This paper examines two broad categories of challenges facing contemporary education: humanistic issues and technological issues. Humanistic issues focus on student development, dignity, human relations skills, and curriculum relevance — including topics such as human sexuality, race, substance abuse, and anger management. Technological issues center on students' transition into a knowledge society and the integration of computers and the Internet into classroom learning. The paper argues that education must move beyond purely technical skill-building to critically examine the humanistic purposes of technology, empowering students to engage with questions of progress, society, and humanity in everyday life.
In education today, there are many humanistic and technological issues that must be addressed in order for students to receive the best possible education. Humanistic issues are concerned with educational opportunities that help students better understand their personal development, learn and apply human relations skills, assess humanistic concerns in both personal and societal terms, and establish goals for the future. Technological issues are concerned with students' evolution toward a knowledge society.
Humanistic issues are best described as various educational theories and challenges that are committed to humanism, human development, well-being, and dignity as the ultimate end of all human thought and action (Borton, 1970). Many experts feel that education today can be a disrespectful and alienating experience for both students and teachers.
From a humanistic perspective, the future of education is about much more than developing technical skills as conventionally judged by educational leaders, who rarely examine the substantive content of student relationships. Humanistic educators argue that schools must attend to the whole person — not merely to measurable academic outcomes.
Some of the most important humanistic issues in education involve curriculum. Often, states ask educators and students to teach or learn content that someone else has decided upon. In many ways, education does not consider the opinions or concerns of educators or learners in any meaningful way.
Humanistic issues aim to apply to the content of courses, the skills taught in courses, and the structure of the school itself. These issues call for relevant courses — ones that relate directly to the lives of the students involved and that students themselves perceive as important.
For example, humanistic issues encompass topics such as human sexuality, race, substance abuse, and anger management. By incorporating such topics, educators can make learning more meaningful and personally significant for students.
"Examines technology literacy and classroom computers"
"Calls for critical integration of both issue types"
Both humanistic and technological issues are essential to education. Education must seek to go beyond the transmission of the most effective and economic usage of tools in today's society to include critical investigations of the humanistic purpose of technology. By assuming a critical approach that considers humanistic perspectives alongside technological realities, schools can empower all students to participate meaningfully in an increasingly complex world.
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