Key words: a philosophical examination of the bottleneck of basic education reform
A new round of basic education reform marked by the implementation of quality education has gone through ten years in China. Although remarkable achievements have been made, there are still many people who blindly accuse our education and even shout "Save the children" again. Everyone thinks it is necessary to carry out quality education, and it is difficult to really implement quality education. I don't know what to do next There has always been a "bottleneck" problem in China's education reform. To break through this bottleneck, we must first objectively evaluate the effectiveness of exploring and implementing quality education in China for more than ten years, and then find out the problems and solve them further. As far as the former is concerned, quite a few people hold the view that "educational reform is unsuccessful" and even think that this educational reform is "failed". The popular saying is that "quality education is vigorous and exam-oriented education is intensifying". I hold the view of "success". Although there are many difficulties and problems in China's educational reform in the past ten years, it should be successful and developing on the whole. As far as the problem is concerned, some people think it is a problem of education system, some people think it is a problem of education concept, some people think it is a problem of teachers' quality, some people think it is a problem of the whole society and so on. These judgments are not unreasonable, but these problems are not easy to solve and are not the key issues. The society is progressing, and education itself has the important task of promoting social development; The education system is constantly optimized, but under the same system, there is a completely different education; The demand for teachers' quality is endless, and every teacher has great potential, not to mention the extremely rich teacher resources in China. Even if these problems are solved, it may not make our education reach the ideal position. It should be said that the key to the success or failure of educational reform lies in the educational thought itself and the degree of people's recognition of educational thought. China is not short of advanced educational ideas and theories. Our country has not only accumulated a rich tradition of educational thought, but also explored the theory and practice of quality education for more than ten years since 1980s, which can be said to have achieved fruitful results. From a practical point of view, people today not only agree with the concept of quality education, but also agree with the idea of exam-oriented education. The "bottleneck" of education reform in China today is mainly because people are used to demanding all schools and educators with one educational concept, and hope that they will reach the same degree of recognition. Some people have seen that after such efforts, exam-oriented education has not been replaced by quality education, but has advantages. So, I began to get discouraged and began to complain. This is actually unscientific. In my opinion, at present, China's education field lacks the guidance of correct philosophy-methodology. Starting from the current educational reality in China, we must use Marxist philosophy to judge and lead the educational reform in China. Especially Marxist materialist dialectics (the law of unity of opposites, the law of quantitative change and qualitative change, etc.). ) and practice are the only criteria for testing truth. Let's talk about some personal shallow views.
First, the new round of education reform in China is still quantitative change rather than qualitative change.
Marxist philosophy holds that quantitative change refers to the change of the scale, degree and speed of the existence and development of things, as well as the arrangement order of things in space; Qualitative change refers to the change of one thing from other things, which is an essential change. Quantitative change is the necessary preparation for qualitative change, and qualitative change is the inevitable result of quantitative change. Looking back on the course of educational reform and development in China in the past ten years, it is not difficult to see that the educational reform and development in China still follows the law of "quantitative change" rather than "qualitative change". It is an educational reform, not an educational revolution. Generally speaking, "revolution" is a direct denial of "existing", a "thorough destruction of the old world and the establishment of a new world" and a qualitative change; And "reform" is the adjustment, enrichment and promotion of "existing", which is quantitative change. However, in reality, many people are used to using the standards of educational revolution to measure the achievements of China's educational reform, which leads to an inappropriate "pessimistic argument". I think not only in the past ten years, but also for a long time now and in the future, China's educational development is still quantitative, and it is still necessary to take the road of educational reform. From the perspective of quantitative change, the achievements of China's educational reform in the past decade are very remarkable, even in the reform of educational concepts, mainly as follows:
First, the people's demand for education has obviously increased and gradually diversified. In the past ten years, with the popularization of nine-year compulsory education, receiving a good education has become the first demand of teenagers, and the people's demand for high-quality educational resources has become increasingly strong. Under the influence of the concept of lifelong education, the educational demand of adult society is growing day by day, and different forms of continuing education and on-the-job training are springing up like mushrooms after rain, and a learning society is gradually taking shape. In addition, people's design of personal education needs and goals is becoming more and more rational and objective. Many parents are no longer purely "idealized" when designing their children's educational goals, but make more practical plans according to their children's characteristics and educational environment. If more and more people receive vocational education, the concept of "employment before further study, never too old to learn" has been accepted by more and more people. The "single-plank bridge" is no longer as crowded as before.
Second, teachers' respect for students' personality and attention to subjectivity have been significantly enhanced. Under the influence of the concept of people-oriented and managing education according to law, teachers' awareness of respecting students' personality and highlighting students' dominant position has been obviously enhanced. Although the phenomenon of corporal punishment of students has not disappeared, it has obviously decreased. In addition, the enhancement of students' awareness of rights protection also promotes teachers to gradually form the concept of teaching according to law.
Third, parents' thoughts on quality education have also been significantly enhanced. With the expansion of enrollment in colleges and universities, the reform of employment mechanism, and the continuous propaganda of quality education ideas, many parents now pay more attention to the cultivation of children's moral character and specialty than before, and obviously pay more attention to the cultivation of children's comprehensive quality than before. For example, there are more special classes in society than ever before, and many parents begin to pay attention to their children's "happy childhood".
Fourth, the concept of talents in society has also changed significantly. Especially after the implementation of the socialist market economic system and the marketization of talent selection in China, people pay more and more attention to people's ability and comprehensive quality, not just knowledge or diploma. Many employers recruit talents (including civil service examinations) without reading diplomas. The society is advocating the wind of self-employment. "As long as you have real talent and practical learning, you are not afraid of uselessness" has become a social consensus.
Therefore, I think that in the critical period of China's education reform, we should focus on guiding the people to see the achievements of China's education reform, and treat the problem as a developing problem, rather than complaining and being at a loss. We must build up confidence, never shrink back, and push forward the education reform in China step by step.
Second, the transformation of educational concept must follow the law of unity of opposites.
The law of unity of opposites is the basic law and core category of Marxist materialist dialectics. The law of unity of opposites is also the law of contradiction, that is, everything contains or is in contradiction, and the unity of opposites between contradictory parties promotes the movement and development of things, and contradiction is the fundamental driving force and internal source of things' change and development. The change of educational concept is the unity of opposites between different educational concepts.
Throughout the history of Chinese and foreign education development, from the practical level, no one educational thought or theory has completely replaced another educational thought or theory. This is true of both traditional and modern educational thoughts, humanistic and scientific educational views, and even the talent selection system-recommendation and examination. Although a certain educational thought or theory may have an absolute advantage in a certain period, it must go through a certain stage of struggle and development, and finally achieve relative integration and harmony with opposing ideas in the new stage of development. That is, the development of educational thoughts and theories also conforms to the law of "affirmation-negation-negation of negation" in the development of general things. Therefore, the purpose of educational ideological struggle is not to win or lose the result, but to promote change and seek development in the process of struggle.
Although the new round of educational reform in China has made remarkable achievements, there are indeed many problems. I think the most important thing is that there is a deviation in the macro-thinking of education reform: too much emphasis on the negativity of reform and neglect the compatibility of reform. Everyone is used to thinking in binary opposition, thus moving from one extreme to the other, even overcorrecting. So that theory is divorced from reality and ideal is divorced from reality. According to the main problems existing in the current educational reform in China, at least the following concepts of unity of opposites should be established in the macro-thinking of educational reform.
The unity of opposites between exam-oriented education and quality education
For more than ten years, people have been condemning exam-oriented education, and put forward quality education as the opposite of exam-oriented education and the guiding ideology of China's education reform. The whole country vigorously promotes quality education, and explicitly requires quality education to replace exam-oriented education. But practice has proved that exam-oriented education is not only difficult to completely ban, but also has a market. This can not but arouse our reflection: it is undeniable that exam-oriented education has also trained a large number of talents for the country; We can't think that students who learn book knowledge well will have poor ability and moral character; We can't think that the gap in students' academic performance must be caused by exam-oriented education. Whoever can guarantee the implementation of quality education will have no students with backward academic performance. We can't blame all students' crimes and suicides on exam-oriented education. Who can guarantee that students will not commit crimes and commit suicide if quality education is implemented? We can't even think that teachers engaged in exam-oriented education are absolutely indifferent to the development of students in other aspects. How can schools evaluate students' academic performance without exams? How to cultivate students' enterprising spirit and competitive consciousness without ranking in exams? Some people even began to re-recognize the imperial examination that we once completely denied. The problem lies not in the exam itself, but in what to take, how to take it, how often to take it, and how to treat it. I'm not singing a hymn for exam-oriented education here. Examination-oriented education does have many disadvantages, but it cannot be completely denied. Examination-oriented education and quality education cannot coexist, at least quality education should also include examination-oriented education, and leave a sky for examination-oriented education. This is not only because a considerable number of children can adapt well to the exam-oriented education (many teachers report that students with good grades are excellent in most other aspects), but also because everyone's education always has several stages (such as before the college entrance examination and the postgraduate entrance examination).
Second, the unity of opposites between commonness and personality development.
Through the analysis of educational purposes at home and abroad in ancient and modern times, we can draw the conclusion that educational purposes include not only the cultivation of human commonness, but also the cultivation of human personality. As far as the characteristics of different educational purposes are concerned, either the cultivation of generality or individuality is emphasized, or both are harmonious. From a historical point of view, the educational purpose of western countries is more focused on cultivating people's individuality, while the educational purpose of eastern countries is more focused on cultivating people's commonness. Today, people have clearly seen their own advantages and disadvantages. Before the 1980s, China only emphasized the cultivation of human commonness, but after advocating the education reform in the 1980s, he began to pay attention to the cultivation of human personality, and gradually appeared the phenomenon of keeping promises in personality, which seemed to forget the importance of cultivating commonness. In fact, the scientific view of educational purpose should emphasize not only the cultivation of human personality, but also the cultivation of human generality. Because commonness is the foundation of society and the premise of social stability; Personality is the foundation of social development and the premise of social change (as far as human psychological factors are concerned, there is no creativity without personality). Universality and individuality together constitute people's quality, and our education is to cultivate students' individuality with commonality and individuality, so as to make them harmonious and unified. We can't just emphasize the development of personality, because there are good and bad personalities. We must emphasize the cultivation of good personality. The so-called good personality means that your personality development can't hurt your commonness, nor can it hinder the personality development of others. If we go to extremes, it will certainly not make people develop harmoniously, and it will also be harmful to society.
Unity of opposites in the all-round development education of morality, intelligence, physique, beauty and labor.
The five educations of morality, intelligence, physique, beauty and labor (labor creation) are contradictory in time and space, but they are interdependent, interpenetrating and promoting each other. In the "Five Education", the existence and development of any one aspect is conditioned by the existence and development of other aspects, and any one aspect of education contains the components and contents of other aspects of education, and ignoring any one aspect of education will also affect other aspects. The implementation of moral education can effectively promote the completion of other aspects of education, and it is the soul and commander-in-chief, which plays a driving role; Intellectual education provides scientific knowledge and intellectual foundation for the implementation of other education; Physical education provides an indispensable material premise for other education, and physical education also obviously has various educational factors; Aesthetic education can enlighten the truth, benefit morality, strengthen the body, and play a "catalyst" role in people's all-round development; The education created by labor is not only the content of education, but also the purpose of education, which is a comprehensive embodiment of the effectiveness of other education. In a word, the content of all-round development education is a whole structure and a contradictory unity. If we overemphasize any one factor, it will not be conducive to people's all-round development, let alone artificially separate the factors. In the 1970s, we overemphasized moral education and productive labor education, but neglected intellectual education, criticizing "giving priority to intellectual education", which led to the loss of education in China. In 1980s, the emphasis on intellectual education neglected moral education and productive labor education, which resulted in the new deviation of education in China and triggered a new round of education reform. These lessons should be remembered.
Unity of opposites between teacher center and student center
In the new round of educational reform, an important teaching concept is to change from teacher-centered teaching concept to student-centered teaching concept. Advocate students' autonomous learning, carry out research-based learning and personalized teaching, and ask teachers to talk less and "return the classroom to students". Teachers' common teaching methods have been challenged, and even put forward new concepts of "students are God" and "teachers are service providers". In fact, it is necessary to replace the dominant position of traditional educational thought with modernist educational thought as the mainstream thought. Historical experience tells us that this will not work. As the opposite of Herbart's traditional educational thought, Dewey's modernist educational thought was once very popular and influenced the whole world, but soon the United States began to criticize Dewey's thought itself. Although Dewey's modernist educational thought is still influencing the education in the world, it has not defeated the traditional educational thought, and its successors are still drawing nutrition from the traditional educational thought in the process of continuous improvement. China's "Educational Revolution" during the "Cultural Revolution" also left us a painful lesson. While criticizing "teachers' dignity", it completely replaced the status of teachers and students, and even encouraged students to improve teachers, moving from one extreme to the other. Of course, today can't be compared with the Cultural Revolution, but if we talk about students' dominant position and ignore teachers' dominant position, and only talk about students' rights and not teachers' rights, it will be difficult to achieve the ideal educational effect. We should make it clear that modernist educational thought is not equal to modern educational thought. I think that modern educational thought should be a combination of traditional educational thought and modern educational thought, and should combine students' dominant position with teachers' dominant position, instead of just talking about "student-centered".
Thirdly, the promotion and effectiveness evaluation of education reform in China must be treated specifically.
"Practice is the only criterion for testing truth" is one of the important philosophical viewpoints of Marxism. The value of educational thoughts and theories must also be tested by educational practice, which is multifaceted and diverse. Especially in the vast China, there are not only many kinds of education, but also the development of education is extremely unbalanced, so it is difficult for us to guide or "standardize" national education with unified educational ideas and theories from macro to micro. In particular, the educational policy formulated according to certain educational thoughts and theories should embody the materialistic philosophy of "treating specific problems in a specific way", and should give classified guidance and evaluation to educational practice, and never make a one-size-fits-all approach.
Similarly, in the process of carrying out a new round of quality education reform in China, we should not be too idealistic about the results of education reform. We can neither demand all schools with individual successes nor deny universal development with individual failures. The same educational philosophy or policy is applicable here and not there; Applicable at this time, not necessarily at that time. One person is satisfied with the same educational methods or measures, but another person may not be satisfied. For example, the educational model of home-school integration is easy to implement in cities, but difficult to do in rural areas (many rural students' parents work outside the home all the year round); When we talk about reducing the burden on students, some minority areas call for increasing the burden on students. Even if the burden is reduced, part of it is the workload, and part of it is the learning ability and psychological problems; Many teachers in rural schools not only have low overall quality, but also have incomplete subjects, so it is difficult to educate students comprehensively. Many new teaching methods are only suitable for small-class teaching and schools with high modernization of educational means, and it is difficult to popularize them ... Therefore, when promoting quality education, we should not rush to seek success and follow the same pattern, but organically combine "centralized management" with "decentralized management"; When evaluating the effect of implementing quality education, we should also attach importance to "process evaluation" and downplay "result evaluation", and should also formulate an evaluation index system suitable for different levels, types and regions of education. As long as we find the right direction of education reform, formulate a scientific and feasible reform plan realistically, and persevere, we will certainly be close to the other side of the ideal.