"Life Understanding" Moral Education

Since entering the21stcentury, Chinese people have more and more got rid of the troubleof material deficiency and the fetter of social life, and the value outlooks also turn to be moreand more diversified, personalized, and characterized. Comparably, the present moral educationin schools appears to be more and more in poor efficiency, or even worse, in no effectiveness.The key to change this moral education situation is to bring innovation to the present moraleducation theory, which is also a new requirement of the times for the moral educators.However, it’s also acknowledged that any innovation of theory relies on the accordance ofthe rules and the purposes. Therefore, we are required to re-interpret “morality” and “life”, twocore concepts of present moral education theory, because a new theory always fails due to theill-interpretation of the origin of the theory, namely, core concept. In fact, the concept of moralitycannot be defined and interpreted without social individuals, because morality is not only theinner force of a social individual towards goodness, but also the ability of a social individual tomanage morality. The former is the “root” of an individual’s morality, while the later is the “end”of an individual’s morality. Therefore, to cultivate individuals’“morality sense” of life is thefundamental of moral education no matter in any ages. The interpretation of “life” is alsoconcerned with individuals’ activities. Life is the sum of functional activities, events, and stateswhich are dynamically and independently carried out by an individual in his survival and lifeexpansion. And the life is always intertwined with the existing state of an individual. Such beingthe case, it becomes necessary to clarify the relationship between the morality and the life of anindividual, and through the theoretical reflection of the relationship, the “moral being” in a lifeand its forming mechanism of life is found out. Based on this, after the deep examination of themoral education both in historical dimension and life mechanism dimension, it’s also found thatall moral education in the history which followed the life mechanism had powerful vitality.Meanwhile, by the historical inquiry of “why”,“what to teach”, and “how to teach” for moraleducation, a new moral education theory, in accordance both to rules and purposes in acquired,which is “life understanding” moral education theory.“Life understanding” moral education refers to the process during which educators withaccurate understanding of the life mechanism of “moral being”, against students’ moralityconcerned value orientation in their personal life, properly adjust students’ life activities or adopt“life narration” discussion to guide correctly and make the adjustment happen; against thestudents who have deviation in value orientations, adjustment of personal life activities will beadopted to improve their “emotional connection patterns” and “behavior habit patterns”, andconsequently promote the self-improvement of the deviation in value orientations. In a word, “Life understanding” moral education is the process that the moral educators influence and guidestudents’ life activities so as to help students grow up to be a “moral being” in its personal life.“Life understanding”moral education, based on critical reference to the traditionalobject-oriented moral education which places emphasis on virtue instilment, and modernsubject-oriented moral education as well which places emphasis on the moral skills training, isthe development and refinement of contemporary moral education which focuses on the contentof education and lifestyle methodology. The “Life understanding”theory not only takes life asthe measure of moral education, but also, more significantly, raises life to the critical position ofontology of moral education.