Humanistic education reform originated in Italy, the birthplace of the Renaissance, and then spread to the Netherlands (about today's Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg and other places), France, Britain and other countries. Its representatives are the famous Italian humanist thinker and educator Vitorino (1378- 1446), the Dutch thinker Erasmus (1469- 1536) and the French thinker and educator rabelais (1494-656). Molar (1478- 1535), etc. They all explored and practiced in different countries, wrote books and expounded the advantages of Greek and Roman education, absorbed the essence of medieval city universities, and brought a fresh and lively style of study to the school. Vitorino's Happy House is refreshing. Erasmus's Ode to a Fool, rabelais's Biography of the Giant and Moore's Utopia are pioneers of humanistic education reform.
Summarizing the theories and practices of these educational reformers, we can see that the main features of humanistic education reform are as follows:
1. In terms of educational goals, it opposes the education of monks and puts forward the training goal of harmonious development of body, mind and personality. Of course, this is not a simple restoration of the Greek educational thought of "harmonious development of body and mind", but a social condition rooted in reality. Because with the intensification of political struggle, the development of production and the discovery of new navigation, the people to be trained by the upper bourgeoisie at this time are no longer monks and monks, nor are they speakers who participate in the politics of slave owners, but mainly social, political, cultural and commercial activists and even adventurers. Therefore, humanist educators suggest that the education received by children and teenagers should make all aspects of education develop harmoniously. They asked schools to attach importance to physical education in order to cultivate the healthy bodies of children and adolescents; Pay attention to aesthetic education and cultivate the aesthetic ability of the educated; Pay attention to extensive scientific knowledge to cultivate their rich talents; We should also attach importance to moral education in order to cultivate qualities that serve their status, reputation and power, such as courage, will, restraint, patriotism and so on.
2. In terms of training objects, we have expanded the educational objects, opposed corporal punishment and insulting children, and emphasized respect and care for children. In some schools run by humanists, there are not only children of nobles, but also children of civilians, and their educational scope has expanded. In view of the fallacy that religious schools preach that children are born guilty and corporal punishment prevails, humanist educators advocate loving children and point out the necessity of harmonious development of children's personality. They demand a close relationship between teachers and students, respect children's self-esteem, and strongly oppose the use of corporal punishment on children, as well as those educational and teaching methods that inhibit children's talent. They ask parents and teachers to set an example and attach importance to children's independent spirit. They suggest that children's honor and competition should be used instead of corporal punishment as a means to promote children's learning.
3. In terms of educational content, we oppose the study of Shinto and advocate the study of humanities. In order to meet the requirements of the emerging bourgeoisie to train the younger generation into the educated people they need, humanistic educators put forward that the teaching content of schools should be expanded. Since the Middle Ages, the teaching content of schools has been limited to "seven arts" (grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music theory). Among the seven arts, the last four arts (arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, music theory). It has always been neglected, and the first three arts are permeated with theological nature. Now, due to the development of science and the emergence of new disciplines, the teaching content of the school should be expanded accordingly, such as adding disciplines such as history, moral philosophy, nature, physics and geography. Pay special attention to the study of classical literature and Greek and Roman works.
4. In teaching methods, break the academic style of study and advocate new teaching methods. In order to break the traditional teaching methods that medieval missionary schools advocated tedious textual research and suppressed students' initiative, humanistic educators attached great importance to the reform of school teaching methods. Such as opposing students' passive acceptance of knowledge and advocating active learning spirit; Oppose students' mechanical boring teaching, and advocate that teaching should stimulate children's interest and enthusiasm in learning and use more intuitive methods; Oppose the blind emphasis on rote learning, and put forward that students should understand what they have learned; In addition, some people advocate teaching in combination with related disciplines, using methods such as visiting, visiting and traveling.
Compared with the education of monks in the Middle Ages, the requirements and practice of these reforms of humanism are undoubtedly a great progress. Its greatest achievement is that the classical works of Greece and Rome, regarded as heresy by medieval monks for thousands of years, have gained a legal dominant position in the course, and the teaching content and methods of scholasticism have also been shaken to some extent.
However, we should also see that educational practice often lags behind educational theory. Humanistic educational thought and reform practice are only embodied in the schools of a few outstanding educators, and there is no systematic theoretical system. Most schools still memorize boring classical Latin, and corporal punishment is serious. At the same time, humanities education also has its inherent shortcomings. Because this kind of education is generally based on the copy and simulation of ancient Greek and Roman culture, the contradiction between looking forward and looking back is manifested in the contradiction of content and form in the field of education. Humanist thinkers and educators not only want to gain liberation power from the liberalism of Greece and Rome, but also cherish the culture of Greece and Rome, so that they must call on Greece and learn from Rome. Moreover, by the end of the Renaissance, this tendency to worship the ancient times had gained the upper hand. When reading ancient classics, scholars ignore the basic knowledge. Everyone is blindly eager for erudition and imitation style, and despises practical knowledge. As a result, classicism flooded, teaching methods returned to the old road of trivialism, and a large number of young people were reintroduced into the pile of old papers. Faced with the rapid development of capitalist production, this kind of education must of course be further reformed.
In a word, the bourgeois renaissance had a great influence on the development of education, which made the education of European countries enter a new stage of development and appeared a prosperous situation. However, all this is just the beginning and has not spread to all schools. Education is still the privilege of the minority ruling class.