Education is a complex social phenomenon, which includes such factors as purpose, content, method and system. There are also different levels of preschool education, primary education, secondary education and higher education; General education, professional (vocational) education and other different categories; School education, family education, social education and other different fields.
And educational practice, educational policies and regulations, educational thoughts and theories. It is a multi-factor, multi-level, multi-category, multi-field and multi-form social subsystem. But the basic elements of educational activities are: educators, educatees and educational intermediary systems.
1. Teacher
An educator is a person engaged in educational activities. In educational activities, educators purposefully influence the physical, psychological and character development of others. It can be understood from the separation of broad education and narrow education.
Education in a broad sense, anyone who has an educational influence on the educated in terms of knowledge, skills, ideas and morality can be called an educator, including educational administrators at all levels, full-time and part-time teachers, staff of off-campus educational institutions, parents and so on.
In the narrow sense of education, educators are mainly school educators, referring to full-time teachers with certain academic qualifications and relatively fixed part-time teachers. Some people also call programmed robots educators.
It can be seen that educators are not necessarily full-time teachers, and educators have their own qualification requirements. Based on the concepts of "teaching and educating people", "managing and educating people" and "serving and educating people", only those who can really "educate people" in schools can be called educators.
Therefore, educators mean a kind of qualification and responsibility. Real educators must be able to "guide" or "cause" or "enhance" the healthy development of individuals according to their own understanding of the physical and mental development characteristics of the educated individuals and the social development situation or trend.
Educators are in the position of leadership, control and guidance in educational activities. They are the main body of educational activities and play a leading role. They have the right and obligation to care for, guide and help the educated, and even need to be punished when necessary.
However, this position is not a reliable guarantee for the effectiveness of education. Only after the educated accept the requirements of the educators and make efforts can the educational requirements be transformed into the development reality of the educated.
2. Educated people
Educated refers to people who actively receive education and engage in learning in various educational practice activities. Some people call it "learner", which embodies the subjectivity and initiative of the educated, but it is too general and lacks the correspondence with educators. Educated people and educators are a pair of interrelated concepts, not two opposing subjects.
Educated people are not only the object of education, but also the subject of learning. Like educators, they are the basic elements of educational activities. We can't ignore their equal personality characteristics and subjective initiative just because they are called "educated people".
Where there are educators, there must be educatees. Educators and educatees are in a relationship of democracy, equality, mutual learning and common development. Educated people have subjective initiative when they are influenced by ideas, morality, knowledge and skills taught by educated people. They accept new knowledge based on existing life and learning experience, and actively construct and generate knowledge.
However, this construction and generation must be carried out under the inspiration, guidance and correction of educators, must be recognized in the direction of truth, and must be carried out within the framework of "going to a progressive society" rather than "opposing a progressive society"
3. Educational impact
Educational influence is the intermediary connecting educators and learners, the sum of everything that educational activities depend on, and one of the essential elements of educational activities.
Educational purpose. Refers to the expected purpose of educational activities. Educational content. Refers to the knowledge and experience selected according to the educational purpose or goal. In school education, the content of education is mainly reflected in textbooks.
Educational methods. Refers to the methods used by educators to achieve their goals and enable learners to master the teaching content, such as teaching methods. Educational means. Refers to the material means used in educational activities, such as experimental equipment, audio-visual equipment, word of mouth, etc.
Form of educational organization. Refers to the forms of educational activities, such as formal education and informal education. Educational environment. Mainly refers to the material environment of education, such as venues and equipment.