Whitehead’s University Education Thoughts And Revelations To The Reform Of Chinese Universities

Alfred North Whitehead,(Alfred North Whitehead,1861-1947) was born in aneducation family, devoted all his life to the education career, had been teachingsuccessively at the university of Cambridge, university of London and HarvardUniversity for more than50years. Although the education thought has had a profoundeffect in Europe and the United States, but not many domestic scholars studied on it.Therefore, this article will do a more in-depth research on the whitehead’s universityeducation thoughts, and the paper is divided into four chapters:The first chapter is the introduction of this paper, which includes the cause of doingthe research, the situation of domestic research, the theoretical and practical significanceof this topic research, and the innovation of this article.The second chapter analyze whitehead`s university education thoughts from theangle of the process philosophy (the philosophy of organic), including: process principle,relevance theory and creative principle.The third chapter is the main part of this paper, approach and sort out universityeducation thoughts that appear in the books of "the Aims of Education" and "whiteheadWen Lu", involves five aspects, which are the purpose of university education, the roleof university education, the principle of courses offered, the principle of universityeducation and the management of universities.Firstly, this paper discusses the aims of university education that is to trainqualified people who both is literate and has professional knowledge. Meanwhile,analyzes the meaning of the culture and the professional knowledge.Secondly, three functions of university education on the society: universities mixvarious activities in order to make the human society progress unceasingly, train theintellectuals pioneer for the civilization and put up a bridge between the knowledge andthe passion of pursuing life; And three functions of university education on people: tocultivate students’ creativity and adventure spirit, to offer the imagination filled withwisdom for students, to encourage and promote students "self-development".Thirdly, the paper discusses three principles of courses offered: the curriculummust conform to the education rhythm, university course embodies the integrity of the knowledge, university curriculum must face to the life world. Such courses may bebased on the principle of process and integrity of the organic philosophy.Fourthly, this paper discusses three principles of the university education: to teachknowledge in creative ways, to guide to make students study, and to make students getrid of detail in order to master principle.Finally, there are some views on the university management: One is the democraticmanagement and academic freedom. Because in Whitehead`s view, teachers’ opinionsand passion are the only guarantee to make an excellent university, and the free spirit ofacademic environment to help create a personalized products; Another is to build a highquality team of teachers. In Whitehead`s education idea,of high quality teachers shouldhave imaginative academic knowledge, can arouse the wisdom and beauty in life, tokeep intellectual vigor; The last is to formulate the way to evaluate personalizedteachers in mind and pay attention to the value of spiritual products. Whitehead thinkpersonalized way of evaluating teacher can be suitable for some teachers whosethoughts are extremely rich, and he also proposed an appropriate evaluation method toevaluate overall efficiency of teacher groups, that is, depending on the contribution interms of ideology in the form of paper book.The fourth chapter, the author uses whitehead’s university education thoughts forreference, combine the present situation of our university education, and puts forwardfive enlightenments on university reform in our country: University should traincultural college students; University should carry out integration education; Universityteachers should impart knowledge in an imaginative way; University should be thebridge between the knowledge and the enthusiasm in pursuit of life; Universitymanagement should not be commercial or administrative.Whitehead’s university education thoughts is creative and based on the organicphilosophy, prehend the education thoughts, and do the adventure of ideas, leading toconcrescence. Let us appreciate the excellent establishment of education thoughts of the20th century, it is the thought and theory that will help us observe, insight and analysisthe education thoughts and education practice of our country, so as to promote theinnovation and reform of university education effectively today!...