The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China's Opinions on Further Strengthening and Improving Moral Education in Schools clearly points out that it is necessary to "educate and guide students of different ages in various ways to help them improve their psychological quality, perfect their personality and enhance their ability to resist setbacks and adapt to the environment". Therefore, mental health and ideological morality are indispensable and complementary organic components of moral education, and developing mental health education has become an important breakthrough to improve the effectiveness of moral education in primary and secondary schools. The importance of mental health education can be analyzed from the following aspects.
First of all, developing mental health education in primary and secondary schools is the need of social development. Talents in the era of knowledge economy should be psychologically healthy first. Modern physiologists believe that engaging in creative learning and creative activities should be based on personal psychological normality and health. With the development of China's economy, social competition is increasingly fierce and social values are increasingly diversified. People are generally subjected to different degrees of psychological pressure, and psychological disorders and mental diseases are becoming more and more frequent. Primary and secondary school students are in a critical period of physical and mental development, and social changes have further aggravated their psychological turmoil, and they are facing unprecedented psychological and behavioral adaptation problems. However, these psychological and behavioral problems can't be solved by traditional moralizing, simplification and formulaic moral education, so school mental health education came into being. Only by carrying out mental health education for primary and secondary school students can we solve all kinds of psychological and behavioral problems of students, give play to the unique role of treating both the symptoms and the root causes, and promote primary and secondary school students to better adapt to school and social life and grow up healthily and happily.
Second, mental health education in primary and secondary schools is the need to implement quality education. The so-called quality refers to the scale of people's physical and mental development level and is the internal basis of people's essential strength. From the definition of quality, we can see that psychological quality is one of the qualities that people must possess. Good psychological quality can make individuals better adapt to changes in the external environment and give full play to their potential. However, for a long time, China's primary and secondary education practice has always attached importance to the cultivation of intellectual factors, but neglected the cultivation of students' healthy psychological quality, especially the cultivation of non-intellectual factors such as will, interest and personality, which is not conducive to our comprehensive promotion of quality education. The new curriculum of primary and secondary schools emphasizes that the curriculum should promote students' physical and mental health and improve their comprehensive quality. It holds that good psychological quality is an important part of students' comprehensive quality and the carrier of other qualities. The cultivation of good psychological quality can not be separated from the concrete practice of mental health education in primary and secondary schools, so mental health education is one of the basic connotations and the basic project of quality education.
Thirdly, developing mental health education in primary and secondary schools is the need of moral education curriculum reform. Moral education is a dynamic conceptual system with rich ideological connotation, and mental health education gives moral education a new era connotation.
First of all, traditional moral education has the phenomenon of outdated content and shallow work level, while mental health education has expanded the scope of traditional moral education, and brought personality development issues such as how students know themselves, deal with interpersonal relationships, adjust and control emotions into the whole moral education system.
Secondly, traditional moral education methods mainly focus on "preaching" and "indoctrination", lacking flexibility and effectiveness, while mental health education mainly focuses on persuasion. On the basis of respecting, trusting and understanding students, students can communicate and exchange equally and create a free spiritual space for them, thus achieving good results and promoting their development.
Finally, mental health education is the foundation of moral education, which can adjust students' psychological bearing mechanism and promote the realization of moral education goals. Only when students have healthy psychological quality can they accurately understand and agree with ideological and moral education, so that ideological and moral education has the function of "internalization".
Fourthly, developing mental health education in primary and secondary schools is the need of students' all-round development. The harmonious development of mental health is the basis and guarantee for the all-round development of primary and secondary school students' morality, intelligence, physique, beauty and labor. Therefore, mental health education is of great value to promoting students' all-round development, which is embodied in:
1. For the development of intelligence and learning, healthy psychology can promote the coordinated development of students' intelligence, which is helpful to improve learning efficiency and knowledge mastery, while psychological and behavioral problems such as weak will, weariness of learning, inferiority complex and lack of motivation are the main reasons that affect students' learning.
2. There is an interaction between mental health and physical health of primary and secondary school students. If a person is in a bad psychological state such as anxiety, depression, fear and anger for a long time, it will often cause autonomic nerve dysfunction, leading to physical maladjustment and illness.
3. Mental health can promote the development of primary and secondary school students' aesthetic ability and improve their ability to appreciate and create beauty. Mental health itself contains the profound connotation of beauty, so we should pay attention to shaping students' physical beauty, verve beauty and physique beauty in primary and secondary schools. Healthy psychology is one of the important contents of aesthetic education.
4. Mental health education also contributes to the cultivation of labor concepts and habits. Those primary and middle school students who have psychological and behavioral problems often have the attitude and behavior of evading labor. Therefore, setting up mental health education in moral education curriculum is the internal need and basic project to promote the all-round development of primary and secondary school students.
Fifth, developing mental health education in primary and secondary schools is the need of students' sustainable development. The ancients said that "at the age of three, they look down on the young and at the age of seven", which means that primary and secondary schools are a crucial period for a person's development and the formation of good psychological quality and will quality. However, children and teenagers in primary and secondary schools are experiencing all kinds of puzzles and confusions in life and study, so it is necessary to carry out mental health education in primary and secondary schools to help students dispel all kinds of fog in their growth and guide them to grow up healthily. The cultivation of good psychological quality and will quality can run through people's life development and benefit them for life. Therefore, carrying out mental health education is the need of the sustainable development of primary and secondary school students.