On Disadvantaged Students' Development In View Of Education For Understanding

Nowadays, it is a common need to foster the students' spirit of understanding and it is also urgent for our country to better the quality of education from the core of "understanding". Thus there comes the new form of education in theory and practice "Education for Understanding", which is guided by the Understanding Theory and which means the process that the teachers and students, both as the understanding subjects, communicate with the understanding objects to design and fulfill their life possibilities in emotion, cognition and behavior. One character of "Education for Understanding" is to care for the disadvantaged students in the education world.The so-called "disadvantaged students" have specific meaning . It refers to the students who are misunderstood in education and are in the situation which hinders them from better developing. There are four types of them: the score disadvantaged, the behavior disadvantaged, the character disadvantaged and the mixed disadvantaged. This concept has some connection and difference with others like learning disability. It is significant to care for these students."Education for Understanding" makes her effort to help the disadvantaged students develop. Here, "to develop" gains its new meaning: first, to understand means to develop, which comes from the characteristics of understanding and has three dimensions including scientific understanding, humanism understanding and practice understanding; second, to design and fulfill the positive life possibilities means to develop, which chiefly happens in the education world of understanding. The basic conflicts baffling the disadvantaged students' development lie in two aspects: one is the misunderstanding from the school and the other from themselves.The three approaches of "Education for Understanding" offers the possibilities to clear the misunderstanding and pave the way for disadvantaged students to attain the development which fits them better. They are: the Ontological understanding approach, which can enlarge the disadvantaged students' identity in the education world; the inter-subjectivity approach, which can make a transition in the relationship between the disadvantaged students and the "text" (nature, human and social text); the multiple-way approach, which can create the opportunities for the disadvantaged students to show their life potentialities and design the positive ones. Meanwhile, the possibilities provided here also gain support for other relative theories like the psychological support from the Multiple-intelligence Theory and the pedagogical support for the Post-modernism Education Theory.There is a four-stage hypothesis in the process of the disadvantaged students' development: stage one, unfreezing, which means to unfreeze the hostile or indifferent emotion between the disadvantaged students and the school, using the way like discarding the prejudice, establishing some contact and listening with full acceptance; stage two, wakening, which means to arouse the disadvantaged students' desire to change their disadvantaged situation, using the way like positive waiting, catch the education turning points and touching the hearts; stage three, reinforcing, which means to reinforce the positive behaviors and ideas aroused from the disadvantaged students to stop them from retreating, using some methods from psychology like reinforcement, fading technology and cognitive modification; stage four, stabilizing, which means to make the disadvantaged students stabilize in their positive reaction and develop the understanding personality, using the way of self-management.To cooperate with helping the disadvantaged students develop, there are some educational strategies drawn from the teachers' experience in "Education for Understanding" for the educators to consider. These strategies are plain yet proven to be useful in reality. They are categorized into four groups: the affinity communicating strategies group, the educational inspiring strategies group, the modification and prevention strategies group and the outside environment dredging strategies group. These four groups, together with the teaching strategy "Naturally Individualized Teaching", form an open strategy system. They can be used in separation or altogether for different stage.Yet "Education for Understanding" doesn't expect to solve all the problems in the development of the disadvantaged students. She is open to communicate and cooperate with other ideas.