Herbart's educational thought can be summarized as "one principle", "two foundations", "three centers" and "four stages".

1, principle

Herbart first put forward the principle of education and teaching, and expounded the relationship between education and teaching. He made it clear: "I don't think there is any education without teaching. On the contrary, I don't recognize any teaching without education."

He believes that teaching is the most basic means to form moral concepts and cultivate moral quality, and emphasizes that moral education should be based on knowledge education; Moral education should be carried out through teaching, and the purpose of teaching is to cultivate students' virtue.

2, 2 foundation

Herbart regards ethics and psychology as the theoretical basis of pedagogy.

(1) The Ethical Basis of Pedagogy

Herbart regards how to deal with the relationship between people, that is, to cultivate five moral concepts, as the basic principle of his ethics. These five moral concepts are inner freedom, perfection, goodwill, justice and reward.

He believes that "the only work of education and all work can be summarized by this concept-morality" and "virtue is a term given to the whole education". The whole goal of education, the whole work of education, lies in cultivating students' five moral concepts.

At the same time, these five moral concepts are an interrelated system, which should be composed according to a certain proportion. We can neither lack a certain concept nor make a certain concept too much or too little.

(2) the psychological basis of pedagogy

Herbart advocates that the primary science of education is psychology, emphasizes that the most important theoretical basis of education is psychology, and fully applies psychology to demonstrate various practical problems in education (especially teaching), trying to give a theoretical explanation to education, which is his most important contribution in the history of education.

In his view, man's "mind" is one of countless realities in the universe. When it has relations with other "realities", it produces "ideas". "Concept" is the impression that things present in the senses and leave in the consciousness. He believes that ideas are the most basic substance of people's conscious activities, and all psychological phenomena are produced by the interaction of various ideas.

It has experienced a series of complicated psychological processes, namely the process of apperception, from being the object of perception to staying in consciousness. "apperception" means that new ideas are assimilated and absorbed by old ideas that already exist in consciousness. Herbart believes that the acquisition of any concept and any experience is the result of apperception.

3. Three centers

Herbart is a representative of the traditional school of education. He emphasized the authoritative role and central position of teachers and formed a three-center theory of "teacher-centered, textbook-centered and classroom-centered". We usually refer to Herbart's theory of three centers as "old three centers" and Dewey's "children center (student center), experience center and activity center" as "new three centers".

4. Four stages

Herbart put forward the stage theory of teaching form. He pointed out that any teaching activity must be orderly and go through four stages, namely, clarity (or clarity), association (or association), system and method.

Clarity-teachers use intuitive teaching AIDS and explanations to give clear hints, so that students can get a clear representation, thus making a good combination of ideas, that is, preparing for learning new knowledge.

Union-the activity of arousing the original ideas due to the appearance and consciousness of new images, which leads to the union of old and new ideas, but the final result has not yet appeared. The teacher's main task is to talk freely with students and use analytical teaching method.

Systematization-adopt comprehensive teaching methods to systematize the combination of old and new concepts, so as to obtain new concepts.

Methods-The combination of old and new ideas needs to be further consolidated and strengthened, which requires students to carry out their own activities and consolidate their newly acquired knowledge through practice.

Extended data

Components of Herbart Teaching Method:

Strictly speaking, studying the components of a certain theory is only an intuitive way of thinking. From the perspective of meta-educational theory research, we can't grasp the essence of the research object. However, we might as well make a brief description for the reference of pedagogy research in China. On the surface, the components of Herbart's two kinds of education are quite different.

The first volume consists of three parts, including "Skopos Theory, Teaching Theory and Discipline Theory"; The second volume consists of three parts: basic theory, educational process and educational problems.

Compared with the previous book, the author made four changes in the second book:

First, strengthen the basic theory part;

The second is to combine "teaching theory" and "discipline theory" into one;

Third, the teleology of education is discussed separately in education and discipline, but there is no special discussion. As for the management part specifically discussed in the first book (discussed in teleology), it still maintains a parallel position with teaching and discipline;

Fourthly, the discussion of subject teaching theory and education system has been increased. Due to the changes in the system of Pedagogy Syllabus, we can see that Herbart himself is not sure about the composition of pedagogy, but he pays more attention to transforming his educational beliefs into a logical theoretical system.

Judging from the common characteristics of the two books, his pedagogy is actually composed of four parts: basic theory, teaching theory, subject theory and school management theory. Herbart's painstaking educational system is not far from Comenius two centuries ago, but it has fundamentally changed its theoretical basis and research methods.

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