Liberty, Participation And Consensus

With the combination of existing democratic teaching theory at home and abroad, utilization of the contemporary consensus democracy theory's core ideas, such as toleration, discussion, consensus view and so on, relation of the teaching's intrinsic attributes, this research has probed into the essential teaching ideas on which the democratic teaching should hold in China's current social development. The ultimate mission of democratic teaching is not to train intelligent skilled workers, but to convert discipline knowledge into students'integrated intelligence, which can be their social consciousness, and then be translated into democratic and social behavior.The democracy is not only one kind of social system's organizational forms, but also one type of the combination lifestyles. When we take the school teaching as a type of democratic lifestyles, it is no longer an external influence which is separated from individuals, but a combination lifestyle with others in which the subject involves and the teaching itself is reformed by the subject's behavior. As participative subjects, teachers and students with interactive relationship of "I-You" between them, are the common founders of this combination lifestyle. And the teaching embodies both the representation of teachers'meaning of life and the release of students'Internal potential. As a kind of lifestyles, democracy refers to both the collective level and the individual one. It can not only maintain the teachers and students'unrestrained explored state on the common issues, but also offer the individual a chance to fully express himself/herself. This kind of lifestyle admits each individual who takes part in the teaching life has his/her special personality and intelligence, and its purpose is to make each one take part or involve into the activity which purpose is to rich the collective wisdom, so as to come true the development and perfection of the individual and collectivity. In the democratic teaching life, the truth is not displayed directly by the teacher and book, but obtained by the teachers and students'common exploration, and this course is also a process in which teachers and students participate the teaching life together and reach teaching consensus. Democratic teaching is one which is open to the truth and is also a joint learning and bi-direction exchange activity which is on the basis of the teachers'guidance, acknowledgement and query to the students. The main approach to achieve the democratic teaching is to reach teaching consensus during their participation, which need the teaching subjects'total participation. Democratic teaching is a process in which the participants, with the principle of teaching justice, reach teaching consensus by common discussion. And the ultimate purpose of it is to cultivate individual who is the core strength of social construction to be independent and free and full of critical consciousness and self-examination spirit.This research can be divided into six parts:Part I:Introduction. In this part, researcher introduced this research's social background and the challenge to teaching offered by the democratization era. Through the comparative study between new Basic Education Curriculum Reform's "three-dimensional Goals" and several current teaching target classification theories, this study has discovered the problem of action deficiency existed in the teaching aims, and analyzed the influences of it to the formation of students'integrated personality and social participation ability with the characteristic of the age. Based on the analysis of the results of a democratic teaching's empirical study, this paper discovers that there are many undemocratic phenomena existing in China's current teaching. Combined with the existing educational justice research and the undemocratic phenomena existing in China's current teaching, it has discussed the necessity of the perfection of democratic teaching theory, and then educed its subject:democratic teaching. It also analyzes the current situation of democratic teaching both at home and abroad, absorbs some ideas of the related research, and confirmed its research aim, text structure and study method.Part II:Human Liberty:the Essential Pursuit of Education. Through the analysis of personal proficiency and value, this study holds the idea that education should be harmony with the children's psychological characteristics, conform to their nature, and help them be natural and active in the aspects of acquiring knowledge, developing intelligence and cultivating moral emotion. Education should be based on children's self-selection and self-realization, and build its relationship during children's duplicity of pursuing liberty and evading that, so as to come true the essential pursuit of human liberty. This kind of education which begins with liberty and also aims at that is democratic education, which achieves human ideals of healthy society through the cultivation of Individual Freedom. Part III:School Teaching:One Type of Democratic Lifestyles. Democratic teaching is built on the reconsideration of the limitation of adult and unlimited possibilities of children's development, and also assumes that there is an unknown world and a kind of transcendent truth existing beyond the teachers and students, and this world is open and has infinite possibility. In the alliance teaching life, teachers and students approach and maintain the state of exploring this world together. School teaching, as a kind of democratic lifestyle, refers to both the collective level and the individual one, and it's a type of coalition life between individual and others. The realization of democratic teaching firstly needs to know the essence of teaching which is the process of teachers and students' life, and then requires to achieve the diversion from science epistemology to life epistemology.Part IV:Personality Equality:the Relationship Between Teachers and Students in the Democratic Teaching. The relationship between teachers and students is interactive, which is neither an inherent transcendental competence in the subject, nor generated automatically during the teaching activity, but a result of constant participation and construction of the teachers and students who express their initiative with the interactive of sever other factors in the class. Teaching activity decides the relationship between teachers and students, which is not an abstract relationship between individuals, but is formed in special teaching situation. The formation of the teachers and students' relationship does not follow the One-way linear model of "teachers anticipation-teachers sending out relationship signal-students responding the signal-the formation of relationship", but keep to the multiple spiral pattern of "teaching activity-teachers and students'participation-the formation of relationship-a new teaching activity-teachers and students'participation again-new relationship between them". The democratic relationship between teachers and students is one that they interact equally with each other in the relationship of "I-You", in which "You" are not the object of transformation of "I", and you and me are one, which means that each individual is both the educator and the leaner, and the teachers and students interact with each other during the course of sharing knowledge and emotion together.Part V:Consensus Participation:the Approach of Democratic Teaching. The proposition of the concept of teaching consensus is from the enlightenment of consensus democracy theory. Teaching consensus is pointed to teaching subjects'common view to the essential teaching value, teaching contents and teaching operational procedure, which equal to value consensus, truth (knowledge) consensus and process consensus. Teaching consensus is not a static state or a point, but a course that needs to be pursued and achieved. The achievement of teaching consensus should take the mutual knowledge between the subjects as precondition, and depends on teachers and students taking part in the activity together. Participating in teaching is the interpenetration among the subjects'thoughts, which is the main approach that teachers and students explore the unknown world together. In this process, it is the teaching consensus that they approve together a series of methods, truths and values, and these consensuses can constantly be amended, updated and completed. Collective discussion is the main way to come true teaching consensus, and the teaching justice is the basic principle to achieve that. Teaching justice attaches importance to each individual sharing the rights of teaching resources equally, and also emphasizes to make appropriate teaching to the students who have different characteristics and development needs according to their diversity.Part â…¥:Liberty Civil:the Social Meaning of Democratic Teaching. In the background of globalization, the construction of civil society is an inevitable choice in china's current social development. Through cultivating the students' democratic character, democratic teaching nurtures their social consciousness, helps them understand the essence of living together with others and respect others, promotes them having different perspectives, and cultivates their ability of participating social practice. In this level, democratic teaching achieves its ultimate mission of transforming society.