First school year
Humanities: The reading materials of Literature are: Western poetry, Homer's epic, Bible, Shakespeare, Turgenev, Joyce and American writers; Art is divided into western painting, western sculpture and western architecture. The music part is classical music works.
Social science: a complete American history. Including classic works that have an influence on American history, such as Adam Smith, Hobbes, Locke, Tocqueville, etc. , as well as selected readings of American historians, important expositions of presidents of past dynasties, important judgments of the Supreme Court, foreign policy documents, and documents of social debates in various periods.
Second year
Humanities: the content is "history, rhetoric, drama, novel, philosophy". Historical readings are Herodotus, Thucydides and Gibbon; Drama is Greek tragedy and Shakespeare; Novels are Austin, Conrad and Dostoevsky; Philosophy is Plato and Aristotle.
Social Science: The course is called "Self, Culture and Society". The content is mainly sociology and anthropology, so the reading materials are concentrated in western modern masterpieces, especially Freud, Weber, Durkheim and Marx, as well as American sociologists and anthropologists Parsons and Benedict.
Third academic year
Humanities: Students can choose several different majors: literature, critical theory, art and music, and foreign languages and literature (there were five at that time: Greek, Latin, French, German and Spanish).
Social Science: The course is called Freedom and Order. Reading materials include Plato, Hobbes, Locke, Burke, Mill, Weber, Schumpeter and so on. They discussed the relationship between social order, economic order, political order, international order and freedom, and the relationship between social science and social policy.
The biggest feature of the plan of the University of Chicago at that time was to take "the history of western civilization" as the "integrated course" in the last fourth academic year, and strive to integrate the contents of humanities and social sciences in the first three years.
Read more: Gan Yang: The Way of University and the Consciousness of Civilization Series 8.
Published by analyst @ July 23rd, 2006 22: 30: 26 Comment _ 0track _ 0edit
Gan Yang: The Way of University and Civilization Consciousness Series No.7: Cultural Education of Scholars
China's general education or "quality education curriculum" starts from scratch, without tradition, accumulation and experience, so we should not take a "hodgepodge of general education" without any planning and careful design, but should carefully design several "courses with the same core" as the first step under the limited credit time.
It is necessary to gradually form supporting courses on the basis of the syllabus, instead of flooding a large number of general "Introduction" elective courses. In this respect, I think it is worth referring to the traditional model of Columbia University, not only because the general education in American universities is basically developed from the model of Columbia University, but also because the model of Columbia University is concise and easy to operate.
Read more: Gan Yang: The Way of University and Civilization Consciousness Series 7.
Analyst @ published 22: 21:33 comment _ 0track _ 0edit on July 22nd, 2006.
Gan Yang: University Way and Civilization Consciousness Series 6 Educational and Cultural Scholars
The soul of American undergraduate general education is their "classic and historical tradition", which is based on reading western classics of past dynasties.
It is necessary for us to examine the general education in modern American universities more specifically, so as to grasp what are the most prominent features of general education in the United States and what we can learn from it in the long process from the attempt of general education in Columbia University in the early 20th century to the reform in Stanford University in the late 20th century.
Read more: Gan Yang: The Way of University and the Consciousness of Civilization Series 6.
Published by analyst @ 2 1 July 22, 2006:13 comments _0 citation notice _0 editing.
Gan Yang: The Way of University and the Fifth Series of Civilization Consciousness: Scholars' Cultural Education
The transformation of the University of Chicago (see the third edition of the Japanese newspaper on June 30) is not an isolated phenomenon. In fact, as clark kerr later pointed out when summing up the history of modern American universities, after the impact of the German model at the end of 19, the traditional British university humanities education model began to play an important role in the United States in the 1930s, and by the forties and fifties, the modern American university model was finally basically formed. This new university model is a hybrid university called "British model plus German model" by Kerr: that is, undergraduate education adheres to the tradition of British model, while graduate students.
Kerr pointed out that the 80-year-long modern transformation process of Harvard University is the most typical example in this regard. Because in the 80-year (1870- 1950) transformation process, three consecutive Harvard presidents just represented the above three models, namely, the first modern president led Harvard to the German model, the second modern president returned to the British model, and the third president devoted himself to synthesizing and forming a mixed model of "British model plus German model". The first modern president here refers to Eliot, who was the president of Harvard in 1869- 1909. During his tenure, he initiated the elective course system in American universities, and at the same time focused on developing graduate schools and professional colleges, transforming Harvard from a college into a modern research university in Germany. It can be said that Harvard really became a university, which began in the Eliot era and began in 65438. However, Lawwill, who succeeded Harvard President in 1909- 1934, was just close to hutchins in concept. Like hutchins, he explicitly opposed the elective course system promoted by President Eliot and attached importance to graduate school, and returned to the British model of emphasizing undergraduate colleges and compulsory courses. Then 1934- 1954, James Conant, who took over as president of Harvard, took a comprehensive road, and finally made Harvard embark on the mixed university model of the United States: undergraduate education followed the British model, emphasizing general education and cultural inheritance, and postgraduate education adopted the German model, focusing on research and innovation.
Read more: Gan Yang: The Way of University and the Consciousness of Civilization (Part 5)
Published by analyst @ July 20th, 2006 22:16: 23 comment _ 0track _ 0edit
Gan Yang: The Way of University and the Fourth Series of Civilization Consciousness: Scholars' Educational Culture
China people have completely subverted their own civilization tradition in the past 100 years, and it is funny to say that reading one western classic less will subvert the western civilization tradition. Westerners' concern for western civilization has become their highest political principle.
Modern general education in American universities is not an uninterrupted natural continuation of the previous classical humanities education, but was broken at the end of 19, followed by fierce debates and long-term disputes, and then re-institutionalized and rebuilt in the 1930s and 1950s. However, after 1960, general education in the United States has been repeated. Taking four American universities as clues, I will briefly review the whole process of general education reform in American universities in the 20th century. These four universities are Columbia University, University of Chicago, Harvard University and Stanford University in turn, not because they are all famous universities, but because they can represent different stages and major debates in the development of general education in American universities.
Read more: Gan Yang: The Way of University and Civilization Consciousness Series 4.
Analyst @ July 2006 19 22:05:05 Comments _ 0Citation Notice _ 0Edit
Gan Yang: The Way of University and Civilization Consciousness Series 3: Educational and Cultural Scholars.
When we talk about the history of American higher education and the modern general education in American universities, we will definitely talk about one person: hutchins, president of the University of Chicago. The University of Chicago is now generally regarded as an important town of general education in American universities, because its undergraduate general education system is particularly developed. But this is not a tradition formed by the University of Chicago since 1892 was founded. It all started when hutchins entered the University of Chicago.
Read more: Gan Yang: The Way of University and Civilization Consciousness (Part 3)
Analyst @ July 2006 18 22:27:46 Comments _ 0Citation Notice _ 0Edit
Gan Yang: A Scholar of Education and Culture, the Second Series of University Way and Civilization Consciousness.
Where are the roots of American universities? It is because it is consciously rooted in the depths of western civilization, which is most prominent in the general education system of American universities.
We will soon find the fatal wound of China University: the modern universities in China have no cultural foundation of their own. China Modern University was not rooted in the civilized tradition of China from the very beginning. In fact, the birth of China Modern University marks a break with the traditional civilization of China. This can be seen by comparing the two earliest modern university projects in China.
Read more: Gan Yang: The Way of University and the Consciousness of Civilization Series II.
Published by analyst @ July 2006 1719: 21:02 comment _ 0track _ 0edit.
Gan Yang: University Way and Civilization Consciousness Series 1 Educational and Cultural Scholars
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In recent years, the road of China University and the reform of China University have been the focus of public opinion. The reform debate in Peking University in 2003 raised fundamental questions: What is the purpose of university education in China, and what is the most important reform issue? At present, general education (referring to non-professional classic reading and classic civilization education in higher education) originates from Aristotle's thought of free education. The practice and discussion of general education in China (such as Fudan University and Zhejiang University) put forward for the first time in the late Qing Dynasty further expanded this problem, and discussed how university education in China laid a long-term foundation for the development of civilization and society in China. This newspaper was once the main platform for discussing university reform. This time, Mr. Gan Yang's articles on general education will be published continuously to draw attention to this issue.
Read more: Gan Yang: University Way and Civilization Consciousness Series 1
Analyst @ July, 2006 16, 20:07: 1 1 Comment _ 0Citation Notice _ 0Edit
Xue Yong: A scholar of traditional culture and education trained by research universities and boarding colleges.
Not long ago, the movement of "building a world-class university" launched in China seems to have a bad reputation, and few people mention it now. However, some misleading concepts put forward by this movement are rarely clarified. In fact, China's universities, especially the "first-class universities" with huge state funding, are still operating according to these specious ideas.
Read more: Xue Yong: Tradition shaped by research universities and boarding colleges.