Why do people have different definitions of education?

Education is the whole process of training a new generation to engage in social life, and it is also the key link to inherit and carry forward the production experience of human society. Mainly refers to the process of cultivating school-age children, teenagers and young people. Broadly speaking, all activities that enhance people's knowledge and skills and affect people's ideology and morality are education. Education in a narrow sense mainly refers to school education, which means that educators exert purposeful, planned and organized influence on the body and mind of the educated according to the requirements of a certain society (or class) and cultivate them into people needed by a certain society (or class). Types include formal education, adult education, technical education, special education and lifelong education.

Before analyzing the systematic structure of education, it is necessary to define the concept of "education". Otherwise, we can't tell what the "education" discussed here really means. In other words, the connotation and extension of "education" are clearly explained. The object is uncertain and the research cannot be carried out.

However, this is by no means easy. Educators, thinkers, politicians and scholars at all times and all over the world have answered what education is from all angles: some from the perspective of educational value, some from the perspective of educational purpose, some from the perspective of educational content and methods, and some from the perspective of educational essence. Because of different times, different angles, different classes, different values and different ways of thinking, these answers are quite different, and some are even completely opposite. For example,/kloc-Spencer, an influential British philosopher and sociologist in the mid-9th century, thought that education was to prepare for a better life, while Dewey, an American philosopher and educator, thought that education was not the standard of life, but life itself at the beginning of this century. Some educators emphasize that the purpose of education is the cultivation of personality, while others think that the cultivation of personality is a matter for families and churches, and education should focus on the cultivation of wisdom; Even in today's educational textbooks at home and abroad, it is difficult to find exactly the same definition of education. W Brechinka, a German philosopher who is good at analyzing concepts, devoted a special chapter to the word education in his masterpiece Basic Concepts of Education Science. He pointed out that the "seemingly familiar concept of education is actually ambiguous and ambiguous". In order to make it clearer and define it as accurately as possible, it is necessary to understand and analyze the various meanings of education in modern pedagogy. Brechinka put his advice into practice. But even so, the concept of education (3) put forward by him may not necessarily become unconditional knowledge in the industry.

It is obviously not possible for this chapter to make a detailed analysis of the definition of the concept of education. What we have to do is to find the inspiration to define the concept from these inconsistencies and even opposites. In my opinion, they remind us of at least two points: first, when defining the concept of education, we should fully consider the complexity of education as a fact, not just the complexity of existing concepts. The definition of the concept should cover all kinds of existence of education as far as possible, and avoid generalizing; Second, we should make clear the cognitive purpose of the concept and take it as the basis. The difference between history and reality in the definition of educational concept cannot be simply attributed to the ambiguity of the concept definer's understanding. In fact, the appearance of the above phenomenon is also related to the different positions and perspectives of concept definers in observing and studying education, the different cognitive problems they aim at and the different educational levels involved. There is not necessarily only one different definition of "right", and everything else is "wrong". Therefore, it is very important for us to determine our cognitive purpose. Specifically, this purpose is to distinguish education from other things by defining concepts and realize its uniqueness; At the same time, it can cover all kinds of education that actually exists or once existed. To this end. We analyzed the exposition of "what is education" by nearly a hundred famous educators, and through many differences. It is found that they have a common foundation, that is, they all regard education as an "activity", and all the differences are related to the understanding of the value, purpose, content, method and nature or essence of education as an activity. In real life, education does exist in the form of activities. Therefore, we decided to define the concept of "education" with "activity" as the starting point, and through the discussion of the following three issues, we made clear what education is, and the basic feature of education is activity.

Is education a social activity of human beings or a survival activity of the animal kingdom?

In the world we live in, there are various phenomena and activities of different nature: inanimate, living and social. There is no doubt that education belongs to the activities of the life world. However, is education a unique social activity of human beings or a survival activity of animals and people in the animal kingdom? There are different views on this. It can be seen that to define education, we must first clarify this question. Different answers will make the concept of "education" have different connotations and extensions.

Let's look at the meaning of the word "education" from the etymology. Xu Shen of Han Dynasty in China pointed out in Shuo Wen Jie Zi: "Teach, practice, make the next work effective" and "educate, nurture and be good". Combining these two phrases into the word "education" can be understood as a top-down influence of adults on children. Its purpose is to make the educated become excellent, and the means is imitation. In other words, education is the purposeful influence of those who are in a superior position (monarch, parents, teachers, etc.). ) for those with lower status (priests, children, students, etc. ) and adults to children.

If we go back, "religion" and "religion" can be found in Oracle Bone Inscriptions, the oldest and most recognizable city that existed more than 3,000 years ago. In the interpretation of contemporary philologists, Oracle Bone Inscriptions, that is, the word "Yu" in modern Chinese characters, has the same meaning. The original meaning is to have children, and the extended meaning is to raise and grow. Among them, nurturing not only refers to material care, but also includes spiritual education based on edification. In ancient China, the core content of this kind of spiritual education was filial piety and perfection. Oracle Bone Inscriptions's explanation of modern Chinese character "teaching" is controversial among philologists. There are two concentration points. I. What does Oracle Bone Inscriptions stand for? Some people think it is filial piety. In the Book of Filial Piety, there is a proof that "Confucius said, the husband is filial, and the virtue is also the foundation, and the reason why teaching gives birth to children". Some people think that it should be explained in two parts, one is the symbol of divination, and the other is the new bud of plants, which can be regarded as yarrow for divination. Later, it was explained that buds represent children. So the original intention is to use yarrow to form hexagrams to predict good or bad luck. The second is the explanation of the other half of the teaching word. Most people agree that it means forcing children to learn with a stick in their hands, but some people think it means "burning turtles with their hands to get signs." Therefore, the "use" of teaching is operation, demonstration and tortoise divination, and the "effect" is imitation, imitation and learning. Although the above two solutions are different, on the whole, the controversy seems to focus on the difference in the "content" of what to teach. I think this may be a meaningful evolutionary process. The closer the ancient people's teaching and learning are to ancient times, the greater the possibility of learning divination as the direct content, and the closer they are to Yin Shang, the greater the possibility of taking filial piety as the theme. However, the form of "teaching" remains stable, which contains the meaning of teaching and educating people with things. We can see the basic elements of education.

In the study of China's educational history, it is generally believed that the combination of "teaching" and "education" began with Mencius' proposal that "the world's talents are nurtured, and the three pleasures are also" 5. This combination does not greatly expand the meaning of words or bring forth new ideas, but it can be seen that the speaker highlights the willingness to choose the educational object.

The widespread use of the word "education" in the modern sense in China is related to 19. At the end of the 20th century, China mainly introduced western educational ideas through Japan. ⑥ The pronunciation of Japanese education is similar to that of Chinese words, but Japanese education is translated into English education. Therefore, it has a new meaning different from the word education in ancient Chinese. The word comes from education, which means "derived, sprouted in white". This etymological significance reflects a deep internal difference between eastern and western cultures: China's "teaching" and "education" both emphasize that children should learn the content of "external" regulations and force adults to raise children. In the west, the guidance of children's potential is emphasized as the connotation of education. However, in German and French, the word "education" also comes from the word "educator" in ancient Greek. In ancient Greek, the word "education" is related to the word "educator", which is a title for slaves who specialize in leading children. From this, we can also read the meaning of child care. Later, it gradually expanded to something related to educational skills and methods. This meaning may overlap with that of ancient China. From the etymological analysis of "education" in the two literary works, we can see that their * * * is a summary of the special activity of bringing up a new generation in human society, which only involves the activities of human society. The pictographic Oracle Bone Inscriptions, in particular, most vividly shows the characteristics of education as a human activity.

At the end of 19, French philosopher and sociologist Leto nau (C.L., also translated as Letourneaux) clearly put forward the view that education already exists in the animal kingdom for the first time in his book "The Evolution of Education for All Race". He took the example that the old cat taught the kitten to catch mice and the old duck taught the duckling to swim, which proved that education was beyond the scope of human society and existed long before human beings appeared. He believes that after people appear, they just inherit the existing educational forms and constantly change and evolve. Therefore, although human education has some new attributes, it is essentially the same as animal education. ⑧ In another paper entitled "Education in the Animal Kingdom", Retunnu listed in detail the educational phenomena among various animals (from higher animals, vertebrates to invertebrates) and animals in different environments (wild and domestic), as well as between similar animals, heterogeneous animals and people. He understood education as education in the sense of "triggering" potential, that is, education, so he regarded all the inherent instincts of animals, including people, formed by heredity as spontaneous education. He believes: "Animals, especially slightly advanced animals, like people, are born with a potential education obtained through heredity, and its effects can be seen in the process of individual development." Besides, animals have "consciousness education" and "their own language". In Tu Lei Nuo's view, "animal education and human education basically have the same foundation. Artificial education imposed by human beings can shake or even change the tendency of animals to be called instinct, and repeatedly teach them some new tendencies; In order to achieve this result, it is usually enough for young animals to practice repeatedly and use rewards and punishments appropriately. It is not difficult to see that human education is similar to animal education. " Attending a similar view can also be obtained from British educator Percy, who was translated in China in the early 1920s and published in Britain. It can be found in Principles of Education. He also believes that education is a biological process in origin, and education is an inevitable behavior rooted in instinct, so biological impulse is the mainstream of education. In this book, he repeatedly stressed that there is no fundamental difference between humans and animals. "Higher animals, such as dogs and apes, are our role models in many ways. " ? It can be inferred that many educational efforts of human beings are relatively ineffective, perhaps because the consistency between human beings and animals is ignored. Although this view is not recognized in the educational textbooks published after the liberation of China, in recent years, articles titled "Animals can also educate and cultivate their offspring" have appeared in some newspapers and periodicals. ? When discussing the origin of education, it was also suggested that "the predecessor of human education is only the education of apes-the behavior of the older generation of apes to teach their inherent survival skills to the new generation of apes in order to maintain their own species. " ? Although this is about the origin of education, it actually involves whether education is unique to human society. Because it is recognized that there is "ape education", that is to say, the concept of education should be extended to human society, at least including ape education. It can be seen that the current discussion on this issue in China is not aimless.

This is not about the origin of education (which will be discussed in related chapters later), but only about whether there is education in the animal kingdom and whether education is rooted in human biological nature. This is the key to find out whether education is a social activity of human beings or a survival activity of the animal kingdom.

We believe that there are similar phenomena of "teaching" and "learning" in the animal kingdom, especially in the higher animal kingdom. However, these two seemingly similar phenomena are quite different in essence.

The so-called animal education is a kind of behavior based on parent-child and survival instinct. Its production is directly related to the physiological needs of animals, and its content is also related to the survival instinct of animals, such as catching food and avoiding natural enemies. The "learning" of small animals from old animals is also based on instinct. In short, as Marx pointed out, "an animal and its life activities are directly the same." Animals do not distinguish between their own life activities. It is this kind of life activity. " ? The direct difference between human beings and animals lies in the consciousness and sociality of human activities. Compared with animals, the biggest difference of human educational activity L lies in its sociality. Although people should be considered as creatures when educating people, although people also have natural biological instincts, the reason why people need education is not directly derived from biological instincts, but from the needs of individual survival and social sustainable development. From the beginning, education is an inseparable activity for individuals and society. Sociality and social orientation are the fundamental differences between human beings and so-called "animal education".

Secondly, animals don't have language, and they don't have the ability to classify, conceptualize, accumulate and pass on the experience of "individuals" to others, so as to complete the high language ability of intergenerational continuous transmission. "Animals can't put different characteristics of the same kind together; They cannot make any contribution to the interests and convenience of the same kind. " ? Therefore, the so-called "education" of animals (rather than human training of animals) only stays at the level of the first signal system, and is limited to "teaching" the behavior of animals directly with the help of different organs in specific situations. It can transform "similar" experiences into "individual" experiences, and it is impossible to make animals better than a generation through "education". Isn't it? Although generations of old cats have "taught" kittens to catch mice, the cat's skill is always just to catch mice. However, "people are different, and all kinds of talents and activities can be used together, because people can pool all kinds of products into a common resource"? . People save and accumulate individual experience through their own language and other material forms (such as tools and products), which becomes "quasi-"experience. Human education conveys the similar experience accumulated by human society, not just the direct experience of individuals. These experiences are not the product of instinct, but the crystallization of human wisdom. Because of this, over the past two thousand years, great changes have taken place in human activities and society, which is unmatched by any kind of higher animals.

Finally, the result of the so-called animal education is that small animals can adapt to the environment, maintain their lives and survive independently. And the results of human education are far more than that. Human education not only enables the educated to get the experience of adapting to the environment, but also cultivates people's ability to further transform the environment, participate in social life, create wealth and promote social development, and cultivate people's ability to create new experiences. This is also an important reason for the rapid development of human society.

Therefore, education is a unique activity of human society. Just as sociality is the essential difference between man and other animals, the word "man" should be used to distinguish between man and animals. Sociality is also the essential difference between people's educational activities and animals' so-called educational activities, so the word education is also needed to distinguish between people's cultivation activities and animals' parent-child instinct activities. It is very important to recognize the sociality of education, which enables us to study education from the height of social activities, rather than from the level of biological activities, thus revealing the regular relationship between education and society. Naturally, this does not mean denying the origin relationship between human beings and animals as living beings, and denying the existence of * * * on the biological level. But also, we can't draw the essential difference between human education activities and so-called animal education activities in terms of hierarchy. Reading through the article "Education in the Animal World" by Retuno, it is not difficult to see that the author interprets animals with people as a reference. It is not surprising that this perspective led him to conclude that animals also have education.

What is the particularity of education as a social activity?

It is not enough to determine the nature and scope of education only by determining a social activity in the history of education, because social activities are diverse. What is the difference between educational activities and other social activities? This requires further discussion on the particularity of educational activities relative to other social activities.

Let's first analyze the two broadest definitions of education.

The article "Education" in encyclopedia americana says: "Education in the broadest sense is the process that individuals acquire knowledge or opinions, that is, the process that individuals improve their opinions or skills"? .

Some scholars in our country also believe that, in a broad sense, education can be said to be the sum of all the influences on people from birth to death, that is, the sum of planned and accidental, organized and unorganized, conscious and spontaneous, from the natural environment and social environment. Both views were published in the Encyclopedia of China in the 1980s. Education is generally expressed as: "any activity that enhances people's knowledge and skills and affects people's ideology and morality is education." ? The above statement defines education in the broadest sense from two different angles. The former is from the perspective of the growth of the educated, and the latter is from the perspective of influencing the educated. However, these two definitions are too broad to distinguish educational activities from other social activities. Because people are the subject and undertaker of any social activities, they may "gain knowledge or opinions" and gain progress, experience, lessons and growth in any activities, which means that any social activities may have an impact on people. But we can't call any activity an educational activity, otherwise, "education" and "social activity" will become synonyms. In addition, these two definitions talk about education from the standpoint of the educated, rather than defining the educational activities themselves. However, we can still get two inspirations from it: first, education is always related to people's growth; Industry can have an effect on people's growth, not only educational activities, but all activities that people participate in may have an educational effect. Therefore, we should distinguish "educational activities" from other activities that may have "educational influence", not based on whether there is "influence" and what "results" have been produced, nor just on what results these activities have brought to the educated, but on the object and purpose of the activities. Because all social activities have objects and goals, they are the prerequisite factors to determine the characteristics of activities and other factors.

Educational activity is a conscious social activity with people as the direct object, which is different from other social production activities with material or spiritual products as the direct object, such as social material production activities and spiritual production activities.

Emphasizing the "direct object" of activities is an effective way to distinguish different types of activities, which prevents the concept generalization problem of incorporating indirect objects into the basis of defining concepts, because indirect objects can be infinitely related. The direct object of education is people. Emphasizing whether the undertaker of the activity is "conscious" is also an important condition to distinguish whether the activity itself has a clear goal and object orientation. Because there are other social activities that are directly aimed at human beings, such as taking care of children at home; Cultural activities, such as natural feelings in reading; Or experience gained in daily life; The influence of adult unconsciousness on children. These activities and behaviors may have educational influence. But the activity itself is not an educational activity. As Brechenko said when commenting on the French sociologist Durkheim 19 1 1 defining "education" as "the influence exerted by the adult generation on the younger generation who are not mature enough to cope with social life", "Defining education as" influence "not only makes it ambiguous, but also ambiguous." ? This "influence" includes conscious and unconscious. Durkheim made it clear that "this influence is always current and universal. In social life, it is impossible for the younger generation to get rid of contact with the adult generation at any stage, even at any time, and it is impossible to be unaffected by it even unintentionally in education. ..... In fact, an unintentional education has never stopped? . It can be seen that if "consciousness" is not emphasized, education will return to the whole social life of individuals, making education an endless and unpredictable social existence. This thinking of generalizing the concept of education is the product of ignoring the difference between educational activities and educational influences. On the surface, it seems to emphasize the omnipresence and powerful role of education, but in fact, it ignores the indispensability of education as a conscious human social activity and dispels the value of education as a unique human activity in a "natural" way. However, it cannot be said that emphasizing education is a unique social activity of human beings is equivalent to denying the educational influence of other social activities. This educational influence also exists objectively, but it does not belong to the scope of activities with the theme of "education".

However, the above statement about "educational activities" is not enough to distinguish education from other conscious activities that directly target people. To this end, we need to further clarify that the direct goal of education is to influence people's physical and mental development. In this way, educational activities are different from medical activities with the direct goal of protecting people's physical and mental health and resisting the harm of diseases to people's physical and mental health and social service activities with the direct goal of meeting people's various needs. At this point, we can give a descriptive definition of education: education is a conscious social activity, and its direct goal is to influence people's physical and mental development.

When clarifying this definition in detail, some different viewpoints will be involved. For example, does the definition of "person" refer to people at any time in life, or only refers to "teenagers"? Those who advocate the latter often use "teenagers" or "younger generation" instead of "people" in the definition. Does "influence" in the definition include both positive and negative influences, or only refers to positive influences? Those who advocate the latter often use "promotion" rather than "influence" in their definitions.

We believe that in this definition, "people" should include people of all ages. Judging from the current situation, even considering the scope of school education, it is not comprehensive to limit the education target to teenagers. In modern society, school education has begun to run through people's life, and the age limit of school education objects is gradually being eliminated. Of course, teenagers will always be the most basic part of the whole educational goal. So is life. The basic task of adolescence is to receive education. As for "influence", the use of this word itself means that it contains "positive" and "negative" two possible influences. If it only refers to positive influence, then some education in history and many educational activities in real life cannot be regarded as education. Because far from all educational activities have a real positive impact on people's physical and mental development. We can divide education into good and bad, positive and negative, progressive and backward, revolutionary and reactionary, but as long as it is a conscious social activity with the direct goal of affecting people's physical and mental development, it must be recognized as education. The requirement of making a value judgment or choice on education has gone beyond the goal of defining the concept in order to distinguish educational activities from other social activities. The task of internally distinguishing such activities is called education, which is not discussed here, but it does not mean that education has no value. Because the former is internal and external demarcation, and the latter is internal distinction.

Maybe someone will raise another objection: does this definition of education not only consider the problem from the perspective of educators, but also ignore the initiative of the educated in educational activities? We believe that in educational activities, the relationship between educators and educatees is the relationship between the internal elements of educational activities. When discussing the difference between educational activities and other social activities, as long as we grasp the uniqueness of things, we can meet the requirements of difference, so there is no need to involve the relationship between internal factors. But this does not mean that this issue does not need to be discussed or ignored. At the beginning of this chapter, we repeatedly emphasized the task of defining education in order to show that education can be defined in many different ways at different levels or from different angles. Therefore, a clear definition of the level and angle is a necessary condition to determine the rationality of a definition. It is illogical to compare two different definitions or judge whether they are right or wrong, good or bad. Because of this, even the same author will give different definitions or judgments when discussing education at different levels, different situations and different angles. This book is no exception. The above definition of education is generally called education in a broad sense, as opposed to education in a narrow sense, namely school education. In order to clarify the definition of school education, we must also discuss the third issue.

What is the particularity of school education?

The broad definition of education only distinguishes educational activities from other social activities and covers a wide range. For example, family education, mass education through newspapers, radio, television and other mass media, education conducted by cultural institutions outside the school, educational activities carried out among the masses and so on. Of course, school education is included. School education is the core part of modern educational activities. It has its special structure and function. The in-depth study of school education is helpful to our understanding of other educational activities. Therefore, it is necessary for us to distinguish school education from other educational activities.

Compared with other education, school education has two main differences. First, school education is the most purposeful, systematic and organized educational activity, so it is also the most controllable. Not only schools at all levels, but also the relationship between schools at all levels. It is an education guaranteed by the system. Second, school education is undertaken by specialized agencies and full-time personnel. The task of the school is to train people with admission qualifications. Educational activities that meet these two requirements can be called school education. Therefore, school education (that is, narrow sense education) can be defined as a social activity undertaken by full-time staff and specialized institutions, guaranteed by the system, purposeful, systematic and organized, with the direct goal of influencing learners' physical and mental development. School education is also called institutionalized education.

Regarding the definition of school education, there are various formulations in the current educational works in China, some of which are more detailed. For example, it points out the basis of school education purpose and the main aspects of physical and mental development. We didn't adopt a more detailed definition, because too detailed regulations can't comprehensively summarize all kinds of schools in history and reality. We often take the idealized school as a model to summarize the definition of school education, seeking perfection in details, but it is not complete. In addition, in the definition of school education, we emphasize the functions of school institutions and the specialization of personnel. Because history tells us that if we want to weaken or cancel school educators, we must first weaken the role of full-time teachers and school institutions, and the strengthening of school education functions and the improvement of education quality are always directly related to these two aspects.

Finally, it should be pointed out that the concept of education is a summary of educational activities. Therefore, it is not static, but changes with the development of educational activities and with the deepening of people's understanding of educational activities.

Precautions:

① ② [Germany] Wolfgang? Brechenko, Jinsong Hu, Basic Concepts of Educational Science: Analysis, Criticism and Suggestions, East China Normal University Press, 200 1, p. 24.

3 Wolfgang? Brechenko's definition is that "education is an action that people try to improve the personality of others in any way", see page 75 of this book. Please refer to pages 23-78 of this book for a detailed discussion.

④ For etymological analysis of the word "education" in China, please refer to Jing Wong's On the Word "Education" in Shuo Wen Jie Zi (Education Research 1995 No.3) and He Qixian's On the Word "Education" (Education Research 65438). The related arguments involved below are also oriented to these two articles.

5 "Mencius? Dedicated. "

⑥ For a detailed discussion, please refer to Zhang Zhu: Inheritance and Grafting: the Transformation of China's Basic Educational Concepts from Tradition to Modernity, Jiangxi People's Publishing House, 2004.

⑦ Quote Oxford Modern Advanced English-Chinese Dictionary, Oxford University Press, p. 378.

See [Su] baranov waiting, Li waiting Pedagogy, People's Education Press, 1979, p.10 ~1p.

(9) Letourneaux: The Origin of Education (formerly known as Education in the Animal Kingdom, translated by Renjie Zhang and translated by the editor), published in Selected Works of Pedagogy, edited by Qu Baokui and Shen Jianping? Education and Pedagogy, People's Education Press, 1993, pp. 156 and 177.

Percy? Principles of Education, edited by Wang and others, People's Education Press, 1964, p. 79.

See: Shenzhen Special Zone Daily 1984, June 27th.

Kong Zhihua: Human education does not originate from labor, Journal of East China Normal University (Education Science Edition), No.4, 1984.

Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Volume 42, People's Publishing House, 1979, p. 96, 147, 147.

Lv Qianfei, Zhang et al. Overview of World Education, Knowledge Publishing House, 1920, p. 1.

Encyclopedia of China? Education ". China Encyclopedia Publishing House, 1985, p. 1.

Encyclopedia of China? Education, China Encyclopedia Publishing House, 1985, p. 25.

[Germany] Wolfgang? Brechenko, Jinsong Hu, Basic Concepts of Educational Science: Analysis, Criticism and Suggestions, East China Normal University Press, 200 1, p. 25.