Family education, Chinese and western, tradition
Family education is an important part of education in the whole country. Deng Xiaoping once said; "National modernization is based on talents, talents are based on education, and education is based on family. China is a country that attaches importance to family education. China's profound educational and cultural traditions contain excellent family education elements. For thousands of years, many people of insight have worked hard in the field of family education and accumulated quite fruitful results. Looking at the history of ancient family education in China, it is China's ancient educational thoughts, such as: moral education first, respecting the old and caring for the young, self-cultivation, setting an example, self-improvement, erudition and so on. These excellent ideas have a long history.
With the development of education and the introduction of western educational ideas, parents in China have shown helplessness in the face of traditional and modern family education ideas. In view of some unhealthy phenomena in family education in China at present, it is necessary for us to compare Chinese and western traditional family education from all aspects.
First, family education is an educational practice of human beings. There are many similarities between Chinese and western traditional family education.
1, pay attention to family education. No matter which country or nationality, family is considered as a person's first school, and parents are the first teachers. Whether in China or in western countries, whether in ancient times, modern times or modern times, family education has always been in the most basic position.
2. Family education should be started from an early age and taught in time. "Yan Family Instructions" said: "Parents should teach when they are young, know the color of people, know their feelings, and then teach them." Because "life is young and spirit is patented. Think hard and relax when you grow up. You must teach early and don't miss the opportunity. " Dewey also believes that family education should be implemented as soon as possible.
3. Division of responsibilities of parents in education. In many cultures in China and the West, mothers are portrayed as the main caregivers, while fathers play a limited role. Father is the main undertaker of children's intellectual education. Mothers are responsible for children's daily life, material security, emotional satisfaction, etc. And it is the main undertaker of children's emotional training. It leads to children's reverence for father's love more than love, which leads to the deviation of parent-child relationship and affects the sound development of children.
4. Pay attention to cultivate children's habit of loving knowledge and reading. China's ancient parents have always known this truth. They guide their children to learn the Four Books and Five Classics, and a hundred schools of thought contend from an early age to stimulate their curiosity. Western parents also attach great importance to family reading, and children must listen to a story before going to bed, which is a fine tradition of western family education.
5. Watch your words and deeds. Parents are role models for their children, and often a simple action is much more effective than thousands of forced indoctrination.
Secondly, due to the geographical differences and cultural differences between China and the West, traditional family education in China and the West shows their own characteristics in more aspects.
1, different educational tendencies.
In China, parents attach importance to social education and neglect their children's growth. Chinese parents attach great importance to the education of social adaptability, but often neglect to promote children's growth from the characteristics of their physical and mental development. They often cultivate their children according to the established model, pave the way for their growth and attract all kinds of conduct to them.
Western parents pay more attention to providing their children with an antagonistic growth environment, cultivating their children's tough character and good conduct, and constantly adjusting and choosing their own training concepts and methods according to social changes and children's physical and mental characteristics.
2. Different family education values.
China's family education function is determined by the traditional culture of China. The traditional Confucian culture in China for thousands of years emphasizes "self-cultivation, keeping the family in order, governing the country and leveling the world". In this isomorphic thinking orientation, family education is endowed with direct social significance. In addition, the traditional culture of China regards parents' education and children's personal growth and achievements as directly related causes and effects. China's parents attach great importance to their godson's reputation, and think that it is their achievement to teach him to be a useful person, but it is shameful to teach him badly. The purpose of education is to make a living and save face.
Western family education believes that the purpose of education is not to prepare for a living, but to prepare for survival. The "liberal arts education" they emphasized has a value of shaping the soul, a value that has nothing to do with utilitarian or professional considerations.
3. The concept of family subject is different from that of education.
China's traditional family culture follows the ruling pattern, which shows the sense of authority within the family. Emphasize obedience and respect, and attach importance to external control. China's family members are educators-parents. China's parents have a strong parent-child consciousness. They regard their children as their private property and their accessories. Therefore, they attach great importance to their own unilateral shaping, which affects children's personality construction. They pay attention to their own image, ignoring the interaction between children and adults, ignoring the process and comprehensiveness of mutual influence, leaving children in a passive position and ignoring the existence of children.
Western civilization takes children as the main body and emphasizes individual struggle, equality, democracy and respect for individual rights. Western parents regard their children as equal members of the family, respect their personality and dignity, and enable them to think independently and choose freely. They respect children's rights and do not engage in compulsory education. Respect children's self-esteem and advocate their natural development. The responsibility of parents is only to discover and guide their children's interests and potentials. Create a good environment for children, attach importance to communication with children, and attach importance to the reciprocity of education. In western family education, parents are not the masters of children, but friends of children.
4. The emphasis of education is different.
China's traditional culture holds life and morality, so it attaches great importance to life and interpersonal relationships. Therefore, parents in China have always regarded morality as the highest value orientation of education. China people's idea of a "good boy" is, first of all, a sensible and obedient child who points fingers at the group and is loved by everyone. Therefore, parents cultivate their children's self-cultivation, self-convergence, and attach importance to implication and hierarchy. The main connotation of family education in China is "benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom, faith, loyalty and forgiveness". Children in China are taught historical stories, morality, loyalty and filial piety since childhood. Children have been exposed to cold moral laws and regulations since childhood. I studied Saint Amethyst and Disciple Rules since I was a child.
Western culture grasps knowledge, and families mainly stimulate children's curiosity and imagination about nature. Knowledge comes from curiosity. Therefore, by arousing interest in nature and various fairy tales, children have a broad imagination space, which is conducive to the creation of knowledge. They take children's psychological development as the highest direction, and cultivating children's interest and creativity is the focus of western family education.
5. Family orientation and individual orientation.
China's traditional culture is family-oriented and pays attention to individual responsibilities and obligations. This shows the following characteristics in value orientation: (1) The educational function of the family is strengthened. In the traditional society of China, the family shoulders various social functions. It has the distinct characteristics of isomorphism between home and country. Children's education is a part of the continuation of family life, so the important role of family education is to achieve the goal of "lasting family education". It is an important tool to maintain and develop the social and political status of the family and to maintain and promote the family culture. (2) Education takes family interests as its main value orientation. "Glory to ancestors" and "Glory to ancestors" are the pursuit and goal of scholars. Personal interests and family interests are integrated. This is closely related to the "eternal life view" of China traditional culture.
Western culture takes the individual as the standard and pays attention to individual freedom and rights. In education, it is manifested in putting the educated in a prominent position and attaching importance to the cultivation of personality. Personal standards are closely related to family reform in the west. This educational tradition was determined by the Renaissance in14 ~16th century, the French bourgeois enlightenment in18th century and pragmatism in the early 20th century. Rousseau advocated the education of nature and freedom. Dewey put forward that education is growth, education is life, and individuals are the main body to master their own experience. However, individualism does not mean individualism, let alone taking children as the center. Family calls for individuals with rich personality, modern individuals who can really control themselves, control themselves and surpass themselves, individuals with perfect personality, rather than selfish and utilitarian individuals.
6, the cultivation of independent consciousness
China's parents' educational values are to study for further study. They only ask their children to study hard, and don't ask anything else. The consciousness of promoting children's all-round development is indifferent, which makes children have no chance to develop and improve their various qualities. China's parents are completely tied to their children, and their educational responsibilities are too heavy. The improper extension of parents' role replaces children to complete all the arrangements of daily life, stipulate the learning content and set the development direction, not children. Make children dependent individuals, and their independence is extremely poor, so that children can learn nothing but knowledge. Under the seemingly meticulous care, they let their children form the habit of relying on others from an early age and become helpless in the face of wind and rain. Once they lose help, they will blame others.
Western parents pay attention to cultivating their children's sense of independence from an early age. In western families, we can see that children, like adults, call their relatives and friends by their first names, express their opinions boldly and participate in family discussions. Some of your own things are not arranged by your parents, so you can solve them yourself and handle them yourself. Parents don't scold their children casually. They leave their children with opportunities to exercise again and again, and let them dare to rush, dare to do, dare to take risks and dare to show. Let children learn to survive from an early age, have strong physique, hard-working quality and good psychological quality, and then they can walk into life calmly. Such an independent personality makes children pay more attention to personal ability and struggle when they go to society.
7. Emotional education and corporal punishment
An important feature of family education different from school education is the education of love. However, perhaps it is because China's traditional culture emphasizes implication, China families are not good at expressing love and emotional education is weak. China's parent-child communication is also very characteristic of China. A recurring word in China's family is "no", "no" and "no". In China, collective education is used to saying "should" to children, except using negative words to guide their behavior. This is the embodiment of parental authority. Such cold command words hinder emotional education. "Defeating the enemy without fighting" and "filial son under the stick" make it more difficult to strengthen emotional education.
According to the survey, encouraging language is often used to express parents' gratitude to their children in western families. Western parents pay more attention to personal qualities and emotional communication. The family mainly focuses on the construction and cultivation of emotions. They will find time to communicate with their children, listen to their voices and emphasize spiritual communication. In western countries, corporal punishment is also illegal. In addition, western parents are willing to praise their children in front of others. They think it can cultivate their self-confidence. China's modesty makes his parents unhappy. They think it will make children proud, and they prefer to criticize and strengthen their weaknesses.
8. Different educational methods
China's traditional way of education is indoctrination, emphasizing rote learning. The child is studying. As the old saying goes, "Reading a book a hundred times reveals its meaning". Zhu also said that "it is enough to read the secretary several times, but it is not enough, so it can only be empty", so parents in China like to see their children sitting in front of their desks, shaking their heads and reciting, or practicing on their desks. Eyes never leave the book, hands never leave the book. "I don't listen to things outside the window, I just read sage books." Put the knowledge of the ancients and the experience of saints into your stomach, and ignore it if you digest it or not.
The West pays more attention to children's "enlightenment". They like to let children practice hard, go to nature and seek knowledge in life. They combine learning with various forms. Western families have special cooking classes, handicraft classes and game rooms. They don't think that play and study are opposite, but encourage children to go out to study more and pay more attention to their thinking. Parents will take the initiative to take their children to explore the mysteries of nature and understand society. They follow Dewey's "education is life" and "school is society". They encourage children to go to libraries and museums to read books they are interested in and take part in social practice.
9. Financial education
China people are gentlemanly and indifferent to fame and fortune. The mindset of "a gentleman is righteous and a villain is beneficial" makes parents in China have no idea about financial and business education. In China, it is one thing for adults to earn money to support their families, but children are far from that. When they have no money, they will ask their parents for money. Even after marriage, you can still do this. Parents in China always provide money to their children for free, blindly and unconditionally meet their children's consumption requirements, and indulge their excessive consumption desires.
In the west, especially in America, financial management education is a branch of family education. Therefore, we attach great importance to this. Western parents generally don't give money to their children informally and unplanned, but give them a fixed fund regularly. And help children to establish a correct financial awareness, develop good financial habits, but also pay attention to the cultivation of the basic quality of money. Western parents teach their children to make budget plans and learn to spend money reasonably; Encourage children to go out to work and earn income by their own labor; Educate children to save money and not spend it indiscriminately; Help children learn to donate and help others; Teach children to be honest in front of money and have self-esteem in front of money; Simplicity and frugality are virtues; Make the right decisions, seize financial opportunities and be willing to serve others.
10, religious thought and science education
Although China culture also started from religion, we put more emphasis on science in education. The Compulsory Education Law of People's Republic of China (PRC) clearly stipulates that education should be separated from religion.
The religious tradition in the west still retains a strong force until modern times and even modern times, which permeates all aspects of educational activities. This is not only because education has a strong religious color, but more importantly, it endows western education with internal spiritual value. Therefore, western missionary schools were once popular. In family education, parents also attach great importance to religious spiritual beliefs. For example, before eating, we should thank God. Everything you do should be judged by the standards of God in your heart. All family members should go to church for mass on weekends and keep the pure land in our hearts forever. This strong religious concept in the west often makes some educators think that religion and education can be reconciled.
To sum up, we can see that Chinese and western family education traditions have their own advantages and are rooted in their own traditional cultural soil. A large part of the unhealthy phenomenon in family education that we encounter at present is caused by improper specific educational methods. On the one hand, we should inherit and carry forward the fine tradition of ancient family education in China; on the other hand, we should absorb the essence of western family education and promote the reform of family education with China characteristics.
Comparison between Chinese and Western Education —— Teach people to fish or teach people to fish?
Parents often ask: how old is the child sent to school? Is the basic education abroad relatively weak? In fact, the discussion about which is better between Chinese and western education has been going on, and this issue has also become the focus of the groups interested in studying abroad. Learn more information, compare more, and see which method is more suitable for everyone. Middle school students in China win various awards in the Olympic Games every year. However, China's universities and scientific research institutions have not yet produced Nobel Prize winners.
Why do children in China lead at the starting point, but fall behind at the finish line?
Darlene Jaeger is an art teacher in a primary school in the suburb of Cincinnati, a midwestern city in the United States, and a work-study student at the University of Miami. As a visiting exchange teacher, Darlene went to Kunming, China for nearly two months for academic exchange. Her academic exchange plan contains three basic contents:
The first is to give art lessons to children in China (mainly painting and handicrafts);
Second, academic exchanges with domestic teachers in art teaching;
Thirdly, because she is an on-the-job student at the University of Miami, this trip to China can be used as an independent self-study internship.
During her teaching exchange in Kunming, Darlene once put forward the idea of "Happy Festival" for children in China to paint, because she saw the high level of children's painting in China. As a result, she found that many children were drawing the same thing-Christmas tree! She felt very strange: why is everyone drawing a Christmas tree? At first, she thought maybe China's children were more friendly. She thought she was a westerner, so she painted "Happy Festival" as Christmas. So, she was relieved.
Then she found something was wrong: why are all Christmas trees painted the same? After careful observation, she found that the children's eyes were all in the same direction. She followed the children's eyes and found a Christmas tree painted on the wall. It turned out that it was near Christmas, which was painted by the school to create a friendly and harmonious atmosphere for Darlene.
So Darlene covered the Christmas tree on the wall and asked the children to create a picture to express the theme of "Happy Holidays". To her great disappointment and surprise, after putting the Christmas tree on the wall, the children scratched their heads, bit their pens and stared at each other. You look at me, I look at you and think hard, but they can't write.
Darlene saw this embarrassing scene and knew it might be an unhappy ending, so she had to uncover the Christmas tree on the wall again. ...
Darlene's example deeply shocked me! There are two misunderstandings in basic education in China. First, it pays too much attention to the imparting of knowledge and neglects the cultivation of ability. Second, it is believed that laying the foundation in the primary stage and doing research in the advanced stage separate laying the foundation from doing research, and it has always been believed that only when the foundation is rich can the research ability be cultivated. Creativity, critical thinking, independent thinking, problem-solving ability and other qualities, like seeds, need a good growth environment. If a seed is not properly cared for, fertilized and irrigated during its development, and there is no good growth environment, it will be stunted. When the stunted seeds grow to a certain extent, or even have basically taken shape, they can be transplanted into a good environment. Although it can also be a useful material, at least it is difficult to become a towering pillar.
Most parents in China believe that foreign higher education is developed and domestic basic education is solid. Only by combining the two can we achieve the best educational effect. Therefore, some parents let their children learn the basic knowledge of various courses at home, and then cultivate various abilities abroad to let their children develop in an all-round way.
Is that really the case?
Comparison of Chinese and Western Educational Views
The fundamental problem of education is what kind of people to train and how to train them. On this fundamental issue, different educational values have different training objectives and teaching methods. Chinese and western educational values are different, and there are also great differences in the specific requirements and practices of cultivating people.
The concepts of giving and receiving education and autonomous education.
The concept of giving and receiving education and the concept of independent education are two fundamentally different educational values. Giving and receiving education is basically based on book knowledge, classroom teaching as the position and teacher activities as the center. Through teachers' speaking, students' listening, teachers' reading from the book, and students' listening, book knowledge is passed on to students. From family to school, from school to family, this traditional giving and receiving education has really cultivated children's obedient habits and played a certain role in inheriting fine traditions, mastering knowledge and standardizing behavior. Our primary and secondary school students have a solid basic knowledge and good moral behavior, and they have achieved excellent results in the Olympic Games, which is undoubtedly inseparable from the dedication and education of our school and family.
Autonomous education is the dominant idea of family and school education in western countries. It is based on respect and trust for children, providing them with full and free development opportunities and letting them learn to manage themselves. In family education, western countries first treat children as human beings and adults, give them rights, respect their personality and treat them equally; The second is to give children freedom, without coercion and bondage, and more is encouragement, inspiration and induction; The third is to provide more opportunities for children's minds to develop freely as much as possible, so that growing people can explore their own life path, so that developing people can tap their potential abilities, develop their interests, do what they want to do according to their own wishes, and constantly enhance their sense of social responsibility in the process of learning while doing, learn to manage themselves and become a responsible citizen.
Of course, the learner's autonomy is not completely divorced from the teacher's leadership. Teachers are not only regarded as helpers and guides, but also good at inducing and helping students to stand on their own feet. Independent education advocated by western countries is not as good as ours in knowledge inheritance, and students' moral quality and behavior norms are not as good as ours. They may take some detours on the road of exploring knowledge and life. However, once they master the law of self-development and initiative, they will become masters of their own destiny, thus giving full play to their creativity. The basic education in western countries is really not as solid as ours. However, the proportion of Nobel Prize winners in western countries is the highest, so this cannot be said. Open and independent education.
Holistic education view and individual education view
The Ninth Five-year Plan for People's Republic of China (PRC)'s National Economic and Social Development and the Outline of 20 10 Long-term Goals adopted at the Fourth Session of the Eighth National People's Congress clearly stated in its strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education that it is necessary to "reform the talent training mode and change the exam-oriented education into comprehensive quality education". So far, "quality education" has finally changed from an administrative call to a legally binding national will to cultivate people with all-round development in morality, intelligence and physique. This side puts forward higher requirements for human development, requiring all students to carry out the whole teaching process and achieve high-level training goals. However, judging from the overall level of social development in China, it is still quite difficult to fully implement this policy.
While western countries emphasize personality development. It is believed that the real significance of education lies in developing human potential, developing human personality and realizing human value. From family education to school education, from school education to social education, western countries attach great importance to providing students with opportunities to develop their personalities. Western countries believe that personality development is based on everyone's actual needs, and actual needs depend on individual characteristics, on people's special way of existence and their internal self-purpose. Cultivating people with personality is conducive to personal development and meets the needs of the country.
"Talent" and "All-rounder" Education Concept
For more than ten years, China's basic education has been running on a single track of one-sided pursuit of enrollment rate, which is mostly caused by historical and practical reasons such as low proportion of college students, following the Soviet education model and cultivating talents according to the planned economy. An important feature of pursuing the enrollment rate is that students are divided into one, two and three grades according to the scores of the senior high school entrance examination; According to the enrollment rate of students, schools are divided into one, two and three categories, and students can only enter different types of schools according to their scores. A class of schools is under great pressure, fearing that their exam results are not good and their top brands will be removed. They have to be given special treatment in terms of funds, equipment and teachers at all costs to ensure the cultivation of top students. Second-class schools hold a glimmer of hope, ignore the laws of education, increase the burden on students, keep poor students out of the school, and focus only on a few students with prospects for further study, resulting in some students failing to pass the exam because of their professional expertise. As for the three types of schools, you can imagine. This kind of talent education has pushed China's education to the track of vicious circle, and the road to training talents is getting narrower and narrower.
However, education in western countries is different from ours. In most European and American countries, the popularization rate of higher education is very high, and the pressure of going to school is low. Colleges and universities are closely related to the development of economy, society and employment. Coupled with the positive investment and virtuous circle in education for many years, "generalist" education has become the mainstream of educational reform in western countries. Some countries combine general education with talent education, and make proportional distribution according to the needs of national economic and social development.
The concept of bitter education and the concept of music education
Our Chinese nation has always had the virtue of being hard-working and determined to win. Parents always use the fighting spirit of "hanging their heads" and "biting their bones" to motivate their children to learn. Some children have been taught to read and write numbers since childhood, and they can recite 300 Tang poems at the age of three or four. However, in today's 2 1 century, it is far from meeting the needs of the development of modern society to be satisfied with being able to recite, endure hardships and get high marks. The idea of studying hard, studying hard, studying tirelessly and practicing hard, thinking that as long as you work hard, you can become a master, which not only fails to cultivate creative thinking talents, but also is harmful. Sometimes, studying hard is even harmful to the physical and mental health of teenagers.
Basic education in western countries attaches importance to students' ability to accept. For example, primary school teachers and students complete the tasks of "teaching" and "learning" in the process of discussion, games and hands-on. Students have little homework, so they have a light burden, and they study easily, happily and freely. Every course in middle school is a credit system. If you study enough time, you can graduate. Without the pressure of exams, students have more time to do what they want to do. This teaching method is flexible and not boring, vivid and not boring, applicable and effortless, which is conducive to the physical and mental development and healthy growth of teenagers, to the development of students' personality, and to students' participation in more social activities and interpersonal communication. Therefore, it is more effective to acquire more extensive knowledge than to study hard.
Enlightenment of comparison
A Chinese-American doctor of education wrote in his article that his son began to engage in "research" when he was still in the second grade of primary school in the West. One day, when he came back from school, his son pestered him to go to the library as soon as he entered the door, saying that he was doing research on blue whales and wanted to go to the library to find reference materials.
I took my son to two libraries and brought back a dozen books about blue whales, all of which were about blue whales and whales. My son finally finished his first research report: The Blue Whale. A "paper" consists of three loose-leaf pages. The first one is the cover, which shows a blue whale with teeth and tail. In front of the blue whale, a group of shrimps were carefully drawn with a pen. This document contains four sub-themes:
1. Introduction;
2. What do blue whales eat?
3. How do blue whales eat?
4. The uniqueness of the blue whale.
The doctor thinks this is the shortest paper he has ever seen in his life. Of course, this is also one of his most interested papers. The question is not how much my son knows about blue whales in this study. He is more interested in what children get from this research. What have you learned? From the beginning, the child assumed a serious attitude of doing research. Collecting information, reading, looking for opinions, sorting out articles ... step by step, meticulous. From deciding the topic, to finding useful materials for their own research from those dozens of books, and then writing articles, children are always in a state of independent work. He must think with his own brain, screen materials and decide the direction of "research" ... This harvest is more valuable than knowing how heavy and long the blue whale is.
Children's research ability has not stopped, and it is constantly developing. When he was in the second grade, his so-called research was just collecting and sorting out the information of his predecessors. In the fifth grade, his so-called subject research changed from simple material arrangement to problem research. He has begun to be able to ask his own questions and put forward his own unique opinions. Although his research is still scattered, not rigorous and scientific, the sense of innovation and independence contained in it is obvious.
Western schools encourage children to do research from an early age and cultivate their research ability. Because many western educators believe that doing "research" can cultivate children's ability to think independently, deal with problems independently, sort out research materials and use research methods, and at the same time learn book knowledge and practical knowledge through research. However, under the restriction of exam-oriented education and the influence of traditional ideas, Chinese schools adopt a two-stage strategy of laying the foundation in the primary stage and learning in the advanced stage.
"It is better to teach people to fish than to teach people to fish." Western countries boast of China's old saying, which has a profound philosophy. Our nation's profound educational ideas have been "China-oriented" to "foreign-oriented". Method is very important. It is more valuable for parents to consciously teach their children methods to enable them to acquire the ability to find and solve problems than to instill ready-made knowledge in their children. More importantly, the ability of "fish" is a feature of sustainable development, which will bring more "fish" to children in the future.
Many parents have decided to let their children receive a solid basic education in China, and then go abroad for further study when conditions are ripe, so that western higher education can cultivate their creative thinking. If children can combine with western basic education on the premise of retaining the advantages of traditional basic education in China, we will have a large number of scientific and technological talents with fast start and sufficient strength, and there will be winners from China on the podium of the 2 1 century Nobel Prize; At the same time, there will be more China people on the international stage in 2 1 century!