The essence of education (I) The essence of education is to cultivate people's purposeful social activities. The essential attribute of education can be understood from the following three aspects. First, education is the process of transforming natural person into social person. This shows that education is a unique social phenomenon of human beings. Animals feed the next generation, but animals have always existed in the form of biological entities. The second is to carry out education and training consciously, purposefully and consciously. This shows the essential difference between education and other social phenomena, and other social phenomena also have an impact on human development. For example, social production also has a great influence on human development, but it does not consciously and purposefully affect human development. Thirdly, in the activities of cultivating people, there is a contradictory movement among educators, educatees and educational content (reflecting and embodying social requirements). (2) The social attribute of education 1. Eternal education is a unique social phenomenon of human beings and an eternal category. As long as human society exists, there is education. Education is eternal because it has two social functions: one is to make the new generation adapt to the existing productive forces and become a tool of production struggle; The second is to make the new generation adapt to the existing production relations and use it as a tool for class struggle in class society. The existence and continuation of society cannot be separated from education. Education should undertake the task of imparting production knowledge, skills and experience in any society, so that the younger generation can adapt to the needs of existing productive forces; At the same time, we should also undertake the task of teaching social ideology, customs and behavior norms, so that the younger generation can adapt to the needs of existing production relations. It is precisely because education has these two social functions that education is eternal. 2. Educational history education is also a historical phenomenon. In different societies or different historical periods of the same society, the nature, purpose and content of education are different, so education is historic. For example, the present education in China is quite different from the education in the early days of liberation in many aspects, such as educational concept, educational content and educational model, which is a historical reflection of education. In a class society, education must reflect the interests, wishes and requirements of the ruling class, showing a distinct class nature. Class nature is the inevitable reflection of educational historicity in class society. In a class society, the control of school education belongs to a ruling class. In order to make education serve its ruling class, the ruling class must reflect its own interests, wishes and requirements in education. When society, politics and economy change or the new ruling class replaces the old ruling class, education should also change accordingly. For example, if a socialist society replaces a capitalist society, education should also be reformed, and socialist education should replace capitalist education. 3. The relative independence of education is restricted by certain social, political and economic conditions, but as a social activity to cultivate people, education has its own relative independence. This relative independence is reflected in the following three aspects: (1) Education has its own inheritance relationship. Without social and material conditions, education cannot be created out of thin air. Any kind of education, in terms of its ideology, system, content, methods, etc. Although it was restricted by the political and economic system and the development level of productive forces at that time, it developed from the previous education and has a source relationship with the previous education, that is, education has its own inheritance relationship. The inheritance of education itself is also called the inheritance of education. It is precisely because of this inheritance of education that countries with the same political and economic system and productivity development level will have different educational characteristics; Education of different nationalities will show different traditions and characteristics. (2) Education should be influenced by other social ideologies. Although education is restricted by the political and economic system and the development level of productive forces, it is also closely related to and influenced by other ideologies in the superstructure. Ideology is mainly manifested in political thought, moral concept, philosophical thought, religion, literature, art, law and so on. Generally speaking, the influence of ideology on education is mainly manifested in two aspects: one is the educational viewpoint; The second is reflected in the educational content. It is precisely because education is influenced by ideology that in the same era, when there are different ideologies, especially different philosophical thoughts, different educational viewpoints will also appear. For example, Mencius and Gou Zi were at the same time. Mencius was a good humanist and Gou Zi was a bad humanist. Therefore, his views on education are quite different. Mencius believes that the function of education is to maintain people's inherent goodness, while Gou Zi believes that the function of education is to correct people's evil by using human power. Because an important function of education is to convey social consciousness and enable the younger generation to master the social ideology advocated by society, they will choose the social ideology advocated by society in the setting of educational content. When social ideology changes, it will also cause changes in educational content. In addition, changes in social, political and economic systems often affect other social ideologies first, and then cause changes in educational viewpoints and contents. It can be seen that the influence of politics and economy on education is often realized through other ideologies, which is also the embodiment of the relative independence of education. (3) Education is not balanced with social, political and economic development. Although education is restricted by certain political economy, it is not balanced with the development of political economy. This imbalance is mainly manifested in two aspects: first, education lags behind a certain level of political and economic development, that is, when society, politics and economy change, some educational ideas, contents and methods can still exist for a long time, and then education plays a role in hindering the new political and economic development. For example, at present, China is establishing and perfecting the socialist market economic system, which requires the establishment of educational concepts and contents that are compatible with the socialist market economic system. However, there are still some educational ideas and contents in some places that are compatible with the planned economic system, which hinders the establishment and improvement of the socialist market economic system and must be reformed. In another case, education is ahead of a certain level of political and economic development. At this time, education plays a catalytic role in the new political and economic development. That is, before the old social, political and economic system is overthrown, new educational ideas can be produced under certain conditions and play a catalytic role in the new society. For example, under the condition of capitalist society, Marxist educational thought appeared, which made the proletariat regard the struggle in the field of education as an important part of the struggle to overthrow bourgeois rule, thus promoting the development of proletarian liberation. Education is relatively independent, mainly in the above three aspects. To analyze and study education, we should not only look at the political and economic system and the development level of productive forces. In our educational work, copying some political and economic practices or replacing education with political economy ignores the laws of education itself and the relative independence of education. However, we must also make it clear that the independence of education is only relative and cannot be absolute.