Whitehead believes that education is rhythmic and a spiral development process, not a linear development process. In the rhythm of education, the development of intelligence is a cyclical process from romance to precision and from precision to synthesis.
The romantic stage is the free imagination and exertion of knowledge, as well as the general impression and preliminary understanding of knowledge. The accurate stage is to learn knowledge accurately and systematically. The comprehensive stage is the understanding and application of knowledge.
Although the rhythm of education is the cycle of these three stages, the proportion of romance, accuracy and comprehensiveness in the specific stage of human development is unbalanced. As Whitehead said, romance is dominant in infancy and primary school, accuracy is dominant in junior high school, and high school and college are dominant. The functions of the three stages in different periods are different.
In the development of wisdom, the three stages of romance, precision and synthesis correspond to freedom, discipline and freedom.
Freedom and discipline mentioned here are not what we usually understand, but when we master wisdom.
Whitehead believes that wisdom is the way to master knowledge. It involves the processing of knowledge, the choice of knowledge when determining related problems, and the use of knowledge to make our intuitive experience more valuable. This mastery of knowledge is wisdom and the most essential freedom that can be obtained. If you want to enjoy wisdom, you must have freedom before knowledge; If you want to acquire knowledge, you must keep discipline when you acquire knowledge. Only by maintaining a certain degree of discipline can we gain greater freedom.
I want to give students time and space to cultivate their interest and hobby in knowledge, but it takes time. Paying attention to accuracy will definitely weaken students' interests. Teacher Whitehead also believes that it is impossible for the whole class to fully develop in accuracy without weakening interest more or less. Unfortunately, we are faced with such a dilemma: initiative and training are indispensable, but training often kills initiative.
But what a teacher can do is: focus on educating students, grasp the main contradictions and key issues, avoid students' "eyebrows and beards" in the process of mastering knowledge, and increase students' pressure.