General education is a barrier that universities can't get over.

The author graduated from the professional university of geology, and the geological course itself is also a kind of ideology, part of which undertakes the role of general education. However, in terms of system, I didn't receive systematic general education defined by the current popular definition during my college years. However, this has not hindered me from thinking in different fields, deeply tracing the connotation of human, and reasonably predicting the social development.

The predecessor of general education is liberal arts, which originated from the education of free people (ruling class) in ancient Greece. Corresponding to this idea is the professional education for the ruled people at all levels, because these people need to really serve the ruling class. Therefore, the essence of liberal education is a kind of elite education, which has certain limitations of the times.

After the expansion of the education system, how to expand the traditional elite education concept to all students, there will be the demand for general education, that is, general education. From the literal definition, general education and general education themselves are not exactly the same.

In the history of education, general education and professional education have been fighting and cooperating for a long time, just like the wave particle duality of light. In 1943, through the publication of the Harvard general education red book by Harvard University, the two finally became one in concept and became a common part of modern education. At least in theory, they broke through the barriers and opposition between them. As a result, the research and practice of general education has entered the spring of blooming flowers, and also produced colorful flowers.

If we have to distinguish, professional education enables students to acquire the ability to change physics and create the world. General education, on the other hand, enables students to acquire the ability to inherit the world of ideas.

Human is a very special species, and its particularity lies in the formation of a large-scale social system. If we observe a group of monkeys, we will find that monkeys will strengthen communication and emotional communication by combing each other's hair. In fact, the same is true of the early small-scale human tribes. However, when human beings build cities and carry out large-scale collective activities, how to unify ideas becomes the most important means to maintain a civilization. As a result, by simplifying the complex world model, human beings produce some common topics and ideas, which become the basis for the construction of civilization, such as various myths and religions, as well as systematic moral systems.

Stable and inheritable common topics and ideas are the genes of civilization. The inheritance of these civilization genes through education is the great cause of all the great efforts of civilization, which is also one of the essential differences between human and animal world.

Therefore, in the final analysis, in the important stage of education, general education will undertake to inherit this kind of cultural thinking mode beneficial to social stability and form a more unified world outlook. Otherwise, like swans, Barracuda and shrimps, the trained people, even if they have their own abilities, can not form a unified force to promote social development. From this point of view, general education is very important for the stable development of society.

The goal of general education lies in the stable transmission of social thinking, and its ideological content should include the thoughts and classics left over and accumulated for thousands of years. Nowadays, innovation is strongly advocated, which seems to be in contradiction with the goal of general education. In fact, if we all achieve "innovative thinking", this is another stable mode of thinking. Therefore, innovation itself can become an important ideological content of today's general education.

General education is a word that has not been completely settled up to now, and everyone can say some truth separately. Why are there so many theories?

I think this is because the connotation of general education has been evolving, the content has been increasing, the goal has been expanding, and the method has been expanding. All roads lead to Rome. With the goal of going to Rome, the tools, forms, routes and detailed plans can be different. If we add different democracies and different cultural traditions between countries, it will be more difficult to form a unified curriculum system. The content and curriculum system discussed by all of you are a subset of the collection of "general education", which has caused a lot of prosperity in theory and a lot of practical trouble in the implementation of general education.

Although the general education thought by different universities and different people may be a subset of "general education" itself, and they all have certain rationality and theoretical support, just like Song Ci, the works under the same brand still have high and low artistry and level. The same brand of CI can be loved by both the mild and restrained school and expanded by the bold and unconstrained school.

Let's take a simple example. Some scholars say that general education does not need to be designed vigorously, just to find some classics to read and study. Some scholars believe that the systematic design of general education curriculum is more in line with the nature of the University and improves efficiency. In order to avoid simplification, compulsory and optional general courses can be divided.

In the Red Book of Harvard general education, the humanities curriculum enables students to acquire "effective thinking ability, the ability to exchange ideas, the ability to make appropriate judgments, and the ability to identify values" through a series of courses. In fact, university learning is only a link in education. If you want to achieve the above goals through several courses, some are too optimistic and simplistic. In my opinion, on top of these abilities, the most important thing is to enable students to acquire the ability of continuous learning. If we want to achieve the goal of general education, we must not lack the ability of impact, test and leap that students will experience after they enter the social practice. It's a long learning process. Therefore, general education must not be limited to the knowledge of several courses, but let students have an overall plan for life, enthusiasm for their career, and interest in acquiring knowledge, so as to lay a solid ideological foundation for long-term learning.

In the vast general education system, we must create our own school's characteristic general education curriculum system, which is an important way for students to obtain a unified identity at the school level, and let students be proud of it, which is very important for the construction of school culture.

In teaching methods, in addition to the general education itself, professional education, if we can insert the idea of general education, we will get twice the result with half the effort. This is just like weaving. Only when general education and professional education form a web, can a piece of cloth be woven.

For newly established universities, the organic design of general education and professional education courses from the beginning will play a late mover advantage, integrate the previous ideological achievements, and can completely overtake.

As far as China's higher education is concerned, many people criticize that there was no general education curriculum in China in the past, and they focused too much on professional training. In fact, the author believes that this is biased. As mentioned before, the main purpose of general education is to make students have a more unified mode of thinking and become useful people. At this point, the ideological and political curriculum with Chinese characteristics, the vitality of Chinese traditional culture, and part of the general education undertaken by primary and secondary schools have constructed another general education system of the big society as a whole, and cultivated talents who are both red and professional, which is very successful. Five stresses, four beauties, three loves, moral, intellectual, physical, aesthetic and labor, these are actually very important general education initiatives.

Only by fully understanding the essence of western general education and the cultural system with Chinese characteristics can we really think about the concept of general education in Chinese higher education.

Finally, I summarize some words that you like and often use when discussing general education. At least I have been inundated by them. It is confirmed that you can only build a subset to construct general education in a way that blind people feel for images. The debate will be in urgent need.