Yang Kuan: On personality education

In China, I think the biggest root cause is the lack of attention to the personality of scholars. Since the Song Dynasty, scholars have been active in the political arena. Scholars have long regarded reading as a dragon technique on the political stage, and a commoner in cloth clothes, with his dexterity, can immediately become a prime minister. The purpose of reading is to seek knowledge and study knowledge, and most of them are only in fame and fortune; Their first step is to seek fame, and once they have obtained fame and prestige, they are qualified to become great officials. The official is in hand, so the second step is to seek profit. We don't think it's such an evil thing to seek fame, it's better to end up than to seek profit; But those who seek fame want to use "fame" as a profit-seeking Zhang Ben, so those who "sell fame and reputation" have very despicable methods; Once the name is sought, when the big officials get it, they will do everything. Therefore, we think that in the bureaucratic class of the second generation of the Song and Ming dynasties, it is not easy to find a scholar who is completely flawless in personality. In the Ming Dynasty, except for Zhang Ju, who was worthy of the title of politician, there were almost no rulers who really handled national affairs; It's just a clique to compete with others, but it's their only daily business. If such a country is able to progress, where will it be able to progress? China's past history was stagnant in the feudal society and could not progress, and the scholars should be to blame. Because of China's past society, scholars became a superior class, and the political power was controlled by them, but many of their personalities were bankrupt. We believe that to save this, we must start with education.

In the past, the mainland's new education did not fail to pay attention to personality education. In the past, there were courses on ethics and self-cultivation in primary and secondary schools, and when teachers were in class, they would talk about it according to the textbooks. Teachers should not set an example for their students to show their students, and in the lecture hall, teachers will speak against their will, and students will listen to them in vain. Therefore, courses such as ethics and self-cultivation are just a kind of decoration of the school, and teachers also regard it as a perfunctory course, no matter which teacher can teach at the same time, and students even use this kind of course as a break time. Does this kind of personality education complement reality? Later, everyone saw the uselessness of perfunctory responsibility, and in the classroom, courses such as ethics and self-cultivation were removed.

In fact, all the civics courses in middle schools are in fact as ineffective as the ethics and self-cultivation in the past. In Shanghai, civic teachers are often part-time teachers of Chinese literature and history, and this course is all-encompassing and very extensive, and everyone thinks that there is no need for real talent to learn or perfunctory past, so the civic teachers in various schools are the most casual. The principals also regarded this lesson as the easiest to teach, and often taught it to his closest relatives and friends, just reading it sentence by sentence from the book, and talking about it sentence by sentence, so that it was over. Does this kind of personality education complement reality?

In the past few years, the slogan of "unemployment after graduation" has been shouted everywhere, and everyone has almost regarded the profession as a morality. Ordinary people even evaluate the success or failure of a momentary career to evaluate the person's academic ability, and even the amount of his monthly income to evaluate the person's merits, and the word "personality" seems to no longer exist in the dictionary of those people. At present, the study of Chinese is completely regarded as a business, and after graduating from middle school, a thousand yuan of capital is invested, hoping to earn a sum of money back. After graduating from college, a few thousand yuan of capital was invested, hoping to earn a bigger sum of money back. If you graduate from high school or college and can't make a lot of money as expected, isn't it a loss-making business, not only will your parents blame you for being useless, but your relatives and friends will also look down on you. Therefore, the average scholar is just a mixed qualification, but the most important thing is to study what kind of communication, how to climb the dragon, and how to earn back this big money, so as not to blame parents and be looked down upon by relatives and friends. Some people even think that if they respect personality too much, they will not be able to get a high status and earn a high salary if they don't come up with means. If you talk to him about "personality", he will say that you don't know the current affairs, which is pedantic. The result of education is so ridiculous!

At the time of the Revolution, France exalted freedom, equality, and fraternity; In the era of the Revolutionary War, the United States also called for human egalitarianism. Therefore, people should be free, equal, and fraternal, that is, they should respect their own personality. There is no one in the world who does not respect personality, and the more the personality of the people is respected, the more the order of the country will be on the track, and everything in China is not on the track, because everyone does not pay too much attention to personality.

At present, in Shanghai, all education is not satisfactory, the school is too commercial, and as soon as you enter the school, it is full of bureaucratic and philistine spirit. The principal of some schools opens schools for profit, and as long as it is profitable, he will do everything he can, and the principal himself has no personality, so how can he run personality education? Don't think that just instilling knowledge into the minds of students is enough to do it. There are a few schools that are often proud of their achievements, but they don't know that learning is just a tool, and if you use this tool, you can do good or evil.

Personality education is a must-have, and it is a class of ethics and self-cultivation like in the past, which has no name but no reality, and it is useless. We believe that only by using ordinary life to edify academics, and principals and teachers can lead by example, can we achieve considerable results. With 12 points of sincerity, we hope that schools at all levels will pay special attention to personality education, and not just teach some dead books, even if they are satisfied. Teaching has the responsibility of supervising students, the principal has the responsibility of supervising teachers, and at the same time, teachers and students also have the responsibility of supervising the principal. At present, all universities in Shanghai, in accordance with the order of the Ministry of Education, have implemented the tutor system. However, because the school building is small, there are only classrooms, there are no spacious dormitories for teachers and students, teachers go to teach, and students are also on the road, and the opportunity to contact is only during class time, and the tutors cannot live with the students, so it is not difficult to guide. Many middle school teachers are not enough to teach one or two schools because the salary of each school is too low, so they teach part-time in each school, day and night, in addition to attending classes, just take the bus and tram, and go home to revise the papers, where is the effort to guide the students' lives? Schools, which should do their utmost to remedy this, should be endeavoured. Parents should also help schools supervise the implementation of personality education.

(Originally published in Knowledge and Interest, Vol. 2, No. 6, 1940)

Source: "Yang Kuan's Academic Essays"