "educated people".
Its fundamental purpose is to realize people's spiritual liberation and growth and enhance people's independent thinking ability and communication and expression ability. Its main contents are classic reading, discussion and writing.
It does not require students and teachers to unify their views, but guides students to form their own views through equal dialogue and discussion, thus enhancing self-judgment.
In the context of China, the concept of humanistic education is most in line with a sentence by historian Chen Yinque:
This is the real "humanistic education".
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