New Curriculum Concepts and the Implementation of Junior High School History Classrooms

Author: Guan Wenxin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-06-01
Features: "The new curriculum philosophy is the soul of the new curriculum. Establishing a new educational philosophy, changing traditional teaching and learning behaviors, and recreating a brand new self is a process of rebirth through fire and transformation for a teacher. The greatness and difficulty of the new curriculum reform lie here. A few experts proposing a new educational philosophy is an innovation, and tens of millions of primary and secondary school teachers transforming this new educational philosophy into their teaching practices is also an innovation, and a greater one." This is a passage from the postscript of the "New Curriculum Philosophy and Classroom Teaching Action Strategies Series" edited by Professor Guan Wenxin of Hainan Normal University. This experience is likely deeply shared by many frontline educational experts. Putting philosophy into practice is difficult, truly very difficult. It can even be said that the birth of an educational philosophy is easy, but fully implementing it in practice and transferring it from experts to ordinary teachers is not. From experts to ordinary teachers, it's like a "war" between a minority and the majority, and it's made even more intense by countless habits, inertia, and the like. To achieve this transformation, which is difficult but necessary, it's currently popular to offer teachers various new curriculum reform general training programs and curriculum standard study sessions. Their task is to help teachers accept the new curriculum philosophy, but acceptance is merely recognition, not yet a quality of the teachers. To transform a philosophy into a quality requires more than just recognizing it; it also requires further understanding of the philosophy, and such understanding is only effective in practice. Our theoretical guidance is not only about explaining what and why, but also about clarifying how to do it, focusing on the transformation of philosophy into action. Teachers should further recognize the theory through transformation, feel the charm of the theory in transformation, and savor the sweetness of teaching guided by theory. Mr. Guan Wenxin's "New Curriculum Philosophy and Classroom Teaching Action Strategies Series" highlights the use of more concrete examples. Its foundation is the "Outline for the Basic Education Curriculum Reform (Trial)" (hereinafter referred to as the "Outline"). Each book is divided into eight parts: "For the Development of Every Student" proposes the core philosophy of the new curriculum reform, interpreting the reinterpretation of the curriculum function proposed in the "Outline"; "Towards Life" proposes two basic philosophies, interpreting the reinterpretation of curriculum content and structure proposed in the "Outline"; "For a Brighter Tomorrow for Children" and "Participation is the Core of Curriculum Implementation" propose basic philosophies, interpreting the reinterpretation of curriculum implementation proposed in the "Outline"; "Making Classroom Teaching Full of Innovative Vitality," "Teaching is for Learning," and "Achieving the Integration of Curriculum and Teaching" propose basic philosophies, interpreting the reinterpretation of the teaching process; "Development is the Hard Truth" proposes a basic philosophy, interpreting the reinterpretation of curriculum evaluation proposed in the "Outline." Among these eight parts, "For the Development of Every Student" is a necessary macro introduction, while the other parts do not simply and rigidly "forcefully promote" theory but instead select numerous teaching design examples from specific teachers' classroom teaching practices and use them as media to provide a meticulous, interpretive analysis of the new curriculum philosophy. These fragmented examples and insights form a more vivid and tangible new curriculum philosophy. For example, when interpreting "the main theme of the new curriculum reform is to cultivate students' innovative spirit and practical ability" in "New Curriculum Philosophy and the Implementation of Junior High School Chinese Classroom Teaching," the sixth teaching example is a segment from "The Old Man and the Sea," where the teacher asks students to imagine the ending of the novel, and the students' imagined endings align very well with the original ending. The book comments on this: "This teaching example fully reflects the teacher providing students with space for imagination, allowing them to boldly continue the story's ending. Through students' bold imagination, their understanding of the text becomes deeper, and their thinking becomes more flexible and profound." Such examples and comments are highly effective. For teachers who truly bear the responsibility of teaching and nurturing in the frontline, they need more vivid guidance that can enter their classrooms. These small teaching examples are the most tangible things for them. Through these individual, subtle "examples," they gradually accumulate a deep understanding of the new curriculum standards and easily implement them in practice. These examples have also been carefully selected; they all come from frontline distinguished teachers and excellent teachers, each reflecting a certain aspect of the new curriculum philosophy from different angles, making them deeply meaningful. At the same time, these examples vividly demonstrate the life interaction between teachers and students, radiating the vitality of life, and showing the trajectory of children's growth and development, revealing to us how these excellent teachers transform the new curriculum philosophy into concrete, tangible teaching actions. Reading these examples, we can truly feel the charm of the new curriculum philosophy and the educational wisdom of these excellent teachers. The most profound insight these examples give us is that to truly understand the new curriculum reform and philosophy, one must delve into the vivid classroom teaching and practice to understand the new philosophy. The "New Curriculum Philosophy and Classroom Teaching Action Strategies Series" is not merely a "festival of teaching examples," to the point of overly focusing on details and losing the macro perspective of the new curriculum philosophy. In addition to teaching examples, philosophy and strategies are also fundamental elements of the series. The philosophy explanations in the book are clear, simple, and easy to understand. In explaining the philosophy, it does not use theory to explain theory or concepts to explain concepts, but uses facts to explain the philosophy and uses the most familiar things to the teachers to explain the philosophy. Like "Who Moved My Cheese?" it tells an adult fairy tale and discusses life's philosophy, using a simple form to explain profound truths, which is also one of the aspirations of the book. The action strategies in the book are specific, detailed, and highly actionable. Each explanation of the new curriculum basic philosophy is composed of three parts: the basic connotation of the philosophy, the philosophy as seen in teaching examples, and the action strategies provided by the teaching examples. These action strategies vividly and detailedly summarize the teaching examples and philosophy, proposing the action principles and guidelines for implementing the new curriculum.