The Research Of Whitehead’s Higher Education Thought

Whitehead is an outstanding educator in the twentieth century.57 years work experience in colleges as a teacher in England and America made him have a unique understanding about higher education. All the problems he pointed out were aim at the real problems in the higher education, Such as he encourages the wisdom education, he against that when evaluate the teachers it depends on the quantities of the articles he or she published. These ideas are even meaningful for today’s higher education. Whitehead is not only an educator, but also a philosopher and a religious researcher. So Whitehead thought of higher education has the shadow of his philosophy and religious outlook. This study attempts to excavate all the Whitehead’s thought of higher education.The first part including the reason to choose this subject, and states a lot of the article that related to Whitehead’s education thought. Part one also declared the research method and research purpose.Part two is the background and theoretical of Whitehead’s thought of higher education. The background, mainly from the social background and personal experience, he was born in an intellectual family, was taught classical education when he was a child, which has a direct impact on his attitude towards the classical Literature course. Whitehead theoretical foundation of higher education is the process thought of Whitehead’s philosophy that "against the binary opposition" and "process" thinking.The third part is the contact of Whitehead’s thought of higher education. To touch his thought by reading his article and collect the useful part in the article, and summarized in four aspects:The purpose of the higher school----provide the power for the society; Tran aim for the higher school----learn widely and has his own area; Curriculum setting----combined the knowledge; All the art of a college----get a good teacher team.The fourth part is the features of Whitehead’s thought of higher education. By comparing Whitehead and other educators’ thought,we can get four features: Encourage creation; Carry out "freedom education"; Against the authority of religion; Care about the classical literature.The last part is enlightenment of the Whitehead’s thought of higher education. We can get some suggestions from Whitehead’s thought of higher education. It can help our Chinese higher education develops better and better.