Investigation Into The Concept Of Educational Value

The problem of educational values is of great theoretical importance that needs to be solved urgently today. The dissertation probes into and studies the educational values deeply and carefully with multi-dimensional points of views, combining the current educational problems nowadays and standing the unique height in visual angle. The dissertation carries on the thinking of education in many aspects with a philosophical stance, excavates theoretical resources, expands the thinking space deeply, enriches the educational theory, builds and constructs a kind of educational values of present time which will guide people's educational practices effectively. The full disertation divides into eight chapters. Chapter one is an introduction. By tracing the historical development of education, it expounds the latest advancement of education and a great deal of existing problems both at home and abroad, and it also puts forward the challenge and development trend. It places the research of the educational values on a broad horizon, explaining the necessity to study educational values at first. Then it comments on the current researches of the domestic and international educational values, finding that there are lots of problems in the field of educational values .For example, the basic theoretical foundation of educational values is weak, the prevailing research is lacking in observing in every possible way of educational practice, it is less likely to adopt anthropology, there is still no unanimous definitions for the terms concerned in this field, the study is not enough to combine to the latest researches, and so on, which determines the problems that the dissertation sets out to investigate. Finally it reveals the important meaning of the studying in the educational values, in terms of both theory and practice. Chapter two analyses the educational values omni-directionally. This chapter focuses on the relevant theories of the educational values. First, it expounds the definitions closely related to the educational values --education, value, educational value, and defines the connotation of education, and also analyses the definition of contemporary education. It also expounds the author's understanding of the definition of education as consisting of three key elements, i.e., the educator, the learner, and the educational influence. The concept of "learner"is different from the traditional concept of "student"and "educator". Its target has been expanded from teenagers to the adult and even all social citizens with the arrival of the life-long education. It sketches orbits of values study, defines concept of value, points out humane value's carryied forward, reconstruction, promotion, maintenance of value of people, which are paid attention to by contemporary western philosophy of value, which has rich meaning to contemporary Chinese education. This chapter analyses the concept of educational value and the characteristics of educational value. It points out that many kinds of attributes embody many kinds of different educational values; many kinds of attribute demonstrate unified educational values; a certain attribute reflects the characteristics of many kinds of educational value, etc. According to the process of usage,educational value is summarized as following: long-term result and reusing many times; expansionary; comprehensive characteristic. As a basic category of philosophy of education, Educational value has its complicated form of expression, and it will be reflected through the need of subject and the satisfaction degree of the need of object. Second, it expounds and appraises relevant theories of educational values, announces the basic contents of educational values, divides the noumenon values and the tool values of education, and details different kinds of educational values. It appraises the basic function of educational values and explains the educational values in terms of dialectical materialism, reveals the intention of the educational values starting with the subject characteristics of the educational values. It points out clearly that theeducational values refer to the understanding, appraisal of the subject and behavior orientation standards determined on this basis. The text probes into the orientation question of value and analyses the "real"and "right" about educational value orientations, which is done from the relation between the educational value orientations and educational values. Then it reveals the mutual restriction relationships between educational values and educational value orientations. It also analyses the subjective factors and objective factors which will influence the educational value orientations, reveals the difference and relation between education and social function, offers the essential theoretical foundation for educational reform and development. Finally, this disertation analyses the value orientations of contemporary educational practice, points out some education questions, in our country which that is caused mainly by the deviation on the educational orientation, it is still a question of the educational values. Through the argumentation of this chapter, we have clarified the cognition and the chairs of thought, and established the comparatively sturdy theoretical foundation for thereafter expansion of every chapter. Chapter three: The essence of education is activity to train people. Educational value is the value of realizing whole-people. This chapter probes into the study of the educational values and the realization of people's value deeply. The contents of this chapter are deep and serious and the author looks at this problem from an original perspective, studying from various angles, such as people, science of culture, anthropology, humanistic psychology, Marxism theory, etc. The purpose is to enrich theory resources and expand thinking and benefit the research of the question. This chapter first analyses and explains the relation between the educational value and the people's value. From the relation of initiative and passiveness, purpose and tool, right and obligation to expounding value of people include people,which includes the value of people and the value of society, and then the author demonstrates the inherent relation between the educational value and people's value. The chapter emphatically discusses the interpersonal value achievement. At first, the article has made a study of human nature and human essence. Itis made up of four aspects. The first is about goodness, malignity and three qualities of characters in the ancient times and their impacts; the second is about psychologists'humanity that is the base of educational value; the third is Kassir's sign doctrine that tells the human essence. The human —"the signal animal", can create culture by use of signs, from which we can understand the sense of education-----guide people to create. The fourth is the viewpoint of educational anthropology. The essence of the human has six elements from the angel of educational anthropology. Then the writer comments on this topic from these perspectives combining with the west humanism psychologists. The first is the discussion of the human essence of Matthew who expounds the human essence in the words "analogous instinct". And a collaborative society can have conditions to achieve the essence of "analogous instinct". The human value is embedded in the essence structure. Rogers expounds the human essence from "formation tendency", that is, self –fulfilling. The second is the discussion of the humanism values and concept of humanism anthropology values: inherent veracity, meaningful tendency, subjective selection. It summarizes the main characters of humanism psychology objects, the value neutrality pedagogy and independence pedagogy, inherent values and external values and insists on inherent values, comments on the naturalism values, the phenomenon values, existentialism values which thinks self-fulfilling of the human values is a display of a person's inherent essence and latent ability, and then confirms that the human value is the object of psychology. It comments objectively on the defects of the values. The third has a perspective to humanity educational values. The perspective of educational goal is the center of the educational values of the humanity psychology. The concept of study discusses the teaching mode that is in center of students and analyzes the active ideas and comments on the unreasonable ideas. For example, making the study theory accentuates the students'central status and impacts, calling for inherent study, meaningful study and active study and so on that are all study modes which motivate the students'inherent ability, to learn to learn and to adapt to changeable study concept, to cultivate creativity. But it ignores the study of systemic scienceand practical knowledge, emphasizing mood motivation which is one—sided view and we should abandon this conception. At last, the chapter discusses the relationship between Marxism all-round development pedagogy and education. From the concept of all-round development, the writer thinks the value trend of Chinese educational goal, and expounds "should---educational goal", "real---educational goal"and points out a direction. The fourth chapter tells us differences between the educational values and the educational function values. The writer expounds the political,economical and cultural function of education from the difference of them and discusses what value tendency modern Chinese education should choose as the direction and goal. The article expounds the new type of concept of educational function values "on the basis of cultivating people", that the value of education lies in that education provides each individual with basis for fulfilling self value. It further elaborate on the esbablishment of new functional value of education that education meets the needs for people to develop continually. In addition, it discuses the theorical value and practical value of the establishment of such a new functional value of education. It points out that the significance of the new functional value of education si far from changing teachers', students'and parents'intention; it has profound educational value, social value and cultural constructivise value. The fifth chapter makes a historical reflection on the educational values with regard to the achcal situation of education. The research of the educational values can not be separated from reality. Or, it looks like a tree without the root. It can't be cut off from history, or it becomes the fountain without its source. This chapter proceeds from the obvious problems of exam-oriented education, and points out the functional mistakes of exam-oriented education: it deviates from the basis of "educating people", which is the oriental deviation of educational values. Then the author finds out the source from the reflection of educational values. The first is the reflection of Chinese traditional values that pays regard to instrumentalvalues but belittles its inherent values; Second, it reviews the impact of the above three aspects of the educational values on the present educational practice. Taking into accout the fact that world education emphasizes science and neglects humanism, it further expound on the establishmnt and choice of functional value of education, pointing out that we should lood for opportunities of incoporation in the process of dynamic balance. It argues that there should be unity and incorporation between humanist education and scientific education, between individual value and social value, between individual needs and social needs. We should know objective needs of the actual development in accordance with history. Also, it says that we should establish the poly---educational values, we should realize the urgency of reinforcing human value, and emphasize the problems of realization of educational poly--values. The sixth chapter discusses the educational values of "the education term of modernity". It is made up of two aspects. First, it introduces the background of the education term of "modernity". Secondly, it connofation of the pedagogy concept of the view of freshman. Globalization is considered the contemporary equivalent to "modernization". In this chapter, we discuss how people are involved in "modernization", i.e., the reconfiguration of the infrastructures of people's life, both individuals'and groups'. This is the key to the understanding of the true meaning of modernization. The essence of modernization lies in the development of people, or remolding of people. As a contemporary reflection of modernization, globalization has brought unprecedented opportunities and space for the development of human. Pedagogical activities centered on human race are deemed to achieve great progress in such a setting. The essence of education is to solve the problem of personal training. There are commonly accepted educational incentives such as those on world peace, environment, life, and mutual understanding, which are the major themes of modernization. By discussing life education, we argue that past usages of phrases such as: human resource, anthropoid and animalize needs to be revised. It is also clarified in this chapter that the objective of education is tolet human behave like themselves, "find and become oneself". It is further clarified that the fundamental goal of life education is the process of perfecting oneself, perfecting life, which shows the transition of education to humanity. It is the recovery of education back to human, and a redirection of value. The paper has studied a new humane education interpretation –humanity, individualization, and creativity. In particular, the paper emphasize that the objective of education is human, so the design of education should always give people the highest priority. This forms a solid foundation for the human centered education, brings a new perspective for the research on the value of education. Chapter 7, the modern society is in need of modernized people, who have the qualifications and characteristics required by such a social environment. To improve people's various qualifications to accommodate to such needs, contemporary education system has to be guided by principles that match the value judgment of the modern society. Thus, this section discusses the pursuing of education value in accordance to the requirements of the new era –quality education. To achieve the modernization of the society on all due aspects, the very first thing to be done is to produce modern people. Modern people should have such characteristics as: being active, positive, creative, open, and collaborative. They should be self-motivated to learn, obedience to ethics, practical and effective, and should have the courage to face any challenges. In summary, the qualities of modern people include those on physical, mental, ethical, scientific and technological, political and competence. From the aspect of quality education,basis qualities should be emphasized physical and emotional, skills and competences. Then there are the intellectual abilities: those on information, knowledge and intelligence, the third level is ethic level. One of the essential features demands of the modern information society is that people should learn how to learn things on the training of learning abilities, or have the ability to acquire knowledge. Competence is the key to the issue, since it is the synergy of all the above listed aspects. Intelligence is a top-level reflection of the overall quality of people, which is the origin of...