When the old monk didn't participate in meditation 30 years ago, mountains were mountains and water was water. Later, he saw knowledge with his own eyes, and he had a place to go. He saw that mountains are not mountains and water is not water. Now he has a place to rest. According to previous experience, mountains are just mountains and water is just water. -[Tang] Qingyuan only believes in Zen masters.
The great cause of ancient and modern times and the questioner of the university must go through three realms: "Last night, the west wind withered the green trees, and I went to the tall building alone to look at the horizon." So is this first place. "The belt is getting wider and wider, and I don't regret it. I am thin for Iraq. " So is this second environment. "Looking for him in the crowd, I suddenly turned around, but the man was in the dim light." So is this third place. -Wang Guowei's "Words on Earth"
? What is the triple realm of the ideal classroom?
? According to the experimental research of new education, the success or failure of classroom can be examined from three aspects: the implementation of the basic framework of teaching activities, the depth of knowledge understanding and the quality of dialogue between subject and object and between subjects. The optimization of these three levels can be the triple realm of the ideal classroom.
The first area: implementing an effective teaching framework.
The first realm of ideal classroom In the new education, implementing an effective teaching framework is to lay a solid foundation for the classroom.
Effective teaching framework is the basic method. This framework, or the clever use of this "tool" and "weapon", can first make classroom teaching solid and effective. And it is solid and effective, which can be said to be the routine requirement of classroom teaching. It is also a basic requirement, so the ideal classroom of new education is regarded as the first realm of the ideal classroom. The effective teaching framework and its understanding and operation are detailed in the first part of this book.
The second realm is to explore the inner charm of knowledge.
Classroom is the place where truth is presented, and teaching is the time when knowledge exudes charm. Below the static textbook is the greatest mystery of mankind, the whole process of discovering and writing the universe and human beings. Classroom teaching is a review and continuation of this discovery and writing. However, if "question-knowledge-truth" is not the core of classroom teaching, then teachers' wonderful performances are superficial, students' small hands are superficial, the true meaning of education and teaching will not be understood by teachers and students in the classroom, and intense mental work will be replaced by superficial enthusiasm in the classroom, while intense mental work and targeted thinking training are the essence of classroom teaching.
Resonance between knowledge life and the third realm life
? If the second realm emphasizes "thinking" in the learning process, that is, intellectual learning, then the third realm emphasizes "poetry" in the learning process, that is, understanding the classroom from the perspective of existential significance and demanding the classroom.
If we use Zhuangzi's words to describe the process of human knowledge creation as "judging the beauty of heaven and earth and analyzing the reason of all things", then our pursuit of ideal classroom teaching is to reproduce both the beauty and reason in the classroom and the process of trial.
If we misunderstand the above statement unilaterally, ignore the concept of "community" behind knowledge, ignore the significance of reproducing and rewriting knowledge and truth with subjects from the perspective of post-structuralism, and focus on the cognitive dimension in teaching, then we may not reach the expected goal and make another mistake. Professor Ye Lan criticized this mistake many years ago: "Limiting the classroom teaching goal to developing students' cognitive ability is the most prominent manifestation of the limitations of current teaching theory thinking. On the one hand, it is a reflection of the mainstream thought of modern rationalism philosophy and intellectualism education, and it is also a manifestation of the thinking method that is used to dividing the original whole into parts and aspects. Specifically, it is to separate the cognitive function of life from the whole life, highlight its importance and treat the whole life as a cognitive body. She also believes that "classroom teaching contains great vitality". Only when the vitality of teachers and students is effectively exerted in classroom teaching can it really contribute to the cultivation of new believers and the growth of teachers, and the classroom will have real life. Therefore, in order to change the current situation in classroom teaching, we must study many factors that affect the status of teachers and students in classroom teaching, study the full richness of teacher-student activities in classroom teaching, and study how to develop the life potential of classroom teaching. "
Discover the inner charm of knowledge
The second level of the ideal classroom of new education: exploring the inner charm of knowledge is a great thing.
What is an ideal classroom?
Promoting and realizing every student's learning as much as possible is the fundamental pursuit of effective teaching, and it is also the key to shift the attention of the classroom from teachers' teaching to students' learning. However, if we do not fully understand the teaching objectives in the effective teaching framework, especially the B-type core teaching objectives, and do not regard the whole teaching framework as an organic unity, then one-sided emphasis on students' subjectivity will also run the risk of slipping into "false subjectivity" or "subjectivity myth"
In some classes called new curriculum exploration, we can find that students raise their hands like a forest, scrambling to speak. After a student puts forward an idea, many small hands immediately raise their hands to supplement or evaluate it. This kind of classroom is more like the display of students' talents, just like the display of teachers' personal talents under the open class mode. Then we can ask, is such a classroom an ideal classroom? Can students get satisfactory results after studying in such classes for a long time?
The answer is obviously no, because the failure of this child-centered or subjective myth has been proved by too many facts. In fact, the second realm of the ideal classroom of new education can also be regarded as a tribute to the older humanism, or a way out for the children's central classroom that has lost its direction because of misunderstanding.
Of course, the "knowledge" mentioned here cannot be understood as static knowledge written in books that can be read aloud, but as a verb, a mystery to be rediscovered, and the method and process of discovering this mystery.
Reproduce the magical process of exploring knowledge
The center of the classroom should be a process of putting forward, understanding and solving problems, and a process of exploring and discovering knowledge as a tool to solve problems. Excellent classroom teaching should reproduce this magical creative process.
In other words, an excellent classroom and an excellent science class should reproduce all this in the classroom: human beings are trembling and moving in front of the universe and life phenomena; The long exploration of the unknown, the difficult formation of knowledge, all kinds of confusion, attempts, failures, and ecstasy after being suddenly enlightened. In this process, we will continue to be awed and surprised by the unknown. If we eliminate the fear of things and their mysteries, human beings will be superficial and arrogant, while if we lose the surprise of things and their mysteries, human beings will be numb and precocious. Whether it is light phenomenon, electric phenomenon, atomic structure, microscopic details, chemical changes ... these have brought a lot of profound confusion and joy to mankind. Science education should reproduce all this. Teaching is not repeating the knowledge set by predecessors, but reproducing the process of knowledge discovery and re-experience. Experience the initial confusion and exploration, as well as joy.
An excellent Chinese class should reproduce the impulse and joy when naming everything: countless running horses are finally solidified in the Chinese character "horse" and countless flying birds are finally solidified in the Chinese character "bird" ... to reproduce the wisdom and joy when each Chinese character is solidified. From the thread in the hands of a loving mother, making clothes for wayward children, we can appreciate the classical affection and human feelings; From independence bridge full of sleeves. In 14 Chinese character "Lin Ping's New Moon Comes Home", we can all appreciate the complex and delicate taste of life loss and expectation from the repeated "plain" to the unique long rhythm of Chinese. In the new education primary school, excellent teachers have repeatedly proved that as long as you observe with your heart, any Chinese character, any word, if these can be reproduced in the classroom, then every class will not be dull and mediocre.
Similarly, an excellent math class should make students feel and understand that what they use and teach is a wonderful number that was once regarded as the language of God by human beings. Whether it is China people's fascination with the circle, the magic of Mobius ring, or the numbers that operate and dominate the world behind daily life, people have to be awed by mathematics. At the same time, mathematical thinking mode is also the most rigorous and reliable of all thinking. It can be said that what we call science, in a certain sense, refers to theories and things that conform to mathematics and are close to mathematics. Therefore, in the Ming Dynasty, when Xu Guangqi translated the ancient Greek mathematical masterpiece "The Elements of Geometry", he said: Whoever can master this book will be powerless; Those who are eager to learn this book have nothing to learn. Mathematics is not cold figures and data, but the mystery behind nature, society and history, and it is the most reliable weapon and tool found by human beings in the process of exploring the world. Excellent math teachers can also find the unique charm of mathematics in class, so that students can reproduce this magical process of discovering mathematics. Moreover, among all subjects, mathematics is the subject with the most clear goal, the most comprehensive training, the most accurate feedback and the greatest intellectual challenge, which should be perfectly realized in mathematics classroom. All this, as Parker Palmer said: Through our cognitive exploration, a concept of truth emerges: truth is an eternal dialogue full of passion and principles about important things.
The main body of the second realm is all students.
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Combined with the pursuit of the first realm and the second realm in the ideal classroom of new education, we should further confirm that it is not only teachers but also students-all students who explore the charm of this great thing. In this way, the three elements in classroom teaching: knowledge, teachers and students, should not be separated by teachers, but should be taught ready-made knowledge to students by some means. High-quality teaching should be the hard exploration of teachers and students around "problem-knowledge". In this sense, the first realm emphasizes students' preview under the framework of effective teaching, and it is also to ensure that every student can directly contact with problems and knowledge, instead of just swallowing the softened knowledge chewed by the teacher, that is, ready-made conclusions.
Parker Palmer expressed the unique position of knowledge in the classroom with the following feelings: "The traditional concept of our educational community ignores bringing us together and calls on us to know, teach and learn the relationship between great things and us. I see that when we exclude the charm of great things and rely entirely on our own rather limited charm, the educational community will become smaller. " He said: "What I mean by great things is that those who seek knowledge always gather around them-not the subjects that study these subjects, nor the textbooks or theories that they explain them, but the things that are regarded as subjects themselves." "I mean the gene and ecosystem of biology, the metaphor and frame of reference of philosophy and theology, betrayal and forgiveness in literary materials and the prototype of love and loss. I refer to the man-made phenomena and ancestors of anthropology, the finiteness and potential of engineering raw materials, the systematic logic of management, the shapes and colors of music and art, the strangeness and patterns of history, and the elusive concept of justice in the legal field. " "A major event like this is an important concern of the education sector. Just as primitive people must gather around the fire, by gathering around them and trying to understand them, we become learners, teachers and learners. If we are at the highest level and perform well, it is because the charm of great things induces our virtues and gives the education sector the best and best state. "
Of course, some people will argue that not all knowledge is attractive, even some knowledge in teaching will make mistakes, and not all subjects can attract all students' interest. So, will the charm of exploring this great thing of knowledge be a mirage or a castle in the air? Is it a romantic idea in the lab? Is it difficult to realize in practical teaching?
To understand this, let's first review another core concept of new education: reading, writing and living together; By reading and writing together, teachers and students, parents and children have a common language and password. We can also argue that this process is not easy, many parents or students are hard to change, and everyone will come together with their own interests. This pursuit can only be utopia, a utopian romantic idea; Even if this concept is practiced, the process will be full of doubt, struggle and frustration. Yes, all these doubts are not unreasonable, but the facts always appear again and again: not only do we have to read and write together and live together, but teachers and students, parents and children have a common language and password through reading and writing together, and as long as we persist in this action, a community of educational destiny will gradually form, a common life will emerge, and a happy and complete educational life will continue to flash in the whole difficult exploration process.
The same principle, we should first take the concept of "discovering the charm of great things" as a new description of the teaching life we will eventually experience.
Perhaps the previous teaching life can be described as: the teacher handed over the textbooks (composed of questions and answers) prescribed by the superiors to each student through some activities to check the students' acceptance effect. Then, the new teaching life we want, on the level of the second realm, we hope to describe it as: the journey of teachers and students to discover, understand and solve problems around a "problem-knowledge-text" (proposed by textbooks and exams, which is related to the deep and extensive disciplines behind and the deeper and broader human life). This journey will be full of doubts, puzzles and challenges, and it is impossible to be completely free from mechanical memory, frustration and humiliation, but its core will always be intellectual challenges and thinking training, the surprise and joy when knowledge appears as a tool to solve problems, and the sudden opening of complex problems.
Knowledge, life and life resonate.
The third realm of the ideal classroom of new education: the profound resonance of knowledge, social life and teachers' and students' lives.
Triple dialogue in the ideal classroom
Undoubtedly, the ideal classroom will not stay in the dimension of dialogue between people and knowledge. According to the viewpoint of constructivist pedagogy, we can regard learning as a simultaneous triple dialogue:
Dialogue between man and knowledge (world, text);
Dialogue between people (teachers, students, other readers);
Dialogue between man and himself (reflective, historical and growing).
The dialogue between people and knowledge is undoubtedly the core of classroom teaching, which is discussed in detail at the above two levels. What we are going to discuss here is the latter two kinds of conversations that happened almost simultaneously. ?
Different from the false subjectivity emphasizing "speaking" in the classroom, the ideal classroom pursues "listening" and "responding", that is, realizing the real dialogue between the subjects. If the classroom with "speak" as the main form of expression aims at advocating students' independent performance, then the classroom with dialogue (listening and answering) aims at advocating mutual understanding, deepening the understanding of knowledge through opposing each other, and generating close resonance among community members in the process. As Professor Sato of Japan said, this kind of listening should not only be able to understand the meaning of the speaker, but also be able to "stand on the standpoint of appreciating and appreciating the students' speeches" ... Listening to the feelings and ideas contained in their speeches, not the contents of the students' speeches, will resonate with their hearts, resulting in empathy such as' Oh, it's not simple',' I see' and' really interesting'.
At the same time, if we understand the classroom from the perspective of dialogue theory or social constructivism, we will also realize that teachers are not only organizing classroom teaching in a superb way, but also playing an important role. His understanding of knowledge is the upper limit that students can reach in the nearest development zone in most cases. In other words, many times, the height of his understanding is the height that courses and classes can reach. Without the guidance of teachers, the study of individual students will be limited to the limited level of "jumping and picking peaches", and the dialogue of group students will stay on the surface like a vegetable market. In the theory of social constructivism, there is an important concept called "zone of proximal development", which was put forward by the Soviet psychologist Vygotsky. Vygotsky's research shows that the teaching organized by teachers can play a leading role and promote children's development. There are two levels of children's development: one is the level that can be achieved by autonomous learning, and the other is the level that can be achieved by means of adult imitation in collective activities. Vygotsky called the distance between these two levels the nearest development zone. This theory shows that if teachers don't play a leading role in the classroom and don't participate in the dialogue between students and knowledge, then both the dialogue between students and knowledge and the dialogue between students groups may stay on the surface and fail to achieve the expected results.
That is to say, in a sense, if classroom teaching wants to arouse students' resonance and reproduce the charm of knowledge, the premise is that teachers should first be able to recognize the inherent charm of knowledge and participate in the whole process of knowledge reproduction.
Teachers' participation in the process of reproducing the charm of great things cannot be understood only from the perspective of "promoting effective learning". We should also realize that teachers' educational life is an end in itself, not just a means. The subject of a happy and complete educational life is not only students, but also teachers. For a teacher, most of the most precious time in his life is devoted to school education, the center of which is classroom teaching. If a teacher's life can't shine and his charm can't be displayed in class, then he can't set an appropriate example for students to pursue truth, and what's more regrettable is that his own life will also be spent in gloom. We don't think that teachers' happiness can only be pursued outside the campus and classroom. We also don't fully agree that the image of teachers should be a "spring silkworm" and a "candle" that "tears begin to dry after death". We believe that in the classroom, on the podium, among students and in front of knowledge, the image of a teacher should be a sincere explorer and a wise seeker. Although he has enough patience to wait for the students to find out for themselves, and he has enough courage to admit that he is not omnipotent, he really should be sure to bring the students to an ideal situation that he has experienced at least.
? Only in this way can we say that classroom teaching has not only realized the profound resonance between people and knowledge, but also realized the profound resonance between people and themselves! We can say that classroom teaching not only realizes the reproduction of knowledge, but also realizes the resurrection of people-the resurrection of students and teachers.
To achieve the above two points, it can be said that in terms of the form of classroom teaching, it is almost a perfect ideal appeal. However, from the perspective of pedagogy, especially pragmatism education tradition, and from the perspective of post-modern education concept, this kind of classroom teaching form is still a little dangerous. Our classroom may have been divorced from the world and social life, it may be a perfect ivory tower, and it may cultivate a group of intelligent and refined people who don't care about human destiny.
In other words, the ideal classroom teaching needs to reach the last dimension: the classroom is closely related to social life, the classroom is closely related to human destiny, and at the same time, the profound resonance between people and knowledge, people and others, and people and inner souls can be realized. We hope that in our primary and secondary school classes, "don't crush the natural curiosity of any newly awakened consciousness, but guide it to make an initial exploration: what is man, life, society, world and truth?" (edgar morin's Complexity Theory and Education), and only in this way, the relationship between teachers and students in the classroom, or the relationship between learning communities, has surpassed intimacy as the basis and knowledge as the standard. Community members have become a group of like-minded people, who are pursuing the truth for human beings and their own existence.
This is the third realm of the ideal classroom of new education: the profound resonance of knowledge, social life and teachers' and students' lives.
The relationship between the three areas
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However, the third realm cannot be a high-rise building, and it must be built on the first realm and the second realm.
Just like all real learning, if the third level is to realize epiphany in teaching, then this epiphany needs long and even arduous gradual practice ahead.
Moreover, for most textbooks, it may be just a technology, not the truth of existence. Therefore, the third realm is "accident" and "minority", which, in a sense, cannot be pursued deliberately and reluctantly. It requires the textbook itself to have the truth about existence, and requires a profound interpretation of the textbook. Of course, this ultimately depends on the teacher's understanding of knowledge, as Suhomlinski described:
Acquire knowledge-this means finding the truth and answering questions. You should try your best to let your students see, feel and get in touch with what they don't understand, so that there will be problems in front of them. If you can do this, things will be half done. But it is not that simple to do this. When preparing lessons, we should think carefully about the textbook from such an angle: find out where the causal relationship is and the intersections that are not easy to detect at first glance, because it is these places that will cause problems, and problems can stimulate the desire for knowledge.
For example, I have a textbook on photosynthesis in front of me, which should tell students clearly what happens in the green leaves of plants. All this can be said to be in line with the reliability of science, the thoroughness of theory and the sequence of teaching theory, but there is one task that has not been completed: it has not stimulated students' intellectual enthusiasm to a certain extent. I think deeply about the textbook, so where is the connection point of causality? Ah, right here, the most important intersection is here: how did inorganic matter become organic matter? This is an amazing and mysterious picture: plants absorb inorganic substances from soil and air and convert them into organic substances in their complex bodies. What is the manufacturing process of organic matter? In the complex and elusive laboratory of plant organisms, under the irradiation of sunlight, how did mineral fertilizer, an inanimate thing, become the sweet juice of tomatoes and the fragrance of roses? When I was telling a story, I tried to guide the students to realize this problem and make them feel excited: "All this happened in front of my eyes, but why didn't I seriously think about it?"
Look, that's it. In the eyes of many teachers, it is mechanical, boring and lifeless, let alone meaningful photosynthesis. In the eyes of an educator, it is knowledge with ultimate significance.
Let me take my Young Wang Mian as an example, mainly through this moment to observe how the third realm appeared at the last moment of the class, and its appearance needs an organic development process.