A Criticism Of Society Standard Education

Knowledge, children and society, the three dimensions of our curriculum and education research are kept in a dynamic balance, without which our curriculum and education will work properly. The controversy between scientism and humanism has made clear many current problems, such as putting too much emphasis on imparting knowledge from two dimensions, knowledge and children. However, discussion over the impact imposed by society-standardism on curriculum and education from the dimensions of society is far from satisfaction. As the overwhelming society-standardism is a main obstacle for education to become humanistic, I hope to do my part for the education humanization through emancipating education from society-standardism by criticizing it.The society-standardism regards society as a center and that the interest of society is superior to all others. It requires that the personal development should obey the developing demand of the society. The sole purpose for human activity is to serve the society. It mainly includes three forms: politics-standardism, economy-standardism, and culture-standardism The society-standard education considers human as a simple cognitive body, and the product of society and environment. It puts excessive emphasis on the imitation and control of society over education. Thus all attentions are focused on the society rather than the development of individuals. Under the control of society-standardism, education strays away from its due direction and its true significance is lost, which caused human alienation in education and affected seriously the educational process toward humanism.The society-standard education can be traced back to ancient Greece and derive from the western Europeans "God-standard" education in the Middle Ages. However, it is in the modern times that society-standardism develops into a crucial thought that affected the whole society as well as education .In China, the influence of foreign thoughts and the Confucian tradition arecombined to form a society-standard thought with its indigenous characteristics, typical of which are the education serving the class struggle at the threshold of foundation of PRC and the subsequent "bureaucrats-standard" education.The society-standard education mainly manifests itself in the following aspects: no recognition of human individuals as the principal part in education, low status of humanities and social sciences, ignorance of training critical spirit and innovatory ability, and over- interfere in education by society and government. It is generally featured by utilitarianization of educational function, pan-class consciousness in education, extreme measures to cultivate citizens training, and bureaucratization of educational administration. In teaching activities it is demonstrated in externalization of teaching aims, deduction of teaching contents, singleness in teaching process, inaccurate in teaching access and unitary standard in cultivate students, etc. In curriculum design it shows is shown in emphasizing on social-oriented education while ignoring quality-oriented education, emphasizing on experiential and applied courses while ignoring humanistic ones, singleness in the structure of curriculum, high centralization in the management of curriculum, etc. Thus education lost itself in the repeated claim of serving politics, serving economy and serving society.Profound causes underlie the emergence and prevalence of China's society-standardism. The one-side understanding of the relationships between man and nature, individual and society, education and politics, along with the influence of traditional autocracy, totalism and nationalism and the special national situation in China, all contribute to the wide popularity and nationwide recognition the society-standard educational thought.This educational thought leads to institutions of education being incapable of making decisions as to their own internal affairs, affects the humanization process in education, and impedes the progress of the modern society. Reflections upon it have never been ceased. For instance, western humanism education or Chinese Taoism thought are attempts to surpass it. However,...