초등교육의 맥락에서 본 초급지식의 성격: 교육의 가치와 교과의 가치에 대한 분석 = The Nature of Elementary Knowledge Reconsidered in the Context of Primary Education

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Most people define primary education as that in which teachers teach elementary knowledge to students and prepare students for higher education. In this respect, the term primary education is often used as a synonym of elementary education. But the notion elementary education as the antonym of higher education makes many people identify primary education with the lower or inferior education. To further confuse the issue, there is a general agreement amongst a group of educator that the value of subject matter is the end that education should make effort to achieve. From this point of view, elementary knowledge is less valuable than higher or advanced knowledge. Therefore, the notion elementary education degrades itself to has less respect than higher education. The purpose of this study was to reconsider the nature of knowledge in the context of education and differentiate the value of education from the value of subject matter. The unique argument of this study was as follows: 1) the notion elementary knowledge is meaningless in the context of education. Each of the students always has his or her own knowledge that he or she should make efforts to understand. In this respect, as a matter of course, every student, including primary school student, learns his or her own valuable knowledge. There is no student who learns only elementary knowledge. 2) The inherent educational value cannot be attributed to subject matter. The value of subject matter get maximized as subject matter reaches the highest level. However, the educational value can be experienced at each level of subject matter. Accordingly, every student, including primary school student, can experience educational value without learning higher level knowledge. It is possible that primary school students learning elementary knowledge can have valuable educational experience like other students who learn more advanced knowledge. The result of this study was that primary education should be reconceptualized without using the term elementary knowledge or overemphasizing the value of subject matter.