Innovation of Moral Education Mode in Agricultural and Forestry Colleges and Universities in the New Period

College of Marxism, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China

1 Introduction

China’s reform and opening up has stepped into the 40th year, and over the past 40 years, the Chinese society has been in the process of social transformation caused by economic, political and cultural interaction. How to develop and innovate the mode of moral education in the new period has become an important issue that must be faced by agricultural and forestry colleges and universities.

2 The status quo of college students’ moral quality in agricultural and forestry colleges and universities in the new period

College students are in the key period of the formation of world outlook, outlook on life and values, and are in the stage of transition from minors to adults. They are not yet fully mature in ideology and politics, their ability to distinguish right from wrong is not strong enough, and their moral concepts are susceptible to the influence of the social environment. From the current situation of college students’ moral quality in agricultural and forestry colleges and universities in the new period, the mainstream tendency is worth affirming, for example, the political attitude is distinct, the political behavior is rational; the moral choice is correct, the value orientation is diverse; the social morality is good, the self-evaluation consciousness is strong[1]. Of course, some problems in moral quality can not be avoided, such as the inconsistency between moral cognition and moral behavior, the deviation between moral behavior and moral cognition; strengthening of democratic consciousness and the lack of responsibility consciousness; enhancement of self-consciousness and indifference to collective concept; lack of tolerance, gratitude and cooperation. College students are the elites in the social hierarchy, but a series of problems exposed by the moral quality constitute the breakdown of "ought to be" and "reality", "knowledge" and "morality" in the process of personality transformation of college students, and then constitute the embarrassment in the process of socialization of college students.

3 The characteristics and influence of the traditional moral education mode in colleges and universities

3.1InstrumentalfeaturesDuring the period of reform and opening-up, moral education in colleges and universities began to undergo continuous reform and innovation. However, due to the excessive emphasis on "instrumental rationality" serving social politics, moral education has been hovering in the "uninhabited area", ignoring the concern about "value rationality" for the essence, value, meaning and ideal of human being. The contradiction between instrumental rationality and value rationality has become irreconcilable, and moral education has fallen into a weak predicament[2], losing its true meaning and the ultimate purpose of value and heading for alienation. Obviously, human in the traditional moral education can only be reduced to the existence of instrument and means, and the nihility of the subject leads to the low acceptability and effectiveness of moral education.

3.2MechanicalpreachingcharacteristicsCognition needs emotion, while emotion promotes cognition. In the process of obtaining moral cognition, college students especially need educators to create a positive emotional atmosphere, awaken students’ desire for cognition, and promote students’ positive cognition and genuine recognition by resonating with students’ emotion and psychology. In the traditional mode of moral education in colleges and universities, teachers are in the absolute authority of education and teaching. The hidden power behind the hegemony of right to speak continues to expand, which severely squeezes the students’ discourse space. Serious and stiff discipline and indoctrination make it impossible for educatees to acquire the value experience of individual dignity, to experience warmth and happiness, and naturally to acquire convincing moral cognition, comprehension and approval. At the same time, the control of teachers’ discourse power leads to a new state of slavery, which makes it difficult for students to establish positive self-evaluation and positive evaluation of other things beyond themselves. Eventually, it is difficult for students to establish the sense of affection, role and responsibility for the social community.

3.3KnowledgeeducationfeaturesSince ancient Greece, the West has been advocating the role of rationalism, emphasizing the role of human reason, knowledge in the cultivation of virtue, while ignoring the perceptual and practical factors. Influenced by this trend of thought, the phenomenon of "knowledge orientation" appears in traditional moral education in colleges and universities. It equates the forming process of moral character with the process of learning and mastering moral knowledge, engulfing the students’ subjective feelings, experiences, emotions and will with rational cognitive activities such as reasoning, analysis and demonstration. The result is to ignore the development of the vitality of life and the creation of meaning, so that the individual with flesh and blood has lost their own nature, personality and spirituality, transformed into the animal of knowledge, and machine of rationality. Due to the inconsistency of individual moral cognition, moral experience and moral behavior, the effect of moral education is declining.

4 Transformation and innovation of moral education mode in agricultural and forestry colleges and universities

4.1Remoldingthesubjectstatusofcollegestudents’moraleducationAgricultural and forestry colleges and universities should carry out the "student-oriented" education concept, rebuild the subject position and value standard of college students in moral education, fully respect, understand and care for students, and stimulate and arouse students’ initiative and creativity to the fullest extent. While realizing students’ free and all-round development, the integration and unification of individual development and social development are realized. From the law of individual growth, college students show special group characteristics in the age, knowledge level, body and mind and thinking development and other aspects. Plus the influence of the multicultural trend of thought, the individual difference of college students is more and more obvious, which determines that the moral education of agricultural and forestry colleges and universities must create a good environment and atmosphere of moral education based on the actual needs of students, development needs and individual differences, so as to promote the healthy growth of college students and realize the true unity of moral cognition, emotion, will and behavior.

4.2RebuildingthecorevalueofmoraleducationwhichpayscloseattentiontothegrowthofindividuallifeThe meaning of life and the value of the soul are the most precious and worthy of respect. The deepest level of moral education in agricultural and forestry colleges and universities is to educate the soul, to guide the individual to pursue the value and significance of life, so that the individuals constantly surmount themselves and realize the harmony and unity of body, heart, heaven and earth. The traditional moral education emphasizes the moral quality, the principle and the rules of being a "social person", which is an indispensable political means to maintain the social order. However, the tendency of over-politicization also makes moral education deviate from the original intention of serving people, ignoring the respect for individual life value and the concern for human nature, and therefore facing the increasingly marginalized dilemma. The transformation of the mode of moral education in agricultural and forestry colleges and universities in the new period should focus on the core value of moral education of individual life growth, pay attention to human life care and spiritual settling, in order to safeguard human dignity, inspire human creative enthusiasm and shape life potential. It is necessary to enrich the life of college students and endow the limited life with infinite value and meaning while promoting the moral accomplishment taking the full release of the individual with the ideal personality pursuit as the value goal.

4.3Reconstructingthewaystorealizemoraleducationincollegesanduniversities

4.3.1Creating an "acceptable" educational approach to moral education. Acceptance is an important part of education, and the level of moral cognition of college students depends on the degree of acceptance in moral education. To improve the students’ moral cognition level and the effectiveness of moral education in agricultural and forestry colleges and universities, we must first innovate the "acceptable" teaching method of moral education for students. Psychologically speaking, acceptance is a behavioral psychology that accepts outsiders and things because of affection. The subject of acceptance reflects, selects, integrates and internalizes the external education information, to constitute a continuous and complete cognitive process. The occurrence of any acceptance activity is not for no reason, but is associated with certain needs. Teachers should design the teaching contents of moral education and innovate the teaching methods according to the actual needs and interests of students’ study and life, such as infiltrating the social hot spots and people’s livelihood into the teaching contents in time and appropriately, and combining the theory narration with the social reality closely. Teachers can also use a variety of teaching methods to arouse students’ interest in learning, such as problem exploration, case study, discussion, and student self-demonstration. As long as it coincides with the inner psychological needs of the educated, it will arouse their great interest in acceptance. Interest arouses emotion, and emotion drives classroom atmosphere. The student accepts the knowledge and moral value from educator in relaxed and joyful or in heavy and solemn various kinds of emotional experience. This is an imperceptible way to promote students’ moral cognition. In addition to the classroom teaching of moral education, the organized theme activities and colorful campus cultural activities, which are carried out in the form of college students’ favorite, enable college students to be influenced by good moral emotion in their daily life and gain sincere and diverse experience of moral emotion. With the application of various recessive moral education methods that can be accepted by the college students, the simple moral emotion and moral quality of college students have been developed, and the process of their socialization has been promoted smoothly.

4.3.2Strengthening the cultivation of moral behavior ability under the mode of "participatory" moral education. Moral education in colleges and universities should not only cultivate students’ moral cognition, emotion and will, but also improve their ability of moral behavior through moral practice. In the deep experience of moral action, the requirement of social morality is truly internalized into the stable moral values of college students and externalized into the stable moral behavior habits. Therefore, the mode of moral education in agricultural and forestry colleges and universities must have the nature of action or practicality, and the mode of "participatory" moral education has well explained and practiced the practical essence of moral education. The mode of "participatory" moral education for the training of individual moral behavior begins with the classroom which students are most familiar with. Classroom is a concentrated social small stage, and there is a need to change teachers’ discourse hegemony, create a democratic, equal, interactive and harmonious classroom atmosphere between teachers and students, make students deeply feel the equality of personality and strong individual dignity, and deepen self-identity as a "social person" and a good sense of social responsibility. In addition to classroom practice, agricultural and forestry colleges and universities should also dredge various channels for students to participate in moral practice. For example, in the management of counselors and class teachers, we should inject more interactive links with students, strengthen the independent and democratic management of students, construct an interactive network platform for campus moral education, encourage college students to take part in various practical activities in winter and summer vacation and spare time, such as volunteer activities, visits to the countryside and public service, so as to strengthen their moral and behavioral abilities from the practical level.

[1] YANG W, LIU CJ. The theory of quality moral education——Study on modern adaptation and comprehensive quality cultivation of college students[M].Beijing: People’s Publishing House，2008. (in Chinese).

[2] HONG B. Study on the transformation of discourse paradigm of ideological and political education[M]. Hangzhou：Zhejiang University Press，2012. (in Chinese).