Building a lifelong education system and a learning society is also the common trend of educational development and reform in the contemporary world. As early as 1972, UNESCO put forward and explained the concept of "lifelong education" in its report "Learn to survive". From 65438 to 0990, at the World Conference on Education for All held by UNESCO in Thailand, "lifelong education" was written into the programmatic document of the World Declaration on Education for All. In 2000, UNESCO published the report "Right to Education: Towards Life-long Education for All", which proposed that education in the 2 1 century should move from basic education for all to life-long education for all. Over the years, many countries have made many useful explorations and accumulated valuable experience in their efforts to achieve the goal of lifelong education. Practice shows that the establishment of lifelong education system and learning society is a complex social system engineering, which requires at least four conditions: learners with lifelong education (learning) concept and certain learning ability; Educational structure systems and institutions that can provide lifelong education for members of society; Establish policies and systems conducive to lifelong education (learning); Development level of educational informatization.
Building a learning society not only requires building a modern educational structure system of lifelong education, establishing necessary policies, regulations and guarantee mechanisms, and promoting educational informationization, but also puts forward new and higher requirements for learners and school education, especially basic education, which is the main body of learning in a learning society. In recent years, the author has made some exploratory research on how to establish a modern educational structure system guided by the idea of lifelong education in China and create opportunities and conditions for lifelong learning of the majority of social members, and put forward some views and suggestions (see "Research on the Educational Structure System of Contemporary China" published in 200 1). I won't go into details here. Here, I only talk about some superficial views on cultivating a new generation of learners who meet the requirements of learning society and basic education reform.
Cultivating a new generation of learners with high learning awareness and learning ability is not only an urgent need for the sustainable development of society and individuals, but also the most important and key factor in building a learning society. School education, especially basic education, plays a decisive role in the process of cultivating and shaping people. Since the founding of New China, China's education has played a great role in cultivating all kinds of talents needed for socialist construction and accumulated a lot of good experience. However, our educational ideas, educational contents, educational methods, teaching methods and learners' quality are far from meeting the requirements of the rapid development of contemporary science and technology economy and lifelong education. In particular, many drawbacks of traditional educational thoughts have bound or even stifled the initiative, enthusiasm and creativity of many children and adolescents in learning to a certain extent. Therefore, in the process of building a learning society, we should not only strengthen school education, especially basic education, but also carry out profound changes from educational concepts to educational contents, educational models and methods, and teaching systems.
1. Learners' initiative, enthusiasm and creativity in learning are important driving forces and necessary conditions for building a learning society.
Facing the requirement of lifelong learning, the basic task of school education in the basic stage is to respect, protect and continuously develop children's innate interest and enthusiasm for learning. This is a problem that children should pay special attention to when they begin to receive school education systematically. It should be said that "among all living things on earth, children are the hungriest learners". One of the essential characteristics that distinguishes man from animals is that he has active cognitive desire and cognitive ability. From birth, babies gradually learn to recognize their parents' voices, faces and things around them, and learn to talk and walk. With the development and maturity of their bodies, their learning ability grows rapidly, which makes all other animals fall behind. Learning is not only the fundamental feature of human wisdom, but also an important way for people to acquire knowledge, strength, happiness and satisfaction. Except for a few people with special physical defects, this is basically a natural feature that everyone enjoys equally, and it is also an important foundation for human beings to form a learning society. From the first day of school, one of our important tasks should be to care for, strengthen and promote children's studious nature and make the school a paradise for learners. Because "exploring the unknown" is the most fascinating and tempting process, both teaching and learning should be full of challenges and fun of learning and creation. For a long time, many students have become passive recipients of knowledge in their studies due to some drawbacks of traditional educational ideas and other factors. The learning process is often only satisfied with memorizing and reciting the knowledge taught by the teacher, completing the homework and test papers assigned by the teacher, and obtaining standard answers, which does not pay enough attention to the cultivation of students' learning interest and creative spirit. For some children, learning even becomes hard labor. This not only can not give full play to or even dampen the initiative and enthusiasm of many students, but also directly affects their healthy growth and survival and development in the future learning society. Therefore, what kind of ideas and practices hinder students' love of learning, and what kind of ways can promote students' strong interest in learning and achieve the best learning effect are the fundamental issues that must be considered and practiced in school education and teaching innovation, and also the major issues that determine whether school education can become the foundation and important driving force of the future learning society. Over the years, in the practice of basic education innovation in China, many regions and schools have carried out experiments on education reform and achieved results, emphasizing that students are not only educatees, but also learning subjects with great learning potential, so that education can succeed. The teaching work of these schools and teachers can start from the reality of different levels and types of students, help students change from passive acceptance learning to independent inquiry learning, and cultivate and stimulate their enthusiasm for learning, exploration and innovation. These experiments also pay special attention to, protect and encourage students' little progress in the process of growth, enhance students' self-confidence, and make them live in the joy of constantly pursuing and exploring new knowledge, thus radiating strong interest and great motivation for further learning. Practice shows that the more students' learning enthusiasm is fully mobilized, the different interests, hobbies and characteristics of students are seriously respected and brought into play, the richer the educational resources contained in the learning collective, and the more obvious the improvement of educational quality. It should be said that there is still great potential for reform in this area. In the past, we lacked serious understanding and research on the objects of education, children and adolescents in the growing stage, especially on how to cultivate and develop their potential in learning. With the development of science and technology, especially education science, information science and brain science, the research and reform in this field will be an important historical mission for basic schools and educators in the new century.
Second, to help students establish a correct concept of learning
The growth of children is accompanied by human natural curiosity. We can see that after children learn to speak, they often ask adults, "What is this" and "Why is this". Satisfying curiosity is the primitive and great learning motivation of human beings, and it is also the fundamental driving force for scientists to explore the unknown world. While protecting children's curiosity, education should help students to further establish correct learning goals and attitudes and solve the problem of "why learn". Only in this way can students have strong learning needs, form lasting and good learning behaviors and habits, and achieve good learning results. It is an important function of education, especially basic education, to change learning from pure and spontaneous instinct to conscious social behavior. For learners, the development from curiosity to correct learning purpose and attitude is also a leap in understanding and action. Throughout the ages, people who have made achievements in their careers and made great contributions to society and people are conscious learners with correct attitudes and willingness to learn. Due to the influence of traditional ideas and the defects of China's current personnel system, such as excessive pursuit of academic qualifications and insufficient attention to ability requirements, there are still some unrealistic and even wrong ideas, which affect the correct learning attitude of some students. What is a correct and comprehensive view of learning and talents under the new situation that mankind is moving towards a learning society? How can we become talents that meet the requirements of social development? What are the criteria for evaluating qualified talents, and what are the growth paths and training modes of different types of talents? These problems need further study and discussion. At present, an important issue worthy of attention is that many teachers, parents and members of society often focus on students' test scores and scores, hoping that all students can enter famous universities to study for master's and doctoral degrees, and think that only in this way can they become talents. A considerable number of children have been under the high expectations and heavy pressure of parents, teachers and schools since they entered primary schools and even kindergartens. This is not only divorced from the reality of children and teenagers with different personalities and hobbies, but also dampened the confidence and enthusiasm of many teenagers who failed to enter universities and high schools (in 2002, about 85% of our peers could not enter universities, and about 465,438+0% of junior high school graduates could not enter various schools in high schools). It is also divorced from the needs of China's national conditions and economic and social development for different levels and types of talents.
The social demand for talents is multifaceted, multi-level and colorful. According to the People's Republic of China (PRC) occupational classification table published by 1999, there are 1 838 occupations in China. These different types of professional activities are interrelated, mutually serving and indispensable social activities in China's economic and social development, and they are all long-term, stable, standardized and grouped. These different occupations have different requirements for the knowledge and ability structure of talents, and the modes and ways of talent training are also different. In all kinds of professional activities, people can make their greatest contribution to the development and progress of society through their own hard study, hard work and continuous innovation, and become useful talents for the people. "Three hundred and sixty lines, each line is a champion." In real life, all kinds of talents we see are colorful, eclectic and different in their life goals, growth paths and social contributions. Therefore, students should be allowed and encouraged to develop their personalities and hobbies, and strive to improve their comprehensive quality, so that they can cope with the complex and challenging world in the future through various learning channels and practices and become talents who make contributions to society and people.
We should help all students to establish a correct outlook on learning and ambition and inspire their confidence. The attitude towards learning is actually an integral part of the outlook on life. At the same time, the content of learning not only includes knowledge and ability, but also includes establishing a sense of social responsibility and good moral and psychological quality, including the cultivation of non-intellectual factors such as emotion, will and personality. This is the key factor for students' future career success. With the rapid development of science and technology and the continuous progress of society, a learning society should be a society with highly developed spiritual civilization, which also puts forward new and higher requirements for people's ideological and moral quality. The learning stage of students in schools, especially basic schools, is a crucial period for them to form noble moral character in their lives. How they treat their classmates, teachers, parents and people around them correctly, whether they have a high sense of responsibility and love for the motherland, society, people and the natural environment on which human beings depend, whether they respect and love science and labor, and whether they have strong will and perseverance to overcome all kinds of difficulties and setbacks in their study and life, all of which determine their future mental outlook and ideological morality to a considerable extent. In this respect, schools and families play a decisive role in students' education. In the process of realizing a highly civilized learning society, the roles of teachers and schools should not be weakened, but strengthened.
Third, help students master the correct learning methods and improve their autonomous learning ability.
In the era of lifelong education and learning society, only those who have the ability of independent learning and development can adapt to the requirements of social development and create the future. With the development of science and technology and the progress of society, teachers are not the only source for students to acquire knowledge, and schools and classrooms are not the only places for learning. Nowadays, students can not only gain new knowledge through teachers' lectures, but also cross the time and space constraints and find, select and excavate all kinds of knowledge needed by life through various channels, especially information network technology. Nature, human society and colorful world are all textbooks of life. Therefore, in the stage of school education, especially basic education, teachers should not only help students to lay a good foundation of cultural and scientific knowledge, but also focus on the future development of students and society, guide students how to learn, guide and help them choose correct learning routes, strategies and methods to correctly handle information, improve their ability to select, distinguish, analyze and apply various information knowledge, and make students pay attention not only to their own knowledge, but also to the rationality of their learning behavior and learn to summarize.
Cultivating students' autonomous learning ability should pay special attention to the combination of cultivating students' innovative spirit and ability. The Club of Rome pointed out in its research report "Answering Future Challenges" that there are two types of learning: one is inherited learning, whose function is to acquire existing knowledge and experience; The other is innovative learning, whose function is to improve the ability to absorb, discover new information and ask new questions through learning, so as to cope with the ever-changing society in the future. Over the years, while helping students master cultural knowledge, many schools have guided students into the process of actively exploring knowledge, stimulated and cultivated students' interest and ability to discover, ask, study and solve problems, enhanced students' enthusiasm and innovative spirit of learning and exploration, and advocated and encouraged students to think independently and pursue the truth. In recent years, grass-roots schools have made many useful explorations in this regard, which are worth summarizing and advocating.
Applying what you have learned is the most direct purpose of learning and education, and the combination of learning and application is also an important method of learning. Learning in class, books and online is important, but learning in practice is more important in a sense. Students' learning ability, work and life ability, communication ability with classmates, teachers and other members of society, ability to analyze and solve problems, etc. You can master it step by step through practice. People can further deepen their understanding of the study of cultural and scientific knowledge through their own practice. Therefore, in the teaching process, we should provide students with more opportunities to practice and participate in social practice, pay attention to guiding and helping students to find and use the knowledge they need in order to solve problems, and let students learn to learn actively and creatively in practice. This is a necessary condition for the healthy growth of students, and it is also a basic requirement for talents put forward by social development.
School education is a necessary stage for students to move towards society and employment. It is also an important task of school education, including basic school education, to educate students of different grades in employment and entrepreneurship. As China is the most populous developing country in the world, although the education in China has made great progress since the founding of New China, only a few people of the same age (about 15%) have received higher education, less than 45% have received high school education and about 85% have received junior high school education. When students graduate from junior high school or high school, it is the first crossroads in their lives, that is, whether to continue their studies or enter the society to choose a career. Therefore, students must be prepared for further studies and employment during their studies at school. At present, our schools include basic schools in rural areas. In terms of training objectives, curriculum design and school-running mode, it is mainly to help students prepare for entering the next higher school, but it is not enough to help students prepare for employment and entrepreneurship so that they can have corresponding knowledge and skills. The Education Report for 2 1 Century written by UNESCO puts forward that basic education is an indispensable passport to life, which is very reasonable. The development of modern social and economic system and modern industrialization can be said to provide opportunities and challenges for every member of society to change their work style, work content and workplace. School education includes basic education, so we should pay attention to preparing learners for entering the society. By providing high-quality education, they will not only have a solid foundation of cultural and scientific knowledge and training, but also have a correct view of job selection, strong ability of job selection, knowledge transfer and job transfer, and strive to help learners realize their personal ideals.
At present, there are many problems in the teaching of basic education, which reflects the incompatibility between the whole school education and the construction of a learning society. Among them, how to learn "for whom", "what to learn" and "how to learn" is a prominent problem that needs to be solved in basic education, and it is also the foundation of basic education reform and innovation. In 2002, the author made a preliminary investigation and understanding of the lifelong education system in Australia and New Zealand. As the leading countries in promoting lifelong learning in the world, these two countries are developing various learning organizations and institutions to meet the diverse needs of people and social development for learning; Establish a framework for academic performance and qualification certification; Build a system of mutual connection and communication between all kinds of education, especially vocational education, training and higher education; Remarkable achievements have been made in implementing the lifelong learning policy and eliminating learning obstacles. Experts in these two countries agree that the participation rate of social members in continuing their studies after employment is closely related to their basic education. Everyone's basic education level is the basis for their effective participation in continuing education, training and lifelong learning. Both countries attach great importance to the cultivation of basic knowledge and learning ability from basic schools to higher education, so that students not only have the basic knowledge, skills and attitudes needed to complete their work, but also have strong abilities of independent learning and self-development, career transfer, communication with others and teamwork spirit. Paying attention to this aspect has become one of the priority areas for Australian and New Zealand governments to build a lifelong education system and a learning society. These experiences of developed countries deserve our attention.
Fourth, strengthen the reform and innovation of the basic education management system.
For all children and adolescents, fully popularize nine-year compulsory education and gradually promote high school education, gradually eliminate discrimination and inequality in educational opportunities brought about by external differences, promote the balanced development of basic education, and enable all children and adolescents to receive a good basic education. This is the basis for building a learning society and a necessary condition for China to achieve a well-off society in an all-round way. In order to achieve this grand goal, the government should take necessary and effective policies and measures in the construction of teaching staff, funding guarantee and encouraging the development of private education. All kinds of schools, especially basic schools, should also make great efforts in this regard. In the process of building a learning society, the key to promoting the innovation and improving the quality of basic education is to give full play to the roles of schools, principals and teachers. Principals and teachers are the soul of the school. Under the guidance of the government's macro-management of education, we should fully respect the autonomy of schools and principals, and encourage different schools to give play to their own advantages and run their own characteristics in the innovation of basic education. It is necessary to deepen the reform of the school's internal management system, create opportunities and conditions for each principal and teacher to give full play to their wisdom and talents, protect and stimulate their enthusiasm and creativity in the educational reform, and pave the way for their growth through various means such as further study, scientific research, teaching achievement report and experience exchange.
In order to give full play to the role of basic schools in building a learning society, we should also strengthen the close integration between schools and society, not only strengthen the joint efforts of schools, parents and social departments to educate people, but also make full use of the educational resources of schools and strive to provide high-quality basic education services to members of society, especially vulnerable groups, through various ways and channels, especially the use of modern information technology. Primary and secondary schools should also become centers of cultural knowledge and science and technology dissemination in learning communities in China. There are about 800 million people in rural China. In the next 20 years, we will not only realize agricultural modernization, but also transfer 300 million agricultural population to secondary and tertiary industries with the adjustment of rural industrial structure. Therefore, rural primary and secondary schools should strive to make positive contributions to improving the cultural and technical quality of local farmers. Strengthening the combination of basic schools and society and promoting schools to become new learning institutions interacting with community construction can not only better play the role of basic schools in the process of building a learning society in China; It is also conducive to further mobilizing the enthusiasm of the whole society and the broad masses of the people to care for and support basic education; It is conducive to promoting the reform of basic school education and enhancing the ability of self-development of basic education.
Five, to further strengthen exchanges and cooperation in basic education between regions and countries.
The increasing educational exchange and cooperation between regions and countries has become an important symbol of educational modernization and future orientation, and it is also an important experience of the rapid development of education in China in recent twenty years. Learning society is a highly open society. The development of economic globalization, especially the situation after China's entry into WTO, requires us to further face the world, put the development of China's basic education in the broad vision of the world's scientific, technological, economic and social development, and intensify reform and innovation. In basic education, we should not only pay attention to cultivating students with global vision, but also have a preliminary understanding of China culture, national conditions and transnational culture, so as to lay the necessary foundation for enhancing students' ability to communicate, exchange, compete and cooperate with the world. At the same time, we should further strengthen the educational exchanges and cooperation between China's basic education and other countries, combine the outstanding cultural achievements and successful experiences of other countries with the reality of China's educational reform, proceed from China's reality, make full use of foreign high-quality educational resources, and promote the development, innovation and improvement of China's basic education.
Although the development of basic education in China lags far behind that of developed countries, in many cities and developed areas, some primary and secondary schools have approached or even reached the level of developed countries in infrastructure and facilities, and we have accumulated many successful experiences in the reform of educational content and methods. Especially in the great practice of implementing quality education in China in recent years, although there are still many difficulties and problems, in some aspects, major breakthroughs and progress have been made and are being made. Building a lifelong education system and forming a learning society where all people learn will not only greatly promote the great cause of China's socialist modernization and the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, but also bring new development opportunities and great impetus to the innovation of China's education, especially basic education. In the era of rapid development of science and technology and great social changes, "the revitalization of schools needs a new beginning." This new beginning should focus on the first few years of formal education. Ernest Boyle: Basic School-Learning Community Family, p. 14. We believe that relying on the continuous exploration and practice of basic education by all educators and the joint efforts of the whole society, we will surely usher in the new glory of basic education in China. A learning society full of vigor and vitality will surely come, and the great ideal of "China will become a country where everyone learns" will surely come true.