Text |Zhan Runyan (WeChat*** Lao Zhan rambling).
Abstract】John Dewey, an American philosopher and educator, is one of the founders of pragmatism. In the first half of the 20th century, he had a great influence on China's educational circles and even on the world's intellectual circles. Some important figures in China's first period, such as Hu Shi, Tao Xingzhi, Guo Bingwen, Zhang Boling, Jiang Menglin, etc., studied at Columbia University in the United States, and were all students of Dewey. He opposed traditional indoctrination and mechanical training, and he advocated the idea of learning from practice Xi education. These educational concepts have a certain influence on Cai Yuanpei, Yan Yangchu and even ***.
OneThe New Tricentric Theory
Dewey's educational theory is known as the representative of modern educational theory, and the "new three-center theory" he proposed is different from the "old three-center theory" of traditional education. The "new three-center theory" refers to the fact that education and teaching are centered on children (students), activities, and experiences. The "old three-center theory" is centered on the classroom, teaching materials, and teachers.
The "old three-center theory" puts teachers in the main position, emphasizing the one-way teaching of knowledge to students in the classroom, and the teaching method adopted is mainly indoctrination, and students are passive in learning Xi.
The "new three centers" advocated by Dewey were correctedThe teacher-led, student-centered relationship emphasizes that knowledge is actively constructed based on students' own experience, and the teaching method is autonomous, cooperative, and first-class teaching.
Obviously, Dewey put forward it in the process of criticizing the old education, that is, "breaking the old and creating the new". For in Dewey's view, the focus of the traditional educational school is not on children's instincts and activities, but on teachers and textbooks.
Indeed, the same is true of traditional education in China, textbook writers are often written according to their own "experience", teachers in class are taught according to the "outline" of textbooks and their own "opinions", and students are based on the content taught by teachers to learn and practice Xi, so it is easy to produce "one word hall" and "full classroom" in the classroom, figuratively speaking, just like "instilling" water and nutrition into plants or animals, students have no initiative and are in a "passive" state.
Dewey's "child-centered" education made us realize that the traditional education that we had always focused on "teachers and teaching materials" was unscientific. In Dewey's words, "The change that will be brought about in our education is a shift in the center of gravity, a change, a revolution, the same revolution that Copernicus has made from the earth to the sun." Here, children become the sun, and all measures of education revolve around them;Children are at the centre, and educational measures are organized around them. ”
This tells us that as a teacher, we should not take ourselves and the teaching materials as the starting point, but should teach children according to their developmental characteristics and current level. For example, when I was in middle school (around 2000), some of our rural areas began to Xi learn English in the third grade of primary school, and some began to learn English in the first grade of junior high school, so when I encountered this situation, the teacher should make appropriate adjustments according to the students' previous learning Xi experience, rather than operating mechanically according to the textbooks and syllabus.
So I think in the current days,If teachers want to teach and learn well, they need to be guided by the "new three-center theory", and if they want to use the "new three-center theory" well, they must "mingle" with students, and at least conduct regular "learning situation surveys".
IIEducation is life
According to Dewey, education is the process of a child's life, not a preparation for future life. He once said: "Life is development, and continuous development and continuous growth is life." ”
Therefore, the best education is "".Xi from life and Xi from experience”。Education is about providing children with the conditions to grow up or live to the fullest.
In our traditional understanding, it is believed that the purpose of learning Xi school is to gain fame and achievement. Even now, many parents and individual teachers still believe that education is to enable children to have a "successful" future, and this utilitarian psychology still exists. Therefore, many children think that going to school is Xi to take the high school entrance examination to get a good high school and a good university to take the college entrance examination. In other words, many of us think that education is just a path to promotion and wealth, not for a better life, and they separate education and life.
For example, when we learn Xi a poem in Chinese class, the traditional education method is to let our children learn the theme of the poem, the central idea, its expression and appreciate the beauty of the words of the poem, etc., and the whole process is almost always the teacher talking about it, the students taking notes, and then the students go back to memorize it, and do some exercises Xi by the way.
So, according to Dewey's theory of education and teaching, how should we go about a poetry appreciation lesson?I think we can start by asking students to write about what they know about the poem based on their own life experiences and what they Xi have learned, and what they feel is wrong when they learn Xi themSecondly, the content written by these students is collected, and the general and key issues are taught in the classroom, and the collected information is fedThirdly, in the classroom, not to mention the reference in the textbook, let the students understand the problem of the poem according to their own experience and life, and at the same time let them recite it according to their own understanding, so that we can further understand the children, and we can guide the teaching according to the children's cognitive experience in class;Finally, teachers can encourage students to observe and apply life while teaching by stepping into their experiences and lives.
In this way, students are not only guided to develop the ability to learn on their own, but also enable them to acquire knowledge from their own life experience, which is what Dewey emphasized: ".Growth is the characteristic of life, so education is growth. In his opinion,Education is not about forcing children to absorb what is outside, but about enabling the innate human ability to grow.
IIISchool is society
We often say that school is a "small society". Because in school, you not only have to learn to deal with various relationships such as classmates, roommates, teachers, etc., but also have to complete various school and teacher Xi tasks, as well as class and club work tasks.
In Dewey's view,The school should "be a small society, a embryonic society." ”In school, we should simplify the real social life to a rudimentary state, and we should present the social life of children.
So, how to understand Dewey's "school is society"?First of all, the school itself must be a social life, with the full meaning of social life;Second, Xi learning should be connected to Xi outside school, and there should be free interaction between the two.
Indeed, what children learn in school is Xi eventually out of society, and the knowledge in school is mainly derived from the accumulation of experience in social life between people and the scientific exploration of common problems in life.
I also think it is very important to run the school as a prototype society. When I first joined the work, I had a feeling that dealing with the relationship between teachers and teachers in school is like dealing with the relationship between superiors in society, and dealing with the relationship between classmates in school is like dealing with the relationship between colleagues and friends in society, and the attitude towards Xi students in school is often reflected in the attitude towards work, and the treatment of people and things learned in school will also be ......reflected in participating in social activitiesAlthough the specific way of processing will vary depending on the object, the way of thinking about processing often does not change much.
For example, if you have been afraid of teachers since you were a child, you will be more or less afraid of your boss after you go out of society and participate in work, which will also be reflected in not knowing how to communicate with your boss. Since childhood, I like to "mingle" with my teacher, and I often handle the relationship with my boss better after I go out of society.
This is my understanding of "school as society".
FourthLearn by doing
On May 26, 2016, when we communicated with Zhao Shunling, director of the Vocational Education Research Institute of Guangzhou Baiyun Technician School, he emphasized: ".For Action Learning, through Action”。This is because the emphasis is on an "action-oriented" approach to teaching. I think that in vocational and technical education, action-oriented itself is a specific way of "learning by doing", and from the results of practice, this teaching method of Baiyun technician has been welcomed by the majority of teachers and students, and the students have put away their mobile phones in the process of doing it, and there is less dozing. Because these teaching pain points are replaced by the "action orientation" of teaching activities, instead of blindly "stopping" with the traditional results, the results are very good.
In Dewey's view, if children do not have the opportunity to "do", it will inevitably hinder their natural development. Because children are born with a desire to do things and to work, that is, a strong interest in activities.
Indeed, when we used to read in the classroom, many times we sat in the classroom for a day, and the teacher stood on the podium and spoke dryly for a day, and then the teacher would symbolically arrange several exercises in the classroom for Xi each class, and the effect was very average. Because, then there is no opportunity for students to show or experience at all.
According to Dewey, "learning by doing" is also "learning by activity", and learning from experience makes the acquisition of knowledge in school and the activities in the process of life linked. In this way, students are not only easy to learn Xi, but also easy to absorb.
Summary
The above is my superficial understanding of Dewey's theory of education, and Dewey's theory is by no means just like the above. I hope that the education and teaching theories advocated by him, such as "New Three Centrics", "Education is Life", "School is Society", and "Learning by doing", can still play their value today, so as to better cultivate future stars!
Zhan Runyan, a promoter of reading culture.