「全人教育」的理念及其實踐的困難

The Idea of ＂Holistic Education＂ and the Difficulties of its Practice

臺灣推動通識教育，基本上是以「全人教育」作為論理的核心，並以之作為課程規劃的主軸，但卻甚少探究「全人教育」的意蘊為何。筆者曾撰文〈通識教育本質芻議〉，指出大家所以為的「全人教育」乃是立基於人本主義心理學理論之上的，由之作為通識教育的理念核心有其窒礙難行之處。一般以為「全人教育」出於美國教育家羅恩．米勒（Ron Miller）於1990年提出全人典範的觀點，實早在1921年日本教育家小原國芳（おばらくによし；Obara Kuniyoshi）（1887－1977）即已提出「全人教育」的論點。本文立基前文的基礎上探究小原國芳的「全人教育」的理念與實踐。此外，面對「後現代狀況」學習產生巨大的轉變，尤其是特別強調功效性的思維與運作，「全人教育」的理念將如何面對如是挑戰？故本文將試圖探究無論何種的「全人教育」，固然有其理想，但其於教育實踐的過程中不可避免地會產生不切實際的虛幻性。因此，以「全人教育」作為通識教育的理論核心，當需保留。

Taiwan has been promoting general education on the basis of the idea of holistic education and designs its curriculum on the basis of the same idea. All the while the meaning of the notion of holistic education lacks in depth discussion. The author published a paper on ＂the meaning of general education＂ addressing this matter. The paper points out that the basis of holistic education is the notion of humanism as promoted by psychology. Before the well-known American scholar Ron Miller proposed the notion of holistic education in the 1990ies, the Japanese scholar Obara Kuniyoshi proposed this idea in 1921. The first part of the paper introduces his thoughts, the second part discusses the possibility of holistic education in a post-modern context with its stress on efficiency. The author comes to the conclusion that despite its idealistic approach, holistic education of whatever kind fails when put into practice. Thus the approach of holistic education as the basis for general education has to be re-examined.