A unique phenomenon, it is a social practice to cultivate people.

On the one hand, because the social phenomenon of education develops with the development of society, people's understanding of education is also deepening; On the other hand, education itself is developing.

Therefore, in the history of Chinese and foreign education, people have different views on what education is. Etymologically, the word "education" in different languages is related to the cultivation of children. The words "teaching" and "teaching" first appeared in Oracle Bone Inscriptions in China. "Teaching" means "in Oracle Bone Inscriptions", and the left indicates that children form gossip in classics. Here, words and deeds may be based on the norms that represent classics. On the right, the child's words and deeds must not be deviant, otherwise he will be punished (in the form of holding a wooden stick in one hand). In Oracle Bone Inscriptions, "education" means "pregnant woman", which means that a woman gives birth to a child. In the ancient books of the pre-Qin period, "teaching" and "teaching" were rarely used together, and most of them only used one word to discuss related issues. "Xue Ji" said: "Teachers are also good at saving their losses." The explanation in Shuo Wen Jie Zi written by Xu Shen (58- 147) in the Eastern Han Dynasty is more complete: "Teach, practice, and work." "Educate, raise children and make them better." The word education was originally used together. The word "education" has many meanings, such as management, teaching, training, demonstration, learning and training. In the west, the word "education" is found in both English and French, both of which are derived from Latin E-ducêre, the initial letter of which means "out" and the stem ducêre means "introduction", so the word "education" is used. That is, educators guide the educated to develop their inherent characteristics independently. Comenius, an educator in Czechoslovakia, said: "A person can only become a person if he receives a proper education." Lu Jun, a famous French thinker, said: "Plants are formed by cultivation and people are formed by education." "Education should follow the natural development of children. Cultivate children's innate ability to observe, think and feel. " Pestalozzi, a Swiss bourgeois democratic educator, said: "The purpose of education is to develop all natural forces and abilities of human beings." Kant, a German thinker, said: "Man can only grow through education, and man is the result of education." Herbart also said: "All the problems of education can be covered by one concept-morality." There are obvious differences in the understanding of education between China and the West. China attaches importance to the theory of "foreign scholars" and believes that education is the shaping of children by external forces. But they all regard education as an activity to cultivate people and a process to promote their physical and mental development. This consensus correctly reflects the common attribute of education at all times and in all countries: as long as human society exists, the attribute of education as a training person will not change or disappear. Education is human.

The category of eternity. Education is unique to human society. On the one hand, the necessity, occurrence and development of education lies in its important role in human development and social sustainable development. "Facing all kinds of challenges in the future, education seems to be an indispensable trump card for mankind to move towards peace, freedom and social justice." "Education is not a' master key' that can open the door to realize all human ideals. However, it is indeed the main means to promote more harmonious and reliable human development, through which human beings can reduce poverty, exclusion, incomprehension, oppression, war and other phenomena. " "The research of Marxist philosophy and scientific psychology proves that only the most basic reflection forms of biological substances, namely stimulus sensitivity and simple animal psychology, exist in the animal kingdom, and only the masters of human society-talents are conscious. And education is carried out under the domination of human unique consciousness.

Social needs are not instinctive needs, which are essentially different from animals' love and care for the next generation. Because animals' love and care for the next generation is a pure instinctive activity to reproduce, which is innate and a simple behavioral stereotype inherited, and it does not exist in consciousness. On the other hand, education is different. Whether it is to arouse the needs of education or to dominate educational activities, it is not biological instinct, but unique to human society.

On the other hand, transmitting experience through education is also unique to human society.

Children's information is mainly stored in genetic genes and passed down from generation to generation in a genetic way rather than in the way of education and learning.

A large number of adaptive actions of animals to the surrounding environment can be said to come from instinct.

In higher animals, besides instinct, there are of course some "intellectual" activities. But these acquired experiences are precisely because there is no unique consciousness and language.

Therefore, education cannot be mastered by the next generation of animals, so the experience as an individual can only disappear with the death of an individual. People are different. In the process of human species development, long-term adaptation to the environment is also manifested in genetic quality, but for human beings, heredity is not the main form of transmitting experience. The experience accumulated by human beings in social production and social life is mainly transmitted through education. People can do this because.

Human beings have consciousness, writing and language. With the help of the material shell of language and abstract rational thinking, human experience can not only exist in individual consciousness, but also exist outside individual consciousness and independently of each individual. This externalized experience will not disappear because of the death of an individual. Therefore, education is a unique social activity to cultivate people in human society.

As a concrete scientific concept, education can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense. Education in a broad sense refers to all social activities that purposefully improve people's knowledge and skills and affect people's physical and mental health, ideological and moral formation and development. This activity is aimed at many levels, including children and adults. Its organizational forms are diverse, from school education with fixed organizational forms to social education and family education with or without fixed organizational forms. In a narrow sense, education refers to the education specially organized, that is, according to the requirements of a certain society (or class) and the development needs of the educated, the educated are guided purposefully, planned and organized to acquire knowledge and skills, cultivate ideological and moral character, and develop intelligence and physical strength. In order to cultivate the activities of people needed by a certain society (or class), education in a narrow sense does not refer specifically to school education, but mainly refers to school education. The emergence of school education is much later than general education. As a kind of "specialized institution that carries out systematic education purposefully, planned and organized"-school appeared in slave society and is the product of the development of human society to a certain stage. The education studied in this book mainly refers to this narrow sense of education. Especially modern school education. Second, the elements of education Education is a relatively independent subsystem in the social system composed of space and time occupied by people, money, things and things. This system consists of several categories, levels and factors, which are linked together in a certain way and become an organic whole. As a system, education (represented by institutionalized school education system) is composed of subsystems of different levels: the basic unit of each subsystem is a large number of grassroots educational entities (that is, institutions, such as schools); Each grass-roots educational institution is equivalent to an organ of the subsystem, and each "organ" consists of various organized educational activities (such as teaching); Every organized educational activity consists of a series of individual educational activities. This individual educational activity is just like the cells of the human body. So what is the "cell" of education? The basic elements of educational activities are educators, educatees and educational measures. (1) Educators can be called educators who have an educational influence on the educated in terms of knowledge, skills, thoughts, morality, intelligence and physique. Family is an important place for a person to receive education. Parents are the children's first teachers, the children's first and most frequent educators, the masters of social education and other people who play an educational role. They are all educators. Since the emergence of school education, the school is a special place for the educated, and teachers and other educators in the school have become school educators. Educators are the basic elements of educational activities. Without educators and their purposeful activities, there is no education. Education is a purposeful activity to cultivate people. Educators influence and promote the physical and mental development of the educated in a certain direction and goal with their own activities. Educators are the leaders of educational activities, the purpose is an important feature of educational activities, and educators have a guiding role in all aspects of the educated. (2) Educated refers to people who are influenced by education in various educational activities. It includes children, teenagers and adults who study at school, as well as children who receive family education. It also includes people who are influenced by education in various forms of social education. Educated people in school education mainly refer to students who are engaged in learning in school. The educated is the object of education, the subject of learning and the basic element of educational activities. Without this element, educational activities cannot be formed. With the modernization of education and the extension of educational concept, the target of education has also expanded. If you want, you can start with prenatal education without any age limit. You can live and learn and receive lifelong education. With the progress of science and technology and the development of society, individuals as members of society are increasingly inseparable from education. In order to learn to survive and adapt to development, people should not only receive basic education and professional education, but also continue to receive continuing education. Educational activities are the process of making the educated internalize certain external educational contents and activities into their own wisdom, talents, thoughts, viewpoints and qualities. Without the active participation of the educated and giving full play to their subjective initiative, educational activities will not achieve good results. Once the educated have acquired the corresponding knowledge and ability, their subjective initiative will be more clearly manifested in educational activities, and they will be able to actively and consciously absorb knowledge and carry out moral cultivation. (3) Educational measures are also called educational materials. Among the three elements of education, the purposeful activities of educators and the activities of educatees should be mediated by educational measures, which include "educational media, educational materials, educational means, educational organization forms and activities, educational venues and equipment". Educational scale is the scale to measure the level of educational development. "Educational media" is the carrier of spreading cultural information in the process of education, that is, materialized knowledge form. Such as books, radio, videos, movies, television, newspapers and multimedia software. "Educational materials" are the content of education and the common basis for educators and educatees to carry out educational activities. Educators exert influence on the educated through specific educational content in order to achieve the expected educational goals. The educational content is selected and processed, and transmitted to the educated through certain educational media. The selection and processing of educational content is based on the needs of society, the age characteristics and acceptance level of the educated, the logical order of scientific knowledge and the requirements of educational methods. In different stages of social and historical development, different levels of science and technology and different educational objects, the specific content of education is not the same. But for school education, to sum up, it is nothing more than the educational content of body, intelligence, morality, beauty and labor. "Educational means" refers to all material conditions used in educational activities such as experimental means and modern audio-visual education means. "Educational organization form and activity mode" refers to the ways and methods adopted by educators and educatees to connect teaching and learning in educational activities. Such as individual teaching, class teaching system, program teaching, group discussion, lectures, experiments, etc. With the development of social productive forces and the progress of science and technology, educational materials have changed from simple to complex and from complex to simple. For example, before the adoption of audio-visual education, educational activities were relatively simple, but after the adoption of audio-visual education such as broadcasting, audio and video recording, movies, television and computer multimedia, the educational process became more and more complicated. At the same time, it makes it possible to replicate the educational process and shows the prospect of simplifying the educational process. In radio schools and TV schools, teachers themselves are only educational elements in the occasions of recording and shooting, not learning scenes. On the occasion of teaching with computer multimedia, the design and programming of multimedia software can not be undertaken by teachers. In these occasions, special educational venues are no longer the necessary elements of education. It can be seen that with the complexity of the educational process, the educational elements are constantly changing. We believe that any activity is the interaction between subject and object, but different activities have different subjects and objects; On the other hand, the interaction between different subjects and objects will form different activities. Therefore, to correctly understand and grasp the relationship between educational activities and their three elements, the key lies in correctly understanding and grasping the subject and object of educational activities and their relationship. China also has different views on the subject and object of educational activities, among which the dominant view is that educators are the main body of educational activities; Educated people are the objects of educational activities; Educational measures (educational materials) are the means of educational activities. This view is obviously one-sided. As we know, educational activities are purposefully promoting students' development. The development of students can not be separated from the activities taught by teachers and learned by students. Therefore, educational activities are not only the activities of educators (teaching activities), but also the activities of educatees (learning activities). Educational activities are the combination of learning activities and teaching activities. Generally speaking, teaching activities are leading activities, while learning activities are active activities. Accordingly, educators, as the main body of teaching activities, occupy a leading position and play a leading role in the whole educational activities. The educated, the active subject of learning, is in an active position and plays an active role in the whole educational activities. Moreover, educators and educatees are not two parallel subjects, but two "composite subjects" in different positions and playing different roles. The relationship between them is essentially dominant and active. A new understanding of the subject of educational activities will inevitably lead to a new view of the object of educational activities. We believe that the complexity of subject and object in educational activities is mainly manifested in its relativity and variability, rather than absolute and unchangeable. Educators and educatees are both subjects and objects of educational activities. Educators and educatees play dual roles in educational activities and are the unity of subject and object. As far as educators are concerned, they are both the subject of teaching and the object of learning. In teaching activities, educators are the main body. Teaching content constitutes the object of cognition, and students constitute the object of cognition and practice. Educators are in the position of teaching and play a leading role in the teaching process. Educators, as the subject, exert influence on the educated, while as the object, they become the object of students' cognition and function. As far as educators are concerned, it is also the unity of subject and object. In educational activities, educators improve themselves and develop themselves through their own understanding and transformation of educational content and students, which is the so-called "teaching before learning difficulties". As far as the educated is concerned, he is the object of teaching and the object of educational influence exerted by educators. It is also the subject of learning, cognition and development. In this case, educators and educational content are the objects of learning activities. Students regard educators as their own objects and educational content as their own objects. As far as students are concerned, learning activities are their own activities, and students themselves are bound to become the main body of activities. The purpose of learning is to change and develop oneself. Therefore, learners take themselves as the object. To sum up, the three basic elements of education play different roles in educational activities, but they are interrelated organic whole. One of the research topics of pedagogy is to explore the internal relationship among educators, educatees and educational measures (educational materials), so as to make them cooperate tacitly and be in the best control state, ensure the smooth and efficient development of educational activities, and thus promote the educational activities to achieve the expected goals. It can be analyzed and summarized from different angles and levels. (1) The essential feature of education is to cultivate people's social practice activities purposefully. This is the essential feature of education. Education is mainly carried out through language and writing, which are the products of human society, unique to human society and social. In primitive society, education has not been distinguished from other social activities. It is closely related to the most basic social practice-productive labor. Since it was distinguished from other social activities, education has assumed an independent social function and become a social activity dedicated to transmitting social life experience and cultivating people, with the ultimate goal of socializing people. Since its birth, education has two social functions, namely, teaching social production struggle and social life experience; Promote the growth and development of the new generation. Therefore, education is one of the indispensable means to promote the new generation and social development. It is not only the need of social material production and reproduction, but also the need of social people's production and reproduction. As long as human society exists, there must be education, and education and human society live and die together, which is eternal. From the viewpoint of contradiction theory, "any form of movement contains its own special contradictions." This special contradiction constitutes the special essence that distinguishes one thing from other things. " Although the phenomenon of education is very complicated, and the form, nature, purpose, content, method and organizational form of education vary widely, any education has a common basic point. That is to say, the qualitative difference between education as a social phenomenon and other social phenomena or its qualitative feature is that education is a purposeful activity to cultivate people. Educating people is the foothold and fundamental value of education. The special contradiction contained in education and to be solved is the contradiction between the educated individual and the requirements of social development. The basic function of education is to transform social needs into the quality of the educated. Or improve the quality of the educated to the norms and levels required by society. Specifically, education is to promote the educated from ignorance to knowledge or from not knowing much to knowing much, from never having a certain moral quality to having a certain moral quality, from being weak to being strong, from knowledge to ability, from thinking to behavior habits. In short, education is to transform the cultural achievements accumulated by human beings from generation to generation into the personal wisdom, talent and morality of the educated, so that their body and mind can develop and become the people needed for social development. Educational activity is an activity to promote transformation, which is a process to promote the socialization and individualization of the educated individuals. By cultivating people, we can solve the contradiction between human development and social development. (2) Other educational characteristics 1. Education has class nature, which is one of the attributes of class social education. A certain education reflects certain class requirements and serves them. The class nature of education is mainly reflected in the purpose, system, content, policy and even method of education. The politically dominant class consolidates its dominance through education; The ruled class should also use education to fight for its own interests. However, the ruling class always firmly holds the leadership of education and uses it to spread the ruling class's ideas. The class nature of education will die with the death of class. 2. Education is national. Generally speaking, it refers to the embodiment of national traditions and characteristics in education. For example, the basic education of all ethnic groups mostly uses their own language, and the educational content retains a large number of national cultural traditions. Students' ideological and moral quality is influenced by national common psychological characteristics such as national consciousness and national self-esteem. The nationality of education generally reflects the excellent traditions and characteristics of the nation suitable for the development of the times, while the backward, conservative and ignorant factors accumulated in national culture can be eliminated through the filtration of education. All ethnic groups have their own excellent traditions, and there must be historical precipitation. Learning from each other and learning from each other's strengths are the necessary conditions for enriching and developing the nationality of education. 3. Education is historic. Education has its own history in different nationalities and countries. The traditional education in China takes the Confucian educational tradition as the mainstream, takes "self-cultivation, keeping the family in order, governing the country and leveling the world" as the aim, and takes Confucian classics as the main educational content. Ancient Greece and Rome formed an educational tradition different from that of China. This educational tradition has become a historical legacy that affects the development trend of Chinese and western education. The tendency of "examination-oriented education" in modern school education in China and the long-standing tendency of "endogenous theory" in the history of western education can be found in their respective educational history. This is the historicity of education. 4. Education lags behind, and investment in education cannot be immediate. It takes a long time to train talents to receive certain economic and social benefits. Education is a potential and indirect productive force, and educational achievements can generally be transformed into direct and materialized productive forces through the actual production activities of the educated. At the same time, the knowledge and skills acquired by the educated in the process of learning and training still have a process of adapting to the actual work. Generally speaking, it takes a long time to get the benefits of education investment. 5. The advanced nature of modern education is one of the attributes of modern education, also known as "education first". Generally speaking, educational goals must be formulated with reference to the requirements of social development. The development of education must take precedence over the development of economy. The current education work serves the needs of the future, and the students' study now is to prepare for their future life. Therefore, the choice of training objectives and educational content should not only obey the realistic social needs, but also proceed from the needs of future social development. The development of education should precede the development of economy. Only in this way can we prepare talents for economic development. The advanced planning and priority development of education is a driving force for human beings to consciously promote social progress. To sum up, education is a unique social activity to cultivate people in human society, with timeliness, sociality, historicity, nationality, backwardness and class nature of class society, and modern education is advanced.