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Reflections on Jaspers' What is Education
What is education? Education is the foundation of the country. Looking at the present and future of a nation, we only need to look at its education. Education is the expression of a nation's vitality and the source of a nation's national spirit. Education prospers the nation, while education declines the nation.

What is education? Educators and thinkers at home and abroad have their own quotations. Confucius said, "The way of a university lies in virtue, in being close to the people and in perfection." Lu Xun said: "Education is to cultivate people." Cai Yuanpei said: "Education is to help the educated develop their abilities, improve their personality and do their part in human culture, rather than making the educated a special tool." 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. Marx and Engels believe that education is to promote "the original and free development of individuals". Kant believes that education is the process of individual self-design, self-selection, self-construction and self-evaluation, and it is the development of self-ability. It embodies the social will and mechanism that educators and educatees explore together in equality, freedom, prudence and seriousness. It is not "instruction" or "substitution", and it is not to let the young butterflies in the cocoon cater to or yield against their will. Einstein said, "What is education? When you forget all the education, the rest is education. " Montessori said: "Education is to stimulate life, enrich life, help children survive with their own strength and help them develop this spirit." Amicus said: "Education is the education of love". The education research report submitted by the International 2 1 Century Education Committee to UNESCO said: "Education is to ensure that everyone enjoys the freedom of thought, judgment, emotion and imagination needed to give full play to their talents, and to control their own destiny as firmly as possible." Various interpretations have their own merits. As an educator, it is of great benefit to know what education is, to understand the essence of education, to clarify one's own functions and responsibilities, and to find the right direction. Because there is no rational consciousness, it is impossible to be a conscious educator in practice. Recently, I have read Jaspers' What is Education carefully, and I have benefited a lot and gained a deeper understanding of education.

First, education is the education of human soul, not the accumulation of rational knowledge and understanding.

Jaspers believes that the so-called education is nothing more than interpersonal communication between subjects, including imparting knowledge content, understanding life connotation, regulating will and behavior, and handing over cultural heritage to the younger generation through cultural transmission function, allowing them to freely generate and enlighten their free nature. The principle of education is to guide the origin and foundation of people's soul awakening through all the cultures in the existing world, rather than guiding things derived from original and mediocre knowledge. Real education never allows rote memorization, nor does it expect everyone to become a thoughtful thinker. The process of education is to let educators practice, learn and grow by themselves in practice, which is characterized by free play and constant attempt. The key to all education is to choose the perfect educational content, and strive to make students' "thinking" not go astray, but lead to the source of things. Educational activities focus on how to mobilize and realize human potential to the maximum extent, and how to fully generate human inner spirituality and possibility. In a word, education is the education of human soul, not the accumulation of rational knowledge and understanding. Unfortunately, China's current education only pays attention to the accumulation of rational knowledge and cognition, but ignores the education of human soul. Primary and secondary education is promoting quality education in a big way, but it is actually grasping "exam-oriented education" in secret. Examination-oriented education, from educational means, educational methods, educational content to the construction of educational system, is centered on the rate of enrollment. The inherent sacred duties of education, such as the display of virtue, the cultivation of personality, the perfection of life, the improvement of quality, the cultivation of ability and the development of creative potential, have shrunk or even been cancelled. Education is not preaching, educating people, focusing on the cultivation of comprehensive quality, the promotion of practical ability, the promotion of life realm, the shaping of personality spirit and the cultivation of humanistic care, but only focusing on the polishing of "tools". The ultimate goal of education is not to cultivate people's virtue, personality and spiritual life, but to shape people into tools-tools without spirit and soul. Therefore, education leads to the alienation of human beings, rather than perfecting human nature and life. This year's series of injury accidents, in-depth thinking, can't help but say that it is the failure and sorrow of education in China.

Second, the source of education is real authority, and you can live freely in authority.

Jaspers believes that the belief in authority is the only source and essence of education. Without the constant emergence of authority, even if he has mastered profound knowledge and become a master of language and thinking, he is still in an abandoned empty space of possibility, in which only nothingness follows him closely. True authority comes from inner spiritual strength, and once this inner spiritual strength disappears, external authority will disappear. Authority maintains people's inner freedom and growth-oriented actions. Without authority, group life, common spirit, national education, military orders, state and legal effect are out of the question. Authority comes from outside, but at the same time it always comes from people's hearts. Only when personal authority makes Daquan work and every command is obeyed by Daquan can one's authority be possible. True authority can only be established through the freedom associated with it. The tension between freedom and authority lies in the fact that both sides are based on each other and lose either side. Then freedom will become chaos, and authority means autocracy. Authority is the mystery of truth unity that has been formed in historical reality. It is the essence of true authority to meet the highest human being who is loaded with truth and has the power from all kinds of truth. Authority is real, but not absolute. Education helps individuals to be themselves freely, rather than insisting on sameness. We must respect children's freedom and make them understand that the motivation for learning is not obedience. In the process of learning, they will be willing to respect the teachers who can help them learn knowledge, and love those teachers who serve others with virtue without abusing their power. If there is a ghost of authority wandering in the school and students don't resist, then the concept of authority will be deeply imprinted in their immature and plastic nature, which is almost unchangeable. Such students only know obedience and stubbornness in the future subconscious, but they don't know how to live freely. Reflecting on our education, authority mainly comes from the outside, and it is more of a kind of power. In the shadow of this authority, there is only obedience and no freedom.

Third, education is inseparable from language and culture, and education is a rational edifying process.

Jaspers believes that as a person, we must rely on the inheritance of language, because spiritual heritage can only be passed on to us through language. As the saying goes, "Language thinks for me." Learning a language can expand a person's spiritual wealth invisibly. Karl the Great once said, "I can become as many people as I master many languages." Everyone must learn a language, but it is important to learn a language indirectly, that is, to be familiar with what is described in books. The characteristics of things are revealed in expressing the linguistic characteristics of such things. The deeper you understand things, the higher the level of their language expression. The meaning of language comes from inheritance, society and repeated listening and understanding. Generally speaking, it takes a person a lifetime to master a subject, and in terms of language, he is his mother tongue. One obtains the research results handed down by predecessors through the self-education of thinking, but one cannot simply regard these research results as unchangeable learning objects. Learning is the preservation of virtue. Confucius said that the premise of learning lies in the cultivation of students, otherwise it will not succeed. Real learning is to overcome the inevitable difficulties through constant struggle. If people don't learn, other virtues will be unknown and distorted: "Good nature is not easy to learn, but its cover is also stupid, good knowledge is not easy to learn, its cover is also swaying, good faith is not easy to learn, its cover is also thief, difficult to learn, difficult to learn, brave to learn, its cover is chaotic, difficult to learn, and its cover is crazy." China is a country of etiquette, righteousness, culture and education. Among the main forms of human civilization, Chinese civilization is unique because of its emphasis on education. The emphasis on education constitutes the inner self of Chinese civilization with Confucian culture as the main body. Confucius, a sage, integrated three generations and carried forward the past into the future, wrote poems and books, ordered rituals and music, and praised Zhouyi. He inherited the cultural traditions of China since the Tang Dynasty and the Duke of Zhou, and was honored as a "teacher" by later generations. Without Confucius, there would be no history and culture of China for thousands of years, and countless sages are the real driving force to create the history of Chinese civilization. It is precisely because of this that "teacher" has a sacred position second only to "heaven and earth" and is regarded as a god by people. "Teachers" bear the responsibility and mission of "education".

The cultivation of truth consciousness has gone through the cultivation process of acquired human beings. In the process of training, we should first ask people how they view experience and understand things in the world, and how they impart specific knowledge to us. The cultivation of rationality is the training of real mastery in the sense of methodology. Although all the regulations are essential, they are all floating in the air. Through the process of cultivating a certain quality, we have developed an expanded consciousness, and people have formed a way of thinking and behavior accordingly, rather than just acquiring connotative knowledge. Shaping is a way of life, but also an intermediary of communication, awakening and self-realization. Shaping is done in activities, with the purpose of cultivating people in an all-round way and casting their essence. Having knowledge is not equal to edification, edification is not innate, it is related to heredity, education, family ancestors and group nature. People's inner spirit is really awakened in the process of cultivation. The spiritual level of a nation is determined by its cultivation mode. How many people cultivate and how people treat the essence of cultivation with awe can be used as a standard to measure the spiritual level of a nation. Shaping is the true representation of the formed consciousness, and the shaping action is the action of thinking, which makes the communication between the educated possible. The so-called educated people, that is, people trained according to the ideals of a certain era, have always regarded the consequences of training as qualifications for claiming social privileges. Shaping is for everyone to acquire knowledge and reshape their own world. Only when the world is the ultimate existence, molding becomes the ultimate thing, created and undertaken by the original, and finally broken by existence. In high-level cultivation, although there is a tendency to dispel existence, it is also a condition to achieve the clearest judgment.