New Perspectives on Teaching and Reforming Ideological and Political Education in Secondary Schools

Author: Peng Longhui et al. / Country:
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2003-03-01
Features: Three, the basic requirements of implementing the principle of combining theory with practice Implementing the principle of combining theory with practice requires two things: first, mastering theory. Without theory, it's like a blank sheet of paper—how can you connect it with practice? Second, connecting with practice. Without connecting with practice, it's impossible to truly understand the theory; without connecting with practice, learning theory loses its fundamental meaning. Theory and practice are interlinked, mutually constrained, and dialectically unified. In the process of teaching political and ideological courses, implementing the principle of combining theory with practice should meet the following basic requirements: 1. Correctly grasp the different requirements of combining theory with practice at different teaching stages The unity of theory and practice should throughout the teaching process. However, at different teaching stages, they each have their specific positions and special roles. In actual teaching, it is necessary to analyze the relationship between theory and practice based on the objective progress of teaching, and appropriately play their respective roles. In a complete teaching process, the combination of theory with practice can be divided into two stages. Stage 1, connecting practice to explain theory. At this stage, the main task is to help students perceive and understand the teaching materials through practical materials. To this end, teachers must first study the teaching materials, understand the characteristics of the content and the internal connections between different parts of the content, and identify the key and difficult points of teaching. At the same time, they should understand students' actual knowledge level and life experience. Then, consider which practical cases should be connected and how to connect them to help students better perceive and understand the teaching materials. The practical cases connected at this stage should be: (1) relatively familiar or easily understandable to students. Here, connecting with practice is not the purpose itself, but rather to facilitate students' perception and understanding. Therefore, the selected factual and knowledge materials should be relatively familiar and believable to students. If they are not familiar, they should be easily understandable upon first hearing. In this way, there is no need for lengthy introductions to the materials or additional arguments about their authenticity and credibility. (2) vivid, specific, and concrete. Materials are used to perceive teaching materials and evoke imagery. The more specific and vivid the materials, the more helpful they are in guiding students from concrete thinking to abstract thinking. For legal education content, the selected cases of illegal and criminal behavior should also be carefully handled from the perspective of educational effectiveness, ensuring that certain details are appropriately addressed. (3) accurately reflect the essence of the theory. It refers to the materials used, whether in terms of content or in terms of presentation angle, should be precise and grasp the core concepts or principles. In this way, after the materials are presented, the concepts or principles are naturally abstracted. Stage 2, applying theory to analyze and explain practical problems. At this stage, with students' preliminary mastery of theory as the premise, the goal is to appropriately analyze and explain problems using theory. Here, the relationship between theory and practice is like the relationship between an arrow and a target, as metaphorically described by Comrade Mao Zedong. At this time, when combining theory with practice, attention should be paid to: (1) focusing on connecting with major social realities related to the teaching content and students' trend-setting ideological and behavioral issues. The teaching content of political and ideological courses in different grades varies, and the specific aspects of connecting with practice will also differ. However, they should all be based on the principles and viewpoints in the teaching materials, targeting students' concerns and interests, yet also certain confusing social realities, or targeting students' trend-setting ideological and practical realities, to guide them in carefully analyzing and improving their ability to recognize problems, gradually mastering the stance, viewpoint, and methods of observing and analyzing problems. This approach to combining theory with practice, which dares to face reality, touches on contradictions, and skillfully guides students in analysis, is valuable. (2) connecting with practice in a planned and step-by-step manner. Teachers should have a comprehensive consideration of the combination of theory with practice throughout the entire teaching materials. Which lesson or section can connect with which practical cases, what to connect first and what to connect later, should be systematically arranged. In this way, based on the teaching materials, connecting with practice in a planned and step-by-step manner can combine the teaching of basic theory with the analysis and explanation of major practical problems, enhancing the overall function of the principle of combining theory with practice and ensuring that this basic teaching principle is fully and systematically implemented. 2. Providing students with more space to apply theory to guide practice The fundamental significance of implementing the principle of combining theory with practice lies in guiding students to apply the theoretical knowledge they learn in the classroom to guide practice, allowing them to continuously deepen their understanding of the theoretical knowledge, develop their ability to recognize problems, improve their ideological and moral awareness, and lay a foundation for serving society in the future. Therefore, when implementing the principle of combining theory with practice, teachers should create more space for students to apply theory to guide practice. It cannot be denied that classroom teaching is the basic form of teaching in political and ideological courses, and the classroom is the initial base for students to learn how to apply theory to guide practice. Teachers should fully utilize the form of classroom teaching to create conditions for students to apply theory to guide practice. Role-playing skits, simulated courts, thematic discussions, and thematic debates can all be considered activities that apply theory to guide practice. They all play a very good role in developing students' ability to recognize problems and improving their ideological awareness. However, the space of classroom teaching is indeed narrow, and the activities students engage in in the classroom still have the nature of "experiments in a laboratory." If the guidance of students in applying theory to guide practice is limited to this, it will interrupt the teaching process of political and ideological courses and block the path of applying theory to guide practice. Therefore, teachers should provide students with more space for learning by doing, extending it to their families and society. Social surveys, writing short papers, serving the community, and behavior training with clear requirements can all become forms of applying theory to guide practice. Integrating classroom teaching and extracurricular activities organically fully embodies the teaching principle of combining theory with practice. There are two points to note when guiding middle school students to apply theory to guide practice: (1) The requirements and methods should be appropriate. Do not set excessively high requirements or adopt practices that are divorced from the realities of middle school students. Focus on practical results. Otherwise, applying theory to guide practice will become a mere formality. Doing so itself deviates from the principle of combining theory with practice. (2) Utilize all forces and coordinate guidance. Guiding students to apply theory to guide practice involves a lot of specific work for teachers, some of which cannot be handled by the "single-handed efforts" of political and ideological course teachers alone. Therefore, within the school, political and ideological course teachers should pay attention to coordinating with homeroom teachers and team organizations; outside the school, they should strive to obtain the coordination and support of families and all sectors of society. 3. It must be combined with the implementation of other teaching principles As a basic teaching principle of political and ideological courses, the principle of combining theory with practice fully reveals the special laws of the teaching process of this course. Therefore, it can guide the entire teaching process. However, this does not mean that the principle of combining theory with practice can "handle everything." The teaching process is multi-faceted, and the teaching requirements are also multi-faceted. To specifically fit the characteristics and requirements of the teaching process, it is necessary to consider other teaching principles while being guided by the principle of combining theory with practice. In actual teaching, the implementation of each teaching principle is not independent but interconnected and complementary. From setting teaching objectives and requirements to organizing teaching materials, selecting teaching methods, arranging classroom teaching, guiding student practice, and even the final assessment and evaluation, teachers must consider the characteristics of the course and the students, taking into account the specific roles of different teaching principles while also considering their combination and intersection, and comprehensively apply teaching principles to fully utilize the overall role of the principle system. Only by combining the principle of combining theory with practice with other teaching principles can it be vividly and richly embodied. Without the latter, the former becomes dry and flawed. Four, when implementing the principle of combining theory with practice, it is necessary to prevent two types of erroneous tendencies 1. Ignoring theoretical learning If political and ideological courses do not teach the basic knowledge of Marxism, teaching revolves entirely around social and political situations and students' ideological trends. The consequences of ignoring theoretical teaching are students' ignorance of Marxist theory, confusion in students' thinking, and students' sense of boredom and distrust towards political and ideological courses. Some teachers present numerous specific materials and facts in class, burying the viewpoints and principles within them without being able to abstract them, a phenomenon that still exists today. This is also a reflection of the neglect of theoretical teaching. 2. Failure to connect theory with practice This is manifested in: First, teaching theory without providing students with necessary practical materials. Instead of guiding students to analyze and summarize the essence and laws of things from practical materials to gain a preliminary understanding of concepts and principles, teachers simply recite from textbooks or explain abstract concepts and principles with abstract language. In this way, students can only memorize them by rote. Second, disconnecting from students' ideological realities. Teachers only prepare for teaching materials when preparing lessons, lacking a targeted approach. In this case, although concepts and principles are taught, students' difficult questions are not addressed, and political and ideological teaching does not play a role in improving students' awareness. Third, teachers only focus on clarifying teaching materials while neglecting to guide students' behavioral practice, so that knowledge, ideas, and behavior are not interconnected. Fourth, on the surface, it may also appear to be connecting theory with practice, but the purpose is to score high marks on the college entrance examination.