On The Education Idea From Marx’s Practice Perspective

As a cultivating activity, education takes its focus on training people’s living skillsand shaping their minds. By way of cultural inheritance, it is also instrumental tohistorical development. Therefore, what kind of people deserve being cultivated and howthey are cultivated remain the kernel issue of education.A better understanding of the kernel issue of education demands philosophicalexplorations at a higher level of educational ideas, e.g. to examine human nature andrules through a philosophical perspective before educational activities can be directed tothe right direction. In history, different philosophical perspectives led to the formation ofdifferent educational ideas, while continued transformation of philosophical perspectivesbrought about repeated innovations in educational ideas. In this respect, the renewedMarxist philosophy constitutes a new philosophical perspective for us to reexaminetraditional educational ideas.With perceptual activity and practice as his starting point, Karl Marx has establisheda new philosophical perspective through his rebuttal of the one-sidedness of directmaterialistic perspective, the abstractness of idealistic perspective, and theinstrumentality of utilitarian perspective. According to Marxist practice perspective,practice is the prime drive of historical development. In its nature practice is defined as afree and conscious activity on the part of human beings and therefore its ultimate goal isnothing but the realization of a free human personality.When traditional educational ideas are examined through Marxist practiceperspective, we find that, when it comes to the understanding of human nature and rules,traditional educational ideas are limited for their lack of reasonable philosophicalperspective. For instance, the educational ideas of abstract naturalism do not offer aperspective of historical development; the educational ideas of mechanical materialismdo not offer a humanitarian perspective; the educational ideas of abstract idealism do notoffer a perspective of reality; and the educational ideas of one-sided instrumentalism donot offer a perspective of free personality. Unlike the above perspectives, Marxistpractice perspective has its own renovated understanding of human nature and rules:Humans are real individuals endowed with life and consciousness, the nature of humanscomes down to a universal and free being, and human nature in reality constitutes the totality of all social relations. It further proposes that the rules of human developmentindicate a constant return to man’s own nature and an individual’s constant socializationgoverned by the rules of opposition and unification. Such is the renovated understandingof Marxist practice perspective in educational ideas, which will generate significantguidance to the current education in China.While contemporary education in China has made much progress in the newsituation enhanced by reform and open-up policies, some inadequacies remainundesirable. For instance, in market economy, too much desire for material gains leads toa fetish for immediate gains on the part of some educators; a partial understanding ofinstrumental rationality leads to a stylized educational process; and a gradual loss of thepursuit of noble spirit leads to vulgarization on the part of those being educated, to nameonly a few. To solve these problems, Marxist practice perspective in educational ideasprovides us guidance in direction and revelation in reality. Marxist practice perspectivein educational ideas states that education must be performed at a philosophical altitudeand human nature and its developing rules should be completely and accuratelyunderstood before the ultimate goal can be realized of a free and overall development inhuman education.