When I opened the book "The Purpose of Education", I seemed to have crossed just visiting and saw a wise and vivid man walking towards me with his head held high-Whitehead of England, a great philosopher and educator. He left many words for us to reflect on education and learning permanently and learn from them. Although his thoughts and remarks are not all in line with our times, they are often enough to be a mirror for us to reflect our own face in the future.
I have learned a lot after carefully reading The Purpose of Education, but here I will only talk about some of his ideas about the "differentiation" of education.
Whitehead believes that "if we reject differentiation in education, it is destroying life." This sentence tells us, first of all, we must admit that students are different, and each type of students has its own unique personality characteristics, including physical and psychological aspects. As teachers, we must respect the individual differences of students. Excluding the differences in education, all students use the same standards and require their children with the same ruler. On the surface, this can indeed reduce the burden of preparing lessons for teachers, but it is harmful to students. Rejecting differences may stifle students' innovative thinking, desire and ability, thus forming inertial thinking and qualitative thinking; Excluding differences, students' personality is difficult to show or be noticed, which leads to students' inability to take effective ways and means to learn according to their own characteristics. Then, good students may not develop, and poor students may find it difficult to keep up with the pace of teachers. Excluding differences, students can't or rarely associate what they have learned with human spiritual activities, which is destroying students' "colorful life"; Excluding differentiation, it is more difficult to shake the phenomenon that academic qualifications only look at scores. Zheng Yefu, a professor in Peking University, China, said: "Students' talents and abilities are uneven, and the traditional education method is often top-down. That is, students with good grades are restricted, while students with poor grades are forced to study, which is a phenomenon of serving scores. "From this perspective, if there is no difference between students, no respect for students' characteristics, and no' uniqueness' in the eyes of educators, education is undoubtedly a disaster!
If differentiation is excluded from education, its disadvantages are obvious, but how many people can really respect students' differences in teaching and classroom? The reality is grim, but fortunately, changes are taking place, and many educators are already thinking, exploring and implementing differentiated teaching. Professor Ruhua's differential teaching theory, educators' implementation of differential teaching and the research and practice of learning needs of students with learning difficulties in Yangzhou No.1 Middle School are all gratifying changes. As a teacher, I am also trying to think about how to respect students' differences in education.
I think the premise of respecting students' differences is to understand their differences. Every student has his own personality, and teachers consciously discover this personality in the process of contact with it. Perhaps some students' personalities are not the type that teachers like, so there should be no subjective rejection and disgust at this time, but these personalities should be respected. In particular, students with poor grades and deviated rules in the class have long been disliked by teachers and suppressed and ignored by teachers. At this time, if we can "respect him especially" and pay more attention to him, such students will generally have multiple returns to their teachers, which is also my personal experience. As a teacher, it is impossible for a person to manage dozens of students and formulate corresponding policies for each student's personality. Then, except for a few special students, other students can be divided into several grades according to their grades, so that teachers can be more targeted when assigning homework and tasks.
At the same time, the ways and means of classroom teaching and life education should be flexible and diverse. If you use the same teaching method or education method for every student every time, students will inevitably develop "immunity" and lose interest in learning. If students want to make progress step by step according to the goals set by teachers, they need to respect differences and regard them as a kind of resource development. According to the different levels of students, different problems are designed and different ways and means are adopted to constantly try to stimulate students' interest and enthusiasm. For example, for students with low knowledge level, "teaching" is more important than "learning" in class, mainly because the teacher explains and the students understand, mainly some basic knowledge. If you encounter some articles with strong stories, you can choose such students to play roles according to the situation, so that students can better understand the simple meaning of the articles. For another example, for some lively children, students can be allowed to give lectures in class to stimulate students' interest in the classroom.
Of course, the evaluation should also be different. The author now implements the integral reward and punishment system in the classroom, and it has been implemented so far, and the effect is still good. The specific method is to summarize the achievement degree of students' goals once a month according to the previous goal setting. Due to different goals, the required scoring standards are also different. For those who do well in homework and classroom performance, teachers will reward some school supplies out of their own pockets, otherwise they will double their holiday homework. Of course, this is just an early attempt.
The Purpose of Education is one of the educational classics. It comes from educational practice and should return to it. That is to say, we should understand and practice it in education, acknowledge the individual differences of students and respect their "uniqueness" in education!