But humanities education is different. It does not teach the needs of any particular occupation, but lays the foundation for the common ground of all occupations. This is the biggest feature of humanistic education summarized by Indian American writer farid zakaria.
Fareed zakaria is a contributing editor of Time magazine and a columnist in The New York Times and Washington post. In his book Defending Humanistic Education, he recorded his mother's experience of leading him to receive humanistic education from India to the United States.
So, how does humanities education lay the common ground of all occupations? What can we get from humanistic education?
Education can always be divided into two categories: one is to instill knowledge into the brain and make a good knowledge reserve; The other is to train the brain how to think and enhance the ability of independent thinking.
Both kinds of education are very important. It's like cooking a table of delicious food with rich ingredients and superb cooking skills.
"A clever woman can't cook without rice." We often attach great importance to the accumulation of ingredients, but forget to improve our cooking skills. We often attach great importance to the education of instilling knowledge, but ignore the education of training thinking. Like a person who can't cook. Even if he accumulates more and better ingredients, he can't make a big meal.
Humanistic education is the training of thinking. It requires educators to put down the authority shelf and guide students to think, not to think instead of students. It pays attention to students' participation, feelings and judgments, and whether students have formed their own opinions-and whether the opinions formed by students are consistent with the teachers is not important.
As Howard gardner, a developmental psychologist, said:
Limited years and limited fields of school education can teach students limited knowledge. In the long work and life, he will need more in-depth knowledge or knowledge in other new fields. These needs cannot be completely estimated in the school education stage.
Therefore, the focus of education is not to let students acquire knowledge, but to let students have the ability to acquire knowledge, that is, to teach students how to learn.
Humanistic education guides students to read and discuss, and teaches students to acquire new knowledge in two ways of "dialogue". One kind of "dialogue" is reading, that is, the dialogue between learners and texts, that is, the dialogue between readers and authors from a distance; Another kind of "dialogue" is discussion, that is, face-to-face dialogue between learners and other learners.
Good dialogue is of great help to students' growth. Students participating in these two dialogues with critical thinking can not only increase their knowledge in related fields, but also increase their own knowledge. Therefore, as long as students master the skills of reading and discussion, they can continue to learn and improve their cognitive level even if they leave the teaching and guidance of educators.
The operation of a computer is similar to that of a human brain, which requires input, operation and output. No matter how powerful the computing power of a computer is, it will become a pile of waste without output equipment. Because you can't see the operation result, doesn't it mean that there is no operation?
People are the same. People should learn, think and express. Expression depends on the ability of speaking and writing.
Discussion class and writing class in humanities education are to teach students how to speak and write.
Speaking is unnatural, and writing is unnatural. How to present ideas clearly and logically? How to tell a story vividly and attractively? These all need practice. Discussion classes and writing classes provide opportunities for practice.
Humanistic education pays attention to the targeted guidance of students' oral and writing, thus improving students' oral and written expression ability.
Physicist and politician Benjamin Franklin thought:
Humanistic education is to broaden students' knowledge boundary, guide students to understand the relationship between different disciplines and stimulate their potential interest in different fields through extensive reading and discussion.
At the same time, humanities education also guides students to find themselves, know themselves, find their own unique voice and clarify their interests and advantages by inspiring students to think independently.
Only through outward and inward exploration can people gain a strong internal driving force, know "where I am" and understand "where I will go"
Dewey, an American philosopher and educator, said in the article Humanism Education:
Perhaps, for each of us, we are more concerned about happiness.
Humanistic education can increase our wisdom, broaden our horizons, enrich our emotions and soothe our hearts. It enables us to face life in a higher dimension, gain more diverse and profound life experiences, and thus gain inner peace and satisfaction.
As farid zakaria said:
Recommended reading:
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