Zhou guoping: Seven proverbs of education

Author: Zhou guopingArticleSource: China Education News

What is education? What are the most important principles in education? The excellent minds of ancient and modern Chinese and foreign countries have made many thoughts and comments on this. I found that the most pertinent and wonderful words about education often come from the mouth of philosophers. Professional educators and educators, if they do not have the wisdom to gain insight into human nature at the same time, they are easy to say that they are limited to experience, or stick to the details of psychology, and appear superficial, meticulous, and mediocre. Now I will list my favorite educational concepts, which can be referred to as the seven proverbs of education at seven o'clock. They do have the characteristics of Proverbs: pointing to the essence of things is concise as an oracle, and simple as common sense. Sadly, people are lost in the false shadows of things. They prefer to believe in complicated and complicated mistakes, but forget simple common sense. However, a simple mind will surely feel that these sayings are nothing more than the disadvantages of today's education, how much we need to go back to common knowledge, and how education is the most basic principle.

The first rumor: Education is growth, growth is purpose, and growth is not objective.

This argument was put forward by Rousseau, and Dewey made further analysis. "Education is growth" refers to the meaning of education, that is, to make everyone's nature and inherent ability grow healthily, instead of injecting external things such as knowledge into a container. Socrates has long pointed out that knowledge is the inherent ability of each person's soul. The wise men declared that they could instill in the soul the knowledge that was not originally in the soul, and sugudi laughed at it, it seems they can put their eyesight in the blind eyes. Knowing the principle of "Education is growth", we know what education should do. For example, intellectual education is the ability to develop curiosity and rational thinking, rather than the ability to instill knowledge. Moral Education encourages lofty spiritual pursuits, rather than instilling norms. Aesthetic Education is the cultivation of rich souls, instead of instilling skills.

"Growth is the purpose, and there is no purpose out of growth". This is especially opposed to measuring education with narrow utilitarian scale. Even if people admit that "Education is growth", they must set an external purpose for growth, such as adapting to society, seeking for a career, and making achievements in the future, growth does not have any value. To regulate growth with utilitarian goals, the result must be to suppress growth. In fact, whether education is growth is still determined ". Does growth itself have no value? Isn't a person naturally healthy? Even with utilitarian scale-broad rather than narrow-is such a person less likely to achieve true success in society? From the perspective of the whole society, as Russell pointed out, a society composed of men and women with excellent nature will certainly be much better than the opposite.

Article 2 proverbs: children are not adults who have not yet grown up. Children have their own internal values.

Standardizing education with external utilitarian purposes and ignoring the value of growth itself, one of the most direct and harmful results is denying the inherent value of childhood. Seeing children as "a future" and a person who has not yet grown up does not seem to have much value before "Grow Up, the only purpose of education is to prepare children for future adult life. This misconception has been widely spread for a long time. The concept of "growing up" is nothing more than a man, as if children were not human before they grew up! Montessori first explicitly criticized this concept and established her children's education theory on the basis of affirming the children's personality value. Dewey also pointed out that childhood life has its internal quality and meaning, and it cannot be regarded as an immature stage in life, just want to let it pass quickly.

Each stage of life has its own irreplaceable value. No stage is just the preparation of another stage. Especially in childhood, it was originally the most important stage of physical and mental growth. It should also be the happiest time in life. The greatest merit that can be achieved by education is to give children a happy and meaningful childhood, this creates a good foundation for their happy and meaningful life. However, the general situation today is that the whole adult world has imposed their small utilitarian goals on their children and drive them to fight on the utilitarian battlefield. I am worried that, in their future lives, in society a few years later, the consequences of the brutal deprivation of childhood values will not be shown in a terrible way.

Article 3 proverbs: The purpose of education is to free students from the reality of slavery rather than adapting to reality.

This is siserro'sFamous saying. Today, the opposite is true. Education is doing its best to shape students with the goal of adapting to reality. People must adapt to the reality in society, but this should not be the main purpose of education. Mengtian said: learning is not to adapt to the outside world, but to enrich yourself. Confucius also advocated that learning is "for yourself" rather than "for people. Throughout the ages, philosophers have stressed that learning aims to develop the internal spiritual capabilities of individuals and thereby gain freedom in the face of external reality. Of course, this is just an internal freedom, but it is precisely because of this internal freedom, this independent personality and the ability to think independently, those Excellent Souls and minds have played a great role in changing the reality of human society. Education should create conditions for promoting internal freedom and generating Excellent Souls and minds. If you just want to adapt to the reality, you need to learn what to do!

Article 4 proverbs: The most important educational principle is not to cherish time, but to waste time.

This sentence is from the mouth of Rousseau. Many of us have heard it today. It is a paradox. However, Rousseau has his own principles. If education is growth, the mission of education should be to provide the best environment for growth. What is the best environment? The first is free time, and the second is good teachers. In Greek, the term "school" means leisure. In the Greek view, students must have ample time to experience and meditate in order to develop their mental abilities from the ground up. "Misuse of time is more costly than waste of time, and children with wrong education are farther away from wisdom than children without education," he defended against the shocking theory ." Today, many parents and teachers fear that their children will spend time and drive them to do endless homework without having to set aside a little time for them to play. They think that is their responsibility as a parent and a teacher. Rousseau asked you: what is virtualization? Is Happiness nothing? Is the whole day skip nothing? If the requirements of nature are imaginary, it will make them imaginary.

At the university stage, free time is even more important. In my opinion, you can have no good teachers, but you cannot have free time. In the end, all education is self-education, and all learning is self-learning. This is especially true for the lifetime of spiritual ability. I agree with John Henry: for smart students with basic education, the University may wish to have no teachers or exams, so that they can freely explore in the library. I would like to sigh with Bernard Shaw: the shelves all over the world are filled with delicious spirits, but the students are forced to chew on the boring textbooks without any nutrition.

Article 5: Forget everything learned in the classroom, and the rest is education.

I first saw this sentence in Einstein's article. It was a pretty joke that he did not name it. Later, I found that it is likely to be born out of the story of whitesea. The general idea is: Aside from textbooks and lecture notes, I forgot the details for the exam, and the remaining things are valuable.

The details of knowledge are easily forgotten. Once they are needed, they can be easily found in the book. Therefore, it is hard and worthless to focus on remembering the details of knowledge. Suppose you forget all the things you have learned in the classroom. If there is nothing left in the result, it means you are white-faced with education.

The remaining item is called education. In the words of whitesea, it is the principle of full penetration into your body and mind, a habit of intellectual activity, A way of life that is full of knowledge and imagination, in Einstein's words, is the overall ability to think and judge independently. According to my understanding, in layman's terms, a person has become an irretrievable thinker and scholar. No matter what profession he will be engaged in, he can no longer change his study, thinking, or research habits and hobbies, he was admitted to college education.

Article 6 proverbs: The University shall be the place where masters gather to allow young people to grow under the influence of masters.

The true meaning of education is not to impart knowledge, but to cultivate the habits of intellectual activities and the ability to think independently. These intellectual qualities obviously cannot be transferred as knowledge, the only way to cultivate is to be influenced by a person with such qualities, which may be called Masters in general. The master is located in two places: one is on the shelf of the library, and the other is in the university, where the university should be a place where the living master gathers. As Huai tehai said: the reason for the existence of the university is that a group of imaginative scholars have influenced students' intellectual development, build a bridge between mature wisdom and passion for pursuing life, otherwise the University will not have to exist.

Lin Yutang has a more vivid saying: the ideal university should be a class of dining room with extraordinary personality. Here I met a Newton, where I met a forot and a Russell in the east house, the west house lives in Rasky. The front yard is the study of Hui dingzi, and the back yard is the home of Dai Dongyuan. He stressed that "dining place" is not an analogy. In addition to eating, these masters are not obligated to the school. The school sends salaries to ask them to live on campus, so that students can communicate with them, influenced by this vulnerability. For example, the university professors in Oxford and Cambridge are smoking their pipes to talk about life and learning, and the quality of their students is "Smoked.

Today's universities are scrambling to advertise the so-called "world-class universities" and have formulated various hard indicators. In fact, things are simple: the hardest indicator is teachers. A University has a group of first-class scholars with lofty minds and wisdom. It is a first-class university. Otherwise, the school buildings will be larger, the buildings will be more elegant, and the equipment will be more advanced.

Article 7 proverbs: teachers should regard students as purposes rather than means

This is the principle that Russell sets out for the correct relationship between teachers and students. He pointed out that the essential qualities of an ideal teacher are those of students who love him. The reliable sign of love is that they have a broad parental instinct, just as their parents feel that their children are for the purpose, students are intended. He stressed that teachers should love students better than those of patriots and churches. To address today's situation, I would like to add: it should be better than loving money and fame and fortune. Today, some teachers use fame and fortune as their sole purpose to gain fame and fortune.

Whether a teacher loves a student or not depends on the teacher's moral character. To enable most teachers in the school to regard students as purposes rather than means, a student-oriented education system must be established. The main reason is that the power of teachers is too high, and it is determined that the power of students to graduate is upgraded. Therefore, I agree with Einstein's suggestion that teachers should have as few power as possible to use coercive measures, so that the only source of respect for students is their human nature and rational qualities. Correspondingly, it is to expand the rights of students, especially graduate students. Within the scope permitted by the syllabus, they can freely choose teachers and courses, change the court, and become higher. Assessment teachers should also focus on whether they are favored by students rather than administrative departments. As in the current situation, when teachers have the ability to engage in large scientific research funds, they have the power to recruit more students, and they have the power to allow students to work for themselves. Otherwise, they will be angry, even being deprived of the rights of the students. In this system, some students do not take measures.

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