"The university is an organic part of society, it should not be isolated from and external to society, but should maintain flesh-and-blood ties with society, otherwise, university education will be ossified, universities will die, and social waste will be produced in batches. ”
With Li Zhi, an associate professor at Peking University's School of Engineering, on reforming the university's janitor management system, an article on social media has been widely circulated, and the topic of whether university campuses should be opened has once again become the focus of public opinion.
After reading Li Zhi's article, I suddenly remembered a review article published in 2004 entitled "Peking University is the Peking University of "Peking University People"?".
In this article, I complained a little about Peking University's stingy practice of closing its doors during Golden Week to prevent "many primary and secondary school students, college and secondary school students and their parents who come to Peking University with a pilgrimage-like mentality" to realize their wish to "see the demeanor of this non-world-class university".
Before we get into the formal discussion of this issue, let me say a few words about history.
In the first 30 years of the People's Republic of China, there was a history of opening the door to run schools.
What is an open-door school?
That is, teachers and students of primary and secondary schools go out of the school gates to "big classrooms" such as factories, rural areas, military units, and shops to learn Xi and run schools, and invite workers, peasants, and soldiers to the podium.
In 1967, the People's Daily introduced the open-door reform of Tongji University, that is, the unity of teaching, design, and construction composed of the school, the design unit, and the construction unit, in order to change the disconnection between education and production; in 1969, Fudan University launched the "57 Liberal Arts" on a trial basis, implementing Chairman Mao's instruction that "the liberal arts should regard the whole society as its own factory" and "running the liberal arts on the front line of the three revolutions".
In September 1974, the Science and Education Group of the State Council and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued the "Notice on Opening the Door to Run Schools", which was widely carried out in various places. The science and engineering departments of universities practice the integration of factories and schools, the integration of factories and schools, the establishment of factories and majors, part-time work and study, and the organization of teaching according to the production process; the liberal arts departments of universities organize teachers and students to go to factories, rural areas, and troops to participate in political movements with workers, peasants, and soldiers, and use them as the center to select teaching content and organize teaching; primary and secondary schools also run small factories and small farms, or go to factories and rural areas to work with workers, peasants, and soldiers, and Xi with classmates, and so on.
All of a sudden, there was a vivid and majestic educational wonder on the land of China that has never been seen in the history of human education!
A comprehensive evaluation of open-door schooling, of course, is not something that a small article can do, but the basic concept upheld by open-door schooling is also completely correct in today's view.
This basic idea is that the university is an organic part of society, and it should not be isolated from and external to society, but should maintain flesh-and-blood ties with society, otherwise, university education will be ossified, universities will die, and social waste will be produced in batches.
Some far-sighted people in the Western education sector have also recognized this. For example, Flexner, the former president of Princeton University in the United States, once said: "The university is not something outside the general social organization of a certain era, but something within the social organization...... It's not something that is isolated from the world, something that is historical. On the contrary, it is a manifestation of the times and has an impact on the then and in the future. ”
Today, of course, it is impossible to talk about opening the door to run a school, but it is too much for universities, especially Peking University, which played an important role in China's modern history as the birthplace of the May Fourth New Culture Movement, to be even more heavily walled than military camps and isolated from the world like medieval monasteries.
Why did the university gate become like a great enemy and became like martial law? It is estimated that the person in charge himself could not say clearly.
Is it safe?
College students are adults, not incapable of protecting their infants and young children, and in general, they do not need more safety protection than the general public.
For the sake of teaching order?
This is a good reason, but it doesn't have to be solved by closing the doors, but by strengthening the management of classrooms, laboratories, libraries, etc.
Many of the world's best universities have no walls, and of course they don't have to worry about getting in and out, but I haven't heard that their teaching order cannot be maintained, and it doesn't prevent them from becoming first-class universities.
In fact, Peking University has not always been closed, about 2006, all universities in Beijing can come and go at will, for a period of time I have more time, often go to Peking University to visit the triangle, buy books, listen to lectures, and even watch performances and movies, the campus is lively and peaceful, and there is no chaos.
The function of the university is not only to export academic research results and college students to the society, but also to the fact that the existence of the university as a cultural center itself is to nurture the local cultural ecology, and to influence the hearts of the people of the world in a subtle and silent way.
In the final analysis, it is a manifestation of feudalism and a kind of mentality, which is incompatible with the educational concept of the 21st century, and is a shame and joke of university education, which should be changed as soon as possible!
(The author is a senior researcher at the Kunlun Ce Research Institute; source: Kunlun Ce Network [author's authorization], reproduced from the WeChat public account of "Independent Commentator Guo Songmin", revised and released; the picture comes from the Internet, invaded and deleted)