Tao Xingzhi has a great ambition of "training 1 10,000 qualified rural teachers and transforming one million villages". He believes that China is a big agricultural country, and most people live in rural areas. Education in China should be rural education, not rural education. If there is no improvement in the countryside, then there is no hope for the country.
To this end, he declined the kind invitation of Wuchang Higher Normal School and went to Xiaozhuang in the north of Nanjing to establish an experimental rural normal school to train rural teachers.
Its practice
During his study in Xiaozhuang, he not only advocated the concepts of "life is education", "society is school" and "teaching integration", but also practiced it. In order to know frogs, he took his children to the river; In order to teach children about herbs, they called the old farmer who dug herbs. Teacher Wang also takes students to farm and work. He said, "It is not a hero to sweat yourself, eat your own food, do your own thing, and rely on people and ancestors."
1930, Xiaozhuang Normal School was closed down by the Kuomintang authorities on the grounds of association with communist party, and Tao Xingzhi was forced into exile. After the wanted order was lifted, he came to Shanghai, served as a consultant for Shenbao, and published a lot of comments criticizing the Kuomintang. In particular, the article "Suppressing Bandits and Creating Bandits" pointed out that "the bandits in the whole country today are all caused by dark politics."