Society is the school, which is the place theory of life education theory. It is believed that society itself is a big school, and education should rely on the strength of society to meet the needs of society.

The integration of teaching and learning is the methodology of life education theory. It is believed that teaching methods, learning methods and practice are inseparable in life. Advocating how to do things, students should learn how; Teachers should teach students how to learn. Both teaching methods and learning methods come from practice and are unified in practice.

Main contributions:

Mr. Tao Xingzhi devoted his life to education and made a pioneering contribution to the modernization of education in China. He not only established a complete educational theory system, but also carried out a lot of educational practice. Looking at Tao Xingzhi's educational thought, innovation is like a golden thread, which runs through Tao Xingzhi's educational thought from beginning to end.

Innovation here refers to getting rid of the "old" that does not meet the needs of the development of the times and creating the "new" that conforms to the social and historical progress. Innovation also has the significance of breaking idols, superstitions, dogmas and rigid habitual thinking.

The innovation of Tao Xingzhi's educational thought is also manifested in the training goal. He pointed out that the new education should cultivate all-round "talents" in view of the phenomenon that the old education aimed at cultivating "talents". As early as when he founded Nanjing Anhui University, he put forward three educational goals for this school: learning knowledge and having scientific spirit; To transform the environment, we must have aesthetic artistic conception; When dealing with emergencies, you should have noble moral cultivation.