Analysis of Classic Cases of Moral Education in China and the World

Author: Tang Hanwei / Zhang Maocong (editors)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-05-01
Features: Preface: Reflecting on Growth in Moral Education Narratives in Moral Education Events In today's era of globalization, information networking, and diversified cultural and moral values, the clash and of various cultural and moral values have led to the utilitarianization, fragmentation, detachment, and flattening of morality. In our country, the emergence of "moral crisis events" among adolescents has attracted the attention of the Party, the state, and the entire society. As a result, cries of "moral confusion," "moral panic," and "moral decline" have risen one after another, and criticism and blame toward education have been relentless. In this special historical period of societal transformation and educational reform, moral education has become increasingly urgent and important. Currently, moral education must shoulder the mission of awakening life, enhancing moral consciousness, reclaiming moral dignity, and promoting the creative development of life. This is also an important issue faced by all countries in the world. At present, many discussions and imaginations about moral education seem to have fallen into a state of endless yet disheartening debate. Despite this, for many responsible educators, how to rekindle the vitality of moral education remains an unwavering pursuit. Facing the current challenges, the editors of this book aim to make such an effort—to reflect and analyze through vivid moral education narratives, using compelling and powerful life examples to clear educators' "confused skies," and to seek the long-lost spiritual essence in the vibrant moral education events.
From the perspective of school moral education practice in our country, moral education is primarily dominated by a rationalist paradigm, where individuals are submerged in a mindset and practice paradigm that prioritizes technical rationality, leading to alienation from their spiritual homes and lived worlds, and forgetting human emotions. This results in the neglect or distortion of fundamental issues such as human nature, human needs, human life, and human diversity, lacking the vitality and educational charm that moral education should possess. The goals of moral education are "degraded," its content is "vagued," its objects are "objectified," its methods are "singularized," its state is "fragmented and formalized," and its approaches are "closed, isolated, coercive, and." Additionally, excessive emphasis on ideological indoctrination and insufficient attention to students' individual life experiences and inner spiritual development needs have led to the transformation of vibrant moral education and moral education activities into blind adherence to norms and mechanical behavioral drills. This not only ignores students' self-awareness, discovery, and elevation of their inner selves but also suppresses their subjectivity and creativity, even leading to the fragmentation and exhaustion of their spirits and personalities. Moral education not only fails to promote human self-directedness and social existence but even overlooks and forgets students' natural physical existence—truly a tragedy of moral education.
From the late 20th century to the present, a series of "moral crisis events" among adolescents have prompted reflection and insight: on the one hand, there is the alienation of students' lived worlds and the fragmentation of moral education from the broader educational system, a reality recognized by many moral education workers; on the other hand, I believe there is a significant reason in the degraded, vulgar, and superficial understanding and implementation of moral education goals and processes, to the extent that it seems moral education does not require the generation and participation of students' moral wisdom or educators' educational wisdom. Where have the wisdom of teachers and students gone? Inspired by Dewey's educational philosophy and various modern educational theories and theories, we believe that educational wisdom requires students and teachers, as subjects, to engage in self-experience, reflection, accumulation, and generation, consciously constructing and realizing it. Reflecting on moral education narratives and growing through moral education events are the most vivid and ideal ways for educational wisdom to emerge.
This book selects some prominent and timely issue cases from the new era and gathers a group of young scholars who are full of vitality, perceptive, and dedicated to exploring and practicing moral education theory and practice. Using their eyes and hearts to observe and analyze the cases, they strive to reveal the root causes and origins of current educational issues in China in an accessible yet profound manner, providing an invaluable and dynamic source of wisdom for teachers, parents, and all those concerned with the moral growth and personality development of children.
Essentially, events are a series of relationships. Moral events are a series of interactions between people, between people and nature, and between people and society. Events hold a special significance in our world. Alfred North Whitehead (A. N. Whitehead) even believed, "The ultimate facts of nature are accidental events, and the universe is a flow of events." Events are sudden, irregular, personalized, and undesignated; at the same time, they are concrete, fluid, historical, and clear. In a sense, moral education is a coupling of such events. Everyone lives and exists in the flow of various moral events, and each event is a unique situation, a point-to-point educational relationship between teachers and students or among students themselves. Events are also the most vivid, stable, common, and important contexts. We must fully pay attention to and recognize how the wisdom of teachers and parents grows in events and contexts.
Moral education events may lack direct truth or theoretical value, but they are the carriers of human life meaning and spirit, possessing practical vitality, and are the flesh and blood of moral education, conducive to the growth of wisdom. Therefore, it is important to promote the integration of teachers' and parents' existing moral and moral education experiences with new experiences and ideal perspectives, guiding them to feel, act, and reflect in the continuous context of moral education. For this purpose, teachers and parents should also consciously delve into students' lived worlds, fully explore and utilize moral resources from social and natural life, create moral living situations, and strengthen the life-based foundation and life-situation guiding function of moral education, allowing students to deeply experience the meaning and joy of life.
Unfortunately, for a long time, people have often over-relied on the of moral knowledge and theory while neglecting students' daily moral life and experiences. In a sense, moral knowledge and theory seem to seek a universal, precisely guided truth, a broad rational technology or tool, in order to quickly prescribe effective remedies for students' moral growth. In this moral knowledge and theory, the vivid and rich moral experiences of individual students are drained and emptied. Of course, the teaching of moral knowledge and recognition is necessary, but its guidance in behavioral relationships is far from being as clear, precise, feasible, and applicable as imagined. Morality is more about practice and is situated in life and events. Traditional moral education practice and traditional moral education theory share deep roots. In traditional notions, experts represent theory, and teachers embody practice. For a long time, the separation between experts and teachers has led to the divergence of theory and practice into two irreconcilable poles. Experts have increasingly immersed themselves in the shells of theory, while teachers have become increasingly conservative in the ruts of experience. In reality, the study of moral education events is both close to experience and close to theory. It serves as a mediator between theory and practice, placing moral education theory within the context of living teaching. It can be said that the study of moral education events promotes the integration of the perspectives of experts and teachers, opening up a space for reflection between theory and practice. At the same time, the study of moral education events not only provides ordinary teachers, students, and other readers with a research text in a living language style that allows them to participate but also serves as a realistic, empirical study thats the shortcomings of theory in failing to fully guide practice.
Theory cannot fully guide practice, and practice cannot fully interpret theory. In other words, the study and reflection on moral events, on the one hand, can promote the transformation and return of theory to practice from the perspective of practice; on the other hand, it can promote the rationalization and transcendence of practice from the perspective of theory. Therefore, teachers and moral education researchers should pay attention to students' moral events and the living moral education events, through the analysis and examination of events, to make theory and practice closely connected and to genuinely advance the innovation of moral education theory and practice.
Reflecting after reading, this book is quite innovative. However, if the commentary on certain cases could be further "polished," it would be even more memorable.