Ten books | reading, as the best quality investment in life, often has a return that exceeds expectations

Wandering all the way, inheriting the context, learning culture, and making articles, it is inseparable from reading

"Towards the open land of the spirit". Ten years ago, Teachers Monthly magazine said this about my growth. The open one, the boundless, the sun and the moon, the mountains and rivers are hidden; the growers, the one who is diligent and long-distance, sings and does all kinds of cultivation. Now that I'm looking at it, maybe this is some sort of "value anchor" for my personal reading. "The virtue of literature is also great, and the person who lives with heaven and earth is He Zhao", I wandered all the way, inheriting the context, learning culture, and making articles, and I could never do without reading. Ten years of youth, bittersweet.

Lying down to read tao poems before the end, and then took the light rain to hoe melons

Reading is a particularly pleasant and relaxing thing. When I was a child, I loved to read comic strips, but books were not easy to find, and I went to the bookstore to find them, and once I bought the book I wanted, I was "ecstatic when I saw the book" (Lu Youyu). But I was afraid of turning it all at once, so I had to limit the number of pages by myself in the hope of "holding on" for two more days. Until he was more than 10 years old, he often read "Grimm's Fairy Tales", "The King of Stories", as well as "Shi Gong Case", "Fengshen Yanyi", etc., and searched for strange things every day, occasionally looking for chapters and excerpts, making a little show of it, and being happy and happy.

I remember deeply the first time I read the original work of "Journey to the West", with new words and poems everywhere, and I actually relished it. How to read it? It is also simple to say: if you see that there are clouds and clouds in the book that are "evidenced by poetry", all of them are skipped; when they encounter scenery descriptions such as "Ten Thousand Valleys And Rivers" and "Lan Qi Yu Yu", they are automatically shielded; only those dialogues, plots, and fight scenes are selected to see. Even this is enough to swallow dates, which is enough for a summer vacation. The magnificent imagination of the divine and demonic novel makes people think of thousands of years and see through thousands of miles. The wisdom of the Tang monks, the power of Wukong, the harmony of the eight precepts, and the loyalty of the sand monks are often irreplaceable to the spiritual universe of the molded boys. Other famous works, such as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin", also followed suit, and they were all "swallowed alive and stripped".

By the age of sixteen or seventeen, although he was addicted to martial arts, he was not forced by things, touched by pleasure, and as far as his eyes could see. Jin Yong was the first to admire, such as "Smiling Proud of the Rivers and Lakes", seeing the hapless Ling Hu Chong saw Ren Yingying's true appearance for the first time, and he did not feel tears. I remember holding the four-volume book at that time, staying up all night, "sitting idly in the small window to read Zhou Yi, I don't know how long the spring will go." After reading the ancient and majestic Jin Yong, and then looking at the dashing and strange ancient dragon and the stable Liang Yusheng, the understanding of history, literature and life is different.

The pleasure of reading is still after the first apricot altar. Due to the need to prepare lessons, especially vigilant against the slackness of "not looking at books and talking without roots", I have a more urgent desire for traditional culture. When I was in school, I was forced to recite "friends from afar" all day long, and I did not want to see Confucius. However, after teaching, he felt that the leisure and leisure of "bathing in Yiyi, dancing in the wind, and returning home with a chant" were quite appetizing; coupled with his mouth saying "the king's command is called, do not drive the way", and on the other hand, he swore with the last stubborn gambling spell that "the way is not ok, floating on the sea", which is really unbearable. So I looked back and forth at the Analects for several years, and the more I looked at it, the more I loved it. Mr. Zhou Yong's "Be a Teacher with Confucius" is a good cultural sketch, and if it can be combined with Mr. Qian Mu's "New Interpretation of the Analects", the effect is even better.

It is said that Confucius once asked Lao Tzu. Loving Wu and Wu, I also began to savor the Tao Te Ching from "Dao Ke Dao, Extraordinary Dao", based on Wang Biben, and went through the works of Fu Peirong, Chen Guying, Fang Dongmei and others. Holding the main idea of "a text must seek its truth, and one intention must analyze its subtleties", I memorized and deliberated it chapter by chapter and deliberated it word by word, only to find that its words contained everything and encompassed a thousand meanings. Interestingly, Confucius talked about "benevolence" and Lao Tzu talked about "unkindness"; Confucius talked about "virtue" and Lao Tzu talked about "unethical"; it was so easy for both of them to talk about "heaven", one praised "all things are born", and the other coldly said "take all things as a sword dog"... The two men went their separate ways, each saying their own reasoning, which was much more wonderful than watching Socrates and Plato.

Look at "Zhuangzi" again, its open, uninhibited, romantic wind, majestic and strange, wanton ocean, making people happy! For a while, I insisted on walking to school, memorizing a paragraph when I came, memorizing another paragraph when I went, and writing down "The Getaway" for the rest of the month. Speaking of the atmosphere at the right time, he gave a lecture on the science of cultural marriage under the theme of "Absolute Clouds, Negative Blue Sky", and the response was very good.

After reading Liu Wendian, when he was teaching at the Southwest United University, he once encountered a Japanese bombing, and everyone avoided it, and Shen Congwen was also among them. He yelled out, "What are you running to do!" I Liu someone is running for Zhuangzi, I'm going to die, no one will talk about Zhuangzi." Read it and laugh. If "although there are tens of millions of people, I am going to die" is the cultural gene handed down by Kong Meng, then "refusing to be pitied in life, laughing, laughing, singing and proud" is the spiritual heritage of "Lao Zhuang".

The interest in reading is also hidden in a kind of "writing and reading". For example, the "General History of Chinese Reading" (10 volumes), edited by Professor Wang Yuguang of Peking University, introduces the methods, concepts and fashions of reading in different eras according to the historical context, including the reading deeds of celebrities, which is interesting. The American scholar Mortimer M. J. Adler's How to Read a Book is also worth a look. From the perspective of writer's writing, Paustowski's "Golden Rose" talks about the choice of vocabulary, the establishment of style, the form of chapters and sentences, and the setting up of content. The blossoming of the flower of thought, and a few degrees of brilliance.

However, the joy of reading is more about discovering the charm of culture. For example, Rousseau, when reading Lao Tzu, I found that Rousseau was his "super fan", so he carried out a "cultural jump" and participated in Western culture through Rousseau. Later generations gave him the crown of "the great master of the Age of Enlightenment", but Rousseau began to write "On Science and Art" at the age of 38, and he poured out his reflection on civilization with pain and happiness. Descartes' "Talking About Methods", Mr. Qian Chengdan's "That Piece of Soil in the West", and Mr. Liang Shuming's "Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies" may be compared.

As a result, reading has quietly turned from comfort to another level.

Once the sea was shipwrecked as water, except for the Wushan Mountain is not a cloud

From an ideological point of view, Rousseau has shaken the past and the present, and in education, it is also impossible to get around. "Emile" as a classic, almost a must-see. The nearly 900-page imperial tome systematically constructs the idea of naturalistic education from the "man who cannot speak" in early childhood and the "sensory value and training" in childhood to the "body and mind in harmony" in adolescence and the "awakening of reason" in adolescence.

At the age of 16, Rousseau called it a watershed. Man is "born again" on a spiritual level. At this time of adolescence, the physiological development is getting better and better, but the mental level fluctuates greatly. On the outside, it looks like an adult, but on the inside it is still childish; rebellion and publicity have become its psychological representations. If grasped well, the child's lifelong development benefits, and vice versa may bring shadows or even regrets.

Max Weber, the "great master" of sociology, has a book called "Protestant Ethics and the Spirit of Capitalism", which talks about "man as an animal hanging on a web of self-woven meaning". The essence of all human values is the search and discovery of "meaning". It can be said that the excavation, expansion and guidance of the meaning of life is the most important component of Rousseau in the process of accompanying Emile's growth.

"Emile" uses gossipy language and virtual existence to structure the rational edifice of human beings in that era, which deeply affects Dewey and others. Dewey's My Educational Creed, like Rousseau's On Science and the Arts, becomes a kind of educational manifesto or outline. Tao Xingzhi and others later wrote "Our Educational Creed", which is not so much a model as a tribute and expectation.

"Democracy and Education" is dewey's pinnacle, constructing the cornerstone of pragmatic philosophy of education, from the style of words and sentences to the structural intention, it is quite difficult to make people close, so it is jokingly called "the flame of philosophy" and "the tragedy of intelligence" by readers. When I first looked at it, I was mentally prepared, not to seek enlightenment, but only to bow my head. Later, while reading the equally obscure Kant, it became clear that Western philosophy pursued extreme rigor rather than literary elegance. In this way, the complex sentences are rampant, the terminology is roaring, and the lengthiness is dull, and the reading is naturally laborious.

I also enjoyed this, and jokingly called it the "boundary of learning", which was intended to test the newcomers. During that time, except for the class, I devoted myself to interpretation: when I couldn't read, in addition to reading Mr. Wang Chengxu's translation, I also found the versions of Zou Taofen, Lin Baoshan, and Chang Daozhi for reference, including literal translations, paraphrasings, and speech notes, which were helpful; when it was half-through, an online forum was launched to "debate" with people online. Once even late at night, "if you have sex with Gongjin, if you drink alcohol mash, you don't feel drunk", those who have the heart will sort out the debate and the debate and submit it, and actually won a small prize; if they have some understanding, they will write down a little bit of experience, and persevere, forming a note of more than 100,000 words. At the beginning of 2014, I edited and published the small book "Dewey the Teacher" - 12 Keys to Unlocking the Wisdom of Education, and the following year published "Dewey's Proverbs on Education", which can be described as a full harvest.

I think reading Dewey has to start with pretending. Qian Zhongshu said: "Flirting can become love, imitation leads to creation, vassal style will develop an insider's appreciation, and many of the world's real goods are from counterfeits." The so-called "pretending" actually interprets the profound meaning of "Democracy and Education" with personal feelings. Every time I read it, it was a "I note the Six Classics"—gaining new wisdom, making new friends, and writing new words. As for the essence of Dewey Broad's thought, whether it is completely compatible, it may as well "yearn for it" and slowly understand it.

As the reading continues, the horizon becomes more and more open. Dewey inherited the spirit of Descartes's "I think, therefore I am", but did not fall into the quagmire of "idealism"; the "theory of evolution" based on Darwin moved to education, realizing the meaning of growth under the interaction between man and nature; and cleverly using James's functional psychology to explain children's behavior... In addition, such as brain science, sociology, political science, and communication science are also skillfully used in books, and a broad and rigorous "Du's universe" has quietly emerged. The more profound and meticulous its depiction of education, the more the learning is more remote and long-term, and it is difficult to see the bottom.

Shocked by this, Fang understood that the essence of pedagogy is "human science", and the complexity of "people" seems to be no less than rationality, so how difficult it will be to educate "people"! In On Pedagogy, Kant lamented that "education is the greatest and most difficult problem that can be entrusted to man." In this sense, it is more important than acquiring knowledge through reading, appreciating its finiteness, and keeping the individual in a professional posture of humility, awe, and diligence.

Thinking of this, "Democracy and Education" is no longer regarded as a work of education (philosophy), but as an "index set" that "peeks into the mysteries of heaven and earth and reaches the extreme of all things". Individual academic views, values, and cultural views are reconstructed in the shock. From Russell's "History of Western Philosophy", Connell's "History of World Education in the Twentieth Century", Stephen Pinker's "Language Instinct", reading Sun Longji's "The Deep Structure of Chinese Culture", Zhu Yongtong's "Details of Education", and Zhou Yong's "Cultural Transformation and Curriculum Reform", I finally completed the shaping of the philosophical view of personal education.

Over these mountains, you can see everything in front of you, and your mind and pattern will also improve. Reading, as the best quality investment in life, often has a return that exceeds expectations.

A crane in the clear sky lined up on the clouds, and it led the poetry to the blue sky

Stephen Georg said in the poem "Words": "Where words are broken, nothing exists." This "brokenness" is the absence of language, which Heidegger believes creates the uncertainty of the object. The reason why Lao Tzu's Tao is "extraordinary", the reason why the ancient Greek "Logos" is "untranslatable" stems from the inability to find suitable words.

What is the ultimate word? The answer is none other than poetry. Zhou Fucheng, a professor at Peking University, believes that the most first-class genius should be a poet, and the most first-class works should also be poetry. Searching through the books, after many years trance pedagogy and philosophy are all kinds of flexible poetics. Whether Confucius's "do not learn poetry, can not speak", whether there is such an implication, although it is difficult to assert, but we are indeed a "poetry nation".

In the past two years, I have begun to read and write poetry a little. Rilke's "Letter to a Young Poet" is a first acquaintance with modern poetry, and he also wanted to imitate it, but he did not look at the doorway. All that can be done, I am afraid, is ancient poetry. One day I remembered the "Journey to the West" I read when I was a child, and didn't there be a large number of ancient poems in it? After looking for it and thinking about it, I felt that "taking poetry as evidence" is the best thing. "The first time you don't know the meaning of the poem, then you read it again, you are already a person in the poem", often need to rise a little in age, in order to read the poem, distinguish between people, and see things clearly.

The "Book of Poetry" may wish to be reviewed for a long time, just like WeChat, turn it over by hand, write it down at will, and write it comfortably. The Appreciation Dictionary of Tang Poetry and the Appreciation Dictionary of Song Ci can also be used as tools to occasionally check. Shen Zudi's "A Brief Explanation of the Seven Absolute Poems of the Tang Dynasty" and "Appreciation of Song Ci" are worth learning more; An Qi's "Biography of Li Bai", Jing Kaixuan's "Goodbye to the Shining Stars: Twenty Tang Poems", and Meng Man's "Meng Man Pin's Most Beautiful Tang Poems: The Five Tastes of Life" are all recent and newly acquired works, with high quality. In October 2021, I combined ancient poetry reading with geography and published a four-volume "Geography Lesson in Ancient Poetry", which is a souvenir of my love of ancient poetry.

Feng Jicai said, "Books are endless. A book is like a tide, a page of books is like a wave, and the words on the book are crystal clear water droplets." Indeed, everyone has looked at the sea of books and has their own awareness. I love to jump into this vast ocean, chase ideals, enrich culture, expand in the infinite dimension of the spirit, and persist in the eternal construction of values.

The spring breeze blows, the microwaves ripple lightly, and the light is warm and sparkling. I wish I could be a part of it.

Author | Qiu Lei is a senior teacher at Jinsha Middle School in Tongzhou District, Nantong City, Jiangsu Province, a director of the China Education Improvement Society, and a director of the Tao Xingzhi Research Association of Jiangsu Province. He is the author of ""Stealing Teacher" Dewey - 12 Keys to Unlocking the Wisdom of Education", "Dewey's Proverbs of Education", "Education in the Mother Tongue of Life", "Geography Lessons in Ancient Poetry" and so on

Ten book lists

General History of Chinese Reading (10 volumes)

Wang Yuguang waited

Anhui Education Press, 2017

Lao Tzu Zhuangzi

Cui Zhonglei ed

Harbin Publishing House, 2011 edition

My Educational Creed

By Dewey

Rhodes Red Yang Xiaowei Compiled

East China Normal University Press, 2005

The Details of Education

Zhu Yongtong

East China Normal University Press, 2015

Eastern and Western Cultures and Their Philosophies

Liang Shuming

The Commercial Press, 1999 edition

"A Brief Explanation of the Seven Absolute Poems of the Tang Dynasty"

Shen Zudi

Zhonghua Bookstore 2008 edition

Cultural Shift and Curriculum Reform

Zhou Yong

Emile

[Law] by Rousseau

The Commercial Press, 1978 edition

"Goodbye to the Shining Stars: Twenty Tang Poems"

Jing Kaixuan

Nanjing University Publishing 2021 Edition

On Pedagogy

By Immanuel Kant

Shanghai People's Publishing House, 2005

Source 丨China Teachers Daily

Written by | Qiu Lei

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