The Origin and Connotation of "Education"
1. The origin of the word "education" in Chinese
It first appeared in Mencius with all my heart: "A gentleman has three pleasures, but the king of the world does not exist." Parents exist, brothers have no chance, and they are happy; Yang is worthy of the sky, regardless of people, but also happy; If you are educated by talented people in the world, you will have three pleasures. The explanation of Shuo Wen Jie Zi is that "teaching is applied from the top and effective from the bottom"; Education, fostering children makes good. " It was at the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century that "education" became a common word. /kloc-In the second half of the 9th century, China people began to establish new education. The popularity of the word "education" in modern Chinese is linked with the modernization of education in China, which reflects the modern transformation of China's educational discourse from "learning-oriented" to "teaching-oriented".
2. The origin of the word "education" in western languages.
In the west, the word education comes from the Latin educare. The original meaning is "derivative" or "derivative", which refers to something originally hidden in the body and mind and triggered by some means. Etymologically speaking, the word "education" in western languages means to emphasize that education is a natural activity from the inside out, aiming at arousing the inherent or potential qualities of natural people from the inside out, thus becoming a realistic development state.
3. The connotation of education
Education can be divided into broad sense and narrow sense. Education in a broad sense refers to all social practice activities that purposefully affect people's physical and mental development. Education in a narrow sense mainly refers to school education, that is, educators exert influence on the body and mind of the educated in a purposeful, planned and organized way according to certain social requirements and the development law of the educated, expecting the expected changes of the educated.
The essence and function of education
1. Multiple Examinations of the Essence of Education
(1) connotation. The essence of education refers to the fundamental characteristic that education, as a social activity, is different from other social activities, that is, the question of "what is education". It reflects the inherent stipulation of educational activities, that is, the fundamental characteristics of educational activities.
(2) Four views on the essence of education: superstructure theory; Productivity theory; Special category theory; Multiple attribute theory.
2. Educational function
The so-called educational function refers to the efficacy and role of educational activities. This is a question of "what is education for?" The function of education can be roughly divided into personal development function and social development function. The individual development function of education can be divided into two aspects: the individual socialization function and the individual individualization function of education. The fields of social activities mainly include economy, politics and culture, so the social development function of education can be divided into economic function, political function and cultural function of education. The main functions of education are:
(1) The primary function of education is to promote individual development, including individual socialization and individualization.
(2) The most basic function of education is to influence economic development. Modern society emphasizes that the economic function of education mainly includes: providing a good background for the sustained and stable development of the economy; Improve the potential labor ability of the educated; Form ideas, attitudes and behaviors that adapt to modern economic life.
(3) The most direct function of education is to influence political development.
(4) The most far-reaching function of education is to influence cultural development. Education should not only convey culture, but also meet the requirements of the continuation and renewal of culture itself.
What is education? At first glance, this question seems simple, but at an international education conference, Dr. Huang Quanyu, who was studying in the United States, asked a British educator, but there was no following. It can be seen that this problem is not that simple. With regard to the definition of education, educators, thinkers and some people at home and abroad have their own "quotations", which can be summarized as follows: Confucius said: "The way of a university is to be moral and for the people, and stop at perfection." Lu Xun: "Education is to cultivate people." Children's education is mainly about understanding, guidance and liberation. Cai Yuanpei: "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: Education is a "life education" based on and for life, which cultivates people with action ability, thinking ability and creativity. Huang Quanyu: Education "The important thing is not to load the car, but to fill the tank with oil." Zhong Qiquan: Education is the basis of "student development" and "personality growth". Qin Wenjun: "Education should be a door. Open it, full of sunshine and flowers. It can bring confidence and happiness to children." There are also many wonderful and incisive expositions about "education" abroad: Marx and Engels: Education is to promote "the free development of individual originality." Kant: Education is a process of individual self-design, self-selection, self-construction and self-evaluation. It is the development of self-ability. It embodies the social will and mechanism that educators and educatees explore together in an equal, free, prudent and serious way. It is not "instigation" or "substitution", and it is not to let the young butterflies in the cocoon cater to or yield against their will. Einstein: "What is education? When you forget all the education, the rest is education. " Howard gardner: What is education? Education is to let children experience and discover what the world is like and what role educators can play in it. People-friendly education: training personalized talents is the foundation of education. Montessori: "Education is to stimulate life, enrich life, help children survive with their own strength and help them develop this spirit." Jaspers: "Education is the education of human soul, not the accumulation of rational knowledge." Amicus: Education is "education of love". Various interpretations, each with its own merits, all lead to the door of truth from a certain angle. 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." As an educator, figuring out what education is is of great benefit to understanding the essence of education, clarifying one's own functions and responsibilities, and finding the way forward. This is not a question of walking into a dead end after talking. Because there is no rational consciousness, it is impossible to be a conscious educator in practice.
Education is a way to change people's understanding of the objective world and a positive and effective way to actively guide people to think, understand and transform the world. From the perspective of neutral words, it can have an impact, and from the perspective of derogatory words, it can have an impact.
Education is a kind of inheritance and promotion of human morality, science, technology, knowledge reserve and spiritual realm, and it is also the transmission of human civilization. Use others to appropriately change some subjective ideology. Changing other people's ideas and ideas is a scientific method. Education is also the cheapest national defense system.
In short, the essential attribute of education is that education is an influence, a positive influence, and a positive influence on human understanding and transforming the objective world and itself. The ultimate goal of education is to teach or not to teach! That is to teach them the ability of self-reflection and self-management for survival and development.
Generally speaking, "teaching: doing and learning (or imitating);" Education: Treat objectivity with a correct attitude. "The ultimate goal of education is to treat objectivity with correct habits and attitudes.
The logical starting point of education:
The logical starting point of education is naturally the emergence of human society. The transformation from apes to humans is due to productive labor, and apes gradually formed a main mechanism with brain and hand as the core. The brain can think and the hands can operate, which makes people different from ordinary animals and become "advanced animals". With the subject mechanism, it is possible to become a subject with practical cognitive ability, and human beings can upgrade themselves to the subject of understanding and transforming the objective world, thus turning the objective world into the object of human transformation and understanding. Understanding and transforming the objective world requires subjective ability. Human society is a form of existence created by human beings in social practice.
The scientific definition of education is helpful for people to understand education objectively, to establish correct educational concepts, to formulate correct educational policies, plans and systems, and to promote people to carry out reasonable, reasonable, compliant and appropriate educational activities.
[Edit this paragraph] Definition of "education"
The definition of "education" is the connotation or significance of education. Defining "education" is the beginning of rational understanding of educational phenomena and an important symbol of scientific education awareness activities.
In the field of education, there are various definitions of "education", which can be said that different people have different opinions. Generally speaking, people define "education" from two different angles, one is the social angle and the other is the individual angle. The former Soviet Union and China generally define "education" from a social perspective, while educators in Britain and the United States generally define "education" from an individual perspective. The definition of "education" from the social perspective can be divided into different levels: (1) In a broad sense, all activities that enhance people's knowledge and skills and affect people's ideology and morality are education. (2) In a narrow sense, it mainly refers to school education, which refers to the activities that educators exert influence on the body and mind of the educated in a purposeful, planned and organized way according to the requirements of a certain society or class, and cultivate them into people needed by a certain society or class. (3) In a narrow sense, it sometimes refers to ideological education activities. This definition emphasizes the influence of social factors on individual development, and regards "education" as a subsystem of the whole social system, which allocates or undertakes certain social functions. Defining "education" from an individual perspective often equates "education" with an individual's learning or development process. The most essential understanding of education is the knowledge instillation and behavior guidance of people's thoughts by society; First, the object of education is people; Second, the content must be benign and meaningful.
Education is a practical activity to promote individual socialization and social individualization under a certain social background.
If defined around the basic elements of educational activities, education can be defined as a social activity in which people consciously transmit information to others through a number of methods, media and other forms, hoping to influence their spiritual world or psychological state and help or hinder others from acquiring certain concepts, qualities and abilities. People in the former role are called educators, while people in the latter role are called educational objects. This definition accords with all human educational activities and can be used as the basic definition of education.
Education in a narrow sense refers to educational activities organized and systematically implemented by educators or educational institutions, that is, formal education, such as school education.
Zhang Xiulin, a contemporary poet and cultural scholar, has the following explanation in the article On Education:
The so-called education should be the teaching and dissemination of social culture. Social culture, including art and science, should include three levels of content. The first level refers to high-level culture, which is abstract and intangible, such as social psychology, aesthetics and values. The second level refers to things or things' culture. From the first level, it is concrete. Although there is no concrete existence, we can really feel its structure and activities, such as political power and its institutions. The third level refers to the surface culture, which is both visible and tangible. Simply speaking, it is spiritual culture, spiritual materialized culture and material culture. The purpose of education is to educate people, in fact, it is to let people accept all kinds of useful knowledge, so as to absorb and melt this knowledge and make it directly act on society, or to sublimate new knowledge on the basis of this knowledge, that is, to discover and invent. The former is like a physical change, and the person who accepts it is like a container for things. A few things are still the same, but in a different place, some miscellaneous things are probably what we often call practical talents-skilled or skilled talents; The latter is similar to a chemical reaction, which produces different and other things. Such talents can master the first-class culture well and easily form their own unique ideas, concepts and research methods. This is the creative talent. The cultural influence of a country and a nation in the world is mainly the influence of first-class culture and creative talents. (Source: Zhang Xiulin column of China Academic Forum, /data/personal article. PHP? id=6799)
The Material Basis for the Emergence and Development of Education
The highly developed nervous system of human beings is the material basis and prerequisite for the emergence and development of education. It provides complete thinking functions such as feeling, memory, association, imagination and reasoning, which makes people's consciousness influence and spread each other.
The role of educators in educational activities
From the definition of education, it can be seen that 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. Educators are willing to teach because of several factors, one of which is their own interests. People are social animals, and everyone wants to get effective support and help from others. If the ability of those who can support themselves and help themselves is insufficient, the benefits will be limited. If the ability of people who can help themselves is improved through education, their benefits can be expanded. Secondly, out of altruism, I hope others can live a better life through education. Third, because of people's competitiveness, competitiveness has two aspects. On the one hand, we strengthen our competitiveness through education, on the other hand, we weaken each other's competitiveness through educational activities. Educators often claim that their education is justified, but it turns out that it is not, such as the de-China education of Taiwan independence forces and the enslavement education of colonial people by colonial authorities.
In educational activities, educators don't have to transmit information to the educated face to face, but they can transmit it through various ways and media, even through others. And this other person is not necessarily an educator, because the purpose of educators to transmit information is to change others' ideas, qualities and abilities. Anyone who receives his message and conveys his intention is the object of his education.