邓小平同志关于“教育要面向现代化,面向世界,面向未来”的题词,指明了我国教育工作的方向,极大地鼓舞了广大教育工作者,加速了教育改革的步伐。近两年来,在教学思想上,以传授知识为中心环节的他统教学论,已日益向注重能力培养的现代教学论转变。时至今日,“教育者必须首先受教育”的问题分外显得突出,教师的能力培养,已经提到议事日程上来。中学地理教师应当具有什么样的能力?怎样培养这种能力?自然是地理教育界普遍关心的问题。笔者认为,引进“扩展能力”(Open Competence)这一概念,将有助于问题的探究 Comrade Deng Xiaoping’s inscription on “education should face modernization, the world, and the future” pointed out the direction of education in China and greatly encouraged the majority of educators and accelerated the pace of educational reform. In the past two years, in terms of teaching ideology, the teaching theory of his system, which centers on imparting knowledge, has increasingly shifted to modern teaching theory focusing on ability cultivation. Today, the issue of “educators must be educated first” is particularly prominent. Teachers’ abilities have already been mentioned on the agenda. What kind of ability should middle school geography teachers have and how to cultivate this ability? This is naturally a common concern in the geography education world. The author believes that the introduction of the concept of “Open Competence” will help to explore the issue.