The fundamental feature of the phenomenon that education is different from other things is that education is a social activity to cultivate people purposefully.

Cultivating people purposefully is the fundamental difference between education and other social phenomena, and it is the essential feature of education, that is, the qualitative stipulation of education. Education in a narrow sense refers to specially organized school education; Broadly speaking, it refers to social practice activities that affect people's physical and mental development. Latin educare is the source of the word "education" in the west, which means "education".

Educators carry out purposeful, systematic and organized education and training on the mental development of educatees according to laws, regulations and industry norms, according to school conditions and professional titles, and use existing experience and knowledge to teach people, explain various phenomena, problems or behaviors for them, and improve their practical ability. Basically, it is to look at things with a relatively mature or rational thinking.

In it, people gradually moved from the touch of the senses to the state of cognitive understanding, forming a relatively perfect or rational conscious thinking. But at the same time, people have self-conscious thinking and their own sensory dimensions, so the conscious thinking of any education is not necessarily absolutely correct, but should understand the direction of their thinking in a perceptual way, as long as it does not deviate from the inherent essence of things.

Educational function

(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 the change of social talent system and 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 social function of education is to cultivate talents for the development of the country and serve the political and economic development of the country.

(4) The most far-reaching function of education is to influence the development of culture. Education should not only convey culture, but also meet the requirements of the continuation and renewal of culture itself.