Should Social Efficiency Ideology Be Taken into Junior High School English Teaching

For any ideology， whether it should be taken into school teaching can be considered from two respects. One is the reasonability of its existence， the other is its lack of rationality. The reasons and arguments I give are as follows.

First， the proposal of this ideology has its very historical background. From the end of the 19th century to the early years of the 20th century， Americans have experienced great changes such as industrialization， urbanization and immigration tide， which demands instant and aggressive changes of education. Later in the period of 1950s to 1970s， Social Efficiency Ideology played an essential role on the educational arena once again for the whole society fears that the American economy might stagnate on account of the inefficiency of the education at that time. The second is that the educators put the social functions of education in a significant position. It stresses that education is accountable for providing qualified members that fulfill the needs of society， therefore， it changes the directions of cultivating people， which causes ideal consequences of childrens development. Thus， the ideology affected the international status of the U.S. in a direct or indirect way. Thirdly， the ideology provides individualized instruction to students， which enables children to have specialized skills. Last but not least， it puts emphasis on sequential learning， which observes the inner laws of knowledge and the development orders of children.

However， there exists unideal aspects. First， it conceives that learning is more important than knowledge. But if the input is wrong， how can we expect correct output of students？ And if the importance is solely attached to the process（learning）， and the goals are ignored， then what is the sense of learning？ Secondly， the view that equates the knowledge with the behavior is also questionable. We all know that abstract knowledge belongs to consciousness field， which is intangible; but behavior belongs are observable and concrete， and can be measured in certain ways. Whats more， there is an apparent flaw of this ideology. Consider the following： what if the input （abstract knowledge） is wrong but the output（behaviors） is correct？ Reversely， what if the input is correct but generates wrong output？ So， how can we assess a students behaviors properly with the above assumptions， that is， in what way can we determine that a student really “knows” something？ The next viewpoint to be queried is that the acts of a student is more important than the person per se. How can we command a students attributes without knowing him as an individual？ That is， knowing a persons behaviors is included in knowing a person. Last but not least， it attaches too much importance to the society rather than the children. So if the education is merely concerned with its social effectiveness， it might be considered less humane. And one issue derived from this is the neglect of comprehensive development for this ideology aims at cultivating students to be “useful members” and focuses on their future， not present times， which means they want to help develop the adult inside the child. As a result， this could cause social problems.

作者簡介：劉旭喬（1995-）女，滿族，承德人，碩士，單位：魯東大學外國語學院學科教學（英語）專業，研究方向：學科教學（英語）。