On Humanism Education And Humanism Curriculum

Great emphasis has been laid upon the education of cultural quality in China at the moment, which promotes directly our reappraisal of the position, the value and the significance of humanism education and humanism curriculum in modern university education, such as, how and when they are weakened? How to appraise them within our universities and what their functions are? What features the humanism curriculum poses and how to define its connotation and denotation? What the expressive forms and function of humanism curriculum are and so on? In university education humanism education is inseparable from humanism curriculum. The value property of humanism education is realized by means of the curriculum, especially by the hidden curriculum. What counts is how much we can transfer this deeply into the soul of the students. Nowadays when humanism education is accepted universally, the research of humanism curriculum, especially the research of its connotative features can never be omitted . Rather than study the humanism in a common way, this thesis mainly explores the connotative futures of humanism education and humanism curriculum. Nevertheless this thesis focuses on the research of the hidden curriculum. After reviewing the relationship between the development history of university humanism education and the scientific education, the author points out that the three courses of humanism, science and nature possess a situation of tripartite confrontation, which constitutes the basic factor of three major curriculum systems in modern universities. Curriculum is the basic element in the university education, and it is also one of the three main elements, which shows teaching quality and features of a university. Teachers' teaching level, students' acquisition and curriculum system constitute three primary colors of educational quality and features of modern universities. Therefore in the present university education, curriculum is more fundamental, more important than specialty. Just as curriculum is the cornerstone and teachers are the guarantee, so students are the reflection of these teaching quality and features. Humanism curriculum is curriculum of enjoyment. It is also one of the targets of humanism curriculum to pass on knowledge and offer career training for the undergraduates of the humanism speciality. What's more, it should be the edification of emotion and personality, the creation of beauty and life. If "seek the truth" is the key words of the scientific curriculum, "realm" is the key word of humanism curriculum. Humanism curriculum has some characteristics like foundation quality, guidance quality, governing quality, complementary quality, harmony quality, nationalization quality and native quality. It has three structural modes, i.e. conventional structure, expressed mainly in the form of exo-appearance; compound structure, combined by exo-appearance and hidden form and unconventional structure, expressed in hidden form. Overt curriculum and hidden curriculum are two integral parts of total university curriculum. They fulfill the final teaching goal of cultivating all-round developed "total man" in different aspects and in different ways. The function of humanism curriculum is embodied in the hidden curriculum to a large extent, which is transmitted and reserved mostly in form of hidden curriculum. Overt curriculum is the "hard curriculum", a kind of rational education, which constitutes frames of talents. Hidden curriculum is the "soft curriculum", mainly a kind of irrational education, aiming at cultivating people's irrational ability and making impact on people's souls. Overt curriculum accounts for much more of a percentage than hidden curriculum, constituting a basic frame of university education. And hidden curriculum is also an indispensable integrant in the course of education. We should never overemphasize one at the expense of the other. It deserves our full attention both to overt curriculum and to hidden curriculum as well. Hidden curriculum is a most precious cultural resource of a university. It enriches the curriculum resources by means of accumulating, which plays a special significance in raising the status of a university. University administrators should not only pay full attention to the construction of overt curriculum but also become aware of the significance of hiddencurriculum in raising university status. It is an essential channel of improving the educational quality and developing the university connotation with a high speed to do the construction of curriculum consciously and to accumulate and enrich historical cultural resources of the university. There are three types of hidden curriculum, i.e. classical one, such as literature, arts, linguistics, philosophy, religion and so on; obscure one, such as history, pedagogies, psychology and so on; intersect one, such as anthropology, science of culture, archaeology, journalism and so on. Universities should lay stress on the development of humanism curriculum, especially on the development of hidden curriculum. The following four problems are to be solved when we are developing humanism curriculum: i.e. curriculum concept, curriculum mechanism, curriculum connotation and curriculum staff. Universal knowledge education is a main expression of humanism education. With a view to comprehending humanism value in the development of science and technology, displaying humanism ideals in university education and manifesting the humanism target in curriculum establishment, we should be skilled in making full use of the successful experience of humanism curriculum reform in the foreign countries and establish the fundamental position of universal knowledge curriculum to ensure that it goes through the whole process of undergraduate education.