Overview of moral education
First, the concept of moral education
Moral education, also known as ideological and moral education, is an educational process in which educators purposefully and consciously transform certain social political norms, ideological norms and moral norms into the individual morality of the educated. Moral education is one of the important contents of school education and an important part of quality education. Moral education is an educational activity to cultivate the educated's good ideological and moral character by urging them to actively understand and experience moral activities.
Second, the meaning of morality and psychological structure
(A) the meaning of moral character
Morality, that is, moral quality, refers to a certain stable personality tendency when individuals act according to certain moral behavior standards. Morality is also called conduct, virtue or conduct in our country. For example, some students always follow the requirements of the student code in their study and life, love the group, observe discipline, study hard and help others. We think the student has a good moral character.
(B) the psychological structure of moral quality
The psychological structure of morality, that is, the basic components of morality, includes moral cognition, moral emotion, moral will and moral behavior. These four components are interrelated, infiltrated, influenced and organically combined, and are indispensable. Studying the psychological structure of moral character from the level of psychological composition will not only help us to grasp the essence of moral character more maturely, but also provide an important theoretical basis for students' moral education.
Third, the development and characteristics of middle school students' morality
(A) the development of moral awareness of middle school students
The development of middle school students' moral knowledge is manifested in two aspects: first, the level of moral thinking; Second, it is manifested in the degree of moral concept.
1. The development of moral thinking of middle school students
Moral knowledge is first manifested as moral knowledge, moral judgment and moral evaluation, which is actually a reflection of the level of moral thinking. At the same time, the strength of people's thinking ability often affects the level of moral understanding.
The development of middle school students' moral thinking level has the following characteristics:
(1) The development of moral thinking has age characteristics. As far as most middle school students are concerned, Ren Gang middle school is in the stage of not understanding or staying on the surface, in the stage of exposing the essence in the next semester of Grade Three, and in the substantive stage of understanding the code of conduct after high school.
(2) There are individual differences in the development of moral thinking, which tend to be basically stereotyped with the development of individual overall thinking level and intelligence level. This is the performance of age characteristics and individual differences.
(3) The development of moral thinking reflects that the development of individual morality has a process from ignorance to knowledge and from immaturity to maturity, which provides educators with the possibility of shaping and transforming students' morality.
2. The development of middle school students' morality
Middle school is a period when moral beliefs and ideals are formed, when the world outlook is budding and initially formed, and when moral beliefs and ideals are used to guide one's behavior.
The moral beliefs and ideals of middle school students are formed and developed in their own practice, communication and study under the conditions of social life, especially under the conditions of education. This is the main feature of middle school students' moral knowledge development.
The development of middle school students' morality has the following characteristics:
(1) The moral belief and ideal level of middle school students increase with age. In general, it tends to be stable in the second half of the third grade.
(2) In the advanced collectives that truly form a good class spirit, the correct collective public opinion and collective norms make the moral requirements of the class collective become the action guide of most collective members, so that the number of students with wrong ideas is gradually reduced and the bad behaviors inside and outside the school are gradually reformed. It can be seen that the formation of advanced collectives plays a great role in the formation and development of moral beliefs of middle school students.
(3) In class groups without correct public opinion, the correct ideas and ideals of group members are often not supported, and even wrong moral concepts and norms will grow with age.
(B) the development of moral feelings of middle school students
The development of middle school students' moral emotion is manifested in two aspects: first, it appears in the form of moral emotion; The second is the sociality of moral emotion.
1. The development of middle school students' moral emotional forms
Based on the causes of morality and the relationship between morality and cognition, this paper analyzes the manifestations of moral sense of middle school students surveyed, which are divided into three levels: the first level is intuitive emotional experience, which is produced by the perception of a certain situation, and the consciousness of moral norms is often not obvious; The second level is the emotional experience caused by moral image; The third level is the emotional experience of ethics, which is dominated by moral understanding and clearly aware of moral requirements and moral theories.
2. The development of middle school students' moral and emotional sociality
Taking the degree of collective emotion as an index, this paper analyzes the development trend of moral emotion sociality of middle school students surveyed, which can be divided into three levels: the first level is self-interest; The second level emphasizes emotion and loyalty, but fails to realize the social significance of emotion; The third level is to consciously love the class collective, with a strong sense of collective honor, social obligation and responsibility.
Under the normal educational conditions, the social level of middle school students' moral emotion is strengthened with the growth of grades, and gradually matures after the third grade. However, due to the complexity of moral emotion, there are obvious individual differences in the sociality of middle school students' moral emotion. Advanced class collective is an important condition for developing social moral factors. If education is ineffective, middle school students are likely to be in the first and second emotional States, which need to be paid attention to by teachers and parents.
(C) the development of moral awareness and behavior of middle school students
The development of moral consciousness and behavior of middle school students is manifested in the level of will and action, and in the relationship between words and deeds.
1. The development of moral will behavior of middle school students
Under normal circumstances, the purpose and self-control ability of middle school students' moral will action improve with the growth of grade, and the moral will action becomes more and more mature after grade three. However, there are individual differences in middle school students' self-control ability. The key lies in education, whether their classes are sound or not, and whether they form a system. Poor education will also lead to "disorderly classes" in high schools. "Disordered classes" often affect students' self-discipline and self-control ability. Therefore, from the beginning of the first grade, it is necessary to strengthen the "conventional" education, which is still of great significance in the middle school stage.
2. The development of middle school students' words and deeds.
Consistency between words and deeds of middle school students is a very complicated problem, which needs to be analyzed in detail. Consistency in words and deeds is also complicated in age characteristics. In a good class group, the moral words and deeds of middle school students can be consistent after grade three, and the motivation and effect can also be unified at that time; However, in the case of poor education, the habit of lying or cheating among middle school students is also easy to form around the third grade. Therefore, it is more important to reform the behavior of lying and cheating in middle schools.
(D) the cultivation of moral behavior habits of middle school students
Moral behavior is an important symbol to measure whether an individual has a healthy moral psychology and noble moral quality. At the same time, moral behavior is an important foundation of moral formation, and morality is composed of many moral behaviors.
The research shows that 60% of middle school students' moral behavior habits were formed in or before grade three, 20% of middle school students' moral behavior habits were formed in high school, and nearly 20% of middle school students did not form good or bad moral behavior habits until they graduated from high school. The formation of good behavior habits mainly depends on practice. A good class group, because it strengthens the practice of behavior habits, plays a positive role in the formation of moral behavior habits of each group member. Students with bad moral character can be reformed in good class groups; Students who develop bad habits, pay close attention to education and change the environment appropriately may not necessarily embark on the road of crime; However, if you develop bad habits, once you lose the strict environment and collectivity, you will often develop bad habits and even embark on the road of crime.
Fourth, the main content of moral education.
The content of moral education stipulates the political direction of students' development and the ideological views and moral norms they should master. It marks what kind of moral quality students should have, is the basis of ideological and moral education, and is an important guarantee to complete moral education tasks and achieve moral education goals.
The determination of the content of moral education in schools is mainly based on the educational objectives and tasks, the characteristics of the times of students' moral development, the current situation and tasks, and the reality of students' moral education. The basic contents of moral education in primary and secondary schools in China include the following aspects:
1. Patriotism education
Patriotism refers to people's deepest feelings or loving attitude towards their motherland. Patriotism is a historical category, which is historic and class-oriented. In different historical stages of social development and different countries, it has different nature and content. The patriotism of the new China is the profound friendship of the people of China under the leadership of China for the great socialist motherland and the lofty spirit of contributing everything to the independence, unity and prosperity of the motherland. At the same time, it is also closely integrated with proletarian internationalism, opposing hegemonism and safeguarding world peace. Patriotism is a great cohesion that unites people of all ethnic groups in China, and it is the basic moral character that people and young students in China should possess.
The basic content of patriotism education is:
(1) Cultivate students' deep feelings of loving the motherland.
(2) Educate students to enhance national and ethnic awareness.
(3) Make students carry forward the spirit of internationalism, safeguard world peace, educate students to care about the international situation, support and learn from each other in peace, friendship, equality and mutual benefit, oppose hegemonism, safeguard world peace and strive for human progress.
2. Ideal education
At present, the common ideal of the people of all ethnic groups in China is to build socialism with China characteristics and to build China into a prosperous, democratic and civilized socialist modern country.
The basic content of ideal education is:
(1) Educate students to set up lofty ideals.
(2) Educate students to inherit and carry forward the revolutionary tradition.
(3) enable students to closely link their lofty ideals with their personal study and practice.
3. Collectivism education
Collectivism is the core of socialist and communist morality, and it is the fundamental symbol that distinguishes it from all non-proletarian morality. After the establishment of socialist China with public ownership as the main body, collectivism is the fundamental principle and basic code of conduct to deal with the relations between social members and between individuals, collectives and the state, which restricts other norms and categories of socialist morality.
The basic content of collectivism education is:
(1) Cultivate students' idea of serving the people.
(2) Educate students to care about and love the collective.
(3) Cultivate students' habits of living and working.
4. Labor education
In socialist China, the people are masters of their own affairs, and labor is the right and obligation of every citizen. From each according to his ability, distribution according to work is the basic principle of socialism. Every citizen who has the ability to work should contribute to the socialist modernization with his hard work and earn legitimate labor income with his honest work to maintain the survival and development of himself and his family.
The basic content of labor education is:
(1) Educate students to understand the great significance of labor.
(2) Educate students to study hard and establish a good atmosphere of loving and learning science.
(3) Educate students to treat further education and employment correctly.
5. Conscious discipline education
Different societies and strata have different disciplines. Socialist society practices conscious discipline. Consciously observing discipline is based on the basic consistency of individual, collective and national interests, as well as people's high sense of responsibility for society and full awareness of observing discipline. It is an independent, active and voluntary discipline maintained by people's inner beliefs, a comrade-like discipline of unity and mutual assistance, and a truly strict iron discipline. It is the basic guarantee for normal social production and life. Discipline in socialist schools is not only an important condition and guarantee for schools to carry out education and teaching activities smoothly, but also an important condition and aspect for cultivating a new generation with noble moral quality.
The basic content of conscious discipline education is:
(1) Improve students' understanding of freedom and discipline.
(2) Educate students to strictly enforce discipline requirements and form the habit of observing discipline.
6. Democracy and legal education
Fundamentally speaking, bourgeois democracy serves the maintenance of the capitalist system, and socialism will push democracy to a new historical height in order to realize that the people are masters of their own affairs. Democracy and the rule of law are inseparable. The rule of law is usually understood as law and system. The socialist legal system is a unity including legislation, judicature and law-abiding. The socialist legal system embodies the will of the people, protects their legitimate rights and interests, adjusts the relationship between people, regulates and restricts people's behavior, and punishes and combats all kinds of behaviors that endanger society.
The basic contents of democracy and legal education are:
(1) Cultivate students' democratic thoughts and sense of participation.
(2) Students are required to master legal knowledge and strictly abide by the law.
7. Education of scientific world outlook and outlook on life
World outlook is people's fundamental attitude towards the world. Outlook on life is a part of the world outlook, and it is the fundamental view and attitude of people towards life problems. In class society, different classes have different world outlook and outlook on life. Dialectical materialism is the world outlook of the proletariat and its fundamental viewpoint and attitude towards the world. Under the guidance of the proletarian world outlook, the proletarian outlook on life critically inherits the reasonable components of various progressive outlook on life in history, and is produced and formed in the proletarian revolutionary practice. It is the most progressive and lofty outlook on life in human history and an integral part of the proletarian world outlook.
The basic contents of scientific world outlook and outlook on life education are:
(1) Educate students on the basic viewpoints of dialectical materialism and historical materialism.
(2) Educate students to know the lofty purpose and significance of life.
8. Humanitarian and social moral education
In the long-term common life and communication, human beings have gradually formed public morality, which mainly includes civilized behavior and humanitarianism. These morals are the basic virtues shared by human beings, which are not only the moral basis for human self-development and self-improvement, but also an important condition and symbol for social development and progress. Humanism, in particular, is an important public morality. It advocates respecting and trusting people, advocating friendship, equality and mutual assistance between people, attaching importance to people's value and status, and emphasizing the development of human nature.
The basic contents of humanitarian and social morality education are:
(1) Educate students to carry forward the socialist humanitarian spirit.
(2) Cultivate students' civilized behavior.
(3) Help students develop good quality.
The above-mentioned moral education contents are interrelated and infiltrated as a whole, which is necessary to cultivate students' ideological and moral character and cannot be neglected.
Five, the factors affecting the development of moral character
1. Genetic quality is the biological premise of human moral development.
(1) Genetic quality provides the possibility for people's moral development;
(2) The mature process of genetic quality restricts the development process and stage of people's moral psychology;
(3) The difference of people's genetic quality restricts the individual difference of people's moral development.
2. Environment has an important influence on people's moral development.
Environment in a broad sense refers to all external factors that affect people's lives, which can be divided into natural environment and social environment, in which education also exists. In a narrow sense, the environment refers to the external world that has a spontaneous influence on people's moral development, especially the social environment that has an important influence on people's moral development. The influence of environment on moral development is embodied in material environment, social relations and social consciousness.
Moral education plays a leading role in people's moral development.
There are three forms of moral education: school moral education, family moral education and social moral education. This paper mainly discusses the leading role of school moral education in people's moral development:
(1) School moral education has a clear purpose and direction;
(2) School moral education is planned and systematic;
(3) School moral education is highly organized and specialized;
(4) Moral education can control and utilize the spontaneous influence of genetic and environmental factors on people.
4. Individual's subjective initiative plays an important role in promoting the development of human morality. In the process of people's moral development, individuals are not passively influenced by heredity, external environment and moral education, but have certain subjective initiative. Individual subjective initiative plays a very important role in the formation and development of moral education.
Sixth, ways to promote middle school students to form good moral character.
1. Enrich moral knowledge and improve moral awareness.
In moral education, teachers should help students understand and master moral concepts, and at the same time promote students to accept moral requirements and turn them into internal moral needs. Teachers should put forward certain moral requirements to students in a purposeful and planned way according to social moral norms. However, students' external educational influence is not mechanically and passively accepted. As far as a class is concerned, the teacher puts forward the routine to ensure the smooth progress of classroom teaching, some students can abide by it, and some students can't. This phenomenon shows that external education affects students' education, and has gone through a complicated internalization process. In other words, external education can only bring subjective reflection through the internal psychological activities of the educated, such as cognition, emotion and will, and form the desire or intention to maintain and realize moral requirements, which is the so-called moral need. When morality needs to point to a specific behavior goal, it can induce moral motivation and become the internal driving force to push people to act according to the code of conduct. It can be seen that education cannot replace students' inner psychological activities, but education can inspire and induce the educated through various ways and methods to accelerate the process of internalization.
2. Cultivate the ability of moral evaluation
Some psychologists believe that students' moral evaluation level is positively related to the number of times they participate in practical activities such as moral topic discussion and evaluation. In order to cultivate and develop students' moral evaluation ability, teachers should always make correct and concise evaluations of right and wrong, beauty and ugliness, good and evil in the collective, demonstrate students' moral evaluation, and organize students to conduct extensive discussions or elections on moral issues by using various educational and teaching activities, such as special discussions, group activities, proposition writing, selection of three excellent students, moral reports and examples in elected class cadres, newspapers, movies and literary works.
3. Stimulate and cultivate middle school students' moral feelings
Moral emotion is always accompanied by moral understanding and moral evaluation. People express admiration and praise for behaviors that conform to social moral standards, and disgust and hatred for behaviors that do not conform to moral standards, which belongs to moral feelings.
There are many ways to stimulate and cultivate students' moral feelings. First of all, we should stimulate students' emotions while giving them moral education. Secondly, provide concrete images and vivid examples of role models to arouse emotional resonance. Middle school students are in the period of actively exploring the road of life and looking for their own role models. The moral image of heroes is a model of social moral standards. Therefore, teachers should choose heroes with the characteristics of the times and organize students to learn from heroes, which is helpful to cultivate noble moral sentiments. Third, stimulate and maintain students' healthy emotions, and prevent and eliminate unhealthy emotions.
4. Exercise moral will and enhance the ability to resist temptation.
In order to make students form good moral quality, we must attach importance to the cultivation and exercise of moral will and enhance their ability to resist all kinds of temptations. Teachers should pay attention to: provide an example for middle school students to exercise their moral will and stimulate students' desire to exercise their will; In all kinds of activities, provide students with tasks with moderate difficulty, let them overcome certain difficulties and finally succeed, and encourage and praise students' various will efforts in activities in time; Organize exchanges, discussions, visits and other activities related to will exercise to improve students' consciousness of will exercise; Guide students to sum up the experience and lessons of success or failure in the process of exercising their will in time, and stimulate their confidence and enthusiasm in exercising; According to the different characteristics of students' will, we should exert educational influence in a targeted way.
5. Cultivate moral behaviors and habits
The transformation from moral cognition to corresponding behavior reflects the transformation from moral inner consciousness activity to external practice activity, which constitutes a stage in the process of moral formation. The transformation of moral behavior realized by morality alone cannot represent the formation of morality. Those temporary, irregular, accidental and situational moral behaviors are only the embryonic form of morality. Moral behavior is the symbol of moral formation only when it is transformed into regular and automatic moral behavior habits.