Remaining True to the Original Aspiration and Striving to Improve the Teaching Effect of the Current Ideological and Political Course

School of Education, Central China Normal University, Wuhan 430079, China

Abstract At present, there are a series of relatively difficult problems in the ideological and political course of colleges and universities. In the face of complicated situation, we still need keeping original intention and mission, calmly dealing with the challenges from all sides, and exploring the opportunities contained therein. Meanwhile, we should grasp the overall situation in a macro sense, and use top level design to layout and plan change strategy.

Key words Colleges and universities, Ideological and political course, Teaching reform, Teaching effect

1 Introduction

Ideological and political education in colleges and universities has a distinctive guiding role, and is the key to cultivate the patriotic feelings of contemporary college students and also the mission to deeply cultivate the great journey of the Chinese nation. The party and the state attach great importance to the ideological and political guidance of contemporary college students. At the Forum of Teachers of Ideological and Political Theory Course in School in 2019, General Secretary Xi talked that[1]: "to carry out socialist education with Chinese characteristics, we need to perform ideological and political course well, cultivate people with the spirit of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era, guide students to enhance confidence in the road, theory, system and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics, cultivate patriotism deeply. We should consciously integrate patriotism, ambition of building a strong country and serving the country into our struggle to uphold and develop the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics, build a modern socialist country and realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The role of ideological and political education is irreplaceable, and the responsibility of ideological and political teachers is significant". The content of the speech clarifies the task and responsibility of current ideological and political theory course in colleges and universities with guiding principle of high concentration. Specifically speaking, with the development and progress of society and the constant consolidation and strengthening of the ideological and political work in current colleges and universities, the ideological and political theory course of China has made gratifying achievements and improvements, but the vigilance against the slightest and gradual changes cannot be slackened. For some new situations and problems in ideological and political education of colleges and universities, it should take a very serious attitude, and clearly recognize the coexistence of opportunities and challenges. The view point of consensus is that the teaching of ideological and political courses is still inseparable from the basic laws of education, and the effective teaching methods for professional courses in different disciplines are also applicable to ideological and political course to some extent. The premise of recognizing and following the basic principles of pedagogy makes many phenomenon-level teaching focuses of ideological and political course gain overall attention, while the opportunities and challenges it faces also emerge from the mainland.

2 Ideological and political course in colleges and universities facing difficulties

First, a problem worthy of a little clarity is that going beyond the limit is as bad as falling short is in the teaching of ideological and political education. Whether more ideological and political teaching hours arranged in colleges and universities is better, the teachers and relevant managers are also confused. Teachers are tired of dealing with heavy daily work and bearing the task of more class hours, and there is no time to accurately evaluate the teaching effect, causing the goal of ideological and political course guided by formal achievements, and teaching has become filling in forms, reading PPT and filing materials. Teaching managers can not directly participate in the classroom, and they take for granted that the teaching performance of the teachers should be compared with the given guidance documents one by one to check and verify the compliance with the due standard procedures. This kind of quantitative evaluation in turn restricts the teachers who are the leaders of ideological and political courses, while the mass teaching scale for all students makes managers unable to think about the deep information behind the data, causing that ideological and political course is vigorous in form, but the effect is not so good. The students become the immediate receptors of this anti logic education and teaching, and "anorexia" of excessive intake is shown in the ideological and political course.

Second, there is a contradiction between the value orientation of social pluralism and the Marxist political propaganda of the position unity of ideological and political course in colleges and universities. At present, China’s political and economic development is in the deep-water area of the reform process. Ideas and thoughts from all sides are gathering and surging, forming a turbulent ideological pattern. We have full confidence in the socialist system and road with Chinese characteristics that have been tested by time, but the adjustment of interest structure is complicated, and purposeful misrepresentation appears in the classroom in a hypocritical manner. In the face of the mixed situation, teachers need to improve their identification ability. In conclusion, the ability and quality of ideological and political teachers become the key to curriculum construction, and the answer link is "that we should grasp the teacher’s link and solve the internal problems to improve the quality and level of ideological and political course[2]". On the one hand, the cultivation of teachers’ internal skills in ideological and political course is holding firm position of cultivating people, resolutely fighting with interpreting and spreading hostile thoughts and the opinions of deliberately discrediting China, clarifying the clear boundary between the right of academic free criticism and political orientation, and preventing the former dissolving the public opinion and the people’s heart as the fundamental of the country and the nation in the name of truth. On the other hand, teachers in colleges and universities should set up ideal belief as the support point, and take on the role of flag bearer as the position of propagating Marxist theory. First of all, teachers should make sure that they have enough "calcium" in mind, fight against the bad social thoughts, achieve the goal of "first of all, the preacher should understand the principle firstly", and understand that "teachers in colleges and universities should insist that educators receive education first[3]".

Finally, the particularity and incompletion of the teaching object of ideological and political course make the course teaching show a very chaotic rhythm. There are great differences among college students, and the whole heterogeneity makes the targeted teaching of ideological and political course particularly difficult. With rapid change of information reference, and application of social software, Internet and other emerging media technologies, some bewildering heresies wrapped in the guise of "universal value" and "freedom and equality" are unleashed here without any control. It is easy to make that the orthodox mainstream values have not left a mark in their minds, and these concepts occupy them early. It causes that teachers’ efforts are often not to pass on the positive thinking concept of ideological and political lessons to students, but to eliminate the negative effect of the bad atmosphere outside the classroom on students, forming the awkward situation that "five plus two equals zero" in ideological and moral education. "The students are educated for five days at school and take two days off on weekends. Some negative factors in society and some practical problems in family education have a bad influence on students, which counteracts the role of moral education in schools[4]".

3 Opportunities in ideological and political course

3.1ConstantdebatebetweenteachingandscientificresearchThe basic functions of universities are scientific research, personnel training and social service. A common phenomenon is that the daily teaching and scientific research of ideological and political teachers are often in conflict with each other. Semester assessment index of teaching workload of ideological and political teachers often uses the amount of class hours completed as soft standard of measurement, and the specific teaching effect, participation quality and other contents are only included under the cold number. At the level of scientific research, the overall orientation of academic evaluation is based on the number of published papers. If ideological and political teachers want to seek better development and obtain incline in the evaluation of professional titles and subsidies, scientific research paper is always a reference link that cannot be encircled. In sharp contrast, the state and the education system provide limited resources support for the ideological and political major, and national social science foundation and national education science planning projects that teachers can apply for are less than that by a large professional group in China. The relatively scarce policy support causes the resource competition of vicious competition. By guidance of scientific research, teachers devote most of the time to the production and creation of research results. From the original intention of curriculum, the study of ideological and political education is not the main direction, and its real purpose is enhancing the ideological and political consciousness of college students, and cultivating patriotism and the lofty ideal of unremitting struggle for the cause of building socialism.

3.2ThetensionbetweensubjectplotandprofessionalattributeIdeological and political education in China has had 36 years, and the average academic level of professional teachers engaged in ideological and political education in colleges and universities has been generally improved. Enhancement of professional identity brings a growing exclusivity in the science field, and most of the teachers of ideological and political course have their origins in majors such as political science, Marxist theory, and ideological and political education. To maintain their own research boundaries, they construct theoretical structure of subject under the broad framework of national policy, and form logically self-consistent doctrines by integrating factual knowledge and truthful knowledge. Correspondingly, as teachers of Marxist theory and ideological and moral lessons, they often convey the social attributes of being a teacher, but it is often difficult to compare these teachers with the scholars and professors usually marked by advanced learning, and this is inseparable from the ideological propaganda work at the government level. Teachers of ideological and political course participate in the talent training of colleges and universities as the mainstream ideological spokesperson. Moreover, the prevailing view in public courses offered in colleges and universities is that the relevant knowledge taught in the ideological and political course has not much relevance to future professional development. Under the guidance of utilitarianism, their motivation and initiative to learn are diluted. With the warning of such dual viewpoints, the professional discipline status of teachers of ideological and political courses has a balance of power to dissolve it. Its root cause is still disputes caused by teaching and scientific research, and researchers who take the development of the discipline system as starting point strongly advocate the professional plots that concern the foundation of the discipline. Critics think that teachers of ideological and political courses should seek to teaching skills in thinking and form in the unified scope, and use a relatively convincing teaching method for students to guide their development. Therefore, teacher is a skilled profession.

3.3Dissimilationandnewformofmoraleducationfunction

The function of ideological and political course is cultivating students’ ideological and political stand and moral cultivation. However, its due purpose of education and teaching has not been effectively implemented at present. The problem definitely weakens the contribution of ideological and political education in educating people in a positive way. Of course, such general statements are not convincing. Detailed analysis shows that the function weakening of moral education of ideological and political course is shown as below:(i) teachers themselves have no firm ideal belief in Marxist theory, and "fake faith, fake learning, fake teaching and fake use" are in classroom teaching. They teach students with repetitive tone in accordance with the textbook, and turn the ideological and political course with high ideological depth and positive orientation into dogmatic indoctrination. (ii) Due to long-term mechanical knowledge discussion and courseware teaching without new idea for many years, job burnout is produced in teachers, and the further generalization of languid mood affects the overall teaching effect. Additionally, relatively low pay urges that work passion of ideological and political teachers slowly dissipates. (iii)Students learn ideological and political course with the attitude of obtaining academic credits, while teachers conduct daily teaching with the attitude of students. Finally, the classroom situation is similar to that storytellers who make a living talk old intonation to the echoing audience. The educational function of ideological and political course dissimilation brings some new situations.

First, to relieve the heavy burden of teaching hours, considering the match of ideological and political education and labor practice education, social practice is added in teaching content of ideological and political course. By introducing rich ideological and political teaching elements out of classroom, the tendency of formalization is eased. Second, measuring paper testing is desalinated in teaching evaluation link, and a comprehensive evaluation method combining formative evaluation and summative evaluation is used. Process management is combined with result management, making ideological and political education and teaching get rid of the abuse of single standardized examination. Finally, new Internet technologies such as micro course and cloud course are added to the course, making ideological and political course carry the trend of the times. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out[3]: "we should use new media and new technology to make our work live, promote the high integration of traditional advantages of ideological and political work with information technology, and enhance the sense of the times and attraction". This is a new form and a new requirement put forward on the basis of the rapidly changing party situation, national conditions and the world situation.

4 Countermeasures to resolve the dilemma of ideological and political course

4.1Buildingahigh-qualityteacherteamofideologicalandpoliticalcourseIt takes a good blacksmith to make steel. Ideological and political teachers are the main executors of ideological and political education for college students. They undertake the "social mission, political mission, cultural mission, moral mission, salvation mission and historical mission" to teach the young generation to grow up healthily[5]". The key of running ideological and political course well is relying on ideological and political teachers. Teachers’ initiative, activity and creativity should be sufficiently played, and their roles as a forerunner in the field of education should be clarified. On concept understanding, they should consciously use the basic principles and methods of Marxism to arm themselves, integrate the expectations and requirements of the party and the state for the young generation into the whole process of teaching, inspire students’ ideal belief favoring, following and loving the party, adhere to implement Xi Jinping’s socialist ideology with Chinese characteristics in the new era, and cultivate people with thoughts. In action, they should strive to learn and update professional knowledge of ideological and political course, form solid systematic theoretical foundation, continuously perfect teaching technique, and highlight the teaching highlights of ideological and political course.

4.2SeekingbreakthroughfromthelawofeducationandteachingIn essence, the opening of the ideological and political classroom is still an educational activity that teachers’ teaching links with students’ learning, and the common educational law should be followed naturally. The advanced ideas and measures put forward in the process of educational reform are worthy of introduction and promotion in ideological and political course. First, at the aspect of teaching idea, the traditional concept of "teacher-centered" reception is changed, and the "student-centered" modern teaching concept of mainstream identity is established. The teaching content should be designed into guidance manner of fully mobilizing the subjective needs and learning mind of students. Under the new concept of student orientation, the teaching situation of "wanting students to listen" is changed to "students wanting to listen and be willing to listen". Second, at the aspect of teaching method, they should seek rich and vivid revolutionary breakthrough, improve the old style of indoctrination teaching, take the form of thematic discussion, inspiring interaction and case analysis, to actively arouse students’ thinking on daily life.

4.3Deepeningthetheoreticalthoughtofideologicalandpoliticalcourseandenhancingstudents’cognitiveidentityIf you don’t taste the delicious food, you don’t know it. No matter how profound the thought is, I don’t know its subtlety without serious thinking. Ideological and political course is a feast of thought and spirit, and ideological and political teachers should deepen the essence of the subject, fuse the scientific knowledge such as philosophy, political science, economics, sociology,etc. which are widely involved in the course into a tight structural system, and understand and grasp the basic theory of Marxism as a whole. With solid professional knowledge and broad theoretical vision, they should widely absorb all the elements that can be used, pool common understanding, joint efforts, and promote the development of ideological and political course to be more open and inclusive. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out[6]: "philosophy and social sciences have a wide range of categories, and different disciplines have their own knowledge systems and research methods. We should study and draw lessons from all useful knowledge systems and research methods, and we should not adopt the attitude of excluding all without analysis".