I. Education and life
From the two educational viewpoints of "education is life" and "life is education", people can find that Dewey and Tao Xingzhi attach great importance to the relationship between life and education. Dewey's "education is life" contains two meanings: (1) education is a necessity of social life, and Dewey believes that education is a tool for the continuation of social life; (2) Education exists in social life and must be closely linked with social life. For example, he said in Democracy and Education: "Society not only continues to produce through communication, but also can fairly say that it exists in communication and exchange." "Not only social life and communication are the same thing, but all communication (so all real social life) has educational significance." What he calls "communication" is actually "education", so "education is life". "You can't live without a degree." ①
Tao Xingzhi's "life is education" tends to be a kind of "mass education". In his eyes, "life education is the education of the masses, the education run by the masses themselves, and the education run by the masses for the liberation of life." He believes that people should be educated in life. Tao Xingzhi's Life is Education expounds life from the perspective of education, emphasizing "the educational significance of life or the significance of life to education". His "life is education" has three meanings: first, life education is the original existence of human society, but life is education; Second, life determines education, and real life is the center of education; Third, the meaning of education is the change of life, and it is for the need of life moving forward. He believes that "a birdcage is a birdcage after all, and it is by no means a bird's world", so he advocates expanding the scope of education and putting birds in the sky, while school education should open the whole social life to students and keep close contact with children's life world. He believes that life itself is an education,
Generally speaking, Dewey's "education is life" and Tao Xingzhi's "life is education" both attach great importance to the relationship between life and education, breaking the situation that "education is self-education and society is self-society" advocated by traditional education, which leads to the disconnection between schools and society, students can't solve practical problems and students can't adapt to the serious consequences of society. Even today, their views are still of great significance to the "return of education to students' life world" advocated by us.
Second, schools and society.
Dewey put forward "school is society" according to "education is life". He called on the school to have the same environment as the existing system, so as to cultivate people who can fully adapt to the current social life. School is a form of social life, which simplifies social life and restores it to an embryonic state, presenting students' current social life. Of course, school is not a simple transplantation and replication of society. Compared with the ordinary living environment, the school provides a simplified, purified and balanced environment for students to grow up smoothly. As a primary society, school is not independent of the real society, but closely related to the real society. Dewey believes that "school life must be consistent with off-campus life." These two aspects must interact freely. "If school life has nothing to do with off-campus life, even if children can learn about society and cultivate interest in society at school, they can't be applied to off-campus life." The school is isolated from the society, so the knowledge in the school cannot be applied to life, so it is not good for conduct. "
The concept of "school is society" is like catching a lively bird from the air and putting it in a birdcage. It tries to absorb all aspects of society and merge into a primary school, so it is easy to be widely implemented, while the concept of "society is school" is the opposite. It seeks to extend all aspects of the school to nature.
Tao Xingzhi's "society is school" is based on the criticism of Dewey's educational thought. Tao Xingzhi believes that under the idea of "school is society", there are too few things in schools, so it is better to advocate "society is school" in turn. Educational materials, educational methods, educational tools and educational environment can be greatly increased, as can students and teachers. "Society is school" is closely related to "life is education", which is a different interpretation of the same meaning of "life is education" and its logical extension and guarantee. Because the "life" of life education is social life, "the movement of the whole society is the scope of education, and there is no need to talk about any connection, but its blood is naturally connected." The basic idea of "society is school" is to oppose the "minority education" divorced from life and the people, and advocate the use of the strength of all sectors of society to get through the connection between schools and society, establish schools that people need, and cultivate talents that society needs. Really put the school into the society, make the school closely connected with the society, and make the school a necessity of social life. Therefore, the real meaning of "society is school" is to run schools according to social needs. As far as the content of education is concerned, people can do whatever education they need. As far as the form of education is concerned, any form of school is suitable. "Society is school" is not the theory of school extinction, but the theory of school transformation, which transforms old schools to meet the needs of social development.
Third, education and morality.
Moral education is also an important part of Dewey's pragmatic education thought system. In 1909 "Moral Principles in Education" and later "Democracy and Education", he discussed the moral education in the new era from the perspective of American society, modern life and democratic concepts. From the perspective of opposing narrow and moralistic moral values, he emphasized the social and psychological aspects of moral education and put forward the "trinity of school morality", which advocated school life, textbooks and teaching methods. This is Dewey. But in essence, its moral education principles reflect the needs of American capitalist society.
Dewey believes that moral cultivation is the universal purpose of school education. He pointed out that "all education that can develop the ability to effectively participate in social life is moral education. This kind of education has shaped a character, which can not only engage in specific behaviors necessary for society, but also be interested in constant re-adaptation necessary for growth. " . Therefore, the role of moral education in Dewey's prosperity lies in its social value. Dewey also believes that in moral education, "moral concept" and "about moral concept" should be distinguished. The former refers to the idea that can influence and improve behavior and make it better in the process of participating in cooperative social life; On the contrary, it is an immoral concept. The latter refers to the idea of language teaching, that is, the direct teaching of moral knowledge; It is necessary, but compared with all the moral qualities formed through indirect moral education, the quantity is relatively small, the influence is weak, and it may be irrelevant to morality or immoral.
Based on the profound thinking of traditional moral education in China and western countries, Tao Xingzhi regards the combination of human personality development and socialization as the basic starting point of modern moral education, which meets the needs of modern social development. He criticized the old feudal education as "oppressing people's desires with justice", which turned people into tools and lost their independent personality, so that people's talents and ambitions could not be fully and freely developed. However, the thought of moral education in western countries is completely different from the traditional moral education in China. Capitalist private ownership determines that it unilaterally highlights human personality, transforms it into the opposition between society and others, and forms a moral education view based on personality. Therefore, he ruled out the negative factors of western humanism and clearly put forward the educational task of "children's self-development on the road to socialization", arguing that realizing human socialization is not only inconsistent with the development of human personality, but also "necessary for the normal development of children's psychology"
On the one hand, Tao Xingzhi criticized and inherited the excellent tradition of moral education in China, on the other hand, he absorbed and melted the advanced ideas of modern western moral education, and on this basis, he constantly reviewed and prospected the theory and practice of moral education in China, creating a moral education theory that is both suitable for China's national conditions and in line with the development trend of modern society. This is his educational thought, which runs through the whole process of life education and occupies an important position in it. This thought is rich in content and unique in principles and methods, which not only plays an important role in the process of modern education in China, but also has important practical significance for our moral education reform and innovation today.
Fourthly, the concepts of education and children.
Dewey believes that school education must simplify and sort out all the factors of children's development tendency, purify and idealize the existing social customs, create a broader and more balanced environment than children can naturally contact, and promote children's development. In order to promote development, he stressed: (1) Education should focus on children and shift the focus. Children become the sun, and all educational measures revolve around them. (2) The educational process should arouse children's thinking. He believes that thinking is a behavior of organisms to adapt to the environment and solve problems. Schools should provide situations that can arouse children's thinking experience. Dewey also proposed that we should attach importance to the position of children's own abilities and initiative in the education process and regard them as the material and starting point of education. ?
Tao Xingzhi not only attaches importance to children's recent development, but also attaches importance to children's lifelong development. He stressed the need to cultivate children's good habits and stimulate their thirst for knowledge. In this way, "individuals can make progress and development all their lives." On how to promote children's development, Tao Xingzhi developed Dewey's thought. (1) From child-centered to "Six Emancipations". Tao Xingzhi believes that teaching must establish students' dominant position and return the basic freedom of learning to students. Therefore, it is necessary to liberate students' thoughts, hands, eyes, mouth, time and space, so that students can become the masters of learning; (2) From thinking to creation. Tao Xingzhi believes that in education, we should not only enlighten students' thinking, but also guide students to create and liberate children's creativity, "dare to explore new ideas that have not yet been invented" and "dare to enter the uncivilized frontier" so that everyone can create.
Dewey's many expositions on education, now, have strong appeal and reference significance. Therefore, it is very beneficial for us to study Dewey's educational thought purposefully to promote the deepening of quality education at present. Tao Xingzhi's educational thought is the best combination of Chinese and western educational thoughts, which is advanced and contemporary, as well as national and realistic. Tao Xingzhi's educational thought briefly and profoundly revealed the objective laws of China's society and education at that time, and put forward the ideal of China's educational reform. Whether we study Dewey's educational thought or Tao Xingzhi's educational thought, we can't study in isolation, and we must keep pace with the times. We must proceed from the present situation of China's educational reform, modernize Dewey and Tao Xingzhi in history, learn their thoughts and methods, solve the practical problems of current educational reform, highlight the theoretical resources of Dewey and Tao Xingzhi's educational thoughts which are of great guiding significance to current educational reform, and creatively use and develop them on this basis. ?