On educational philosophy thesis: 1500 words.
The Necessity and Value of Educational Philosophy
In the book Philosophy of Education, Professor Shi Zhongying defended the necessity of the existence of philosophy of education and re-evaluated its value in view of its value crisis. Inspired by it, the author thinks that it is extremely necessary to set up educational philosophy independently from the perspective of people as the intersection of philosophy and education, and its value is reflected in the following three aspects: leading the improvement of life realm, helping people to clarify the value of education and promoting reflection on educational practice.
Keywords: educational concept; Necessity; value
China Library Classification Number: G40 Document Identification Number: Part A Number:1673-4289 (2012) 05-0008-03.
Professor Shi Zhongying's book Philosophy of Education discusses the significance of education in human survival and development from the perspective of development history, focusing on the development of human freedom, rationality and rights, as well as the function and value of education, which embodies the humanistic care of education. Faced with the constant questioning of the value of educational philosophy by academic circles and practical educators, Professor Shi defended the necessity of the existence of educational philosophy, re-evaluated the value of educational philosophy, and made a clear, concrete and rational explanation and discussion on several basic issues in the field of education-knowledge, teaching, democracy and justice. This book taught me more than just concepts. It makes me see the whole picture of education from a brand-new perspective, deepens my understanding and belief in education, and causes me to think deeply about the necessity and value of the existence of educational philosophy.
First, the integration of philosophy and education.
Philosophy is not only a method, but also an attitude. It is a combination of humanistic spirit and rational spirit, exploring the possibility of the real world getting better. Since philosophy came into being, man has been regarded as an important research object. People ask philosophical questions from the predicament of existence, think philosophically, and constantly explore, question, inspect, criticize and reflect on human beings, in order to constantly pursue democracy and freedom, transcend liberation and the value and significance of life. At the same time, education is an activity that strives to make people develop in the truest and best direction. People are the purpose of education. What should be the ultimate pursuit of education? Make people human? . No matter what kind of theory of human nature educators hold, whether they think that human nature is good or evil, or that life is a blank board, their purpose is to try to improve people's knowledge and skills, improve people's thinking and accomplishment, improve people's character and promote people's all-round and harmonious development by adopting better educational forms and contents. From this point of view, the fundamental spirit of education and philosophy are interlinked, both pay attention to human development, and both reflect the rational spirit. Philosophy and education are based on people, the world and their relationships.
Man is the eternal theme of philosophy, and the essence of education is spiritual adult. Therefore, man becomes the intersection of philosophy and education, and is an important medium connecting philosophy and education. In this sense, the fundamental purpose of educational philosophy is to make people live a better life. Its real pursuit should be to return to the basic problems of education and the initial problems of education. Its real significance lies in discussing what is education and what is good education. As Professor Liu Tiefang said, educational philosophy is such an activity to shape educational actions, that is, to give complex educational actions a harmonious and beautiful form and make scattered educational actions develop in the direction of promoting good humanity? [ 1]。
Second, the necessity of the existence of educational philosophy
As we all know, from the founding of New China to the reform and opening up, influenced by the Soviet Union, the course of educational philosophy was once cancelled. After the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, everything has to be done, and all walks of life have been messed up, so educational philosophy has ushered in an opportunity of recovery and thus flourished. By the beginning of the 20th century, China's educational philosophy had reconstructed a relatively complete discipline system, but there were still many problems in the study of educational philosophy. Among them, the value of educational philosophy is constantly questioned by academic circles and practical educators, and people are confused and controversial about how to distinguish educational philosophy from pedagogy and whether it is necessary to set up educational philosophy independently.
Professor Shi's answer to these puzzles and questions is clear: educational activities need philosophy, and it is extremely necessary to establish educational philosophy independently. As Mr. Huang Ji said, the reopening of educational philosophy is first of all the need of discipline setting and the need of cultivating teachers with broad vision and high theoretical thinking level; Secondly, it is urgent to set things right, examine the basic theoretical problems of education and draw a conclusion that conforms to the law; In addition, it is also the need to effectively cope with the new challenges that education is constantly facing and complete the new mission entrusted to education in the future. In short, the reopening of educational philosophy is an objective requirement put forward by educational practice and an inevitable trend of the in-depth development of educational science [2].
As we know, the fundamental question of educational purpose is what kind of people to train, and the specific answer of educational purpose is the quality structure and specifications of ideal people. In this respect, although sociology, economics, culturology, psychology, etc. Knowledge base can be provided, but it still cannot meet the requirements of defining and clarifying educational purposes. Only by tracing back to the philosophical roots of various educational problems can teachers and educational researchers look at these problems from a broader perspective and truly find the meaning of education. In addition, the necessity of philosophy for educational activities is indirectly manifested through its influence on educational theory. As we all know, educational activities contain theories, even though these theories may be just some silent theories. The emergence and defense of educational theory is bound to be subject to general philosophy, and different schools of educational thought often have different philosophical foundations. The change of philosophical foundation or position in an era will inevitably bring about the innovation of educational theory, which indirectly but powerfully affects educational practice? [3]。
Third, the value of educational ideas.
Professor Gao Wei thinks? Defending the value of educational philosophy is an academic behavior without ideological content. Educational philosophy as a discipline needs no defense, but educational thought needs defense. The significance of educational philosophy lies in giving reasons for the educational ideas needed by the times? [4]。 Professor Shi made a new understanding and evaluation of the value of educational philosophy and re-evaluated the value of educational philosophy. Educational philosophy can help educators to mature their thoughts, strengthen their rationality, and guide educators to reflect on their educational life, because educational philosophy is a reflection on educational practice, and educators can only learn a lot of educational knowledge with the help of it? Insight? . As Naylor pointed out:? No matter what industry you are in, personal philosophical belief is the only effective means to clarify your life direction. If we, as a teacher or an educational leader, have no systematic educational philosophy and rational belief, will we be at a loss? [5]。 In addition, educational philosophy can also test and guide the public's educational concepts, make a rational analysis of educational policies, urge educators to criticize and reflect on educational knowledge, and provide an ideological platform for the exchange and dialogue of multidisciplinary knowledge. Here, Professor Shi pointed out that reassessing the value of educational philosophy is not a non-standpoint thinking, but a subjective interpretation of the value of educational philosophy based on the author's own cultural background and academic beliefs.
Inspired by Professor Shi's thoughts, the author believes that the value of educational philosophy is mainly reflected in the following aspects:
(A) the value of life: leading the realm of life.
What is the most popular educational slogan nowadays? Education? People-oriented, and people are the existence of dual life, which has both the same kinds of life as animals and its own unique life-like life-supernatural life [6]. Transcendence-the essence of human life-is the meaning and value of life for people. However, the current education only teaches people to master? How to make a living? Give up the ability to guide the educated? What is it born for? Thinking. Therefore, under the influence of education, modern people's survival ability is stronger than ever before, but they are more and more suspicious of the necessity of existence, which makes modern people's life full of boredom, emptiness, loneliness and meaninglessness, which fundamentally threatens the happiness of life and the progress of human civilization [7]. What is even more shocking is the increasingly serious problem of suicide. Suicide stems from the loss of the meaning of life and the loss of value rationality as the criterion of daily life [8]. Therefore, the most basic function of our education should be to help people, especially teenagers, gain or rebuild the rationality of value and gain or re-experience the meaning of life.
The significance of educational philosophy lies in uncovering the confusion of life, leading the realm of life to ascend, leading individual's natural life to transcendental life, and making human life achieve the unity of truth, goodness and beauty, rationality and irrationality, cognition and emotion. The educational concept is to guide individuals to grow to the initial starting point, determine the direction of self-development by returning to nature, and enhance the realm of human nature by cultivating enthusiasm and rationality. Understanding educational philosophy can make us have a more accurate grasp of education, people themselves and the relationship between them, and also give us a fundamental foothold in studying educational issues.
(2) Cultural value: help people clarify the educational value.
As we all know, the content of education is culture, and the transmission of culture must be based on the ideal of life and the pursuit of value, which directly points to the spiritual world of individuals. The dwarfing of spirit is becoming the mental state of the times, and the current education has become more and more lost in the realistic utilitarian desire and has become a tool for individuals to fight against the interests of secular life. Religion is about faith, while philosophy is about origin and value. Pedagogy is a social discipline with humanistic nature. On the surface, the educational phenomena or problems it wants to study are all educational facts. When researchers take it as the research object, it already contains the premise of its own value and embodies the pursuit of value. For teachers, every link of teaching activities is permeated with value, embodies value and pursues value, thus being associated with a broader and deeper historical and cultural background. Therefore, it is necessary for us to examine educational activities with the help of philosophical thinking and clarify various educational values and concepts from a higher and broader perspective. From this perspective, educational philosophy is superior to educational principles. The former explores the deep things behind education, such as what concept to understand education and teaching, which is no longer limited to education. Therefore, educational philosophy can help analyze and identify the rationality of values implied in education, and help educators find those values they agree with without reflection, so as to finally realize the spread and inheritance of values through continuous value promotion and reflection.
The significance of educational philosophy lies in helping educators to clarify the educational value, encouraging educational practitioners to reasonably recognize the educational value, arousing teachers to enter educational practice as complete educators, and promoting teachers' educational practice to become complete practice, rather than instrumental and technical teachers' actions. Students trained by such teachers are more open-minded, have the habit of independent thinking and pursue mediocrity.
Practical value: promoting reflection on educational practice
In this rapidly changing era, it is very easy for human beings to embrace wave after wave of changes in desperation, and it is also very easy to blindly resist changes and maintain traditional values. First of all, we should understand that one of the functions of philosophy has always been to critically test some debates at that time and provide new thinking directions; Another function of philosophy is to help people maintain a high degree of sensitivity to the language and logical problems used in the process of discovering and solving problems. Then, the study of educational philosophy will contribute to the cultivation of critical thinking and the formation of correct educational concepts, so that people can look at education and the changes in the new era with a broader vision and reflect deeply and rationally on the problems in educational practice.
Professor Shi mentioned it? Fundamentally speaking, the study of educational philosophy serves educational practice, as well as teachers, principals and educational administrators who are in the front line of educational practice. ? [3]35 In the view of educational practitioners, educational philosophy is always metaphysical knowledge, which is divorced from educational practice, thus causing the neglect of educational practitioners and shelving related works. The disciplinary nature of educational philosophy once triggered a heated discussion among educators. Whether it should be philosophical or practical seems to constitute a dilemma of educational philosophy. In fact, there is nothing wrong with the philosophical orientation or practical orientation itself, which is one of the development paths of educational philosophy. Because of different academic backgrounds, researchers must have their own preferences, but they all need to be biased in the end? Degree? And then what? Quantity? Grasp it well in theory and give guidance to practice. This kind of guidance is not to tell educators what is the irrefutable truth of education, but to help them mature ideologically and improve the rational level of educational thought and practice. Contemporary American philosopher Richard? Rorty said that Dewey's greatest contribution is to warn us not to expect anything similar to universal validity or truth from philosophy. So at this moment, we can't hope to find a complete solution to the educational problem from the philosophy of education. What we can get is the promotion of rationality and the formation of reflective quality. As Professor Gao Wei said: A possible good educational philosophy is only to explore a possibility, not to replace it, but to discover the difficulties in our thoughts through it. In fact, neither philosophy nor education, including educational philosophy, can and cannot reject those indispensable values about the happy life of mankind. The question is, how do we embody these values in education? [4]。
In a word, in a sense, education problems are all philosophical problems in the final analysis, and the combination of education and philosophy is people. Philosophy education guides people to think about the most important things in life and transcend daily life. Educational philosophy enables educators to solve basic problems in education with philosophical viewpoints and methods, and its existence is necessary and significant.
References:
[1] Liu Tiefang. Why do you need educational philosophy ―― On the triple orientation of educational philosophy [J]. Educational research, 20 10, (6): 15-22.
[2] yellow base. The first draft of educational philosophy [M]. Beijing: Beijing Normal University Press, 1982: 13.
[3] Shi Zhongying. Philosophy of education [M]. Beijing: Beijing Normal University Press, 2007.
[4] Gao Wei. On a Possible Philosophy of Good Education [J]. Fudan Education Forum, 20 1 1, (2): 5-9.
[5] Chen Yousong. Contemporary western educational philosophy [M]. Education Science Press, 1982: 135.
[6] Feng Jianjun. Life and education [M]. Education Science Press, 2004:2 1.
[7] Shi Zhongying. Human existence and its education [J]. Peking university education review, 2003, 1 (2): 19-23.
[8] Shi Zhongying. Philosophical thinking on suicide in education [J]. Journal of Beijing Normal University: Social Science Edition, 2008, (2): 16-23.
(Author: School of Education Science, Henan University, Kaifeng, Henan 475004; Department of Education, Southwest University, Chongqing 4007 15)