On Whitehead's Self-education Ideology

A.N.Whitehead(1861-1947)was an outstanding philosopher,mathematician and educational theorist in the twentieth Century.In recent years,the process philosophy has attracted the attention of all circles,and his educational thought that rooted in his philosophy is also concerned.Whitehead mentioned that students are flesh and blood,and the purpose of education is to stimulate and guide their self-development in the book named "The Aim of Education",and he also had a chapter named "education and self education" to discussed.in his opinion,the key of students' development is closely related to the students' themselves,the basic reason of growth is in the internal of students.Because of the influence of his philosophical thoughts,Whitehead's view of self-education has shown its unique features.In this study,the author makes a summary of his self-education thoughts,which mainly consists of four parts,each parts corresponds to a chapter:The first chapter is the introduction,which mainly discusses the research status of the topic,the review of self-education and Whitehead's self-education,the research content,the research methods and the research significance and the innovation of Whitehead's self-education thought.The second chapter mainly explores the philosophical basis of Whitehead's self-education thought,Whitehead's philosophy is profound and grand,this chapter only discusses the content which is closely related with self-education,namely,the categories of existence,and the theory of prehensions.The third chapter mainly explains Whitehead's thought of self-education,the becoming and creating of self is the internal mechanism of self-education,the function of relation is the external mechanism of self-education,and there have four characteristics of Whitehead's thought of self-education,contains that emotional prehension throughout self-education's process,the cognition of importance determines the value choice of self-education,ideals and beliefs maintains the power of self-education,and wisdom in life is the pursuit of self-education.The fourth chapter discusses Whitehead's self-education thought on the curriculum reform in primary and secondary schools in China,it is necessary to break through the limitations of others' education,education should focus on self education;and we should strengthen the ideal and belief education to keep self-education power;we should attach importance to the discipline system,training self-educated ability under the theme of life.