China's culture is profound, and education contains two meanings: teaching and education. "Teach, practice from the top, be filial from the bottom" and "educate, train children and make them better". "Teaching" refers to teaching, which not only teaches the cultural knowledge summarized by predecessors, but also enables more people to understand and master it and improve the level of social civilization, and belongs to the visible world of rational reality; "Teaching" refers to self-cultivation, which not only guides people's enthusiasm for understanding and rational use of nature, but also inspires people's good hearts and pursues the harmony between man, society and nature, and belongs to the knowable world of spiritual change. Teaching is accompanied by education, which includes teaching and the combination of teaching and education, and education can be called education.
Education can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense. In a broad sense, it refers to all practical activities that purposefully affect people's physical and mental development and social functions, as well as the inheritance and development of human history and national civilizations. In a narrow sense, education refers to the education of specialized and organized institutions, which is an activity to guide the educated to acquire knowledge and skills, cultivate ideological and moral character, and develop intelligence and physical strength in a purposeful, planned, organized and systematic way according to the actual and future needs of the background society. Education has a profound impact on the development of human culture, not only to convey culture, but also to meet the requirements of the continuation and renewal of culture itself.
Different times and countries have different understandings of education. Educators with different historical backgrounds will admire different educational goals and methods. Confucius said: "The way of a university lies in virtue, in being close to the people and in perfection". Mencius believes that "it is also a pleasure to be educated by talents in the world." Lu Xun emphasized that "education is to cultivate people". Tao Xingzhi believes that education is a "life education" based on life and oriented to life, and cultivates people with action ability, thinking ability and creativity. Dewey said that "education is life". Spencer in Britain believes that "education is to prepare for future life". By integrating the ideas of educators from different times and countries, we can appreciate the essence of education.
Education is a basic human need, a right and an obligation. Early education in Europe was greatly influenced by religion, and ancient education in China began with classic works. Education in today's society aims to improve people's knowledge and skills, influence people's ideology and morality, and enhance people's physique.
The object of education is people, so the content of education must be benign and meaningful. Educators play a leading role in educational activities, planning and managing the direction and objectives of educational activities, as well as the contents and methods of transmitting information. Educating and educating people is to make people accept all kinds of useful knowledge, so as to absorb and internalize this knowledge and directly apply it to society, or to sublimate new knowledge based on this knowledge, that is, discovery and invention, so as to promote social development and human civilization.
Education can be divided into three levels: the first level is to impart knowledge; The second level is to cultivate ability after mastering a certain knowledge base; The third level is to improve quality on the basis of knowledge and ability, which is also the fundamental purpose of education. These internal qualities are more the result of cultural accumulation, knowledge internalization and transformation, and also related to personal IQ and EQ. The solution of difficulties depends on knowledge, profound beauty and ugliness need knowledge judgment, the distinction between good and evil needs knowledge discrimination, a happy life needs knowledge bedding, and a noble soul needs knowledge enlightenment. Ability training is the process of education, and imparting knowledge is the basic function of education. If the basic function of imparting knowledge is not done well, the fundamental purpose of education will certainly not be achieved.
Education includes school education, family education and social education, all of which are indispensable. Schools impart knowledge and inherit civilization; Family cultivates moral quality and good habits; On the basis of good moral character, after accumulating a lot of knowledge, we can experience and understand life through social education. We can't expand the scope of school education indefinitely, nor can we arbitrarily shirk the responsibility of family and social education.
Modern education has been nationalized, ruled by law, compulsory in primary education and diversified in school types, and is gradually developing towards lifelong education, popularization and modernization of educational technology. The connotation of education has been constantly innovating and changing, and the evolution of educational means will be more frequent due to the development of science and technology. Education comes into being with the emergence of human society, develops with the development of society, and always accompanies human society.