Approaching The Meaning World

The profound social root of education crisis lies in the crisis of human dissimilation caused by technological society. Under the control of technology, the existence of human becomes one of regarding man as instrument. And the fundamental plight of human as instrument is the loss of the meaning of existence and a spiritual homestead. Facing the existential crisis of modern human, western philosophy is undergoing profound transformation, that is, from traditional epistemology to existence philosophy, and from "how to understand?" to "how to exist?". The rising of existence philosophy opened up a new direction for us in breaking through the hypothesis of "human as instrument" and in reconstructing a new image of human in the field of curriculum.From the viewpoint of existence philosophy, the existence of human is one of meaning. As a guide for cultivating people, the curriculum subsumes a meaning world where human beings exist with a sense of beauty. Existence philosophy requires taking the meaning world as a vital theme for curriculum research, and in the revealment of meaning world, guiding students to the understanding of the meaning of life and to the upgrade of state of life. Therefore, existence philosophy maintains approaching the meaning world from three aspects, namely, the reconstruction of ethical realm, phenomenological thinking and the reversion to living world. Meanwhile, because existence philosophy is mainly the western theoretical resource, it is necessary to carry through a critical thinking based on Chinese context and pedagogy in the analysis and interpretation of the issues of Chinese curriculum.From the viewpoint of existence philosophy, the vision, goal, content of the curriculum and curriculum design and research will all gain a brand new interpretation. First of all, existence philosophy requires that we surpass the mechanical metaphor of the technological curricular model and reconstruct new vision of curriculum, that's, curriculum is creation, dialog and homestead. Secondly, according to existence philosophy, curriculum goal should break the theoretical hypothesis of "human as instrument", and achieve the goal of understanding human from its nature, integrity and spirit, and regarding the spiritual happiness as the fundamental curriculum principle. Happiness from the viewpoint of existence philosophy is different from joy. According to pedagogy, the concept of happiness includes the cultivation of the ability to achieve happiness, the upgrade of the realm of happiness, and the plan for a happy life. Thirdly, existence philosophy requires that we regard knowledge as subjective existence loaded with rich humanism instead of regarding knowledge as instrument, and approach the meaning world by revealing the wisdom, ethic, culture and beauty of knowledge. Fourthly, existence philosophy regards teaching material as "art" instead of "goods". Teaching material design should lay more stress on the humanism of knowledge selection, the dialogism of knowledge learning, the integrity of knowledge structure and the vitality of knowledge. Fifthly, existence philosophy advocates approaching the meaning world of human through phenomenology. The curriculum research from the viewpoint of phenomenology is different in theoretical goal and direction from the one under the technological viewpoint. The difference is embodied in that phenomenology is concerned with the "specific human" and it carries out the principle of "facing reality itself...