The difference between living things and non-living things is that the former sustains itself by renewal. Creatures can't do the task of self-renewal indefinitely, and they will become extinct.

The basic and inevitable fact that every member of these social groups lives or dies determines the necessity of education. People are not only born ignorant, but also very indifferent to the goals and habits of social groups. They must be made aware of this and actively interested. Education, only education can make up for this defect. Society exists through the process of transmission, which relies on the old people to transmit their habits of work, thinking and emotion to the young people. Humans are inferior to many lower animals in infancy, and even the strength needed to maintain their bodies can only be obtained through teaching. Then, it is even more necessary to teach all the technological, artistic, scientific and moral achievements of mankind.

Second, education and communication.

Life needs transmission, and transmission cannot be separated from education and communication. Only through education and communication can we pass on our experience.

Society not only survives through communication and communication, but also survives through communication and communication. All communication is educational.

Third, the status quo of formal education.

With the development of human beings and the accumulation of knowledge, human beings have been unable to obtain the ability to survive through imitation. Formal education is needed to transfer knowledge. However, formal education may be divorced from the actual social life, fall into indifference and rigidity, and become abstract and bookish. So Dewey proposed that education should keep a balance between formal and informal. In fact, Dewey's core educational thought has been mentioned here, that is, "learning by doing" and not separating theory from practice.

In fact, what Dewey said is also a problem of our current education system. They only pay attention to the teaching of theoretical knowledge, which is divorced from practice, which also leads many students to be tired of learning and find what they have learned useless. Now many educational experts are aware of this problem and are trying to make up for the shortcomings in modern education. For example, the course "Beauty of the Whole Person" developed by Gan Guoxiang and Wei Zhiyuan pays special attention to action learning, reading, writing, painting, study tour, drama performance and other courses, so as to fully mobilize students' practical ability and let them learn by doing.

Chapter II Education is the Function of Society

Education is the function of society, which means that education can only be realized in a specific social environment.

I. Nature and significance of the environment

The development of attitudes and tendencies that teenagers must have in the continuous and progressive social life cannot happen through the direct transmission of beliefs, emotions and knowledge, but through the intermediary of the environment. In other words, education can only happen through the environment.

Environment includes all kinds of conditions that promote or hinder, stimulate or inhibit the unique activities of living things. The conditions here include natural environment and social environment.

Second, the social environment

When a person's activities are linked with those of others, he must have a social environment. How does the social environment cultivate immature members? Social environment shapes their external habits. There are two kinds of external habits to shape people, one is training and the other is education. The difference between training and education is that training can only cause changes in external actions, while education is not only changes in external actions, but also changes in psychological and emotional tendencies of behaviors.

The influence of environment on people depends on language, which plays an important role in acquiring knowledge. Knowledge can be passed from one person to another through language. Language consists of sounds that can understand each other, and the meaning of language depends on the connection with common experience.

Third, the educational nature of the social environment.

The influence of social environment on people is everywhere. Social environment can shape the intelligence and emotional tendency of individual behavior through various activities of individuals. These activities can arouse and strengthen some impulses, and have certain goals and bear certain consequences. Social environment exerts the influence of education and shaping unconsciously and aimlessly.

The influence of social environment on people is concentrated in three aspects: the first is language habits. After a child is born, the language of his relatives around him plays a vital role in the development of his language ability. A person usually speaks his mother tongue best. If a person is abandoned in the animal world at birth, he may not be able to develop his language ability. Like a wolf child.

The second is appearance, and appearance here refers to manners. Family education is mainly reflected in the influence of parents' manners on their children.

The third is aesthetic feeling and aesthetics. When the eyes are exposed to beautiful things for a long time, the aesthetic ability will naturally be cultivated. And if a child lives in a tacky, disorderly and poorly decorated environment, his perception of beauty is naturally difficult to cultivate.

Fourth, the school is a special environment.

The only way for adults to consciously control the education of immature people is to control their environment. A school is a typical environment, which is clearly shaped according to the intellectual and moral tendencies that affect its members.

The special social environment of school has three important functions: one is to simplify and sort out many factors of development trend; The second is to purify the existing social habits and conceptualize them; The third is to create a broader and more balanced environment so that young people are not restricted by the original environment.

20 18/2/8

PS: 90-day Challenge Training Camp in University Hall, Chapter 29