教育的概念、口號與隱喻

Abstract

本文旨在評析教育的概念、定義、規準、口號與隱喻，並略述其關係與應用限制。本文原名「教育的概念分析」，係應此間「教育導論」一書編者之邀約而寫，列為該書第一章，導述教育的概念，文早巳於一九八九年四月完成，全書原擬於一九八九年初夏出版，因其他章節約稿未交齊，延誤迄今未出版。故先此刊出以就正於同道。顧名思義，「教育導論」應該是「教育學入門」之類的淺近教科書體裁，本文為了評析高度抽象的教育概念，且顧及初學者學習興趣，在行文中列舉不少具體實例，作為教育概念分析的根據。如此寫法，作為入門的教科書，可讀性似乎較高，而且也可以平衡行文的過度理論化。本文分三節：第一節 教育的概念1.教育的概念2.教育的定義；第二節 教育的規準1.教育與與反教育引例2.教育的規準；第三節 教育的口號與隱喻1.教育的口號（涵義、功能、限制、與評析）2.教育的隱喻（涵義、功能、限制、與評析）。第一節先從複合的概念、爭議性的概念、多樣態的歷程、工作─成效的概念等四個角度，論述教育的概念性質，以顯示其抽象、紛歧與複雜程度；然後進一步從規範性、功能性、內涵性與時代性等四個面向，來評析教育的定義，一面嘗試界定教育的定義，一面分析其種種層次與角度的定義特性。

Education is an essentially contested concept. Laymen an educationists alike are easily to be befogged by the foggy ideas of education. This paper intends to defog some, if not all, of the fogs in the field of educational discourses. It is therefore aimed at making explicit some relevant concepts, definitions, criteria, slogans and metaphors in education. There are roughly three parts in this paper. The first part analyzes the concept of education in terms of a complicated concept, contested concept, task─achievement concept, and polymorphous process；it furthermore scrutinizes the definition of education by virtue of the prescriptivity, functionality, connotation and Zeitgeist. It tries to show the complexity of education and criticizes in detail some popular definitions in education. The second part expounds Peters’ three criteria of education, namely, worthwhileness, cognitiveness and voluntariness, by means of some mundane examples to demarcate educative activities from non─educative or miseducative ones. Some higher order criteria as such, it is argued, are the minimum demands for any meaningful and rational discourse in education, otherwise, it is undoubtedly irrational. The third part probes into the meanings, functions and limitations of educational slogans as well as that of educational metaphors, respectively. As usual, definitions and criteria emphasize the cognitive seriousness in educational discourses；educational slogans however put more emphasis on emotive meaning. Therefore, the vivid images of educational metaphors are always used as the best instruments to vivify educational slogans as rallying symbols in education. Yet, any modes of metaphor in education, such as midwifery, molding, sculpturing and growth metaphors, are just a descriptive analogy of similarity rather than identity between education and these metaphorical modes. Thus, their applicabilities are surely not unlimited. In concluding remarks, this paper although tries to solve some thorn