China Students' Core Literacy and Its Cultivation
2015165438+1October 17 08:53
Source: "Primary and Secondary School Management" 20 15 No.09 Author: Chutian Yizihao
Abstract: Since 1990s, international organizations, the United States, Singapore and other countries have successively constructed the framework of students' core literacy. China should determine the core literacy according to the requirements of human development and social development, highlight the "key minority" literacy, and concretize the core literacy into a phased requirement for the specific quality development of students of different classes. To cultivate students' core literacy, we need to start with the development of curriculum system, the improvement of teaching methods, the improvement of teachers' quality and the reform of evaluation.
Keywords: core literacy "2 1 century literacy" PISA test interdisciplinary literacy "teacher education 2 1 framework"
National quality determines national competitiveness, and national core literacy determines a country's core competitiveness and international status. Since the 1990s, "core literacy" has become an important topic in the fields of educational policy, educational practice and educational research in various countries around the world, and international organizations and many countries or regions have successively constructed the framework of students' core literacy. Core literacy has become the leading concept of educational reform in all countries, leading and inspiring key educational activities such as curriculum reform, teaching method reform, teachers' professional development and teaching quality evaluation.
First, the core literacy framework for foreign students
Since 1997, international organizations such as the Organization for International Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the European Union (EU) have successively carried out research on core literacy. Influenced by it, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Finland, Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan Province Province of China are also actively developing core literacy frameworks. This paper mainly introduces the core literacy framework formulated by several representative international organizations and the United States (representatives of western countries) and Singapore (representatives of Asian countries with the same Confucian cultural background as China).
1. The framework of students' core literacy of three international organizations
From 1997 to 12, OECD launched the project "Definition and Selection of Literacy: Theoretical and Conceptual Basis", and identified nine literacy in three dimensions. (1) You can use tools interactively. Including three qualities: the interactive use of language, symbols and texts; Interactive use of knowledge and information; Interactive use of (new) technologies. (2) Being able to interact in heterogeneous groups. Including three qualities: understanding the external environment, predicting the consequences of one's actions, and being able to determine one's specific actions in a complex environment; Form and implement personal plans or life plans; Knowing your rights and obligations can protect and safeguard your rights and interests, and you also know your limitations and shortcomings. (3) Be able to act independently. Including three qualities: building a good relationship with others; Teamwork; Managing and resolving conflicts. [1] This framework has a direct impact on PISA testing, and then it has an important impact on the core literacy framework formulated by many countries and regions.
From June, 5438 to February, 2006, the European Union passed a proposal on core literacy, which includes eight fields: mother tongue, foreign language, mathematics and scientific literacy, information literacy, learning ability, civic and social literacy, entrepreneurship and artistic literacy, and each field is composed of three dimensions: knowledge, skills and attitude. As the overall target system of EU education and training system, the core idea of these core qualities is to enable all EU citizens to have lifelong learning ability, so as to realize the ideal of personal success and social and economic development in the challenge of globalization and knowledge economy.
20 13 February, UNESCO released the report "Towards lifelong learning-what every child should learn". Based on humanism, the report puts forward the core literacy, that is, the transformation from "instrumental goal" (training students as tools to improve productivity) to "human goal", so that people's emotional, intellectual, physical and psychological potential and quality can be developed through learning. In the basic education stage, we pay special attention to the core literacy in seven dimensions: physical health, social emotion, culture and art, written communication, learning methods and cognition, numbers and mathematics, and science and technology.
2. Core literacy framework of American students
The United States formulated the framework of "2 1 century literacy" in 2002, and released an updated version of this framework in 2007, which comprehensively and clearly presented various literacy and their relationships (see figure 1).
The American "2 1 century literacy" framework takes core disciplines as the carrier and establishes three skill fields, each of which contains several literacy requirements. (1) Learning and innovative skills. Including critical thinking and problem solving, creativity and innovation, communication and cooperation. (2) Information, media and technical skills. Including information literacy, media literacy, information exchange and scientific literacy. (3) Life and vocational skills. Including flexibility and adaptability, initiative and self-guidance, social and cross-cultural skills, work efficiency and ability, leadership and sense of responsibility. [2]
3. Core Literacy Framework for Students in Singapore
20 10 in March, the Ministry of Education of Singapore promulgated the framework of "2 1 century literacy" for Singaporean students (see Figure 2). Among them, the core values include respect, responsibility, honesty, care, persistence and harmony. Social and emotional management skills include self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, interpersonal relationship management and responsible decision-making. Civic awareness, global awareness and cross-cultural communication skills, including active community life, national and cultural identity, global awareness, cross-cultural sensitivity and awareness. Critical and innovative thinking includes rational reasoning and decision-making, reflective thinking, curiosity and creativity, complexity and fuzziness. Communication, cooperation and information skills, including openness, information management, responsible use of information and effective communication.
The teaching of all subjects in the school is to cultivate these qualities, and finally cultivate people who are full of confidence, who can take the initiative to learn, who are actively dedicated and who care about the motherland.
Second, how to determine the core literacy framework of Chinese students?
It is a huge research project to determine the framework and specific indicators of China students' core literacy. On the basis of drawing lessons from the above-mentioned international organizations and national student core literacy frameworks, some principled suggestions are put forward.
1. Determine the core literacy according to the requirements of human development and social development.
The Outline of the National Medium-and Long-Term Education Reform and Development Plan (20 10-2020) proposes to "establish a scientific concept of quality, and take promoting students' all-round development and adapting to social needs as the fundamental standard to measure the quality of education", and also take promoting people's all-round development and adapting to social needs as the standard to formulate the framework of students' core literacy.
Core literacy is a collection of personal qualities necessary for lifelong development, integration into the mainstream society and full employment. These qualities are necessary for children and adults to live a responsible and successful life in a modern democratic society and for society to meet the current and future challenges of technological change and globalization. The purpose of developing core literacy is to cultivate people with work skills and core competitiveness in the 2 1 century, to ensure that the skills learned by students in school can fully meet the needs of subsequent university study or social employment, and to become competent social citizens, employees and leaders in the 2 1 century.
The determination of the core literacy framework must be contemporary and forward-looking. From a global perspective, the selection of core literacy reflects the latest requirements of the development of social economy and scientific and technological informatization, emphasizing innovation and creation, information literacy, international perspective, communication and exchange, teamwork, social participation and social contribution, self-planning and management, etc. Although the contents are different, they are all designed to meet the challenges of 2 1 century. These are all worth learning from.
The determination of core literacy framework should have both personal value and social value, and combine them organically. Personal cultivation can not be divorced from the specific social environment, but should adapt to and promote social change and social progress.
2. Highlight the literacy of "key minority"
Many foreign core literacy frameworks are different, and some take the "comprehensive route", which covers almost all the literacy of students; Some take the "simple route" and only involve some key and high-level literacy. For our country, we think the latter is more suitable.
It is called "core literacy" because these qualities are not ordinary, but "core literacy". The definition of core literacy should be: the "necessary" character and "key" ability needed to adapt to personal lifelong development and social development, and it is the most critical and necessary literacy that all students should have. In other words, core literacy is the "core" knowledge, ability and attitude that students should have in the 2 1 century.
Under the background of globalization, the scope of core literacy will be certain, such as the requirements for information literacy; However, due to different national conditions (such as different key issues facing national development), the content will also be different. As far as China is concerned, there are two core qualities that must be strongly emphasized. The first is the ability to innovate. This is the biggest shortcoming of education in China. The second is democratic literacy. All-round social progress in China requires speeding up the process of political democratization, and further requires cultivating students' democratic literacy.