高英第七册UnitSeven.doc

Unit Seven
Text I
The Aims of Education
Pre-reading Brainstorming:
1) What are the aims of education?
2) What is teaching and what should teachers teach?
3) Do you agree that “education is a procession of packing articles in a trunk” or “education is the assimilation of food by a living organism”? (P127) Why or why not?
4) What is the author’s understanding of the aims of education?
Or:
a) Have you ever thought about the aims of education? What are they? To learn general knowledge? To learn a skill? To pass examinations? To get prepared for a good job? And what else? List as many objectives of education as you can think of.
b) In the Preface to his collection of essays on education, Whitehead stated explicitly, “the whole book is a protest against dead knowledge.” What do you think is the view of  Whitehead concerning the aims of education in this essay?
★ to develop the student intellectually so that he can make discoveries of his own --- Whitehead
★ Webster defines education as the process of educating or teaching (now that's really useful, isn't it?) Educate is further defined as "to develop the knowledge, skill, or character of..." Thus, from these definitions, we might assume that the purpose of education is to develop the knowledge, skill, or character of students. Unfortunately, this definition offers little unless we further define words such as develop, knowledge, and character. 
★ In ancient Greece, Socrates argued that education was about drawing out what was already within the student. (As many of you know, the word education comes from the Latin e-ducere meaning "to lead out.")
★ Teaching is the establishment of an environment for effective learning.
The definition widens the role of a teacher beyond that of “presenter” to that of a diagnostician, planner, consultant, assessor & evaluator.
Articles from internet for reference:
THE MEANING OF EDUCATION
Recently, a university professor wrote a letter to the editor of the local newspaper. He commented that people shouldn't put too much weight on the recently released trends in SRA scores of the state's high school students. The professor went on to describe some of the unanswered questions about the nature and value of assessment. He mentioned that one of the problems with assessment was the ongoing disagreement on the very purpose of education. 
A few days later, a scathing response was printed from a community member who questioned whether the University really wanted someone on their staff who didn't even know the purpose of education. Clearly, this person assumed that his definition of education was shared by all. What is the meaning of education? 
Webster defines education as the process of educating or teaching (now that's really useful, isn't it?) Educate is further defined as "to develop the knowledge, skill, or character of..." Thus, from these definitions, we might assume that the purpose of education is to develop the knowledge, skill, or character of students. Unfortunately, this definition offers little unless we further define words such as develop, knowledge, and character. 
What is meant by knowledge? Is it a body of information that exists "out there"—apart from the human thought processes that developed it? If we look at the standards and benchmarks that have been developed by many states—or at E. D. Hirsch's list of information needed for Cultural Literacy (1), we might assume this to be the definition of knowledge. However, there is considerable research leading others to believe that knowledge arises in the mind of an individual when that person interacts with an idea or experience. 
This is hardly a new argument. In ancient Greece, Socrates argued that education was about drawing out what was already within the student. (As many of you know, the word education comes from the Latin e-ducere meaning "to lead out.") At the same time, the Sophists, a group of itinerant teachers, promised to give students the necessary knowledge and skills to gain positions with the city-state.
There is a dangerous tendency to assume that when people use the same words, they perceive a situation in the same way. This is rarely the case. Once one gets beyond a dictionary definition—a meaning that is often of little practical value—the meaning we assign to a word is a belief, not an absolute fact. Here are a couple of examples.
“The central task of education is to implant a will and facility for learning; it should produce not learned but learning people. The truly human society is a learning society, where grandparents, parents, and children are students together.” ~Eric Hoffer

“No one has yet realized the wealth of sympathy, the kindness and generosity hidden in the soul of a child. The effort of every true education should be to unlock that treasure.” ~Emma Goldman

“The only purpose of education is to teach a student how to live his life-by developing his mind and equipping him to deal with reality. The training he needs is theoretical, i.e., conceptual. He has to be taught to think, to understand, to integrate, to prove. He has to be taught the essentials of the knowledge discovered in the past-and he has to be equipped to acquire further knowledge by his own effort.” ~Ayn Rand

“The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think—rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men.” ~Bill Beattie

“The one real object of education is to leave a man in the condition of continually asking questions.” ~Bishop Creighton

“The central job of schools is to maximize the capacity of each student.” ~Carol Ann Tomlinson
These quotations demonstrate the diversity of beliefs about the purpose of education. How would you complete the statement, "The purpose of education is..."? If you ask five of your fellow teachers to complete that sentence, it is likely that you'll have five different statements. Some will place the focus on knowledge, some on the teacher, and others on the student. Yet people's beliefs in the purpose of education lie at the heart of their teaching behaviors.
Despite what the letter writer might have wished, there is no definition of education that is agreed upon by all, or even most, educators. The meanings they attach to the word are complex beliefs arising from their own values and experiences. To the extent that those beliefs differ, the experience of students in today's classrooms can never be the same. Worse, many educators have never been asked to state their beliefs—or even to reflect on what they believe. At the very least, teachers owe it to their students to bring their definitions into consciousness and examine them for validity.
Purposes and Functions
To make matters more complicated, theorists have made a distinction between the purpose of education and the functions of education.(2) A purpose is the fundamental goal of the process—an end to be achieved. Functions are other outcomes that may occur as a natural result of the process— byproducts or consequences of schooling. For example, some teachers believe that the transmission of knowledge is the primary purpose of education, while the transfer of knowledge from school to the real world is something that happens naturally as a consequence of possessing that knowledge—a function of education.
Because a purpose is an expressed goal, more effort is put into attaining it. Functions are assumed to occur without directed effort. For this reason it's valuable to figure out which outcomes you consider a fundamental purpose of education. Which of the following do you actually include in your planning?
Acquisition of information about the past and present: includes traditional disciplines such as literature, history, science, mathematics
Formation of healthy social and/or
formal relationships among and
between students, teachers, others
Capacity/ability to evaluate information and to predict future outcomes (decision-making)
Capacity/ability to seek out alternative solutions and evaluate them (problem solving)
Development of mental and physical skills: motor, thinking, communication, social, aesthetic
Knowledge of moral practices and
ethical standards acceptable by society/culture
Capacity/ability to recognize and evaluate different points of view
Respect: giving and receiving recognition as human beings
Indoctrination into the culture
Capacity/ability to live a fulfilling life
Capacity/ability to earn a living: career education
Sense of well-being: mental and physical health
Capacity/ability to be a good citizen
Capacity/ability to think creatively
Cultural appreciation: art, music, humanities
Understanding of human relations and motivations
Acquisition/clarification of values related to the physical environment
Acquisition/clarification of personal values
Self-realization/self-reflection: awareness of one’s abilities and goals
Self-esteem/self-efficacy
As Tom Peters reminds us, "What gets measured, gets done."  Regardless of the high sounding rhetoric about the development of the total child, it is the content of assessments that largely drives education. How is the capacity/ability to think creatively assessed in today's schools? To what extent is the typical student recognized and given respect? How often are students given the opportunity to recognize and evaluate different points of view when multiple choice tests require a single 'correct' answer?
Teachers who hold a more humanistic view of the purpose of education often experience stress because the meaning they assign to education differs greatly from the meaning assigned by society or their institution. It is clear in listening to the language of education that its primary focus is on knowledge and teaching rather than on the learner. Students are expected to conform to schools rather than schools serving the needs of students.
Stopping to identify and agree upon a fundamental purpose or purposes of education is rare. One sees nebulous statements in school mission statements, but they are often of the “Mom, baseball, and apple pie” variety that offer little substance on which to build a school culture. Creating meaningful and lasting change in education is unlikely without revisiting this basic definition. At the very least, educators must be challenged to identify and reexamine their beliefs in the light of present knowledge.
It is time for the focus of education to shift from what's "out there—the curriculum, assessments, classroom arrangement, books, computers—to the fundamental assumptions about and definitions of education held by educators and policymakers.  NASA did not send men to the moon by building on the chassis of a model T. In the same way, education cannot hope to move beyond its present state on the chassis of 18th century education.
References
1 Hirsch, E. D. Jr. (1987). Cultural Literacy. Houghton Mifflin (Return to article)
2 Callaway, R. (1979) Teachers' Beliefs Concerning Values and the Functions and Purposes of Schooling, Eric Document Reproduction Service No. ED 177 110 (Return to article)
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 Teacher's Mind Resources

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Education
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Education encompasses teaching and learning specific skills, and also something less tangible but more profound: the imparting of knowledge, positive judgment and well-developed wisdom. Education has as one of its fundamental aspects the imparting of culture from generation to generation (see socialization). Education means 'to draw out', facilitating realisation of self-potential and latent talents of an individual. It is an application of pedagogy, a body of theoretical and applied research relating to teaching and learning and draws on many disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, computer science, linguistics, neuroscience, sociology and anthropology. [1]
The education of an individual human begins at birth and continues throughout life. (Some believe that education begins even before birth, as evidenced by some parents' playing music or reading to the baby in the womb in the hope it will influence the child's development.) For some, the struggles and triumphs of daily life provide far more instruction than does formal schooling (thus Mark Twain's admonition to "never let school interfere with your education"). Family members may have a profound educational effect — often more profound than they realize — though family teaching may function very informally.
Main Idea:
In This passage the author sets forth his views on education and stresses the need to recognize the interdependence among various disciplines and to avoid the narrowness of perspective that he felt characterizes much of a university education.
Purpose of writing and Tone
To advocate the aims of education; in a serious manner;
Or: To provide the student with a good knowledge of both classical and modern literature so that he can utilize ideas.
Organization and Development:
Part One: (P1- 3) clarifying some key notions concerning education
P1--- distinction between culture and training;
P2-3 --- Inert ideas are not only useless but even harmful to education
Part Two: (P4 - 9) presenting his commandments/instructions/advice
P4 --- Two educational commandments
P5 --- Ideas should be combined and put into application
P6 --- The understanding provided by the literary side of education:
the joining of ideas
P7- 8 --- The understanding provided by the scientific side of education:
The proof of ideas; proposition should be used in combination
P9 --- The relation between theory and utilization
Comprehension Questions:
1) Whitehead makes an important distinction in the first para. What is it? How do you interpret it?
---The distinction between culture and training.
Training refers to the acquisition of skills and information, which is part of education, but not the most essential part; culture refers to the cultivation of the ability to think, to make discovery, which is ultimate aim of education.
2) What does “it” in line 26 refer to?
---an intellectual revolution
3) What is the topic sentence of paragraph 3?
How is it supported in the paragraph?
---Inert ideas are not only useless but even harmful.
Schools of learning, overladen with inert ideas, exhibit pedantry炫学, 假装学者, 卖弄学问 and routine.
Women, who are uneducated and thus not infected with inert ideas, are the more cultured part of their community.
Intellectual revolutions fail to have the desired effect whey they, in their turn, bind humanity with inert ideas of their own fashion.
4) How is a turn of direction indicated?
---beginning from para. 4. Whitehead proceeds from criticisms of education to what should be done to guard against such ment