I have been engaged in education all my life and have a deep educational complex. After retirement, I still care about the development of education and often read some articles about education. After reading it, I will inevitably have some messy thoughts and feel uncomfortable. Write it for all netizens to share, and welcome criticism and correction. Recently, I read the article "The Origin of Education is to Serve the Development of People" in China Education News. The author Tao Xiping is an adviser to the governor, vice president of China Education Association and chairman of UNESCO Asia-Pacific region. The article is concise and high-level. A short article clearly summarizes the development of education policy since the founding of the People's Republic of China, which is really convincing. This paper summarizes several major changes in education since the founding of the People's Republic of China: the old education system was abolished for the first time after the founding of the People's Republic of China, and a democratic and people-oriented education system was established. The second time, 1958, it was proposed that education should serve proletarian politics and combine education with productive labor. The political function of education has been strengthened. The third time was during the Cultural Revolution, which further strengthened the political function of education and defined education as a political tool serving the class struggle. The fourth great change is that after the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee of the Party, it was clearly stated that education should serve socialist modernization. The fifth great change was around the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, when "education should not only serve economic and social development, but also serve human development." The point of view. It took us nearly half a century to return to the fundamental principle that "the origin of education is to serve the development of people". That is, education should be "people-oriented". In this regard, the famous civilian educator Mr. Tao Xingzhi has long said: "Education is to teach people to change, to teach people to become good is good education, and to teach people to become bad is bad education; Living education teaches people to live, and death education teaches people to die. " Mr. Tao speaks the vernacular and speaks the truth. It is both easy to understand and thorough, and it is clear that the origin of education is to serve the development of people. In the era of our generation's study and life, both the educated and educators regard education as a "tool of proletarian dictatorship", education has become the position of political movement, and the fundamental nature of education has been distorted. Now it's time to find the root of the problem. In the report submitted to UNESCO, the International 2 1 Century Education Committee pointed out that education has four pillars: learning to recognize, learning to do things, learning to live together and learning to survive, which makes the origin of people-oriented education thorough, comprehensive, easy to understand and simple. Less political and academic, more human. The so-called learning to know is learning to learn, and its core is learning to think (learning thinking methods, independent thinking ability, learning ability, creative ability). Learning to do things is to apply knowledge to practice. Learning to live together is learning to cooperate. Learning to survive is to cultivate a sense of responsibility and viability. The Outline of Education Reform and Development in China proposes to implement "quality education" with the original intention of improving the quality of the educated. That is, ideology and morality, culture and science, labor skills and physical psychology. Its essence is consistent with the "four pillars" of education emphasized by the International 2 1 Century Education Committee. Unfortunately, it is difficult to get out of the shadow of "exam-oriented education" because of poor implementation. Writing here, I think of today, who is our education for? Is it for politics? For the economy and society? Or serve the development of mankind? In my opinion, none of them are like this. In my opinion, our basic education is mainly for further study; Higher education (especially secondary and higher vocational education) mainly serves employment. Although we have never seen it in words, various phenomena can prove this. The evaluation of schools by the public and society is generally based on "enrollment rate" and "employment rate". Einstein divided universities into two modes: one is tool manufacturing. Teach students skills and make them practical "tools"; The other is personality reinforcement. Only by taking learning as the lofty cause of perfecting personality and cultivating "harmonious people" can we distinguish between true and false, good and evil, beauty and ugliness. I hope our education is not the former but the latter. I am not an expert in educational theory, nor a politician, nor a scholar. It is impossible to analyze, expound and demonstrate one by one from the theoretical, academic and political heights, and only express my personal opinions based on the perceptual knowledge of years of education.