With the development of economy, the economic function of education has been invisibly enlarged, which makes people regard education as a means to cultivate labor force and promote economic growth. In this way, education gradually loses its intrinsic value and ignores the development of people, not "making people become adults" but "making people become things". To change this situation, education should shift its focus from economic growth, expand the connotation of "development", attach importance to human development, and bring the deviated education back to the right track.
Paper Keywords: economic growth; Human development; Utilitarianism education
In view of the important role of economy in social life, it seems normal to look at various fields from an economic perspective. As far as the field of education is concerned, the behavior of examining education from the economic point of view is gradually increasing, and the importance of education in economic growth is constantly emphasized. In this case, people often ignore the essence of education for the people and educate people, and lock the function of education only in economic growth. The demand for education for economic purposes is increasing, and education for human purposes is gradually lost, ignoring the ultimate goal of education promoting human development. This kind of education will inevitably lose the most important "person", which will lead to the materialization or instrumentalization of people and deviate from the essence of education. Therefore, if you want to understand the true meaning of education and find the direction of education, you can't just stay on the various derivative purposes or results of education, but you should look at education from a broader perspective, that is, from the perspective of promoting human development.
First of all, the educational goal should shift from economic growth.
Due to the changes of the times, economy plays an increasingly important role in people's lives. No matter in the macro national development and competition, or in the micro personal survival, "economy" seems to have become the most important consideration in people's lives, which always affects all aspects of development trends. Education is also inevitable, and the shadow of "economy" can often be seen. Whether people are educated, what kind of education they receive and what kind of academic achievements they have achieved are all related to the needs of the labor market. The demand of the labor market in a certain period is mostly related to the direction of capital investment. Because education has not got rid of the influence of labor market demand, capital occupies labor force and educational achievements, so the baton of economy extends to education, which puts forward many requirements for education. At the same time, with the help of human capital theory, screening theory, dual market theory and many other educational economic theories, on the one hand, people pay more attention to the development of education and the cultivation of talents, but on the other hand, the economic function of education is also publicized without limit, which leads people to always try to make education create greater economic value.
However, when people regard economy as the most important operating rule in the world, its ideas and methods are regarded as the only standard, which excludes spiritual values and leads to the lack of human development and the loss of social spirit. Especially when "economy" is regarded as the purpose of education, education has entered a "modern economic trap", which has produced a series of side effects, leading to the whole educational atmosphere becoming more and more "pragmatic", often "from the perspective of materialization and social standardization, people are only trained as tools, lacking an educational concept with people as the starting point and ultimate goal". Specifically, the current actual education in schools is de-spiritualized, and there is a serious tendency to be knowledgeable and skilled. It can be said that the significance of school "education" is getting weaker and weaker, and the school is not an "education" institution, but gradually degenerates into a pure vocational training institution. Its goal orientation is only to make students become "a certain kind of people" needed by society, that is, whether they can find "good jobs" or become "successful people". This operation mode or mechanism ignores the promotion of students' spiritual life and hinders students' pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty. In this way, education has changed from "a belief-based activity" to a simple technical behavior and operation; For the sake of human education, free education has become a simple technical education and technical training, and the cultivated individuals have been eroded a little, and gradually become a tool to meet the material and social needs of the country and individuals.
At the same time, this kind of education is still dismembering people's "normal" life, making people live an "economic life" with "economy" as the coordinate, that is, they are constantly inclined to be "interested" and only master those skills or knowledge that can benefit them in education, which leads to one-sided development of people. The final result is that people are educated only to have knowledge, not to enrich and enhance the value of life with knowledge; Even the purpose of possessing knowledge is not for knowledge itself, but as an intermediary, to acquire or possess other things through knowledge. In this way, "usefulness" becomes the only criterion to measure the content of education, and only those "knowledge useful for future life and preparation for future career" are useful. Affected by this mentality, in the competition for "score value", "ranking value" and "certificate value", people do not care about the significance and value of their education, but pay attention to their position and order among many competitors. Especially when choosing a major, "What can I do after learning?" It is what everyone is most interested in, which makes people pursue "hot majors", while "unpopular majors" like philosophy, ethics and religion are rarely interested. Education has become the product of people's investment. The purpose of people's education is only to meet the needs of a certain aspect of society, so that they can get quite good returns from it. This can be said to be "dissolving all infinite purposes of education into limited purposes of seeking survival and adaptation". People's ideals, pursuits, beliefs, meaning of life and other values are excluded from education, so that "today's education fundamentally deviates from its true meaning and becomes utilitarian education under the operation of instrumental rationality". [6] It is under the control of this logic that people gradually lose themselves in the materialistic modern society, and negative emotions such as numbness, boredom, emptiness and meaninglessness fill every corner of people's lives. This has also become one of the reasons why suicides and other people's lives are common in schools and society.
In short, although the theory of "human capital" was once very popular and benefited a lot from education, looking at the way of education only from a purely economic perspective will lead to the loss of human subjectivity. This loss of real education obviously does not meet the fundamental requirements of human development. In order to change this situation, we must first change our attitude towards education and see that the goal of education lies in "people" rather than "tools"; Education is for "human development", not for the needs of various economic interests. The return and development of human beings is the ultimate goal and great mission of education.
Second, the ultimate goal of education is to promote human development.
Undeniably, education plays an important role in "development", but if we only define development as economic growth, and then take education as a means to pursue economic growth, we will inevitably come to a dead end. Therefore, we should extend the concept of development to depth and breadth, "make development go beyond the economic category" and consider "human connotation" at the same time. Economic development serves human development; Without human development, economic and social development becomes meaningless. At the same time, "only when people take their own development as the goal itself, the real subjectivity of human beings begins to form." Therefore, this requires us to put human development in the first place, take education as an extremely important means to promote human development, and change from economic purpose to promoting human development. This is exactly what Federico Mayor, Director-General of UNESCO, emphasized: "The development process should first create conditions to give full play to all the potential of people living on the earth today and tomorrow. The people are both the first protagonist and the ultimate goal of development. " Only education that conforms to this broad concept of development can be called real education, and only when education is considered within the scope of this development can it be the real direction of education.
1. Theoretical basis of education promoting human development
Because people are different from animals, "although they are also restricted by instinct and environment, people can consciously control their own life activities." People can surpass themselves from instinct and realistic environment according to their own wishes, and break the relationship between life instinct and realistic stipulation through their own creative practice activities, so that their existence can acquire an open, natural and generative nature, thus completely surpassing the closed, preformed and fatalistic way of life of animals. "Therefore, people's value and development play an important role in social life. This is also an important reason for attracting thinkers from all over the world to pay attention to "people". Pericles, an ancient Greek politician, thought that man was the first important thing, Pru Tegola, a wise man, thought that man was the measure of everything, Aristotle thought that man was a political animal, and Bacon thought that man could be the center of the world during the Renaissance. People are emphasizing "people". Kant, a master of German classical philosophy, put forward the famous proposition that "man is an end, not just a means", which is the best interpretation of it. Although these thoughts have their shortcomings and limitations, they are of great significance in emphasizing human value and human development. At the same time, paying attention to human development is also the basic concept of the development of human civilization in the contemporary world. In the book "New Outlook on Development" published by 1983, Peru clearly put forward that "all-round development of human beings" should be the fundamental goal and core value orientation of development. In 2003, China also put forward a new development concept of "people-oriented". It can be seen that paying attention to human development has become a basic trend, which is also the ideological and theoretical basis for us to pay attention to human development in education.
2. The main characteristics of education promoting human development
First of all, education to promote human development should be "people-oriented". "Education is essentially an activity to awaken people's life consciousness, enlighten people's spiritual world, build people's lifestyle and realize people's value life." This stipulates that education should start from the perspective of people, attach importance to people's development, and reflect people's spiritual needs and the pursuit of a meaningful world. The basic value of education is that it is an important way for individuals to survive and develop. The basic value of this kind of education is the foundation of education. Therefore, no matter what form we develop, what degree we reach and what development tasks we accomplish, we can't deviate from the value center with people as the core. Only by accurately grasping this theme can the deviated education return to its proper track. Education is no longer regarded as a means to achieve a certain goal, so that people are no longer just "tools", but "people" become "people", and finally "all educated people can improve the world according to their own standards and aesthetic standards, so that the world truly belongs to people".
Second, education that promotes human development can develop human subjectivity. "The so-called subjectivity is a human feature that can consciously understand, master and transcend the limitations and constraints of various real objects, gain a dominant position in the relationship with objects, and actively change real objects according to independent purposes." Man is not a natural subject. Only when he has the necessary characteristics of his society, grasps the cultural knowledge achievements of his times and has the ability to understand and transform the world can he become an active subject member of society and play a leading role. The formation and development of this subjectivity should be borne by education. However, if education blindly emphasizes giving people realistic regulations and binds people with so-called "economic" laws, then education can only become a negative factor that binds people's development. Therefore, only education that promotes people's development can liberate people under the "education dominated by things and relationships", return all the purposes of education to people themselves, and realize the real development of people's subjectivity.
Thirdly, education to promote human development should maximize the development of everyone's potential talents and creativity. Human nature has the impulse and need to create in essence; Creation will bring happiness and satisfaction to people; In the era of scarcity of material consumer goods, people's demand for creation is suppressed by the demand for basic living things, and it is difficult for low-level personality to sublimate into high-level personality. Once human beings get out of want, the demand for creation will rise to the basic elements of modern personality. It can be said that "creation is the essential attribute of human life activities. The value of life lies in creation ... the peak experience gained from creative activities can reach the realm of complete integration of people and things, subject and object. " Therefore, "the task of education is to make all people's creative talents and potentials bear rich fruits without exception", so that everyone can discover, exert and strengthen their creative potential and realize their all-round development. This creative process is also a process of improving people's life value and essential ability, which will bring people a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction, make people get a peak experience of life, and make people sublimate, develop and improve themselves in their creation.
Fourth, education that promotes human development can improve people's lives. Expanding the connotation of development will further broaden our horizons, and the indicators of development will no longer be limited to the growth of economic data and the improvement of per capita income level, resulting in "only seeing things but not people", but including more intangible things, including personal dignity, human rights protection, democratic participation and personal happiness. These are closely related to improving people's lives, especially in today's rich material, which is of great concern to more and more people. Our education should start from this angle, so that everyone can master their own destiny, know themselves and understand others through education, so as to better play their role and participate in collective undertakings and social life.
In short, although we can't simply deny the view that education is the driving force of economic development, the disadvantages of treating education only as "providing talents for economic circles" are gradually emerging. Therefore, we should understand and treat education from a broader perspective, that is, from economic purposes to promoting human development. This educational concept, which expands the connotation of development, can better reflect the intrinsic value and significance of education, eliminate the trespass and interference of other purposes, and make "man" develop as a person rather than a tool. At the same time, everyone can discover, develop and strengthen their creative potential, have the ability to control their own development and destiny, form a complete personality, and ultimately improve the quality of human life. Only such education can truly liberate and promote people, make people transcend the economic constraints and utilitarian social atmosphere, and keep their hearts full and perfect. This is the only choice for contemporary instrumentalism or utilitarianism education to get out of the predicament.
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