Children's Autonomy And Its Educational Implications

The traditional view of education emphasizes the inheritance of human excellent spiritual culture of mankind and normativity;the progressive view of education emphasizes the dignity and willingness of children,and highlights individual freedom.However,the extreme development of the two views of education in practice has made the normative education to be discipline,and children's freedom to be arbitrary.In realitic education,people's opposition to arbitrary has evolved into eviction to freedom by discipline,which masks the consistency between children's freedom and educational norms.Freedom and normativity do not deviate from each other;but can be unified in the concept of autonomy.Therefore,clarifying the meanings of children's autonomy is one of the possible ways to solve the dispute between children's freedom and educational normativity.To bridge the gap between children's freedom and educational normativity on the view of Tradition/Progressive Education,understanding of children's autonomy use the idea of constitutive argument that is how children proceed from their"willingness" or "free judgment/choice" and ultimately reach the normative requirements of education.Children can complete this task and have unique ways to accomplish it,which not only verifies that children's self-legislation is possible,but also gives special meaning to children's autonomy.Children's autonomy has the same configuration as autonomy.That is,the autonomous subject establishes norms for its own actions and acts according to the norms.The special nature of children's self-legislation stems from the particularity of children as the subject of autonomy compared to adults and the area of their own activities compared to adults'.Children as newcomers to the world;children's autonomous activities are educational activities rather than political activities.Therefore,the meaning of children's autonomy should be understood to a greater extent in children's inner capabilities and its,development rather than at the level of rights.The special nature of children as the subject of autonomy and the area of autonomy compared to adults confers special meaning on children's autonomy.This also makes this study more to find ideological resources from the understanding of ethics rather than political philosophy on autonomy.Children's autonomy depends to a greater extent on the self-legislation in the negative sense that the child is based on the model/reference for its own legislation,and to a less extent on the self-legislation in the positive sense that the children legislate on the basis of their own rational ability.Self-legislation in the negative sense is a unique self-legislative way that is starting from experience rather than abstract principles,and finding normativity for its own activities.It complements our understanding of self-legislation/autonomy,which is more realistic.children's autonomy means that children can self-legislation and act on it in a certain activity.This does not mean that the child is an autonomous person.To become an autonomous person,the child need to develop their own autonomy in important matters of life.The article begins with Aristotle's "dynamis-energeia"theory and considers the energeia of children's autonomy.That is to say,children's autonomy is the essential ergon of children's soul.It promotes activities of children's soul to engage in purposeful movements and realize oneself.The development of children's autonomy depends on self-movement,which is based on specific internal and external conditions.Children's practice activities of his life are educational activities.Education is essentially for the sake of the perfection of human soul to be a complete individual.Children's autonomy realizes the ergon of children's soul in the process of educational activities.Education can only be finished by children themselves.Self-education does not mean self-closing,is not self-discipline and monologue of "I" to "Me",but the dialogue between ego and self or between I and the world around me.Educational activities include cognitive activities,moral actions and artistic activities.Children use their autonomy in a variety of educational activities(ie,dialogue),raising their level of autonomy.