Character education is concerned with the qualities that children show when they behave, do things and coexist with others, education about how children behave, and education that focuses on children's lifelong happiness.
Since January 1 this year, the Law of the People's Republic of China on the Promotion of Family Education has been officially implemented, which is the first time that the mainland has carried out special legislation on family education, clearly proposing that family education should be based on the fundamental task of cultivating people with virtue and attaching importance to the cultivation of character.
Professor Chen Huichang, a development psychologist who once put forward the important theory of "three seeds of child development", has been paying great attention to children's character education in recent years.
To this end, at the beginning of the "Character Education" column, we specially invited him to give us an in-depth interpretation of the significance of character education.
01
How much does genetics and environment play a role?
The debate about the influence of genetics and environment on personal growth and development has been going on in psychology and education for more than 100 years.
The debate is whether heredity is more important or acquired education more important for children's emotions, intellect and personality.
Although researchers have not yet been able to completely separate genetic and educational factors, they can draw accurate conclusions.
But through extensive studies of identical and heterozygotic twins, most researchers agree that genetic and environmental roles play a different role in an individual's physical and psychological development.
For example, genetics play a larger role in physiological indicators such as height and weight, while genetics play roughly the same role in psychological indicators such as mood, memory, introversion and extroversion.
In fact, it is impossible to completely separate genetic influences from environmental influences, and genetic and environmental factors always work together in some complex way, which we call interaction.
Genetics are determined and function for life in the moment of sperm-egg union, which is difficult to change, but the acquired environment and education can be changed.
Therefore, we can fully say that after genetic factors are determined, the environment and education are the determinants.
For example, a child is very introverted, timid, afraid of people, and not good at interacting because of genetic reasons, and his parents never comment that he is "timid", often encourages him to see his elders to "call people", and creates conditions for him to interact with other children, which is a good environment and education.
On the contrary, for extroverted, bold, and aggressive children, parents should adopt corresponding educational methods to stop, deny, force physical control, and even punish when the child shows inappropriate behavior.
That is to say, the environment and education methods provided by parents and teachers to children should match the nature of children, that is, teaching according to their aptitudes.
02
Character education is an investment in the well-being of children
In the "Guiding Outline of Kindergarten Education" and the "Guide to the Learning and Development of Children aged 3-6" promulgated by the Ministry of Education of the Mainland, it is clearly stated that the work of early childhood education in the mainland is divided into five fields: health, language, society, science and art.
Together, these 5 areas determine a child's physical and psychological development and whether he can live happily throughout his life.
What is happiness?
It's a value judgment.
Some people think that a happy life must have wealth; some people think that contributing to society is happiness; some people think that physical health is happiness; some people think that knowing aesthetics and liking music, art, and literature is happiness; some people think that adapting to society, being good at communication, family harmony, and having friends is happiness; and so on.
If you carefully observe real life, you will find that having wealth, good health, contributing to society, knowing aesthetics, and being able to speak eloquently will affect people's happiness, but they cannot ultimately determine people's happiness.
In the words of logic, these conditions are sufficient conditions, not sufficient conditions, and these factors must be combined with social adaptation to determine the happiness of man.
After a person is born, he must first adapt to the family environment, be cared for by his parents, and at the same time be attached to his parents, and feel satisfied and happy with the family environment;
Then gradually adapt to the kindergarten environment, like kindergarten teachers, peers, be accepted by teachers and peers, feel comfortable and satisfied with the kindergarten environment, and always be willing to go to kindergarten;
Then we must adapt to the environment of primary school, middle school, university, work unit, married life, retirement and other environments step by step, so as to complete life happily and happily.
The "social sphere" education in kindergartens is the character education of this age group.
Therefore, early childhood character education is to lay the foundation for children's lifelong happiness.
It is hard to imagine that a child who does not like to go to kindergarten, does not like the teachers and peers there, and is not accepted and liked by teachers and peers, he will feel comfortable and happy.
In the same way, when he enters elementary school, middle school, college, work unit, and after marriage, he still does not like the people around him, nor is he liked and accepted by the people around him, he will never be able to get the relationship between classmates, teachers and students, colleagues and husband and wife, and he will not feel comfortable and happy in any group.
Such a person, where there is happiness to speak of!
Be fair, caring, helpful, cooperative, listen, share... These are the qualities that build healthy interpersonal relationships, and they are also the focus of character education.
When children master these good qualities from an early age, they can integrate into the new environment and meet new challenges faster.
03
What does early childhood character education include?
What is character?
Character refers to the moral, personality, and social cognition, emotion, and behavior of an individual formed under the influence of genetic and environmental interactions.
Ethics - including justice, care, helpfulness, honesty and trustworthiness, etc.;
Personality - refers to the psychological characteristics of people who are stable, including extrovert or introvert, impatient or calm temperament, good or bad popularity, careful or careless, and interest and curiosity in new things, etc. Personality is what people usually call personality and disposition;
Sociality - refers to the behavioral characteristics that individuals show when interacting with others, such as listening to others, the way they talk to others, obeying order, sharing, being polite, not hitting people, understanding their own emotions and others' emotions, being good at controlling their emotions and behaviors, and so on.
The main task of character education in early childhood is social skills training, and in addition to continuing to cultivate social skills in small semesters, it is necessary to focus on moral character education;
At the middle school stage, in addition to the cultivation of social skills and moral character, we should increase the education of socialist values and political ideology, so that young people can become successors who adapt to society, have morality, have a healthy personality, love the motherland, and love the Communist Party, and finally achieve the goal of cultivating people with virtue.
The most important thing in family education is character education, how to be a person's education, parents should take on the responsibility of educating future generations.
In 2022, "Parents Must Read" magazine and Beijing Family Education Research Association jointly opened a column of "Character Education", starting from daily life situations, edutainment, helping children cultivate good character from an early age, and becoming a new person of the times who can assume the role of national rejuvenation.
Parents' Must Read magazine went on sale in March 2022