Abstract

The Morality of Competition and its Expansion in Education

Abstract: Today competition is around us anywhere and anytime. Viewed from its origin, education has nothing to do with competition based on winning or losing. The original education was the result of leisure, while modern education is based on the logic of competition. Modern education is combined with competition, but education researchers keep a blind eye to the research of competition. This indifference should be examined and competition should be included in the field of education research.

Competition has its own functions in its particular ways and ranges. It’s elusive and tends to be pervasive in all human activities. Moreover, it’s kind of a demonic evil, and its first rule “every man for himself” inherently implies the exclusion of others. A demonic evil implies that competition is an evil. However, the demonic evil is not absolute, there is good elements in it. Competition, as a demonic evil, can stimulate humans to cooperate, though it can also disseminate selfishness and moral indifference. Living in a world of competition, people tend to sacrifice everything just for winning. As a result, people can tolerate and even do something beyond human bottom line. Competition is so cunning that humans cannot see its true colors.

Today, education and competition are intertwined with each other. Modern education is totally competitive, as can be observed either from its motivation, organizational conditions and its internal structures, or from its operating modes, evaluation standards and its spirits. Modern education is hunted by competition. If ancient education was for spiritual promotion, then modern education is totally for survival. Modern education is basically delivered by government schools. The government attempts to promote its international competitiveness by controlling education. The competition of modern education is structured, and is controlled by the government system to an extreme degree. Test scores become the main and only standard of competition. Another characteristic of competition-focused education is that competition has become a culture of education.

What competition has conveyed through education institutions is nothing but selfishness and moral indifference. Competition involves everything about interpersonal relationships, representing the instrumentality of learning and humans. From the perspective of education’s sustainability and humanity, it’s imperative to get rid of the appendage of competition in education.

competition; education; morality; expansion

Abstract: The year 2002 marked a radical reform in both the theory and practice of China’s moral education over the past few decades. Rather than a state mechanism for ideological indoctrination, the new moral education is expected to return to children’s real life world. And the moral education textbooks compiled since then have witnessed a progressive outlook. The content selection is based upon children’s real life events and moral dilemmas therewith, and a new agenda is in place to help children learn how to live a good and ethical life both at present and in the future.

Helpingchildrenliveagoodandethicallifeis a noble goal of moral education in China. However, a closer review of the textbooks used in the past 12 years shows that such a lofty goal indeed registers some ethical concerns as possibly expressed in the textbook design of certain topics and in some real classroom teaching and learning. Such ethical concerns can be discerned at three layers. First is an ethical positioning that tends to play up the I-ness of children themselves, meanwhile depreciating others, whether it be other human beings, material things, or the natural world. Second is an instrumental and technological view of what a good life is. Moral education becomes the training of life skills and a good life is attainable through obtaining those skills. Third is a lopsided understanding of ethos as vulgarized utilitarianism, relating to both the environmental world and inter-personal relationships. With that, the I-ness of children is to take advantage of others and the natural world for its own benefit. What is neglected is a healthy ecology wherein human beings co-dwell harmoniously among themselves and with the natural world.

Based on the analysis of the above ethical concerns, this paper attempts to explore four new efforts beyondlivingagoodlife. First is a rethinking of the true meaning of moral education. It argues that the key tone and contour of living a good life does not lie in a simple juxtaposition of subject knowledge, life skills, and the ideas of good life. Rather, it rests with a practical wisdom that integrates perception, knowledge, feelings, and life strategies. Second is a reconceptualization ofahumansubjectsnot as an independent subject in its modern sense but as a co-being in the traditional Chinese Daoist sense. According to the classical Chinese philosophy ofUnityofManandNature(Tianrenheyi), human beings are just one element/being within the entire natural world that is composed of myriads of beings, including plants and animals. With such philosophy, human beings are supposed to co-dwell with and co-respond to the natural world harmoniously, instead of availing of the latter as a resource. The third lies in an ethical attitude that aims to replace the near-sighted, albeit dominant utilitarian and technological viewpoint in the current world. With such an ethical view, moral education is to guide children into reliving some historical and cultural contexts for a deeper understanding of the meaning as an individual. Last is for children to re-cultivate a sense of culture, history, and co-being in their daily life activities.

It should be noted that all the above new efforts are to complement and supplement, not to negate China’s progressive moral education reform in the past 12 years, in order to develop our children into real ethical citizens in the future.

Keywords: moral education textbooks in primary school; hidden ethical risks; new efforts

Abstract: Over the last one hundred years, education researchers have been interested in the modernity of moral education. Through the normative research, this article discusses the three modernity-oriented transformations China’s moral education has experienced under the wave of modernity. The first transformation, triggered by "moral revolution", not only changed the nature of the moral education, but also the content of moral education. Since then, moral education in China has gradually shifted from content acquisition and filial piety towards freedom, equality and democracy. The second transformation was caused by the socialist moral reconstruction. In the process, political purpose served as the primary pursuit of moral education and moral education tended to be politicized. Industrial and commercial ethics reform led to the third transformation. Moral education was not only controlled by political education, but also by generalization of the ideological education and psychological health education, democracy and legal system education, atheism education, adolescent education, etc. Moral education acted as a tool. The three transformations have made the moral education in China rather pan-political and instrumental. To improve the modernity of moral education, this study proposes a critique of modernity. It argues that modernity is still an unfinished programme, so the project of moral education modernity in Chinas needs to undergo internal criticism and correction. On the one hand, it’s important to recognize the established basic values of modern moral education; on the other hand, it’s necessary to keep a constant criticism of the tendency of being pan-political and instrumental in the transformation of modern moral education.

Keywords: modernity; moral education; ethical risk

Abstract: Debating is a common phenomenon throughout educational history in both China and abroad. The world history witnessed large-scale debating ideological trends in ancient Greece, India and China respectively, and there emerged three major debating academic systems across the world, i.e. logistics in ancient Greece, Yinming Reasoning in ancient India, logic and argumentology in ancient China. Why is debating so popular in human history? What is the relationship between debating and human thinking? What does debating mean for education, and how can the ideas and methods of debating enhance educational quality? The article attempts to explore the connection between the debating-characterized human life and its correlation with education. Then it discusses the link between debating and thinking, involving the rudimentary issue of mental development in cognitive games. The findings show that from the point view of the link between debating and thinking, human mind has the characteristic of debating. In terms of the realistic life, human thinking is a process of cognitive game of inherent dialectic. Besides, not only is the speed of thinking improved, but also the quality is enhanced through debating. The essence of education is to develop the minds, and the minds characterized by debating can be completely developed through the dialogue education. As an educational construct, debating is an important approach to understanding oneself and the world. Dialogue is the realistic negotiation of meaning between different thoughts as well as the search for truth and self-recognition. Education through dialogue means that there is no fixed educational models, and both the learners and the teachers can think freely; and the teaching aim to stimulate students’awareness of inquiry. This educational method aims to arouse students’internal potential to discover the answers, instead of imposing answers by teachers. In the context of accelerating Big Data Age, the MOOC and the Flipped Classroom provide important external conditions for dialogue education. In the traditional classroom, teachers tend to teach new lessons in the classroom, and students are required do homework at home. But in the Flipped Class, the location of both home and school has been changed. All the teachers and students can communicate with each other, do their work, and solve problems together in the classroom.

In order to cultivate the debating mind，the article suggests that the learners should dialogue with “text” before class, dialogue with “others” in class, and dialogue with “themselves” after class. The process involves feeling, expressing and understanding. Understanding before you have to express, expressing before you have to feel, especially to feel the important things. But the feeling comes from meaningful experience, and the expressing need courage, especially open expressing. In addition, understanding requires curiosity, imagine and logic. It is noteworthy that dialogue with “text” before class is the precondition of dialogue education practice. This is an important approach to building “knowledge base” through indirect experience.Dialogue with “others” in class is the key of dialogue education practice. It is a process through encouraging learners to communicate with different “others” and form “inquiry groups”. There are two important moral qualities involving dialogue with “others”: good at listening to “others” and questioning “others”. Dialogue with “themselves” after class is the purpose of dialogue education practice. This is a process of facilitating learners to write, self-reflect, self-digest, and to form proper knowledge structures.

Keywords: mind; debating characteristic; dialogue; education

Abstract: In an era of knowledge explosion and global digitization, educational literature is presented in a massive way. At the same time, its content and themes are changing rapidly. Using the traditional methods of educational literature processing, it’s hard to study such massive and varied educational literature objectively and capture the characteristics of its development. Therefore, it’s essential for today’s educational researchers to know how to handle such massive information objectively, effectively and scientifically generated by the digital age and generate new knowledge that can be shared by others. This study aims to help educational researchers to translate abstract information into visual information through computers and improve their ability of identifying abstract information. It not only offers a detailed introduction of the principles of knowledge mapping, the drawing processes and related considerations, but also gives an example to demonstrate the process of educational literature content visualization. First, master’s and doctor’s thesis from CNKI database are selected; second, distance education is specified as a search topic. Then, using Bicomb 2.0 and SPSS20 as the tools of knowledge mapping, it extracts high frequency keywords and sets up the co-word matrix of high frequency key words, conducts cluster analysis and multi-dimension analysis of high frequency key words and draws out the knowledge mapping of high frequency key words. Finally, it presents the result graph of literature content visualization and an explanation of the research field distribution. The findings show that, as an educational literature content visualization, knowledge mapping is a relatively new method of scientific analysis. Knowledge mapping helps to reveal the converging point of educational research frontier through visual images as well as the whole picture of educational researches at the macro, meso and micro level. It can help educational researchers to overview the structure and research focus of educational researches in general. Also, through information visualization, knowledge mapping combines quantitative research with qualitative research to study educational literature, thus greatly enhancing the quality of educational literature research and providing effective technical support for an in-depth interpretation of massive educational literature.

Keywords: knowledge mapping; educational literature；information visualization；content visualization

Abstract: The teacher’s teaching behavior depends on his or her given knowledge, so understanding the teacher’s knowledge is the key to accurately grasping the connotation of teacher professional development and promoting the development. Different views of knowledge can lead to quite different understanding of teacher’s work as well as varied approaches to teacher professional development. Teaching is a practical profession under specific situations, so a teacher needs to cope with the ever-changing situations and adjusts his practical strategies accordingly. It is tough for a teacher to do so by means of fixed thinking and behavioral patterns rather than the generative knowledge. Unexpected accidental events in teaching situations mean that nobody can make a careful plan and act accordingly perfectly. How to respond to the changing teaching situations necessitates the condensed knowledge which is distinctively comprehensive. According to Hayek’s divided knowledge, a teacher’s knowledge is situational, individual and implicit, and such rich personal knowledge is potentially creative, helping the teacher perform his professional duties under specific teaching situations. Based on the nature of teacher’s knowledge, teacher education reform should respect the unique value of each teacher’s personal knowledge and focus on their original thinking of the phenomena and solutions to the problems through the innovation of ideas and systems. This will help to construct an order which is generated spontaneously and corresponding to different working situations, so that each teacher, encouraged by the system, can develop their wisdom and talent. Meanwhile, spontaneity in the culture and system should be respected as well. The value orientation of school systems and culture construction should promote more barrier-free communication, provide more opportunities for exchanges and dialogues among teachers. Finally, the mode of teacher education should be further innovated.

Keywords: Hayek; divided knowledge; teacher’s knowledge; teacher education

Abstract: Teaching practice and the related educational theory are important factors in teacher development, and their relationship has been a major concern. Some discussions on the relationship focus on the problem of pendulum vibration swinging to theory preference or practice preference, which has long been a resistance to teacher development, hence the practical doctrines and the theoretic doctrines in teacher development. According to the practical doctrines, teacher development mainly relies on the accumulation of individual experiences and learning from others. Only in this way can a teacher make proper decision to ensure the smooth process of educational activity；thus teacher development is a bottom-up way and practice preference. On the other hand, according to the theoretic doctrines, teacher development is a reflective action originating from a living subsistence. Under the constraints of his individual knowledge organization, daily focuses and thinking habits, it’s so hard for a teacher to create a universal development theory that he has to turn to educational theorist’s guidance to overcome the shortcomings of his experiences. In the long-standing conflict between “practical experience line” and “theoretic guidance line”, there appears in teacher development the phenomenon of pendulum swing. At times when the theoretic guidance line is prevailing, teaching practice tends to be underestimated by the educational theorists, causing the lack of subjectivity and agency in teacher development. Then, the values of teachers’ practical experience are reexamined and refocused, and the theoretic guidance line could be reconstructed and surpassed. And the line of education theory preference gradually swings to the line practical experience preference. Studies show that the pendulum swing between practical experience and educational theory has caused the blind theoretical privilege or theoretical inferiority and submissive to the practice among educational theorists. This could lead to teachers’ disorientation or resistance to the educational theory and turn to his experiences. So, it’s necessary to reexamine the relationship between educational theory and practical experience, which will help improve teacher development.

In this article, the author argues that nowadays if the educational theorists expect educational theories to play an effective role in teacher’s practice, they must engage themselves in teachers’ practical life, and generate new educational theories on the base of respect and understanding of teachers’ practice. On the other hand, if teachers want to seek a better professional development, they must intervene in theorist’s theoretical life, and by learning educational theories and the reconstruction of practical theory, they can improve their theoretical practice.

Keywords: teacher development; education theory; teacher practice; pendulum vibration; interventional transformation

Abstract: Nowadays promoting equity is one of the fundamental values of China’s educational policies. However, the issue of gender equity, especially gender differences in education, is still overlooked by national policies and school education, particularly for the group of floating children in urban primary schools. What is the status quo of the gender differences of floating children in schools today? Will the floating children influence the local classes in gender difference when they attend urban schools in megalopolis like Shanghai? And how? Does the group of floating children vary the same ways in gender difference as in social stratification? Is this gender difference relevant to the variation of school quality or school locations? Why is there the learning difference between boys and girls, etc? Based on the five dimensions of education quality by UNESCO (Learner, Environments, Content, Processes and Outcomes), we try to use learning process to explore and analyze the status quo of gender difference in Shanghai primary schools today, and then attempt to explain why the gender gap is so great in school education for the floating population in Shanghai urban primary schools. We selected ten primary schools in four different districts in Shanghai. Some schools are located in the city center, while others in the outskirt. We interviewed 55 teachers (including 36 female teachers and 19 male teachers) and conducted class observations (100 lessons in all) in seven schools. In the process of data collection, using NVivo 9 and with the interviewees’ permission, we recorded, decoded and analyzed all the data. Our findings show that the participation of floating children has influenced the local classes, especially on gender percentage in the schools and classes which more floating children attend. The percentage of the boys is bigger than that of the girls, especially for the families of floating workers. Also, the gender divide between boys and girls is big, as is reflected in student performance in class, teacher-student relationship, etc. When we try to explain the differences, we find that the traditional and patriarchal thought is still popular, especially in the families of floating children today. This patriarchal culture has solidified the social division of gender role first in family, then in school education it is reinforced and even reproduced through teacher-student interaction in the classroom. Thereby the processes of education seem to have widened the gender differences and even gender gap in terms of students’ classroom behavior and academic performance. Finally, we suggest some solutions to narrow the gap, such as raising the parents’ awareness of their children’s education, strengthing the home-school collaborations, as well as effective measures taken by schools.

Keywords: floating children; gender difference; gender gap

Abstract: Published data from the Ministry of Education of China show that more female students than male students in Mainland China passed the college entrance examination. In 2013, the female-male ratio of college admission rose up to 55:45. As a result, the percentage of female graduate students reached 51.65%, and that of female undergraduate students reached 52.12%. Meanwhile, the percentage of female students in high schools is less than 50%. Such a situation might be considered as a sign of development of China, as it happened in many developed countries earlier. But its potential consequences should be studied. The gender gap in college entrance examination scores might lead to the increase of the number of female students in high education institutions. Meanwhile, this gender gap might be widened under the proposed reform of National College Entrance Exam (NCEE), where students would take only three subjects (mathematics, Chinese and Foreign Language). Female students are better at the latter two than male students. As a response to this situation, some people even propose to “save the boys.”

The present article reviews some recent major studies on the gender gap in college entrance examination scores from multiple perspectives: the gender gap in college entrance examination scores and of subject (Mathematics, Chinese, and Foreign Language) scores; the gender gaps in subfields of a given subject; the gender differences in cognitive goals and the causes of these gaps.

This review reveals that in general there exists an academic gender gap in college entrance examination. Some studies show that the gender difference is not significant in mathematics, whereas females perform significantly better than males in Chinese and English. Subfields of a given subject might have different modes of gender gap: some may be positive (males better than females), whereas others negative. The gender gap influences the university admission ratio of males to females.

Competing results are found due to the complicated influential factors, including psycho-traits, behavioral and emotional differences. Although some studies propose that gender differences in most psycho-traits were very small, they also point out that men are better at science, mechanical reasoning and spatial ability, while women are better at language, perception and arithmetic. Gender gap also takes the form of behavioral or emotional differences when students are coping with their learning and tests. Other factors involve motivation, anxiety, personal traits, social economic status, self-concept level, cognitive self-regulation, locus of control, competitiveness of test situation, and type of schools. Females can get more offers when they submit their applications after learning their exact NCEE scores.

In conclusion, this article poses a number of problems to be solved. For example, is it necessary for NCEE to measure or even reduce the gender gap? How to manipulate the item characteristics to change the gender gap size? There are also some unknown causes of gender gap (including the possible difference of male and female’s score distribution). We know little about the consequences of current female-male ratio of college admission, including the problem of educational equity, females’ adaptation to their college career. A meta-analysis of studies on gender gap is needed in order to draw stronger conclusions.

Keywords: college entrance examination; academy; gender difference; academic gender gap

Abstract: Learning and teaching reform is the core part of basic education reform. In recent years, some schools promoted autonomously learning and teaching reforms which is difficult to carry out deeply and sustainably because of lack of institutional guarantees, professional supports and reform atmosphere from its located region. Promoting learning and teaching reforms by a region as a whole is an effective path. Regional overall reform about learning and teaching is the need of promoting deep and continuous learning and teaching reform of schools and teachers, is the need of promoting the balanced development of education quality among schools in a region, is the need of carrying out the strategy of regional education development. Regional overall reform about learning and teaching must set up three big ideas: firstly, its aim located in all the students’all-round development and individual development, which means that we not only promote students’ learning scores and subject knowledge, but also enhance students’ comprehensive quality. We not only promote the outstanding students’ development, but also improve the students with learning difficulties. Secondly, its subjects include not only schools and teachers, but also education administrators, supporters of the business and the parents which play important roles in learning and teaching reform. It begins from the initial year (such as kindergarten) in order to continuously promote students’ development. The strategies of regional overall reform about learning and teaching include: Firstly, re-design regional education management system which include: 1) construct monitoring and evaluation system of students’ development in a region; 2) improve incentive system of supporters of the business, schools’ administrator and teachers; 3) improve educational management organization structure which clarifies department functions, divides the work reasonably and cooperates closely. Secondly, integrate the reforms of teaching research, scientific research and teacher training in a region which include: 1) break the disciplinary boundaries and do interdisciplinary teaching researches; 2)break the grade boundaries and promote the effective connections between grades; 3) adjust the content of teaching researches and Strengthen the study on student development rules; 4) change the educational research plans in a region, guide teachers to do some little researches about student development and avoid disconnection between teaching researches and teaching practices; 5) reform teacher training in a region and meet the teachers’ training demands about learning and teaching reform. At last, improve the family-school collaboration in a region. On the one hand, we need to systematically design and implement parents’ training in a region. On the other hand, we need to strengthen the guidance of the contents and styles of family-school communications for schools and teachers in a region.

Keywords: promoting reform by a region as a whole; Learning and Teaching Reform; Student Development

Abstract: China is at the crucial period of modernization and more talents with high level of modernity are needed. In China’s modernization process, western China is believed to the most difficult place as well as the niche point. Among all the factors affecting people’s modernity development, school education is the most important. Students in compulsory schools are at the critical development period of their thoughts, ideas, attitudes and behaviors. Two thirds of their mental awakening time is spent in schools, and they are affected imperceptibly by their significant others in schools, including the principals and the teacher. A principal is the spiritual leader of a school, and his or her thought and ideological orientation reflected by their leadership styles affect the development of students’ modernity.

However, in the past studies, there were no conclusions regarding which leadership styles had more impact on students’ modernity development. Using the cluster random sampling, this study investigated 378 teachers in 50 compulsory education schools from the provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou, Xinjiang, Guangxi and the city of Chongqing. All the variables were measured by teachers, including transformational leadership, transactional leadership, and students’ modernity, as teachers are the intermediate actors between principals and students. Teachers are the best appraisers of principal leadership, as principal’s cognitive behavior is directly shown in their leading process, which can be felt firsthand by teachers. Also teachers are closer to their students and familiar with their level of modernity. The data was collected and analyzed by the software of SPSS20.0 and AMOS20.0.

The findings showed that both transformational leadership and its dimensions (r were between 0.373 and 0.579), transactional leadership and its dimensions (r were between 0.239 and 0.478) had significant relationships with students’ modernity, but transformational leadership had closer ones. All the four dimensions of transformational leaderships, such as idealized influence (β=0.164, p<0.05), inspirational motivation (β=0.253, p<0.01), intellectual stimulation (β=0.159, p<0.05), and individualized consideration (β=0.164, p<0.05), had significant effects on students’ modernity, all of which can explain 42.0% of the change in students’ modernity. The two dimensions of transactional leadership, contingency motivation (β=0.388, p<0.001) and exception management (β=0.185, p<0.01) also had significant effects on students’ modernity, both of which can explain 26.6% of the change in students’ modernity. When the impact of transactional leadership was controlled, transformational leadership had significant and exceptional impact on students’ modernity and all its dimensions. However, when the impact of transformational leadership was controlled, transactional leadership had no or less significant impact on students’ modernity or its dimensions. These results showed that transformational leadership had more advantage than transactional leadership on affecting students’ modernity.

Based on the findings, it’s suggested that principals should change their leadership styles, and strengthen their consciousness and transformational leadership in support of the development of students’ modernity.

Keywords: principal in compulsory schools; transformational leadership; transactional leadership; students’ modernity; impact

Abstract: Second language learning is becoming increasing important with the deepening international communication. Considering the close relationship between language and cognition, the influence of second language learning on cognitive development has always been a major interest to researchers in different fields. But most previous researches centered on the positive effect of bilingualism, neglecting the negative effect of second language learning and other controversial views. From the perspective of language and cognition, this paper is intended to summarize the influence of second language learning on cognition, focusing on the advantages in executive control and the disadvantages in lexical access. Also, the paper provides a brief review of some competing opinions on the issue.

The positive effect of second language learning was mainly reflected in the non-verbal cognitive abilities, especially in the executive function. Executive function refers to a collection of top-down mental processes used consciously, with switching, inhibition and working memory as its three core components. A growing body of research demonstrated the effect of bilingual cognitive advantage, since bilinguals have more opportunities to practice the switch to the appropriate language and inhibition of the non-target language in different situation. Furthermore, lots of studies argued that the lifelong bilingual experience significantly delayed the onset of Alzheimer disease, and maintained the neural efficiency for executive control in aging. However, not all relevant studies identified such positive effect in bilinguals. These researchers proposed that the positive effect may not come from language learning experience but from some confounding factors, such as immigrant status or socioeconomic status.

Regarding the negative effect of second language learning, there was a general agreement that the bilingual shown poorer performance in the lexical access, with the increasing reaction time in picture naming task, since the bilingual have to cope with non-target language interference. Recently, more researchers were interested in other aspects of accessing performance, including sub-lexical, noun phrase and sentence. The results also indicated that the second language learners showed a poorer performance in accessing tasks. Similarly, there was still a controversy. Some researcher who focused on the metalinguistic ability pointed out that the learning experience promoted the development of metalinguistic ability in bilingual children.

Finally this paper presents further investigation about the influence of second language learning on cognition processing. First, both bilingual advantages and disadvantages should be investigated more systematically, such as measuring different executive function components in the same participant group. In addition, different age stages of bilinguals should be paid attention to study the trajectory of the positive and negative effect. What’s more, the development of cognitive neuroscience technologies can help explore the intrinsic mechanism of bilingual cognitive effect. Also, more longitudinal designs should be adopted to study the causes of positive and negative effects, and strictly exclude the interference effect from confounding factors.

Keywords: second language learning; executive function; lexical access; metalinguistic ability

Abstract: In the academic community of Mencius research, the question whether Mencius’ thought on character education includes the element of subjective spirit is very controversial. Some scholars believe that Mencius was only a thinker who lived in the absolute monarchy. So,Menciusactually did not have the consciousness of democracy and subjective spirit. He was a thinker ruled by the absolute monarchy and emperor, and his academic idea was also controlled by the absolute monarchy and emperor. In a word, Mencius did not have the democratic idea or subjective spirit in his life, neither in his books. However, other scholars believe that Mencius’ idea about political construction and character education involved profound concepts of humanism and human-based thought. Although Mencius was not a democratic, but he advocated the respect for human nature and personal dignity in the framework of Confucianism. Therefore, there existed subjective spirit in Mencius’ thought on character education. But, what’s the essence of Mencius’ idea? Did Mencius advocate moral subjectivity or not? This paper begins with this controversial question. Using the methodologies of text interpretation and historical analysis, it analyzes the masterpieceMenciusand its academic ideas. Based on the comprehensive analysis of the classical book and impressive ideas, the author argues that Mencius’ thought on character education focused on subjectivity, which advanced the Pre-Qin Confucianism’s humanitarian spirit to a new height. We can look at the great contributions of Mencius and his ideas from four aspects. First, Mencius thought that everyone had natural morality and natural moral ability to be a subjective moral personality. And, everyone can be a subjective moral personality. His theory of human nature transcends Confucius’ , which is unclear. Second, in terms of the methods of self-cultivation, Mencius put emphasis not only on Confucius’ idea about self-reflection, but on the self-cultivation of moral courage and sense of justice. Third, in terms of the moral will, Mencius emphasized the cultivation of strong moral will through daily life and moral life. His idea is more profound and systematic than Confucius’. Fourth, Mencius not only advocated the moral action of gentleman (Jun Zi), but also the real man personality, which can defend the social morality and justice. In a word, Mencius’s thought on character education was beyond the limit of his time and space. It involves abundant sprit of subjectivity, which deserves more exploration.

Keywords: Mencius; the spirit of subjectivity; character education; subjective personality

Abstract: Yi-Jian (simplicity) is a teaching method developed by mind educator LU Jiuyuan in the Song Dynasty. This meaningful and unique style of teaching method was a pioneer in mind education during the time of Song and Ming Dynasty.

Based on the analysis of the collections of LU Jiuyuan’s Works, this article aims to clarify the rationales of Yi-Jian and reveal its connotations through the interpretation of such propositions as developing one’s original mind, reading for moral cultivation and the Six Classics annotating me. Then it points out the historical implications of the teaching method of Yi-Jian. The author argues that the idea that the heart is the reason is the ontological basis of Yi-Jian. Developing one’s original mind refers to moral education, while reading for moral cultivation and the Six Classics annotating me refers to is knowledge. Yi-Jian was closely related to these propositions. Yi-Jian focused on stimulating and cultivating non-intellectual factors such as motivation, emotion, will and so on, especially the use of sudden enlightenment in teaching. It emphasized the cultivation of moral cognition and judgment through intuitive thinking, so it has great positive effect on moral development. Unlike the school of ZHU Xi’s Neo-Confucianism education, Yi-Jian is one of the outstanding aspects of LU Jiuyuan’s Mind Theory.

Based on the detailed discussion of the connotation of Yi-Jian, this paper concludes that many Confucian scholars in the Ming Dynasty such as WU Yubi, CHEN Xianzhang, WANG Yangming and ZHAN Ruoshui inherited and developed LU Jiuyuan’s teaching method of Yi-Jian to varying degrees.

Keywords: LU Jiuyuan; the teaching method of Yi-Jian; developing one’s original mind; reading for moral cultivation; the Six Classics annotating me

GAO Desheng

(Research Institution of Moral Education, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210097, China)

BeyondLivingaGoodLife： Reforming Moral Education Textbooks in Primary Schools

SUN Caiping ZHAO Weili

(Institute of Moral Education, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210097, China)

Modernity-oriented Transformation and its Ethical Risks in China’s Moral Education

FAN Gaixia

(Northwest Normal University Research Center for Educational Development of Minoriti, Lanzhou 730070, China)

The Debating Characteristic of Human Mind and its Cultivation

GU Erhuo

(The Faculty of Education Sichuan Normal University, Chengdu 610068, China)

Knowledge Mapping: a New Technique of Visualization Research

GUO Wenbin

(School of Education, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an 710062, China)

Teachers’ Knowledge： A Perspective of Divided Knowledge

LIU Xudong

(College of Education Science, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou 730070, China)

The Pendulum Vibration and Interventional Transformation: Rethinking Teacher Development Theory and Teaching Practice

CHENG Lianghong

(Xinjiang Normal University, Ulumuqi 830054, China)

Gender Differences in Education Quality and Equity for Floating Children:A Case Study of Shanghai Primary Schools

ZHANG Dan

(Faculty of Education, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China)

Looking back and ahead: Research on Gender Gap in China’s College Entrance Examination Scores

SHAO Zhifang PANG Weiguo

(School of Psychology and Cognitive Science， East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062, China)

Regional Overall Reform about Learning and Teaching: Rationality, Idea and Practice

LI Xiaohong

(Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China)

Principal Leadership and Students’ Modernity Development: A Case Study of Schools in Western China

WANG Shutao1TIAN Lixin2

(1. Center of Elementory Education, Ocean University of China, Qingdao 266100, China; 2. Faculty of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China)

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Second Language Learning: From the Perspective of Cognition and Language

WANG Ruiming1JIAO Lu1FAN Xiaoyue2LIU Cong1

(1. Center for studies of Psychological Application, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China; 2. Department of Psychology, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China)

The Subjective Spirit of Mencius’ Thought on Character Education

YE Fei

(Institute of Moral Education, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210097, Jiangsu, China)

LU Jiuyuan’s Yi-Jian and its Historical Implications

HUANG Mingxi

(School of Educational Sciences, South China Normal University, Guangzhou 510631, China)