The educational process begins with the birth of a person and lasts forever, producing lasting and profound changes to people. Some people even think that education can start earlier. Some parents use external words and music to influence the growing fetus in the womb and process prenatal education, hoping to give children a positive and healthy development.
The word “education” comes from Mencius’s “winning the all talents to educate.” Latin educare is the source of the word “education” in the West, meaning “lead out”. The society selects talents based on the level of education. People realize the change of social status through education. Education is accompanied by the emergence of human society. It develops with the society.
Education has broad and narrow meanings.
Broadly defined education refers to all social practice activities that purposely influence the physical and mental development of people.
Narrow education refers to the education of specialized organizations, that is, school education. It includes not only full-time school education, but also half-day and amateur school education, correspondence education, radio school and television school education.
It is based on the reality of the certain society and the needs of the future, following the laws of the younger generation of physical and mental development, aiming, planning, organizing and systematically guiding the educated to acquire knowledge and skills, cultivating ideology and morality, developing intelligence and physical strength. These activities to train educators into those who adapt to the needs of a certain society and promote social development.
Multiple examinations of the nature education
(1) Connotation: The so-called essence of education refers to the fundamental feature of education as a social activity is different from other social activities, that is, the question of “what is education”. It reflects the inherent nature of educational activities.
(2) The fifth viewpoint on the nature of education, “the alternative theory of consciousness”:
Tang Zhen believes that the essence of cultural education may be summarized as: using the knowledge we have mastered about the relationship between our objects and object relationships, and teaching new individuals how to cope with objects. Since two individuals face different objects, the consciousness derived from different objects is conflicting, and the receptors for cultural and educational activities are also somewhat exclusive. In the real society, in order to reduce the rejection of the receptors, also is to let the educational activities mainly take place between the young and the old.