(A) Western educators' understanding of the significance of education

Comenius believes that everyone has the seeds of knowledge, virtue and piety, but these seeds cannot grow spontaneously, and people need the power of education. Only with a proper education can they become a person. He didn't directly define education, but obviously, the above words are an explanation of education. The bread here is influenced by religion. He believes that man's talent is created by God. The three seeds of knowledge, virtue and piety naturally exist in us, and education makes these seeds germinate and grow. His theory can be called "growth theory".

Locke, a British educator, advocates the principle that people are incompetent. The human heart is a blank sheet of paper, and children can master knowledge and virtue through education. It means "whiteboard".

French educator Rousseau advocated nature education. The task of education is to let children get rid of the shackles of social customs, return to nature, and cultivate natural and free people.

Herbart, a German educator, put forward pedagogy as a theoretical system of independent science. He said: pedagogy, as a science, is based on practical philosophy and psychology. The former explains the purpose of education; The latter explains the ways, means and obstacles of education. The purpose of his education is "virtue", and at the same time, he carries out education through teaching. Therefore, he believes that there is no such thing as "teaching without teaching" and "teaching without teaching".

Russian educator ushinski divided education into broad sense and narrow sense: in a narrow sense, schools, educators and teachers are all educators; Education in a broad sense is unconscious education, and nature, family, society, man, his religion and language are all educators. He believes that "a perfect education can give full play to people's physical, intellectual and moral strength".

Dewey, an American educator, started from pragmatism and empiricism and advocated that "education is growth". He gave a definition to education: education is the transformation or reorganization of experience. This transformation or reorganization can not only increase the meaning of experience, but also improve the ability to guide the later experience process. Dewey's education view is also a "growth theory", but it is different from Comenius's "growth theory". Dewey bases education on children's experience. Although he believes that children's experience is based on his primitive instinct, he also believes that experience is the result of the interaction between human organisms and the environment. [ 1]

(B) China's understanding of education in ancient times.

1. In pre-Qin ancient books, teaching and education are not used together, and teaching is often used to express educational phenomena and activities.

2. At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, Xue Ji said: "Teach the good, save the lost."

3. The Doctrine of the Mean, one of the four classics of ancient Confucianism in China, said: "Practice is teaching."

4. Xunzi in the Warring States Period said: "A good ancestor is called teaching."

During the Warring States Period, Mencius used the word education as a new word for the first time. He said, "It's three pleasures to be educated by talents in the world."

6. Xu Shen in the Eastern Han Dynasty said in Shuo Wen Jie Zi: "Teach, what is applied above, what is taught below." "Education, adopting a son allows you to do good deeds."

(C) the definition of modern social education

1, enumerating authoritative definitions in textbook style.

(1) Education is a social phenomenon to cultivate people and a necessary means to transmit production experience and social life experience. (Encyclopedia of China Education)

(2) Pass on social life experience and cultivate people's social activity ability. It is generally believed that education in a broad sense refers to various activities that affect people's knowledge, skills, physical and mental health, ideological and moral formation and development. (Educational Dictionary)

(3) Broadly speaking, all the influences on body and mind are influenced by cloud education. Only look at the results, regardless of the method; In a narrow sense, only those who have a purpose and a certain plan can start cloud education. There are also two types: the goal and deadline are fixed, which can clearly indicate the curative effect; On the contrary, the former refers to school education and the latter refers to social education. (Educational Dictionary)

(3) Education in a broad sense refers to all activities that improve people's knowledge, skills, physical and mental health and form or change people's ideology. (Pedagogy, Department of Education, Nanjing Normal University)

(4) Education is a social activity, and the essential attribute that distinguishes it from other social things is the cultivation of people. (Higher Education, edited by Pan Maoyuan)

(5) Education is a social activity to cultivate people and a basic way to inherit social culture, production experience and social life experience. (Contemporary Pedagogy, edited by Yuan Zhenguo)

(6) Education is a social activity to cultivate people, which is the qualitative stipulation or essence of education. (Pedagogy, edited by Wang Daojun and Wang Hanlan)

(7) The research group of "the relationship between subject and object" headed by Wu tried to discuss education with the theory of the relationship between subject and object in the book "What is education". They believe that people, like other creatures, always strive for survival and development. In order to survive and develop, we must seek advantages and avoid disadvantages. Therefore, "education belongs to people's activities of seeking advantages and avoiding disadvantages" and "human education, or education in a narrow sense, should be defined as" accumulation and inheritance of intelligence ",which is the basic feature of human education and the" essence "of human education. The author believes that in today's education, because the mechanism and laws of thinking-intelligence have not been revealed and mastered like genetic inheritance, cognitive education can only stay at the level of external behavior education (teaching) that people can understand and master. The author asserts that "human education today is essentially animal education"; Traditional education is an educational model of "imparting knowledge-accepting knowledge", while the new educational model should be "developing intelligence-cultivating innovation".

(8) In the book "Education: Practical Activities of Human Self-construction", Lu Jie made a defining statement on education: "The emergence of educational practice shows that people are determined to transform the real existence of human beings according to their own purpose-the ideal existence of human beings, and change the development achievements of human beings in a natural and spontaneous state. Therefore, the development of human beings in the process of education is a movement process with the purposeful participation and intervention of human beings. Lu Jie's article emphasizes that education is a practical activity of human self-construction. " Education is to make people constantly create their own new regulations on the basis of existing regulations. "Education is a purposeful activity of human beings. [2]

2. Analysis and understanding of the definition of high recognition education.

(1) Education is a social activity to cultivate people, which is closely related to social development and human development.

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). The word education is sometimes used as a synonym for ideological and moral education. "[3]

In the above descriptive definition, education has three meanings, namely, broad sense, narrow sense and synonym of ideological and moral education, which is common in China at present.

(2) Education is a conscious social activity, and its direct goal is to influence people's physical and mental development. [4] [5]

In this definition: (1) "person" refers to the educated of all ages; (2) Emphasizing "consciousness" is to distinguish education from other unintentional social activities that may have an impact on people's physical and mental development; (3) adding the word "direct" before "goal" has two meanings: activities that do not directly affect people's physical and mental development are not special education activities; Education not only affects people's physical and mental development, but also has indirect goals, such as promoting social development.

As a noun, "education" has broad sense and narrow sense. The above is the meaning of broad education, and narrow education refers to school education, that is, institutionalized education.

As a verb, "education" means that educational activities enter a state of behavior.

(3) Education is a practical activity to promote individual socialization and individualization under a certain social background. [6]

The definition of this angle is clear: first of all, education is a purposeful and planned activity, not an accidental and spontaneous activity. Secondly, education has background conditions: it is restricted by social factors such as politics, economy and culture at that time, not in the natural state. Third, education includes semantics such as norms, guidance and constraints.

Education is equal to the process of individual learning or development. Rowntree defined education as the process of successfully learning knowledge, skills and correct attitude. Simply defining education from a social perspective misinterprets education as an external compulsory process and ignores individual needs. And too broad, almost synonymous with life. Simply defining from the individual point of view will ignore the great influence of social requirements on education.

To understand the definition of education from this perspective, we must understand two coupling processes: on the one hand, to cultivate individuals into social people with certain attitudes, skills, knowledge and emotions according to social requirements; On the other hand, we internalize various social concepts, values and behaviors into individuals with different qualities, needs and interests, and form independent people with individuality.

Gu Mingyuan. Reflections on the definition of education [J]. peking university education review. 1999( 1).

[2] Ye Jing, Wang Jian. Literature Review on the Definition of Education [J]. Contemporary Education Forum, 2005, (12).

[3] Encyclopedia of Education in China, China Encyclopedia Publishing House, 1985 edition.

[4] Ye Lan, editor-in-chief: Principles of Pedagogy, People's Education Press, 2007, p. 56.

[5] Wang Shousheng, Cha Xiaohu, Zhou Guoxing, editor-in-chief: A New Theory of Pedagogy, University of Science and Technology of China Press, 2004, p. 20.

[6] the foundation of pedagogy [M]. Higher education press. Jointly compiled by twelve key universities. 20648.664386060005