earticle

영어

There has been a development for way of teaching and learning in education keeping up with the change of knowledge. From the ancient to the contemporary, there have also been great efforts to meet various needs through the ages. In spite of various degree of development, education has been undertaken in two big frameworks. One of them stresses on the usefulness or utility of knowledge and the other focuses on the pursuit of truth. Whereas the Sophists in ancient Greek emphasized on the usefulness or utility of knowledge and education, Socrates stressed on the education of truth. In the medieval period, education tended to focus on advocating and delivering theological knowledge and faith. In modern age, education had a tendency to emphasize on knowledge of natural sciences and humanism without God. In contemporary stage, the pursuit of usefulness and effectiveness from knowledge leads to that of more useful education.
It's natural that the education tries to meet the needs and requests of each age. That's one of the main goals of education. However, education must seek for both usefulness and truth. Whenever education does it, it needs to balance them. Because human being can only accomplish his or her desirable life and self-realization through the balance of usefulness and truth in education. The excessive pursuit of usefulness leads to relativism as Sophists already showed us more than two thousands years ago. The relativity of value and knowledge brings about personal or social egoism. As stated above, the excessive pursuit of usefulness or utility distorts the true life of human beings all the time.
In contemporary stage, we witness that the education stresses on the efficient management of highly developed knowledge but fails to balance between utility and truth. It seems to me that the Sophistic relativism was reborn in the contemporary society with the name of utility. The pursuit of utility or usefulness itself is nothing to blame. Because the pursuit of usefulness in human beings' life is considered to be natural and necessary. The serious problem, however, is not to pursue utility or usefulness itself, but to deteriorate the spirit of truth through the excessive pursuit of or utility or usefulness. To bring a desirable combination of human and society, education should pursuit both usefulness and truth in education. By doing so, education could bring up the balanced human being with knowledge, good character and the ability to do something useful for himself or herself and society all together.

한국어

교육은 지식의 변화에 따라 변화하여 왔다. 고대의 신화 중심의 지식, 자연과학 중심의 지식, 인간 중심의 지식, 중세의 신 중심의 지식, 근대의 자연과학 중심의 지식, 인간 중심의 지식, 현대의 지식과 정보 중심의 사회에 이르기까지 지식의 변화에 따라 교육이 변하여 왔다. 이 교육의 변화는 두 가지 큰 틀 속에서 이루어졌다. 하나는 유용성 중시의 교육이고, 다른 하나는 진리추구의 교육이었다. 시대마다 강조한 교육의 틀이 달라짐에 따라 교육은 언제나 불균형을 이루었다. 중세의 교육이 신 중심의 지식에 치중하여 자연과학의 지식을 무시했듯이 현대의 유용성 중시의 교육은 진리추구의 정신과 인간성의 중요성을 경시하고 있다. 이런 교육의 불균형을 시정하는 것이 올바른 평생교육을 위한 첫걸음이다.