Chen Heqin is a famous educator, child psychologist and child education expert in modern China. He is the founder of modern early childhood education in China, and has made a very important contribution to the development of early childhood education in China, especially to the study of children's psychology. Known as "the father of early childhood education in China" and "Flobel in China". The thought of "life education" is the core of Chen Heqin's educational thought. The formation of Chen Heqin's thought of "life education" has its special historical background and theoretical origin, and it is also the practical result of his long-term engagement in the new education movement in China. Studying and understanding children, loving and respecting children are the core concepts of Chen Heqin's "life education" thought. The content of Chen Heqin's "life education" thought also includes teleology, curriculum theory, methodology and teachers' view. At present, with the moral concept of "children first" and the scientific requirements of early childhood education, the reform of early childhood education is imminent. There are still many misunderstandings in preschool education in China. To solve these misunderstandings, we can learn from Chen Heqin's "life education" theory, and analyze and discuss from the perspectives of education, children, curriculum, teachers' quality and family co-education, so as to better guide today's early childhood education reform and strive to realize early childhood. Chen Heqin, a native of Shangyu, Zhejiang Province, was one of the founders of new education in China after the May 4th Movement, and also the founder of modern preschool education in China. Starting from China's national conditions, he actively studied and introduced advanced western modern educational ideas, systematically put forward the idea of "life education" and initiated modern education with China characteristics. "Life education" is the core of Chen Heqin's educational thought, which fully embodies his innovative spirit of new education based on China and looking around the world. It should be affirmed that this spirit not only has the significance of breaking the deep-rooted feudal autocratic education, but also has a far-reaching impact on the educational reform and development in China today. His contribution has attracted worldwide attention, and he has the reputation of "Flobert of China" and "the father of preschool education in China". China people have been ridiculed by outsiders as "the sick man of East Asia". Chen Heqin deeply realized in his early years that the strength of a country is related to the weakness of national character, because the strength of a country depends on the education level of its people. In the final analysis, the development of a country is the development of people. Therefore, he changed the original intention of studying medicine in 1980 and decided to devote himself to education. First, he studied in America for five years. During the May 4th Movement, he was invited to return to China and began his new education. Since June, Chen Heqin has been teaching pedagogy, psychology and child psychology at Nanjing Normal University. The next eight years were the period when he laid the foundation of education, and also the period when the thought of "life education" was brewed and put forward. During this period, he devoted himself to educational reform, introduced western theories and new methods, and took his eldest son Yi Ming as the main research object. After many days of systematic observation and the excavation of written records, he summed up the psychological development of children in China and its educational laws. Since then, Chen Heqin has brewed and implemented a new educational research plan and started his unremitting search for kindergartens in China. He founded Gulou Kindergarten, the first experimental kindergarten in China, and conducted experiments in curriculum, reading method, teaching method and equipment. Although the experiment process is full of twists and turns, practice has proved that this lasting educational experiment has overcome the disadvantages of kindergarten alienation in China, and theoretically summed up the declaration of kindergarten education in China-our proposition. The outline of "life education" thought has been formed in this period. At the end of 1990s, Chen Heqin restated Tao Xingzhi's description of China's traditional death education ten years ago, that is, "teach dead books, teach dead books, read dead books, read dead books", and proposed that teachers should "teach living books, teach living books" and students should "read living books". On the basis of summarizing the educational practice and thoughts of predecessors, they clearly expounded their own "living education" thought. In 1980s, Chen Heqin started the experiment of "living education" and founded Jiangxi Experimental Kindergarten Normal School, which was attached to a primary school, a kindergarten, a nursery and a professional department, forming a systematic educational experimental area. By the end of 1990s, through continuous experiments and research, life education gradually formed a relatively complete theoretical system from several slogans and an outline in the initial stage of the experiment, and put forward creative ideas from the aspects of the purpose, methods, curriculum and teachers' view of life education. He believes that the purpose of "living education" is "to be a China person and a modern China person", and that "living education" takes "doing" as the center, "learning by doing, teaching by doing, and making progress by doing". Later, he put forward seventeen teaching principles and four steps in the teaching process of "natural society is a living textbook", which is Chen Heqin's comment on "learning by doing". The thought of "life education" is obviously influenced by Dewey's pragmatic philosophy. Like Tao Xingzhi's "life education" theory, it absorbs the essence of Dewey's pragmatic philosophy, that is, criticizing the traditional injection teaching, fixing the rigid teaching content, taking teachers as the center and ignoring students' subjectivity. At the same time, China's background and national conditions are fully considered, which is an educational thought with absorption, transformation and innovation. "Living education" has made great contributions to the development of China's educational history, and many of its viewpoints still have great enlightenment to our preschool education reform today. Of course, the theory of "living education" is the product of China's specific historical conditions in the first half of this century. Like all other educational theories, it also has historical limitations. For example, it is a bit absolute to emphasize that nature and society are living textbooks, and it is a bit absolute to regard indirect experience as a learning tool. He applied the object of life education to all educational fields, but in fact, life education is mainly suitable for children in kindergartens and sixth grade primary schools. There is a contradiction between the teaching of systematic knowledge and students' autonomous learning, and the contradiction between teachers' leading and students' dominant position deserves further study. In addition, life education criticizes traditional education in the experiment, which is undoubtedly positive, but it is too emphasized in some aspects, which should also be questioned, because the progress of human society is in the process of critical inheritance, and education reform is no exception. Chen Heqin's thought of "life education" is a valuable spiritual wealth in China's educational treasure house. Of course, after liberation, we once completely denied Chen Heqin's educational thought, especially in the overall social turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, the idea of "living education" was greatly criticized and denied. However, the reform and opening-up policy after the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee has given new vitality to the idea of "living education". Today, "rejuvenating the country through science and education" gives priority to the modernization of basic education. Preschool education, as the foundation of basic education, should shoulder the heavy responsibility of cultivating future talents. Although with the implementation and development of preschool education reform, China's preschool education has made gratifying achievements. With the moral concept of "children first" put forward, the scientific nature of early childhood education requires that the reform of early childhood education must be carried out deeply and persistently. There are still many misunderstandings in preschool education in China. To solve these misunderstandings, we can learn from Chen Heqin's "life education" theory, analyze and discuss the concept of education, children, curriculum, teachers' quality, family co-education and other aspects, and think deeply about the current situation of preschool education in China, so as to improve the current level of preschool education reform in China and strive to realize the modernization of basic education as soon as possible. Firstly, the origin of Chen Heqin's thought of "life education" and the process of its formation and development. Chen Heqin never stopped pursuing China's new education all his life. The concept of "life education" is the goal of Chen Heqin's lifelong efforts. The concept of "living education" is inseparable from the birth of the times. It is the real product of China society. It also absorbed the reasonable core of western "new education", but it was not completely absorbed blindly. Instead, it conducted a series of long-term and arduous experimental explorations on the basis of the combination of Chinese and Western cultures, which fully reflected its innovative spirit of Chinese-style new education based on China's specific national conditions and looking at the world. With Chen Heqin's practical exploration, the concept of "life education" has also gone through a process of formation and development. The origin of Chen Heqin's thought of "living education" Chen Heqin went to a private school in his early years and was deeply touched by the disadvantages of traditional education in China. The taste of reading a dead book. He was deeply dissatisfied with China's stale educational thought under the semi-feudal and semi-colonial conditions, and tried to learn from the successful experience of modern western education and combine the national conditions of China to create a scientific and China educational theory. The idea of "life education" is the real product of China society. It is a theoretical summary of Mr. Chen Heqin's long-term exploration of China's new educational practice based on China's national conditions, criticizing and absorbing the reasonable elements of Dewey's pragmatic educational thought. The historical background of the formation of the thought of "living education" The opposite of "living education" is undoubtedly "dead education", that is, traditional old education. Its brewing can be traced back to the early 1930s. At that time, China society had entered the era of the Republic of China. However, due to years of infighting among warlords, the whole education circle was still shrouded in the shadow of traditional autocratic education. Especially with the establishment of the National Government and the promulgation of the educational purpose of the Three People's Principles, the traditional "quintessence of Chinese culture" was revived by the "China culture theory", Chiang Kai-shek advocated "four dimensions and eight virtues" again, and vigorously "rectified the style of study", and the contents and methods of school management and teaching became rigid. What's more, the Kuomintang government neglected basic education. "The government's education policy still only attaches importance to higher education, but it ignores basic education every time. Even though the slogan of popularizing basic education was put forward, it did not actually realize the abnormal development of education. It is a well-known fact that if the education policy is not changed as soon as possible, it will be a serious hidden danger in the future of education in China. ..... The government's policy of neglecting naive education really makes people wonder whether the government should start from the grassroots and educate real people's educators. " . It is worth noting that one of the characteristics of China's education under semi-feudal and semi-colonial conditions is the serious alienation tendency. Throughout the development of early childhood education in China in the late Qing Dynasty, most of them copied Japanese early childhood education from form to content, except for the kindergartens run by the church and a few early childhood education institutions modeled after the West. . Chen Heqin's Collection of Chen Heqin's Education, Volume II, Beijing Publishing House, p. 1. All these were reasonable under the social conditions at that time, but because of this, the preschool education in China had the disadvantages of westernization and enthusiasm for westernization from the beginning. After the Republic of China, the disadvantages of alienation in preschool education in China are still increasing, but the objects of admiration and imitation have changed. Compared with the late Qing Dynasty, with the input of western educators' preschool education theory, China's preschool education gradually changed from "Japanese" to "European". Until around the May 4th Movement, kindergartens in China mostly adopted the forms, contents and methods of preschool education in Europe and America. As a result, China's preschool education was copied and plagiarized, making naive education "almost a place for selling foreign goods, and poor children became foreigners." . Faced with all these circumstances, in order to meet the needs of the new era and social development, a large number of patriotic intellectuals in China began the difficult course of breaking the old feudal education and exploring the "new education" in China. It is in this social and historical background that "living education" began to sow and take root. As Chen Heqin said, "It is a pity to talk about education in China. We have been running a school for almost forty years. Today, everything is still stagnant in the state of decades ago, with less improvement and less creation. " Education should be "alive", conform to the trend of the times, and "turn that lifeless and corrupt education into a progressive, automatic, lively and energetic education." The theoretical origin is the pragmatic philosophy represented by Dewey. During his study in the United States, Chen Heqin was deeply influenced by the pragmatic philosophy represented by Dewey. He once pointed out frankly that the relationship between "life education" and pragmatic education thought is not a new invention. His theory was inspired by different educational authorities in the world. When the author was educated in the United States from to, the American progressive education advocated by Dr. Mu Wei, one of the famous educators, had a considerable influence on the formation of the life education movement in China. "... There is no doubt that Chen Heqin's" life education "really absorbed the reasonable elements of Dewey's pragmatic education thought, and was firmly rooted in China's national conditions, creating a" life education "theory with China characteristics. Although Dewey's educational thoughts and systems learned from the Japanese before he came to China dominated the education in modern China, due to Dewey's personal visit to China to give lectures and the propaganda of his students, pragmatic educational thoughts became a very common philosophical thought in China at that time. Professor Peking University and Dewey's expert on China once emphasized that "China's education is widely and profoundly influenced by foreign scholars, with Mu Wei as the first person. Dewey's great influence on foreign education is also based on China. " Undeniably, the new education movement in China was even higher because of Dewey's direct participation. This is largely due to the anti-traditional spirit shown by pragmatism. Dewey vividly expounded the anti-traditional pragmatism spirit, which is mainly manifested in respecting children's individual psychological development and opposing teachers' authority and knowledge infusion. Tao Xingzhi's Complete Works, Volume I, Hunan Education Press, 2000 pages. . Chen Heqin's Collected Works, Volume I, Jiangsu Education Press, 2006. . Chen Heqin's Collection of Chen Heqin's Education, Volume II, Beijing Publishing House, pp. . Chen Heqin's Complete Works of Chen Heqin, Volume I, Jiangsu Education Press, pp. Dewey, Democracy and Education ≥ People's Education Press, 2006. Advocate the spirit of scientific democracy and pay attention to the life and socialization of schools. These aspects are not available in China's traditional education, and this anti-traditional spirit just catered to the needs of China's social and educational development at that time. Needless to say, the anti-traditional spirit of Dewey's pragmatic education thought is really a good medicine to cure and activate China's traditional "death education". However, Chen Heqin did not fully absorb the pragmatic educational thought. What he especially admired was the experimental spirit in the anti-traditional sense shown by the pragmatic educational thought. Chen Heqin said, "The recent educational trend of thought is to attach importance to experiments, which is the most powerful proposition that Dewey and Maitreya learned from the American experimental school. This trend of thought has influenced all kinds of education and changed all aspects of education. In fact, from the experimental results, experimentalism is indeed more applicable. Naive education is one of all kinds of education, and of course it should be studied in the spirit of experiment. " There is no doubt that "life education" was mainly based on a series of research and experiments from the beginning. Chen Heqin's "living education" attaches great importance to the scientific experimental spirit, from the study of children's psychology, family education and genre application vocabulary to the experiment of Gulou kindergarten and the establishment and experiment of naive normal school. This spirit is not passive water, and Dewey's pragmatic education thought undoubtedly gives great reference to the experimental spirit in the anti-traditional sense. Chen Heqin made no secret that the theory of "life education" was influenced by Dewey's theory. He claimed that "the life education I advocate is consistent with Dewey's theory, because it has the same starting point, the same path and the same method." In the long-term educational experiment, life education has formed a relatively complete educational theory system, and put forward creative ideas from teleology, curriculum theory and methodology. As far as its ideological origin is concerned, it is hard to say that Chen Heqin's teleology of "living education" is not directly influenced by Dewey's theories of "education is life" and "education is growth", but he does admit that Dewey's educational theory is reasonable, and after repeated research and exploration, he finally sums up his teleology of "living education", that is, to be a China person, a modern China person and a world person. In curriculum theory, Chen Heqin's "living education" advocates that "nature and society are living teaching materials", highlighting the life experience closely related to children's lives and highlighting children's dominant position. On this issue, we can clearly see the shadow of Dewey's pragmatic education theory. Dewey's curriculum theory clearly puts forward that children's activities, that is, children's direct experience, are the center of the curriculum. On the issue of methodology, a basic principle put forward by Chen Heqin is "learning by doing, teaching by doing, and making progress by doing". This basic principle is inspired by Dewey's theory of "learning by doing" and is the further development of this idea. Chen Heqin made no secret of this. He said: "This principle can be said to be born out of the idea of" entertaining through education "advocated by Dr. Dewey in Chicago, but it goes further than Du's idea ..."