Humanistic Education: Differentiating Analyzing Of The Concept, Developing In History And Using In Practice

The term Humanistic Education is frequently used in educational circles, but the understanding of it is different. The author thinks that humanistic education is the kind of education that develops humanitarianism and stresses human being qua human being. Humanistic education takes respecting of student self as its prerequisite, took developing potential capacity as its goal, takes instructing students to deal with the relation between id and ego, between other people and self, between human being and things as its purpose, and guides students' behavior toward humanity, laws and the virtue of whole humanity. Humanistic education is not equal to humanities education and humanism education.As the essence of humanistic education, humanistic spirit that can be highly summarized stresses human being qua human being. Human being qua human being can be explained as follows: (1) human being is the life that exceed the controlling of environment; (2) human being is the life that exceed the controlling of instinct of life; (3) human being is the life that takes the whole humanity' s virtue as the highest principle of behavior. Accordingly, humanistic spirit may summarized as: (1) to develop the potential capacity of human being as possible; (2) worshiping "the second life" 梩hat is to pursue the freedom and liberation of human being, seek for the value and meaning in life and achieve "self-actualization" in the end; (3) regarding the whole human being as a united group, to take the whole humanity' s benefits as the highest principle of behavior and achieve harmonious development between human being and the nature.This article also looks back the history of humanistic education. It can be divided into four stages: (1) humanistic education in primitive commune; (2) humanistic education in ancient Athens; (3) humanistic education of the Renaissance; (4) humanistic education in modern society. In the first stage, all children were educated equally; Education and productive-labor wpro united; the mains content of education wereproductive experiences and skills. Humanistic education in ancient Athens can be characterized harmonious development, diversity curriculum and advocating reason. In the period of the Renaissance, the characteristics of humanistic education are: (1) stressing the freedom and personality-development; (2) taking the Grecian and Roman literature in importance; (3) broadening the extent of courses; (4) using new teaching methods. Modern humanistic education attaches much importance to literature, history and philosophy and stresses not only personality and self-actualization but also the duty to society and world. Humanistic education will be taken into practice in school as well as out of school in modern society.To practice humanistic education in school, we should hold four notions: (1) taking the human as the most importance is the prerequisite of today' s humanistic education; (2) guiding the development of science is the indispensable mission of today' s humanistic education; (3) restructuring the moral home is the practical starting point of today' s humanistic education; (4) harmonious development is the necessary pursuing of today' s humanistic education.