On Whitehead’s Critcism Of The“inert Ideas”in Education

“Inert ideas”,a professional terminology created by famous British philosopher, educator Alfred North Whitehead(1861- 1947), has been used to refer to the phenomenon of rigid thought,isolated subject, insufficient innovation ability in British education.Compared with the education during the years Whitehead experiences in British in distant,Chinese education has made a great progress. However,the phenomenon of cramming method of teaching, the blindly pursuit of test scores and neglect of students’ wisdom cultivation becomes more common. The students we cultivated are still lack of the competence in the use of knowledge and creativity.Therefore, “Inert ideas” is like a impregnable walls, although more than one hundred years, but still fetters students’ thought.It has been a barrier for breaking the organic links between knowledge and knowledge,students and life, knowledge and practice between. For this reason, it is necessary to carry out a comprehensive, in-depth and detailed research on Whitehead’s criticism of “Inert ideas”, which will have some enlightenment to the curriculum reform of primary and secondary schools in our country.This study is divided into six chapters:The first chapter is the introduction, which mainly elaborates the selected topic reason, the related research summary, research content, research methods and innovation.The second chapter mainly aims at presentation and connotation analysis of “Inert ideas”. Its connotation mainly includes three aspects: The first one is the knowledge only received by the brain but without practice; The second one is the knowledge only received by the brain but without verification; The third one is the knowledge only received by the brain, but without integrate with other things.The third chapter mainly discusses the criticism of Whitehead’s “Inert ideas”.This criticism mainly in three aspects: firstly,“Inert ideas” has corroded people’s the most beautiful thing;secondly, “Inert ideas” has killed the vividness of the modern curriculum;thirdly, “Inert ideas” has harm the human nature and destroyed the life.The fourth chapter explains the reasons for Whitehead’s “Inert ideas”, Whitehead thinks “Inert ideas” has three main reasons: firstly, human brain has been used as a tool;secondly,education has not grasped rhythm of intellectual development;thirdly,knowledge teaching has been overly attached importance to and the cultivation of wisdom has been neglected.The fifth chapter mainly discusses the suggestions on education against Whitehead’s "inert ideas". This suggestions mainly in three aspects: firstly, school can’t open too many subjects in the same time; secondly, if teacher want to learn, be sure to teach thoroughly; secondly, the vitality of knowledge should be maintained.The sixth chapter mainly elaborates the implications of Whitehead’s criticism of "inert ideas" in curriculum reform towards primary and secondary school in our country, this enlightenment mainly in three aspects: firstly, isolated curriculum objective implementation should be reversed, and make students obtain not only knowledge but also wisdom;secondly, the tendency of utilitarianism of curriculum setting should be avoided and course of fused to each other should be paid attention to; thirdly, the precise stage in curriculum implementation should not be too long and follow the educational rhythm,which is the innovation of this paper.