实用主义对美国高等教育课程改革的影响

实用主义对美国高等教育课程改革的影响

Impact of pragmatism on the american higher education curriculum reform

1.Introduction 1.1 Research meaning

Pragmatism as a philosophical movement began in the United States in the 1870s. Its direction was determined by The Metaphysical Club members Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and Chauncey Wright, as well as John Dewey and George Herbert Mead. The first use in print of the name pragmatism was in 18 by James, who credited Peirce with coining the term during the early 1870s. ames regarded Peirce's 1877–8 \"Illustrations of the Logic of Science\" series (including \"The Fixation of Belief\1878) as the foundation of pragmatism .Peirce in turn wrote in 1906 that Nicholas St. John Green had been instrumental by emphasizing the importance of applying Alexander Bain's definition of belief, which was \"that upon which a man is prepared to act.\" Peirce wrote that \"from this definition, pragmatism is scarce more than a corollary; so that I am disposed to think of him as the grandfather of pragmatism.\" John Shook has said, \"Chauncey Wright also deserves considerable credit, for as both Peirce and James recall, it was Wright who demanded a phenomenalist and fallibilist empiricism as an alternative to rationalistic speculation.\"

Pragmatism is based on the premise that the human capability to theorize is necessary for intelligent practice. Theory and practice are not separate spheres; rather, theories and distinctions are tools or maps for finding our way in the world. As John Dewey put it, there is no question of theory versus practice, but rather of intelligent practice versus uninformed practice.Dewey, in The Quest For Certainty, criticized what he called \"the philosophical fallacy\": philosophers often take categories (such as the mental and the physical) for granted because they don't realize that these are merely nominal concepts that were invented to help solve specific problems. This causes metaphysical and conceptual confusion. Various examples are the \"ultimate Being\" of Hegelian philosophers, the belief in a \"realm of value\concrete thought, has nothing to do with the act of concrete thinking, and so on. David L. Hildebrand sums up the problem: \"Perceptual inattention to the specific functions comprising

inquiry led realists and idealists alike to formulate accounts of knowledge that project the products of extensive abstraction back onto experience.\" 1.2 Learning goals

The coexistence and contention of the 20th century US Multiple college course thought that promoting its college course quality standardization constantly to enhance. These can make us realize that in same historical period, to achieve the common goal, the curriculum development should have many ways, should carry on the diverse exploration. Defends stubbornly the sole ossified curriculum guiding principle only to make the curriculum develop inflexible, bogs down, moves toward the homogenization, finally can only be a stagnant water deep pool. The curriculum contending of thoughts should run through the entire process that curriculum develops, only then contends, has the collision of thought that only then collides, can produce the new ideological spark. Studies the US college course thought to evolve, is helpful to us overcoming, because, in the college course practices does not pay great attention to eagerly anticipating of curriculum thought in the domain existing to create the blindness and disorder of the curriculum and curriculum reform and other unhealthy phenomena.

China, as a developing country, higher education is in a period of rapid expansion of the overall size, determine the conditions of the existing resources of higher education, the number of students in a relatively short period of time a substantial increase, will inevitably bring about a series of questions on the quality of education, This is also the stage of American higher education in the development process have experienced. Serious study of American higher education home during this period and its subsequent development stage of awareness of this issue, university courses ideological response to the adjustment and reform, this change will have a certain reference value on the construction of university courses. 1.3 Structure

Paper This paper is divided into four chapters:

The first chapter is a comprehensive elaboration research background and research significance of the text on the summary as well as the view of the article.

The second chapter is the literature review, through the profound influence on Dewey's thoughts, the United States the status quo of modern higher education in the United States of America and the pragmatism education reform to provide a theoretical basis for the research.

The third chapter mainly studies how the effect of higher education reform in the United States of America 's pragmatism

The fourth rules are condition to the US curriculum condition and development in prospect of future curriculum

2. Review literature

2.1 Dewey's Pragmatism

American pragmatism represents an activist development of Kant and Hegel idealism. As a theory of mutable truth, pragmatism claims that ideas are true insofar as they are useful in a specific situation -- what works today in one case may not work tomorrow in another case. The standard of moral truth is expediency. Ethical ideas are accepted as long as they continue to work. According to John Dewey (1859-1952) social pragmatism, what is true is that which works for a society (not for an individual) through the promotion of the public good. Dewey advocates a relativistic, secularized form of altruism that calls for sacrificing oneself to attain the ends of the People. In this view society, rather than the individual, passes moral judgment. Social policies are measured by their consequences instead of by abstract principles of what is right or just. There are no facts, no set rules of logic, no objectivity, and no certainty. There are only policies and proposals for social actions that must be treated as working hypotheses. The experience of consequences will indicate the need to keep or alter the original hypotheses.

For pragmatists -- knowledge of the world is impossible to separate from actions upon it. There is no reality out there -- both facts and values are products of men interacting with an environment and shaping it to their wills. Society, for Dewey, is something free men create out of their intellects and imaginations. An advocate of social malleability, he speaks of men reconstructing what they have experienced in order to impose a particular character on it, thereby bringing an explicit reality into being. Men are free to choose their own way of thinking and to create whatever reality they want to embrace. However, a man mind is conditioned by the collective thinking of other people. The mind is thus a social phenomenon -- truth is what works for the group.

It is participation in the common life of democratic society that realizes the freedom of the individual and produces growth in him and in society. Democracy expresses the consensus of the

collective -- society is a moral organism with a eneral will. Each man is to do his duty by adapting himself to the ever-changing views of the group. Men simply act. They usually do not and need not reflect before acting. The goal of thought is merely to reconstruct the situation in order to solve the problem. If the proposal, when implemented, resolves the issue, then the idea is pragmatically true. Truth cannot be known in advance of action. One must first act and then think. Only then can reality be determined.

Value judgments are to be made according to desires based on feelings. The test of one desire is its congruity with the majority of other men wishes, feelings, and values at that time. These, of course, can be examined and abandoned in a future context. Value judgments are instrumental, never completed, and therefore are corrigible. In the end it is feeling, for the pragmatist, that is paramount.

Dewey is primarily concerned with the democratic ideal and its realization in every sphere of life. He advocates education as a way to reconstruct children according to the pragmatist vision of man. Child-centered, rather than subject-centered, education treats the student as an acting being and therefore is focused on discrete, experiential projects. Dewey dismisses as irrelevant the teaching of fundamental knowledge such as reading, writing, math, and science. Both the educator and the students are to be flexible and tentative. The purpose of a school is to foster social consciousness. The child is to be taught to transcend the assimilation of truths and facts by learning to serve and adapt to others and to comply with the directives of their representatives. A disdain for reason and knowledge is thus combined with the practice of altruism (otherism) and collectivism. Like Marx, Dewey comprehended and appreciated the conflictual essence of the Hegelian dialectic. Dewey stressed the clash in the education process between the child and the curriculum and between the potential and talent of the student and the structure of an outmoded school system. The traditional curriculum, loaded down with formal subjects, was unsuited to the child active and immediate experience. Dewey saw children as alienated from their academic work because of a contradiction between the interests of the school and the real interests of the students. There was an incongruity between the values, goals, and means embodied in the experience of a mature adult and those of an undeveloped, immature being. The teaching of abstract, general principles, and eternal and external truths was beyond a child understanding and a barrier to the authentic growth and development of the child.

2.2 Higher education in the United States

Higher education in the United States includes a variety of institutions of higher education. Strong research and funding have helped make United States colleges and universities among the world's most prestigious, making them particularly attractive to international students, professors and researchers in the pursuit of academic excellence. According to the Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Academic Ranking of World Universities, more than 30 of the highest-ranked 45 institutions are in the United States (as measured by awards and research output). Public universities, private universities, liberal arts colleges, and community colleges all have a significant role in higher education in the United States.

The United States has a total of 4,495 Title IV-eligible, degree-granting institutions: 2,774 4-year institutions and 1,721 2-year institutions, an average of more than 115 per state. As of 2010, the US had 20.3 million students in higher education, roughly 5.7% of the total population.[4] About 14.6 million of these students were enrolled full-time.

The 2006 American Community Survey conducted by the United States Census Bureau found that 19.5 percent of the population had attended college but had no degree, 7.4 percent held an associate's degree, 17.1 percent held a bachelor's degree, and 9.9 percent held a graduate or professional degree. Only a small gender gap was present: 27 percent of the overall population held a bachelor's degree or higher, with a slightly larger percentage of men (27.9 percent) than women (26.2 percent). However, despite increasing economic incentives for people to obtain college degrees, the percentage of people graduating from high school and college has been declining as of 2008.70.1% of 2009 high school graduates enrolled in college. Historically, 76% of those who graduate in the lower 40% of their high school class will not obtain a college degree.

The survey found that the area with the highest percentage of people 25 years and over with a bachelor's degree was the District of Columbia (45.9 percent), followed by the states of Massachusetts (37 percent), Maryland (35.1 percent), Colorado (34.3 percent), and Connecticut (33.7 percent). The state with the lowest percentage of people 25 years and over with a bachelor's degree was West Virginia (16.5 percent), next lowest were Arkansas (18.2), Mississippi (18.8 percent), Kentucky (20 percent), and Louisiana (20.3 percent). 2.3 Influence of pragmatism on American education reform （1）On instructional objectives

Many years ago, criticism of Dewey's education is devoted to teaching materials to train the children \"formation said that\" Dewey pointed out that the achievements of adult education should not be a fixed goal, to respect children and nature, but also to respect, but also to respect yourself, which brings the children's nature towards the right path. Dewey against traditional education of \"teachers Center\Dewey focused on personal existing of capacity and special interest, Dewey made \"education that growth\congenital of capacity, do not impeded children growth by relies on of organ of development or makes they deformity development; to development children meet new situation of first spirit; do not too stressed training so as not to sacrifice personal of understands capacity, led to machinery of skills, to \"respect children period\\"respect growth of needs and time\Not to overlook the growth process for drilling. That school education is central in the work of promoting the growth of children, everything from the child's needs, to focus on the growth of children. \"Growth is characteristic of life, so education is growth; in other than its own, and no other purpose. ” （2）On teaching method

United States educational malpractice is mechanically with book knowledge of the past, \"reading\" become \"educated\" synonyms, this has resulted in education \"books\" or \"dogmatic\seriously hindered the development and education of children creative function of. Dewey's theory of \"learning by doing\" a comprehensive critique of the traditional education in the \"teacher-centered\cramming education students ' passive acceptance of cramming teaching methods, he focused on teachers, books, classroom of \"traditional\" in the criticism of the system. On the textbook issue, the traditional influence of education owing to the knowledge standard concept, using more contemporary teaching methods selection criteria. For teachers, mainly lectures, conversations, presentations and so on; and for students, are mainly lecture, exercises, and finish the job, teaching and learning methods and services to knowledge transfer and acceptance. Based on a critique of traditional schooling, Dewey made a \"learning by doing\" this basic principle, in his view, children are born with a desire to do things, the activity has a strong interest in, if the child does not \"do\" opportunities will inevitably hinder the natural development of children. Dewey's view that \"learning by doing\" or \"learn from activities\and learn from experience, making access to knowledge in the school and living activities in the process. This calls for an independent inquiry, cooperation and Exchange, a wide range of learning styles, which

is advocated by the reform of the new curriculum learning way. 第三部分.实用主义如何影响美国的高等教育改革 1. The features of Pragmatism

The pragmatic characterized utilitarian positivism, stressed that \"life\\"experience\" and \"reality\" attributed to the effect of the action attributed to the \"knowledge\" of Action tool \\essence of pragmatism is reflected in Peirce expressed this view: the task of understanding, not reflect the objective world of nature and law, but understanding the effect of the action, and for action beliefs (\"thinking only function is to establish belief \"). 2. Curriculum reform in America

Later in the mid 1990 of the 20th century United States universities started new undergraduate curriculum reforms of General characteristics are: through the reform of curriculum system of undergraduate general education, and a major in professional education courses integrated, so that the University's undergraduate general education education and majored in professional course form an interconnected whole curriculum structure in order to improve the quality of undergraduate education.

On the design of the course objectives, the cultivation of knowledge transfer and research methods and research capabilities combine to strengthen the three organic links emphasized in the learning process, and further improve the overall structure and personalized selection and combination of breadth and depth of knowledge , to reflect the university to implement comprehensive education purposes. Curriculum reform across disciplines and areas of expertise, pointing to the more far-reaching curriculum change. Including an emphasis on writing and other interdisciplinary programs, the establishment of the research project to learn the science department, curriculum internationalization, cultural diversity integration into the curriculum, form a learning community and to take full advantage of the new curriculum is being expanded in a large number of educational technology teaching. \"

Mainly revolves two aspects to the reform of structure of curriculum; first, to improve the structure of curriculum, according to the scientific technological advance with the need of social progress, eliminates some obsolete obsolete curricula, reduces the newest science and technology to enter the curriculum the cycle; Second, to improve curriculum integration rate and integrity,

strengthens the inner link and intelligence of the freshman class and second-grade curriculum is exciting, making the student form the knowledge the total perspective, the problem of development solution and synthesizing capacity.

4. The situation of American curriculum and its Enlightenment to China A. 美国高等教育课程改革现状与特点 （1）Integrated curriculum structure

The higher education researchers in US believe that the comprehensive specialty and curriculum, help training various qualities and thought strength of modern talented person, as well as organization, human relations and practical work and other abilities. Therefore, they have opened some writing coherence overlapping comprehensive curricula in the university. If Massachusetts Institute of Technology stipulated: Majors in the student of sciences and engineering, must study the curricula of eight humanistic, artistic and social sciences, accounts for the bachelor's degree curriculum total quantity 20%. Has established \\\"STS\\\" in another universities (Seienee, the Te ehnology and Soeiety science, technology and society) curriculum, this kind of curriculum altogether has more than 200 kinds, such as computer curriculum and society, energy and society, technological progress history, as well as related race, history, culture and society and other theories. They take the knowledge that the student must master to regard explicitly as a whole, broke among various past disciplines the strict boundary. （2）Human culture in the direction of the course

Today in the situation of social globalization, networks and the rapid development of science and technology, the importance and difficulty of moral education increase plus smoked, people deeply appreciate this double-edged sword to make good use of technology, we must rely on the human spirit guidelines. Therefore, increase the humanities curriculum component, pay attention to the education of Humanities and Social Sciences, to achieve the integration of scientific culture and humanistic culture, and become a major feature of the American College curriculum reform. American University curriculum, about 13-25% of the credits of humanities and social science courses. A new culture in the 21st century, a fusion of the network into characteristics, is bound to promote the integration of the \"scientific\" and \"humanistic\". Therefore, we also had American University curriculum reform direction of humanistic culture phenomenon. （3）General education

It is generally recognized that schools impossible in a short period of the year, a particular disciplinary or professional knowledge of all the professors to the students, for the students, the most lasting, lifelong useful basics, enhancing \"general education\" is the important means of enabling students to gain basic knowledge. To make the cultivation of talents more in line with the needs of social development, United States colleges and universities have traditionally advocated \"General\" education and culture with a broad, solid basis knowledge, adapt to the social development of universal talents. Based on the concept of general education, United States regardless of the student of the University, enrolment in the first two years, must be interdisciplinary elective elective languages, literature, writing, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, natural sciences 7 disciplines; In the last two years, you can select a personal interest in major, minor section, entered the finishing area.

4.2 Impact and influence of pragmatism for Chinese education （1）Impact on Educational Aims

Pragmatic educational philosophy had great influence on the setting of aims of the new system. Under the influence of pragmatists, who expounded the doctrine that \"education is its own end\" and \"should not be made to serve any universal or ulterior goalhe traditional education aims were substituted by the new standards in the early 1920s, and the latter reflected a considerable elasticity. In terms of content the new school system fully reflected the advocated by pragmatism. The standards (instead of aims) of the new promulgated on November 1, 1922, were seven-fold:

1. To adapt itself to a changed and changing society, 2. To promote the spirit of democracy, 3. To develop individuality,

4. To take into special consideration the economic status of the average citizen, 5. To adjust education to the needs of life,

6. To facilitate the spread of universal education, and 7. To make itself flexible enough to allow for local variations

Among the seven standards, 1, 4, and 5 show the concern of pragmatic educational philosophy for the connection between society and life; 3 reflects the so-called child-centered education pragmatism advocates; 2and 6 reflects the democratic principles of pragmatic

educational philosophy, and 7 is a warning against “universal or ulterior goal”. Obviously the setting of the educational standards was strongly influenced by pragmatic educational philosophy. （2）Impact on the Establishment of the New School System

Pragmatic educational philosophy had great influences upon both the process and the product of the new school system promulgated in 1922 Firstly, scholars strongly influenced by pragmatic educational philosophy played decisive parts in establishing the new school system. In October 1921 at the 7th annual conference of the Provincial Educational Associations held in Canton, a tentative new school system was brought up and discussed. It was based on this that the new system was finally adopted the following year after making a few modifications. Many progressive intellectuals and bourgeois revolutionalists from Canton were very enthusiastic about reconstructing a new system. For instance Wang Zhaoming was the chairperson of the conference, and Chen Duxiu and Jin Cengcheng played the leading part in the drawing up of the tentative proposal. Therefore pragmatic educational philosophy embraced by the notion of democracy and science must have been determinant when these intellectuals made their decisions.

Before the final adoption of the proposed system it was submitted to different provinces for thorough study and examination. Dewey's students such as Hushi, Tao Xingzhi and Liao Shicheng and other scholars deeply influenced by pragmatic educational philosophy like Yu Ziyi and Shu Xincheng actively aired their opinions about the proposed new system. Special mention should be made that Dewey, then lecturing in China and his colleague at Columbia University Menglu also made insightful comments on the new system before it was finally adopted. These comments must have exerted great influence on the new system.

（3）Impact on Curriculum, Textbooks and Teaching Methods

Dewey an pragmatic educational philosophy had enduring influence upon the reform of curriculum, textbooks and teaching methods. According to pragmatists, education should meet the needs of the development of the child and the development of the society. Children, their social life, and their activities should be the center of education. These ideas have had enduring influence on the reform of curriculum, textbooks and teaching method in China since 1920s.

Firstly, influence upon curriculum can be seen in the outline of standards for the curriculum in the new school system released in 1923. According to the outline, the complete list of constants in the junior middle school included social sciences, languages, mathematics, nature study, art, and

physical training. The junior middle school offered a general course while differentiated courses were provided for in the senior middle school. Some vocational courses were offered according to the special needs of the locality. All these changes were reflections of the beliefs and demands of the pragmatists.

In 1919 there were proposals for writing textbooks for primary schools in vernacular (baihua, the spoken language, or the living tongue). In 1920, the Minstry of Education issued an order to the effect that all textbooks for primary schools be written in baihua in place of the classical. This change would not have been possible had it not been for the literary revolution initiated by Hushi and Dewey's support for the movement and for vemacularization. During this period a large number reading materials for children were published, and literary works for children were found in the textbooks. Emphasis was also put on the teaching of practical knowledge. These changes of teaching materials were obviously related to Dewey's ideas such as \"child-centered\" and \"interest-centered\" education.

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