Simply put, it means that education promotes people's spiritual development. English is spiritual education, or spiritual education. Generally refers to the floorboard of educational activities aimed at promoting the development of human spiritual world and improving the quality of human spiritual life. Even in the eyes of westerners, discussing people's spiritual development in school education is an important issue from the perspective of the purpose of comprehensive education. "Without this, education will be difficult to succeed."
From its specific point of view, spiritual education mainly includes three basic aspects:
First, spiritual education is psychological education and emotional education. It should be said that people's mental health is the most basic expression of spiritual life, the most basic content of the development of people's spiritual world, and of course, the internal motivation for people to engage in all other activities. As a kind of consciousness, people's psychological state not only affects people's cognition, but also contains a wide range of cultural contents and factors closely related to daily life, such as mood, motivation, personality and so on. The so-called healthy psychological education refers to an educational activity that helps the educated to correctly understand themselves, eliminate psychological troubles, prevent mental illness, maintain mental health, and realize the quality of perseverance and the formation of a complete personality. In the field of social life and education in China, mental health, as a content of spiritual life, has not attracted enough attention. Under the background of fast pace of modern life, high expectations and great pressure, people are prone to psychological anxiety and emotional distress, which affects people's mood, mood and attitude, which makes it even more necessary to implement mental health education. For primary and middle school students, influenced by the pressure of exams and scores and boring school life, it is also easy to have psychological obstacles in their studies, thus lacking individuality and individuality. As an important part of spiritual life, these mental diseases have been neglected for a long time, but only in recent years have they attracted the attention of a few people of insight, who clamored for the importance of students' healthy psychological education. According to the logical orientation of general psychologists, human psychology and emotion are rooted in human natural nature, and emotion is the part closest to nature among human factors. As a natural attribute of human beings, emotions always accompany people, that is to say, people's mental state is obviously influenced by emotions. A depressed person must be depressed or frustrated, and vice versa. In this sense, people's emotional state is a thermometer and barometer of people's mental state, and it is an external manifestation of their inner mental state. Through emotional education, people can adjust their mental state, so as to participate in social life with a positive, optimistic and upward emotional attitude, and also prove themselves with appropriate emotional venting and expression. Whether we can grasp the "degree" depends on the fashionable "emotional intelligence". A person who lacks emotion cannot win the understanding and trust of others; Similarly, a person who only cares about venting his emotions may have been isolated and unaware of it. Emotion is the gateway to the spirit. The spiritual communication between people is mediated and bridged by emotion. However, in today's education, how to cultivate students' healthy emotions and guide students to express their emotions properly is a corner that has been forgotten for a long time, so that people affirm someone's high IQ and imply the charm of low EQ. This can't be said to be the dislocation or anomie of education, but it also shows some more obvious defects in human development.
Second, spiritual education is moral education and life education. James Moffett, an American educator, does not agree to completely understand "spirit" as a purely intellectual or psychological category, but thinks: "The concept of spirit is considered by many people to be related to morality, mind and essence today." Morality is not only a social phenomenon but also a social concept. Morality can only appear where there are crowds. If an individual does not contact with others, there is no morality at all. Only when social behavior norms are embodied in individuals and restrict or stipulate the value orientation of individual behavior can they constitute individual moral quality. Therefore, individual moral quality, as a manifestation of spirit, is closely related to society. Therefore, we can say that from the source, morality is the norm and requirement of society or group to individuals, and from the performance, it is the response or choice of individuals to social requirements in spirit and behavior, and through the practice of individual moral life, moral quality with personal characteristics is formed. Frankl pointed out: "Life can't get meaning from its own continuation, but only from abiotic reference: from intelligence, aesthetics, morality and other things. These frames of reference represent the transcendence of life. The transcendence of life over itself lies not in its eternity, nor in its own reproduction, but in its height, or its breadth in the group. " According to frankl's explanation of the relationship between individuals and groups, if people want to constantly surpass themselves, they must constantly pursue the real value of life in the dimension of belonging to groups. To surpass oneself is to constantly choose and create the meaning of life in the recognition of group values. This is actually the spiritual life of people. Spiritual life is not abstract, but closely related to everyone's daily behavior, such as childbirth, daily necessities, going to work, leisure after work, getting along with friends, neighborhood communication, promotion, earning money and so on. In people's daily life, it reflects the guidance of spiritual values to individual behavior, and also reflects the moral consciousness and spiritual realm of individuals most vividly. Modern people's mental confusion, to a great extent, does not lie in the lack of appreciation of high-level spiritual products and dissatisfaction with the development of spiritual life ability with noble taste. Instead, it lies in the confusion and endless troubles of understanding life, because as long as you are alive, you will face complicated real life and will inevitably encounter various temptations and challenges in life. Without the necessary spiritual accomplishment and ability to cope with life, we must pay the spiritual price in life, and even fall into pain and cannot extricate ourselves. Spiritual education points to life, involving views on marriage, family, fertility, money and happiness. It aims to guide people to live a positive, peaceful, harmonious and interesting life. In a word, it is an education to improve people's quality of life. Look at the moral education in our school today. Often too big to fit. Far from people's daily life. No wonder it didn't work. Re-explaining and positioning moral education in primary and secondary schools in China from the perspective of people's spiritual life needs should become an important content of current school moral education research.
Third, spiritual education aims to determine and adhere to people's spiritual beliefs, which is a higher level of spiritual education. I think that the so-called "spiritual belief" mainly talks about people's spiritual pursuit in the sense of transcendence, whether from the logical level of people's spiritual life or from its specific role in people's spirit. It not only points to people's spiritual destination, but also guides people's real spiritual life, which is the fundamental value standard for people to choose life types. Judging from the elements of human spirit, it is the core of human spirit, which is manifested in fundamental concepts such as world outlook and outlook on life. Judging from its influence on people, it radiates to all aspects of people's lives, which makes people's whole spiritual life have a distinct personal color and embodies people's personality quality and spirit. This realm of life is the realm of aesthetic consciousness in the words of Mr. Zhang Shiying describing the stage of spiritual development; Explained in Jaspers' philosophical terms, it is a "complete work" that transcends the field of existence.
Specifically, this spiritual quality belonging to the category of belief at least includes the following contents:
One is the fundamental view of the relationship between man and the world at the level of world outlook. Many people lead people's spiritual development to religion at this level, such as Kierkegaard, Berdyaev, Martin? Bubel, Maritain, Jaspers, Gentili and others. Personally, I don't agree with their views, but prefer the views of Ou Ken, Heidegger and Rorty, that is, we should grasp three combinations in the fundamental concept of the world: combining the shaping of ideal personality with the search for the meaning and value of life, so that human beings can truly get rid of the pressure of inevitability and take it as their responsibility to embody and cherish an independent spirit (Ou Ken); Combine lofty belief with aesthetic spirit, and seek artistic life, poetic life and aesthetic life in the realistic relationship beyond subject and object.
From the perspective of real life, it is sublime, and from the perspective of concept pursuit, it is aesthetic, that is, "people live poetically on the earth" (Heidegger likes to quote Holderlin's poems); Combine the pursuit of the ultimate truth in the material world with the forging of "free irony" personality, that is, unify the pursuit of scientific truth with the yearning for human life, human integrity and humanistic spirit in human aesthetic consciousness, so as to overcome the depreciation and slander of contemporary scientism on human aesthetic psychology and pursuit (Rorty). Rorty once said: "The power of poetry lies in re-examining the debate between poetry and philosophy, and re-examining the tension between the efforts to achieve self-creation through the recognition of randomness and the efforts to achieve universality through the transcendence of randomness." In the sense that Rorty advocates the world outlook or the combination of scientific truth and aesthetic realm, Marx is a typical personality, and the pursuit of scientific truth constitutes the scientific basis of his world outlook, while the poetic yearning for human liberation, especially the real possession of human nature, shows Marx's romantic poetic personality, which is perfectly unified with individuals. The real heroes of mankind in the aesthetic value level advocated by Rorty are many philosophers in the post-Nietzsche period: Heidegger and Wittgenstein, while Plato and Nietzsche are regarded as two counterexamples by Rorty. The former is absolute in the direction of rationalism, while the latter is crazy in the road of irrationalism. These are not the spirits we need. On the basis of this argument, Rorty called three kinds of people-serious scientists, Platonists and irrationalists who followed Nietzsche "rootless" modern people. What they lose is their own aesthetic consciousness and appreciation and taste of people's real life.
No wonder people classify Rorty as a group of post-modern thinkers, probably because he showed a thorough criticism and transcendence of the whole modern spirit, including rationality and irrationality. Looking at the progress of modern science, many scientific achievements of human beings and scientists themselves in the 20th century are no longer the result of mechanical materialism or one-sided realism. On the contrary, they more reflect the human spirit's grasp of the natural material world and the pursuit of aesthetic intention, which leads to new scientific discoveries, such as relativity and quantum mechanics. Our time seems to have shown people that the foundation of modern life lies in people themselves.
Second, the level of outlook on life is the love and transcendence of real life. As a person's existence, his mental state fundamentally shows his quality of life and his satisfaction. Imagine how a person who is always dissatisfied with reality, others and himself can count as a happy life. In fact, many of us not only suffered too much so-called "pain", but also produced many bad sighs such as gloomy life, depressed mood, full of complaints and untimely birth. And they are trapped in this state of mind, leading to mental confusion and loss. Looking at the normal life and society with a distorted mentality, they have produced a lot of misplaced judgments, which can't be said to be people's outlook on life or. The aesthetic outlook on life supported by spiritual belief transcends the moral outlook on life and is a metaphysical artistic conception of life. Compared with moral consciousness, it has three differences:
First, it no longer cares about and grabs the objective existence like moral consciousness, nor cares about interests, but ignores the objective existence, but it is by no means asceticism;
Secondly, moral consciousness always hangs on or yearns for a specific purpose, always out of a "should" attitude, and aesthetic consciousness itself is reality, which is the expression and choice of spiritual freedom at the moment. There is no need to ask "why" because I am like this;
Third, moral consciousness requires the unity of the two on the basis of distinguishing themselves from others. The so-called "selfless dedication" and "helping others" praise the nobleness of this moral personality on the basis of distinguishing them, while aesthetic consciousness transcends the relationship between people and me, things and people, and makes judgments and choices in the realm of you, me, others, people, things and desires. A person who really reaches this state, his behavior of seeking happiness for others is no longer a moral "should", but more importantly, it is driven by this lofty state and spiritual belief in which he lives, which is manifested as a natural, direct and conscious behavior. Therefore, we can say: "The level of realm determines the level of moral consciousness." The formation of people's aesthetic consciousness and the establishment of lofty ideals are the high-grade pursuit of spiritual education, which embodies people's yearning for their own "style" and is the "elevation" for people to obtain real development.
I think that not everyone can experience the spiritual realm of "aesthetics" and "ideals", but only people with poetic personality and heroic demeanor can appreciate the charm of spiritual development at this level. Our education today pays too much attention to the utilitarian needs in social reality and too little attention to the unique needs of individuals, so education is caught in the quagmire of utilitarianism and cannot extricate itself. Such as reading, students can not only expand their knowledge through free reading, but also be full of interest and be guided by beauty. Nowadays, students only study to cope with the exam, and the reading materials are limited to the scope related to the exam. Even the answers to reading comprehension are "standardized". In this reading teaching mode, students can only recite answers, where can there be independent spiritual freedom and unique aesthetic experience? No wonder Hegel lamented that people are free only in aesthetics, and many people are not free because of lack of aesthetic consciousness. Therefore, encouraging students to read freely and guiding them into the aesthetic realm may be the spiritual effect that our reading teaching should achieve. From the perspective of spiritual belief, ideal always means peace, tranquility and nobility. It is the sail and guide of life.
In the eyes of many people today, talking about "ideals" is out of date, and they are pursuing reality and interests. If you have an ideal, you can't enter a high-end hotel or buy a color TV. Therefore, a social phenomenon driven and lured by immediate material interests is mercilessly exposed to people, which may be the price of social progress and progress in China. There has been a lot of discussion about this. I just want to say that it is very necessary to carry out ideal education among young students and ordinary people, especially to absorb excellent spiritual heritage in educational activities and cultivate students' emotions and world outlook. "One of the basic ways to get spiritual development is people's spiritual role models."
Of course, the ideal I refer to here can be analyzed in detail. It not only refers to the firm belief in productism based on Marxist world outlook, but also the deep concern and sustenance for the future and destiny of contemporary China society. It can also refer to an individual's longing for his future career and career, just as Marx thought when choosing a career, hoping to choose a career that can best contribute to the cause of human progress. For specific individuals, the establishment of ideals is undoubtedly the formation of spiritual belief, the most valuable part of human spiritual development, the salvation of souls and the recovery of spiritual homes by modern people in a wandering state, and the most obvious embodiment of human spiritual development potential. As westerners say, the word "spirit" applies to everyone. For spiritual development, students' potential is open, not limited.
In spiritual growth, education ultimately promotes people's understanding of reality by cultivating people's higher-level consciousness. The advanced consciousness here actually includes ideals, beliefs and aesthetics. It is a kind of yearning for the future society and life based on reality, and it is expected to achieve the expected goal through the transcendence of the present state by individuals and society. Fourth, spiritual education and religious education When it comes to spiritual belief, many people can easily associate it with "religion" or "religious spirit" or "religious belief". Indeed, studying "spiritual education", especially answering questions about spiritual belief, "religion" is an unavoidable and insurmountable "obstacle". For this, even contemporary scholars who advocate secular spiritual education see and admit that this is a difficult problem.
Wright clearly pointed out: "In the study of spiritual education, it is impossible to ignore the difficult problem of religion." In the eyes of many people in the West, the so-called "spiritual belief" is always associated with "religious belief". In their view, there can be neither spiritual belief without religion nor religion without faith, and the two are combined into one, or they are originally "one". This point has been expounded by many western philosophers, and the discussion on "spiritual education" in the contemporary west is mostly carried out in this category, which is an undeniable fact. Calm analysis, I think that many people in the west place their spiritual homes or spiritual beliefs on God, which is actually caused by their unique cultural background. Just as China people are used to using "Heaven" and "Tao" to explain the society between people and their social relations, as far as the theory itself is concerned, I don't agree with many of us to deny the particularity of this religious view or spiritual belief from the value dimension of belief, but it shows that spiritual life is more important to people. As for what to believe, it is a matter of value, which should exist in people's choice.
This naturally leads to the second problem, that is, people can not only believe in God and find spiritual refuge by pinning their spirit on an ultimate idea, but also have sufficient reasons to oppose believing in God and find other great and lofty sustenance that can better reflect people's spiritual world. This is also a spiritual belief, a part of people's spiritual life, even the core part, so that the essence of spiritual freedom can be truly reflected.
In fact, in response to the enthusiasm of contemporary westerners for religious belief, many people of insight strongly oppose the view that people's spiritual life and spiritual belief are defined as religions, and advocate that "spiritual belief lies in seeking personal living space" and talk about "spiritual belief" from the perspectives of human nature, people's real life, people's unique experience and people's spiritual life taste. J.White wrote: "When we talk about spirituality, we often only refer to the' sacred spirit' living in the supernatural kingdom, and we only understand spirituality as a religious category. This is a vague understanding.
This is not only because' religion' itself is difficult to determine, but also because of people's spiritual achievements and aspirations in nature. Can the spirit of' religion' provide similar effects? On the premise of opposing the attribution of spiritual belief to religion, White advocates that "spiritual education" should be open to everyone, not just those who hold religious beliefs. He said: "Those who don't believe in supernatural phenomena should have the same qualifications and opportunities for spiritual development and respect their personal views on real life."
The National Curriculum Committee (NCC) also pointed out in a report 1993: "The word' spirit' should be regarded as providing people with something basic in their living conditions, such as finding their identity in the universe; Looking for the meaning and purpose of life; Looking for the value of what people live for ",for the sake of students' spiritual development," the potential of every student's spiritual development is open, and it cannot be limited to religious beliefs or forced conversion to a special belief. If students' spiritual development is restricted in this way, most students will be deprived of the possibility of development, especially those with closed religious beliefs. "
The above situation shows that the view that the spiritual belief of people to be formed in spiritual education is limited to religious belief is not only lack of sufficient support in theory, but also has been denied by people in real life. Based on this understanding, the author believes that religious belief or religious feelings are definitely not the only choice in the ultimate concept and destination of spiritual education. This is not the confession or entertainment required by the current ideology, but the judgment or choice experienced or realized from the author's own experience. What's more, people with firm religious beliefs (instead of cults and metaphysics) and sincere religious feelings are not necessarily bad people, or even ignorant and drugged people. In fact, they are a spiritual life. Similarly, for society, religious belief is not necessarily a bad thing. One of the reasons why there are many ugly phenomena or social abuses in our society today is probably that people lack a sense of belief and spiritual support, or fear of some external force. Therefore, many people are not ashamed of doing ugly things, do evil things without repentance, and are bold enough to have no shame. The root cause is that they have no creed. Therefore, in essence, spiritual education cannot exclude religion. "Religion is a key and extremely important spiritual measure", but spiritual education is definitely not limited to religious belief. Just as there are many models and standards to choose from in a person's life, the guidance of spiritual education to people's beliefs and ideals also includes the education of productive beliefs, the ideal of complete liberation of human beings, scientific world outlook and outlook on life. It should be said that compared with the birth spirit and world-weariness spirit of religious belief, the latter is a higher realm of life It is based on the love of life, the cherish of life and the yearning for a better future of human society, and it is the embodiment of the advanced nature and initiative of human life.