I. Two opportunities and challenges facing education
The first opportunity is that the CPC Central Committee has put forward the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education, the strategy of sustainable development and Scientific Outlook on Development. After the slogan of scientific and technological innovation was put forward, the education administrative departments at all levels had a new and deeper understanding of the word "rejuvenating the country through science and education".
Let's recall what the public opinion was like when "rejuvenating the country through science and education" was put forward more than ten years ago. At that time, we talked about rejuvenating the country through science and education, and the research funds were insufficient; There are many difficulties in the nine-year plan for the western region. Even in large and medium-sized cities and economically developed areas, educational resources are relatively and quite unbalanced and insufficient. In some people's minds, rejuvenating the country through science and education seems to be just an empty slogan. How are you feeling? Spring river plumbing duck prophet. Comrades in our education department feel more clearly than ten years ago that the pace of rejuvenating the country through science and education is real and has made remarkable achievements in the past ten years. The national development goals and strategies have higher requirements for basic education, and our educational circles should make good preparations in this regard. The Party Central Committee has clearly put forward such a strategy, and it is being implemented, requiring the cultivation of innovative talents with all-round development in morality, intelligence, physique and beauty. It is time for us to display our talents and realize the ambition of an educator. There's a chance. What are the challenges? Is to challenge our subjective conditions. How to cultivate innovative talents? Because the emergence of a large number of innovative talents needs the support of the innovation consciousness and innovation environment of the whole society, China does not have such environmental conditions at present. It is impossible to just ask educators to do so. On the other hand, the social environment needs the education system, especially the school system to influence and build, which are two sides of the same thing.
Why does China still lack the environment to cultivate a large number of innovative talents? You know, the call of the central government needs the echo of society. Give a more common example. What do parents think of their children? Look at their scores in every exam. Parents already have a potential goal: when children go to a good kindergarten, primary school and junior high school, they must go to a good high school, while key high schools do not test innovation, but only test things in the class, which is very realistic. When children don't finish their homework to fix new things, parents should intervene: Why don't you do your homework first? After the homework is finished, the students go to play with new things, but also intervene: after finishing the homework, it's over? No more warm books, will you? Why do some American students succeed in business, some succeed in running companies, some become high-tech experts, some invention patents are sold all over the world, and some win the Nobel Prize after graduation? That's because they didn't do the same things as others when they were young, but pursued novelty and novelty. Of course, there are many absurd things when children pursue novelty and novelty, but this is how thinking and habits are formed. We don't have this environment. Why? It is not that the Chinese nation is not an innovative nation in its bones, but that the feudal monarchy has imprisoned our thoughts for more than 300 years.
Our ancestors realized that if we want to make our country rich and strong, we must introduce western things. From the Westernization Movement to the introduction of Marxism-Leninism into China. After the liberation of the country, the people are masters of their own affairs and can unite to build their own country well. At the same time, our ideological imprisonment has not been lifted, and sometimes even strengthened. The Cultural Revolution was its culmination. Comrade Xiaoping's "taking economic construction as the center" and reform and opening up are the greatest ideological emancipation. Economically, we have been liberated. Although there are still many problems, after all, no one is arguing about such issues as "society" and "capital". However, academically and educationally, we are still imprisoned: one is our own tradition, and the other is American education. Rejuvenating the country through science and education, innovation and Scientific Outlook on Development's proposal are opportunities, but challenges outweigh opportunities. If we can't train thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions of innovative talents, our country can't be really strong and our development can't last. It is not just the products that need innovation, but the innovation of all work. We should form a nation's innovative consciousness, habits and rules.
The second opportunity and challenge: cultural revival. In fact, innovative thinking, innovative habits and innovative environment are not political issues, economic issues and scientific and technological issues, but cultural issues. It is not mathematics or chemistry that inspires innovation, but culture. Broadly speaking, it is a culture in which a society and a group tolerate and support whimsy or extraordinary thinking. From a small point of view, a student, seeing one thing, can evoke other things he encountered in the past, connect the two, and then imagine whether there is anything in the world. This is also a cultural problem. The cultural revival of a country is not only the foundation of a country's soft power, but also the key factor to cultivate innovative talents.
In the process of China's cultural renaissance, the school undertakes the most important task. From primary school, junior high school, senior high school, university, master and doctor, this is the most systematic, complete and comprehensive occasion for a person to receive education. In addition to schools, there is also society, but the education given by society is disordered and family education is not systematic. Only the school is the most systematic, planned and comprehensive training place, so it is also the main body of national culture preservation, continuation and creation. What does the school mainly rely on? Of course, it depends on teachers, so teachers in every subject, including music, physical education and beauty, shoulder the heavy responsibility of reviving Chinese culture, but at present most teachers have no energy to manage it. There are many external reasons for this situation, and teachers' professional level is not ready.
Second, the innovation of education
What is innovation? Innovation is extraordinary thinking. For example, children pile wood, which should be wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, but some children have to challenge the narrow at the bottom and wide at the top. This is innovation. Whether he can build it without throwing it away is another matter. Innovation is not necessarily successful, and science allows failure. Innovation is extraordinary, but it is not necessarily new. Sometimes repetition is innovation. What is repetition and innovation? That is to say, if we find the problems in the things that our predecessors have drawn through experiments and solve the new problems we have found, new things will appear. To become an innovative country, China should innovate from system to mechanism, specifically to schools, that is, the innovation of teaching plans, courses, teaching methods and teaching means. One aspect of innovation is impossible and untenable. To some extent, innovation is also a kind of regression. In today's curriculum reform, if we compile such a set of teaching materials, starting from the needs of cultivating people's literary literacy, reading ability and moral edification, so that students can have a general understanding of China culture when they graduate from compulsory education, they can continue to talk about it. Such teaching materials are innovation, and such innovation is a repetition of history to a certain extent.
So is the system. A completely public education model is not suitable. The academies in China during the Song, Yuan and Ming Dynasties were all private universities. Zhu and Wang Yangming are both mountain leaders of the academy, that is, professors and deans, who never attend classes. Does anyone come to study when there is no class? A large number of people climbed mountains and mountains, carrying books and boxes to pack things. What is attractive is the moral knowledge of Yamada. How do they study? They often hold seminars, all of which are students' personal opinions, and the instructors don't make conclusions. These famous mountain leaders and professors just give lectures and express their views. No matter what the students discussed yesterday, he can disagree with the teacher when they discuss it again. This is our tradition. Now, if we adopt that way to educate and train people, it is a repetition and innovation of history. Of course, it needs to be timely and moderate.
The same is true of textbooks, as well as teaching methods and means. Of course, today we can't rely on thread-bound books and brushes as we used to. Why not use multimedia and internet? But electronic things can never replace people, because the process of teaching is interpersonal communication, and the image and morality of teachers are a silent education for students. People in TV lectures have no feelings. Education itself is emotional education, not only in class, but also after class.
We should create a good environment for innovation from the system. But the reality is that there are still many things to be done in the reform of the education system. Many things that should be managed are left unattended or poorly managed, and many things that should not be managed are managed in every detail. It is important to separate government affairs, separate government from enterprise, and transform government functions. During the Eleventh Five-Year Plan and the Twelfth Five-Year Plan, the transformation of government functions is a major event in China's political and social life. Facts have proved that system and mechanism are the bottleneck of innovation, Scientific Outlook on Development and building a harmonious society. So what now? We educators must dance in chains. In the absence of further reform of the system and mechanism, teachers are encouraged to explore within their own capabilities, so that teachers can learn to innovate as much as possible and cultivate students' cultural literacy.
Third, the revival of culture is a process of educating people.
The so-called cultural revival is actually to carry forward the excellent traditional culture and combine it with the spirit of the times to create the culture of the Chinese nation in a new era. This culture cannot be divorced from tradition. Scholars all over the world have gained a knowledge that the progress and development of culture can never be separated from the old culture. Rock music is a flower on the other side of the ocean. Holding it in our field will not grow up. Why? China culture, in vocal music, what people can accept is not the melody, the rhythm and the loudness. Culture is something that is independent of human will, and so is diet. The taste cultivated since childhood will never change.
What is the core of culture? The core of any national culture is to handle these three relations in its own way and thinking. First, the relationship between people (including society); Second, the relationship between man and nature; Third, the relationship between reality and the future. In order to spread this core, there must be educational system, religious system, legal system, political system, scientific research system and so on. The scientific research mentioned here is especially embodied in humanities and philosophy, and of course it is also related to natural science.
In China culture, the principle of dealing with interpersonal relationships is harmony, asking for more, asking for less, and paying attention to self-discipline has become everyone's habit. China insisted on the harmonious coexistence between man and nature since ancient times, and this thought can be seen everywhere in ancient China. What about the relationship between reality and the future? I pin my hopes for the future on my son and grandson. That's how the so-called ambition comes from. What are the ideas of western Christianity and other religions? Only care about this life. What about the afterlife? In heaven, in God's place. So we are pragmatic. For the future, I hope that the next generation will live better than us, and the next generation will live better and better than the next generation, pursuing a harmonious society. Countries based on religion all pin their future on such nihilistic things as heaven and God, and this thought has its own role in those countries.
What is the present situation of our culture? On the one hand, the potential of China culture exists in every moment of our daily life, while on the other hand, the broad masses of people and students are unaware of it. From well-off society, harmonious society, political system to dressing and eating culture. We have to admit that China culture has been destroyed for one hundred years. Beginning with the Westernization Movement, the milestone destruction was the May 4th Movement. While learning the good things from the west, we completely destroyed our own things. Pushing down Kongjiadian is one of the most prominent explanations. At that time, a group of advocates of the new culture movement and the first group of social elites wanted to overthrow Kongjiadian. This kind of thing, culture, is independent of human will and cannot be defeated. At that time, Hu Shi, one of the standard-bearers of the New Culture Movement, returned to China to pursue Confucian culture. What have we done in this hundred years? A hundred years of westernization is our active westernization-of course, it is different from the westernization of hostile forces now-and it is the necessity of historical logic. One hundred years later, when we look back, are our ancestors so thoroughly bad and western culture so thoroughly good? Not anymore. In the past 30 years, with the reform and opening up, the people of China have learned from the whole world and brought all the good things. Unfortunately, these 30 years have basically been beautified and Americanized at the social level.
Fortunately, in people's lives, in our villages and in every family, China culture has not been shaken, or is being shaken. This is what people call the "generation gap". There has always been a generation gap, without which there will be no progress. But now this generation gap is the generation gap of the country. Young people's lifestyles and concepts are far behind the older generation, which is not caused by age, but by the erosion of foreign cultures. In this case, the relationship between people has been greatly impacted and changed due to the change of living conditions. Now the Central Committee has proposed to build community culture, which is far-sighted and respects China tradition. In the same community, we should take care of each other and even sacrifice ourselves for others, because people should pursue spirit and feelings, not just material things.
How to revive culture? This is a big project. Cultural construction is not measured in years, nor is it measured in years. It takes a hundred years at a time. But the work must start from now, which is one of the main topics of educational reform and development, as well as cultural reform and development. In China's education system, since the Tang Dynasty, official education and private education have always been two lines, sometimes official education is prominent, and sometimes private education is prominent, and Confucius was the first to run private education. Who did Song Yuanming's private schools and colleges train? It trains thinkers, moralists and scholars, and is also the reserve team of officials. What does official school cultivate? Training bureaucrats and government workers. There are * * * similarities between official and private schools, both of which cultivate people's spirit and morality from Confucianism. Therefore, you have been testing the ability of scholar, juren, scholar and governing the country, and you can learn it with a subset of ancient Chinese classics and history. However, after learning, there will be a group of capable cadres. Academies train scholars and become famous officials as soon as they enter the yamen. In other words, China's education cultivates people's spirit and knowledge, especially through knowledge. It gives you a way of thinking and everything is rational. Western schools teach knowledge and skills. What about the church? Mainly to cultivate faith. In the west, the separation of church and state began in the capitalist era. People's souls are given to the church, and only knowledge and skills are learned when they enter the school. Because of the supplement of the church and social stability, everyone pursues the same values. Later, the power of the church gradually declined, especially after World War II, and then the community rose again, not the community managed by our neighborhood Committee now, but various NGOs, NGOs or NGOs. The relationship between people, between man and nature, between reality and the future, this kind of edification is put there, and only ABC is taught in the school, 1234.
The task of cultural rejuvenation is imminent. That is to regain our tradition. Western foreign schools train skilled workers and senior technicians, while we shoulder the dual task of adding the tasks of its churches and non-governmental organizations to the schools. Virtue comes first, and all ethnic groups are no exception. There are two things given to children through the classroom, one is knowledge, that is, knowledge and skills, and the other is wisdom, that is, spirit and morality, that is, the ability to think.
At present, quite a few educators regard knowledge as wisdom when they talk about morality, intelligence and physique. What we are pursuing now is not true wisdom. If our school attaches importance to it, the cultivation of students' thinking and spirit is infiltration, cultivating students' self-confidence, anxiety and courage, rather than focusing on knowledge. Therefore, cultural revival needs the school system, and we need to look back at the scene of our ancestors running schools. The curriculum reform plan can't only be aimed at the west, especially the United States. If this problem is not solved, we educators can't.
Cultural revival is a great project and a process of educating people. There is a saying that it takes ten years to grow trees and a hundred years to cultivate people. When we say this, we only take part of the meaning of this sentence, that is, it takes longer and more difficult to cultivate a person than to plant a tree. Cultivating people is really a century-old plan. It takes a hundred years to create an environment and form a tradition of educating people, from the whole society to a small school. It took Peking University a hundred years to become a world-famous school. All cultures in the world need a hundred years to reach their climax. It takes a hundred years to really create an environment for cultivating innovative talents, carrying forward Chinese culture and developing talents in an all-round way, so that children will be influenced by various factors as soon as they come in, and teachers will grow up under inspiration. In other words, cultural construction is not measured by years, not by years, but by centuries. The destruction of our culture has also gone through a hundred years, and today's phenomenon is a collection of centuries of history.
Now it is not only the need of our nation, but also the need of our soft power and sustainable development. The world has put forward requirements for us. No nation or country can become a powerful country without modern science and technology, but without its own advanced culture, it is enough to die. Culture cannot be destroyed by any advanced weapon. In modern cities, the material things created by all people can be reimbursed in an instant by a nuclear bomb. But the culture and spirit of the nation make it helpless for any weapon to take it. When the enemy is strong and we are weak, how can we win War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression and the war of liberation? What if we need another Long March and another war of resistance today, although our weapons are much better than in the past? At least it's worrying. Therefore, cultural revival is not only a long-term and arduous process that requires the efforts of several generations, but also an urgent matter.
Fourth, how do we face the opportunities and challenges?
First of all, we should put improving the overall level and quality of teachers in the most prominent position. Without a high-level team of teachers, education is empty talk. No matter which challenge you encounter and which opportunity you seize, the key is the quality of teachers. Teachers' lifelong learning should be put to a very high position. What if some teachers don't study? Then we must gradually divert. This does some harm to teachers, but dozens or hundreds of children benefit. We should see this vision and the inevitable trend in the future.
Second, the level of education management needs to be improved. We should put school management under the background of two challenges and two opportunities, and under the background of self-destruction and westernization of China culture for a hundred years. It is not good for foreign countries, but there are also good things in our conflict.
What we are teaching now is Chinese, and the teaching materials of mathematics and physics are written, and the whole guiding ideology is western. On today's earth, the mainstream thought is the west. We should read some trends of western culture and reflect on China culture. This seems to have nothing to do with education, but if we understand it, it may inspire our work, let us go beyond ourselves and the documents issued, and implement the party's educational policy with our own understanding and new ideas. This is the beginning of innovation. This kind of improvement is not to attend training courses, but only to communicate between schools. The most important thing is to understand the mainstream culture of the world and Chinese culture. Cultural revival is by no means a clone of ancient culture. We should make great strides on this basis. We will use whatever we don't have and suits us.
The education system bears the main responsibility of the great project of cultural rejuvenation. Everyone shoulders such a task, and there are many institutional constraints. We should use cultural revival and school reform to meet the two opportunities and challenges put forward by the times and the people.