"Come with a heart, don't take half a blade of grass with you." This year marks the 130th anniversary of the birth of educator Mr. Tao Xingzhi. To this day, Mr. Tao Xingzhi's educational ideas and enthusiasm are still shining, which is worth learning from generations of educators. Today (September 10th), on the occasion of the 37th Teachers' Day, "First Education" launched the "Living Education" column, let us relive the ideological spirit of Mr. Tao Xingzhi.
Few people may know that Mr. Duan Lipe, who is also a generation of educational masters, had a brief exchange with Mr. Tao Xingzhi. In fact, Tao Xingzhi's educational spirit, educational thought, and even the way of expressing educational thought all had a profound impact on Duan Lipe. This article will take you closer to the world of thought of two educational masters...
Duan Lipe and Tao Xingzhi's "Last 100 Days"
Tao Xingzhi was born in 1891, and Duan Lipe was 16 years old. In his youth, Duan Lipe had some understanding and admiration for Tao Xingzhi. But the two really met in 1946.
In 1946, with the Nationalist government still in Nanjing, the political center moved east, and Tao Xingzhi prepared to move Yucai to Shanghai and promote the social university movement in Shanghai. On April 18, he arrived in Shanghai and began his last 100 days of life. In these last 100 days, Tao Xingzhi gave more than 100 speeches in factories, schools, institutions, and squares, running day and night to promote the peaceful democracy movement.
It was also during this period that Duan Lipe and Tao Xingzhi became acquainted. On April 24, 1946, the Shanghai education community welcomed Mr. Tao Xingzhi's conference to be held in the energy storage middle school, Tao Xingzhi made a speech, and Duan Lipe, who was the principal of the energy storage middle school at the time, participated in the preparation of the welcome meeting and gave strong support.
In order to promote the development of life education, Duan Lipe, Chen Heqin, Li Chucai, Zhang Wenyu and other people from Shanghai's education circles organized the Shanghai Branch of the Life Education Society. The Shanghai Branch of the Life Education Club was established on May 12, with Chen Heqin as the chairman. Tao Xingzhi personally guided the preparation of the Shanghai Branch of the Life Education Society.
In this process, through several contacts, Duan Lipe felt that his admiration for Tao Xingzhi was a little good, and at the same time, he also impressed Tao Xingzhi with his work in the energy storage middle school (democratic education practice), and Tao Xingzhi believed that Duan Lipe was a reliable and trustworthy person.
On July 24, Tao Xingzhi invited Duan Lipe to his home on Lüban Road (present-day South Chongqing Road) and had a very private conversation with him. Tao Xingzhi told Duan Lipe that he was preparing to run a social university and asked Duan Lipe for assistance.
Unexpectedly, the next day (July 25), Tao Xingzhi died due to cerebral hemorrhage. Duan Lipe was very sad after knowing the bad news. Later, Duan Lipe and some friends prepared a memorial service for Tao Xingzhi.
Later, Duan Lippe actively participated in the preparation of the Social University, and with the joint efforts of colleagues from the Shanghai Branch of the Life Education Society, the Social University was opened at the Shanghai Private Da Ren Primary School at No. 240 Megan Road (now No. 20 Kangding East Road), and held a social lecture once a week, which was given by famous political activists Shen Junru, Guo Moruo, Wu Han, Lin Handa and others.
In 1951, China's ideological front launched a criticism of the film "The Tale of Martial Arts", which led to a comprehensive criticism of Tao Xingzhi's educational ideas. After Tao Xingzhi and his educational ideas were criticized, no one in the educational circles dared to openly study Tao Xingzhi, and Tao Xingzhi's educational ideas were not favored for a long time.
Although Duan Lipe did not talk about Tao Xingzhi for a long time, it did not mean that Duan Lippe did not agree with Tao Xingzhi's educational ideas. From the teaching method of Yucai Middle School of "closely following the teaching materials, practicing while talking, linking the old and new, and teaching according to aptitude" and the leadership of the teahouse-style teaching of "reading, deliberating, lecturing, and practicing", we can see the influence of Tao Xingzhi on Duan Lipe. In 1990, at the age of 83, Duan Lipe wrote an article entitled "Learning from the Great People's Educator Mr. Tao Xingzhi", calling for the study of Mr. Tao Xingzhi's personality and his educational ideas, especially the study of his personality and spirit.
From Tao Xingzhi thought to Duan Lipe's advocacy
Duan Lipe admired Tao Xingzhi very much, and Tao Xingzhi's personality, spirit and educational ideas had a great influence on Duan Lipei.
The spirit of running education
The first is the "spirit of martial arts.". Duan Lipe believed that Tao Xingzhi used the "spirit of martial arts training" to run education, and his own obsession with education was influenced by him. Wu Xun (1838-1896), a pioneer of mass schools in modern China, a well-known poor educator and philanthropist at home and abroad, practiced begging for thirty-eight years, built three righteous schools, and educated countless children of poor families.
Tao Xingzhi admired the "different deeds" of martial arts training, "you can run a school without money" and "even if you are poor, you must run a school", not only taking the martial arts as a spiritual example, but also publicizing and promoting the spirit of martial arts. The spirit of martial arts, that is, Tao Xingzhi's dedication to the cause of education by "holding a heart and not taking half a blade of grass".
When Duan Lipe worked at the Energy Storage Middle School, many people called him Xiao Wuxun, and he was very happy. He believed that he was influenced by Tao Xingzhi and ran education according to the example of the spirit of martial arts. When criticizing the movie "The Legend of Martial Arts" in the early days of liberation, Duan Lipe was very naïve at the time, saying to people: "I am Xiao Wuxun, what is so bad?!" ”
It can be seen that Tao Xingzhi admires martial arts and runs education in the spirit of martial arts, which Duan Lipe is very clear and highly respected, and he himself is very happy to do "martial arts training", even when the martial arts are criticized, Duan Lipe also feels very honorable.
The second is the spirit of sharing weal and woe. Duan Lipe said that Tao Xingzhi once said that "teachers and students should share happiness and hardships, live together, create a school spirit, and abide by the school spirit, which is the key to improving secondary school education and all schools." His educational thinking and practice have always emphasized that "teachers and students are close to each other," "teach people by example," and that teachers and students should "live together," "share weal and woe," "study together," "work together," and "cultivate together, so that we can have "real education."
Sharing weal and woe is a distinctive feature of Tao Xingzhi's educational practice. At this point, Duan Lipe was very impressed with Tao Xingzhi. Duan Lipe has indeed done this in his long-term educational practice, taking root in the frontline and sharing weal and woe with teachers and students.
As early as 1941, when Duan Li admired the arrangement from the underground party organization of the Communist Party of China to work in the Buddhist Orphans' Correctional Institution presided over by Zhao Puchu, he ate, lived, worked and played with street children, let them work and study half-time, organized them to repair leather shoes, work as tailors, and learn cultural knowledge, achieved very good results, and cultivated a number of revolutionary backbones for the work of the Liberated Areas, the New Fourth Army, and the Shanghai Underground Party.
After becoming the principal of Yucai Middle School in March 1950, Duan Li Pei'an was poor, indifferent to fame and fortune, taking the school as his home, living in a 12-square-meter narrow washroom facing west of the school, but he was willing to be the "logistics minister" of the teacher, sharing happiness and hardship with the teachers.
Under his leadership, in addition to insisting on part-time classes, school cadres also moved their desks to the teaching and research group, worked and lived with teachers, closed the contact with the masses, narrowed the distance with the teaching staff, and facilitated the development of school work and educational reform.
The reason why the educational reform of Yucai Middle School was able to lead the general education community twice in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s and affect the whole country is inseparable from Duan Lipe's personal practice in educational practice and sharing weal and woe with teachers and students.
"Teaching and Doing One"
Duan Lipe commented that Tao Xingzhi advocated changing the "teaching method" to a "teaching method" and put forward the views that "the teacher's responsibility is not to teach, but to teach, but to teach students to learn," "the method of teaching must be based on the method of learning," and "give students the key to developing the treasure house of culture." This is very correct.
Tao Xingzhi advocated changing teaching from "teaching" as the center to "teaching students" as the center; students changed from passively accepting knowledge to actively learning and exploring knowledge. The theory of "teaching and doing unity" is a major change in teaching concepts and teaching ideas since the emergence of modern education in China, and is a creative exploration of how education adapts to the problem of modern life in China in teaching theory.
Duan Lipe was influenced by Tao Xingzhi, but instead of copying Tao Xingzhi's views, he was inspired by the theory of "teaching unity" and became a family of his own, placing the focus of education on the word "education" and the focus of teaching on the word "learning", correctly handling the dialectical relationship between teaching and education, teaching and learning.
Without this understanding, it is difficult for the educational reform of Yucai Middle School to achieve a fundamental change from focusing on "teaching law" in the 1960s to focusing on "studying law" in the 1970s and 1980s, that is, it is difficult to promote the teahouse-style teaching of "reading, deliberating, practicing, and lecturing" with leadership.
The eight-character teaching method of "reading, deliberating, practicing, and lecturing" itself embodies the idea of "teaching and doing one". For example, "reading" and "deliberation" are the students' "learning"; "practicing" refers to students' "doing exercises" and "doing experiments", that is, "doing"; "speaking" is the teacher's "explanation", that is, "teaching". Duan Lipe drew on Tao Xingzhi's idea of "teaching and doing one", and proposed a practical solution to the tradition and habit of "teachers talking to the end" in middle school classroom teaching at that time.
"Little Mr. " system
Duan Lipe mentioned many times: "Mr. Tao proposed the small mr. system, which had a great impact on me."
The "Little Gentleman System" was created by Tao Xingzhi in the 1930s to overcome the serious shortage of teachers. Tao Xingzhi said: "If we want to break through this difficulty, we must first make a fundamental change in the concept of teachers. Teacher training students and even the various intellectual classes are not the only source of teachers. The best gentleman for a child is a small child who moves forward. The best gentleman of Volkswagen is the moving Volkswagen. ”
The implementation of the "little mr. system" achieved very good results at that time, and Duan Lipe's learning of the "little mr. system" was inspired here, believing that children, under the guidance of teachers, were fully capable of learning and creating on their own, and had the ability to manage themselves.
In terms of ideological education, Duan Lipe studied the spirit of the "little mr." system, advocated students' autonomy and self-care, changed the class teacher into a class counselor, let the class committee composed of students preside over the class work by itself, and organized class education activities, learning activities, and cultural and sports activities.
In the "teahouse" style teaching of "reading, deliberating, practicing, and lecturing" with leaders, Duan Lippei learned the spirit of the "little mr. " system, formed a four-person "reading and discussion group" in the classroom, and under the guidance of the teacher, enabled the students to discuss the difficult problems encountered, actively carry out thinking activities, and discuss and ponder.
Duan Lipe believes: "This form of teaching is equivalent to giving students the golden key to develop their intelligence, allowing them to open the door of the treasure house of knowledge and freely ask for it in the vast ocean of knowledge." ”
Although Duan Lipe's ideas of "autonomy and self-management" and "self-study and self-creation" were influenced and inspired by Tao Xingzhi's "small mr. system", they were not equivalent to the "small mr. system". "The purpose of advocating students' self-care is to cultivate students' political work ability and exercise students' organizational skills, and to train students to find problems, raise problems, analyze problems and solve problems."
Expression of educational ideas
Although Tao Xingzhi studied in the United States and studied under Dewey, he opposed both "inheriting the Chen Fa" and opposing "other countries in the form of rituals," but based himself on The soil of China, proceeding from the needs of China's social life practice and China's national conditions, summed up the practical experience of the new education movement, absorbed the achievements of Chinese and foreign education, and explored and created a life education with Chinese characteristics.
In the expression of educational ideas and propositions, Tao Xingzhi attaches great importance to critically absorbing the fine traditions of ancient education and governance in China, and expresses them in a vernacular, catchy and catchy oral style and popular language. In this regard, Duan Lipe's characteristics are also very obvious.
For example, Tao Xingzhi's basic view of "teaching unity" states: "The responsibility of Mr. Tao is not to teach, but to teach, but to teach students to learn"; "The method of teaching must be based on the method of learning"; "We must teach while learning", "Teaching is mutually beneficial". Another example is "a thousand teachings, teaching people to seek truth, learning from thousands of people, learning to be real people"; "Action is Lao Tzu, knowledge is the son, and creation is the grandson".
Tao Xingzhi also summarized the "Cross Recipe for Cultivating Talents" in the language of "national form" and "popularization": one brain, two strong hands, three circles of chains, four keys, five ways of discussion, six groups of learning, seven (set) creation, eight consultants, nine and nine difficulties, and ten (vows) to overcome. "Yucai Cross Tips" seems simple and popular, but it has a very rich content, reflecting the main ideas of Yucai school education.
The language expression of Duan Lipe's educational views and ideas is also quite local and easy to understand. For example, "we must focus on the word 'cause', according to the place, according to the time, according to the circumstances, according to the situation, according to the situation, according to the ability to teach"; "the focus of education is on 'education', the focus of teaching is on 'learning'"; "the classroom is not a lecture hall, mainly the students' academy"; "it is necessary to integrate theory with practice, and use both hands and brains"...
In the expression of the experience of education reform, Duan Lipei's traditional oral language has been fully reflected, such as "closely following the teaching materials, practicing while speaking, linking the old and new, and teaching according to aptitudes"; "reading, deliberating, practicing, and lecturing"; "self-care, self-learning, self-creation, and self-cultivation".
Tao Xingzhi and Duan Lipe's expression of this easy-to-understand and local educational idea has a deep cultural origin, inheriting the poetic rhyming language characteristics of ancient Chinese memorization and transmission, which is convenient for teachers and students to understand and disseminate to the public.
Tao Xingzhi in Duan Lipe's eyes
When Duan Lippe was young, he knew that there was such an educator as Tao Xingzhi. At that time, Duan Lipe believed that Tao Xingzhi wanted to rely on education to save the country, and he was an education theorist of saving the country. The fact is also that as a representative figure of the political trend of thought advocating education to save Chinese society in modern Times, Tao Xingzhi once held that the root cause of China's poverty and backwardness is that there is no culture, lack of education, and scientific backwardness.
Duan Lipe believed that education to save the country was an aspect of saving the country at that time, and although it was later criticized, this spirit was worthy of study by those who engaged in education; and what was even more gratifying was that Tao Xingzhi's thought continued to develop and progress continuously, and finally developed from an educational salvationist to a revolutionary fighter of new democracy, a fighter who conformed to Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, and a "Bolshevik outside the Party."
Duan Lipe believes that Tao Xingzhi often said, "Come with a heart and not take half a blade of grass with you," he said this and did this, and this kind of character and spirit is very worthy of our study. Duan Lipe also said: Comrade Mao Zedong called Tao Xingzhi a great people's educator, and this appraisal is not exaggerated at all, but is very appropriate.
Duan Lipe very much agrees with Tao Xingzhi's basic education concept of life education that "life is education, society is school". He believes that the theory of life education is of great practical significance, and in the 1980s and 1990s, "we who run education are not so concerned about the impact of students' living environment and social environment on education, and we must link them with correct guidance to achieve our educational effects." ”
Duan Lipe believes that Tao Xingzhi attaches great importance to rural education. In October 1924, when he summarized the civilian education movement, he put forward the issue of "going to the countryside" of civilian education, calling on young students to return to the countryside during winter and summer vacations to engage in civilian education. Duan Lipe held that Tao Xingzhi's education based on rural areas grasped China's national conditions and reality at that time, and was very insightful.
Duan Lipe also held that later Tao Xingzhi trained a large number of Communist Party members by running the Xiaozhuang Normal School, the Shanhai Engineering Study Group, the Xin'an Tour Group, and so on, which shows that Tao Xingzhi's spirit of running a school conforms to our party's line. That is to say, Tao Xingzhi's educational ideology already has the prototype and shadow of the party's mass line and the combination of education and productive labor, which coincides with the thinking of the Chinese Communists.
Duan Lipe and Tao Xingzhi are figures who have a certain influence in the educational circles in different eras, and the two have had a period of interaction, although the time is short, but the impression and influence left by Tao Xingzhi on Duan Lipe is very deep. In a sense, it can be said that the exchanges between Tao Xingzhi and Duan Lipe have also affected China's basic education.
Tao Xingzhi and Duan Lipe, two educators, lived in different eras and encountered different educational issues, but the two still have many similarities:
Can make positive responses to and useful exploration of the educational issues of their respective times;
They can all look at Chinese and Western educational ideas with a dialectical eye, and develop and innovate in inheritance;
They can all draw ideological wisdom from traditional Chinese culture, and express their educational ideas in a poetic rhyme and oral language that is easy to understand and close to the public;
They all love life and music, dedicate their lives to the cause of education Chinese the people, and have lofty moral character and demeanor.
The times are developing, and education needs to be innovated. The era we are in today is different from the era of Tao Xingzhi and Duan Lipe, and the educational topics we face are not the same. But we can still learn a lot from Tao Xingzhi and Duan Lipe, two educators.
Author | Li Yuan, secretary of the party branch and principal of Jiading Senior High School affiliated to Shanghai Normal University
New Media Editor | Yuan Manshu