Significance Generation: A New Value-Trend In Current University Teaching

Teaching practices are guided by teaching values. That is to say, every teaching practice corresponds with certain kind of teaching value. The problems in the practice also reflect the differences in teaching values.Nowadays universities are often criticized for the loss of"human being"or the trend of"non-teaching"in their teaching practices. The reason for the"loss of significance"in teaching is that teaching practices are usually guided by a teaching value called"entity creation". If teaching practices at universities need to achieve any significance, they should turn their teaching values from"entity creation"to"significance generation". The notion that university teaching is significance generation is not out of intellectual presuppositions or fabrications, but what emerges from the following three critiques without principles.The first of the three critiques is the critique of language, which reveals that university teaching is a special phenomenon in the living world and keeps vacillating on the edge of the living world. Firstly, university teaching belongs to the living world, that is to say, the living world endows university teaching with preexistent significance, and university teaching is the practice leading to the significance of the living world. Secondly, university teaching transcends the living world in that it keeps rephrasing the significance endowed by the living world and generates new significance so that the living world is led to transcend itself. Therefore, university teaching is not only what is created by the living world itself, but also the creation of the living world. They generate each other and are embodied in university teaching, or games of desire, technology and Tao.The critique of language only reveals the aims of significance generation, while the critique of thinking unveils its origins. The first thing revealed in the critique of thinking is that university teaching should adhere to the ancient value of reason nutrition, which is the everlasting significance of university teaching. The second thing is that the modern value of technology acquisition needs to be encouraged, which is a most important task of university teaching in the living world. The third thing is that the postmodern value of desire release needs to be respected. Desire release is not the contrary of asceticism or an expression of carnalism, but is to teach according to the needs of individual learners. This is the root of the life and energy of university teaching. Therefore, it is meant that desire, technology and Tao are all gamers, not that one is to replace the other two.Apart from the origins and aims, ways are also needed for significance generation. The ways are revealed in the critique of reality. Hence, the critique of reality has three tasks, i.e., to distinguish significance generation from"entity creation", and to allow significance generation emerge by itself. While the critique of"entity creation"shows that the value of university teaching is not to the revivify any of the desire, technology and Tao, but to allow them to play games, the critique of"entity creation"proves the fact that university teaching is not life and vice versa. Still, it does not mean that they are not related to university teaching, but that university teaching exists for the significance of life itself. The critique of them displays that significance generation is the games of desire, technology and Tao, which is not within or without university teaching, but originate from themselves and act for themselves.From the above analysis, it can be seen that critiques without principles unveil the structure of the phrase significance generation. That is to say, the result of the critique of language is its objective, i.e., what is generated. What is generated? It is the games of desire, technology and Tao. The result of the critique of thinking is its nominative, i.e., the representations of significance. What does the significance represent? It is the games of desire, technology and Tao. The result of the critique of reality is its predicate, i.e., how it is generated. How is it generated? It is the games of desire, technology and Tao. That's to see, to allow the generation of desire, or to replace desire with feeling; to allow the generation of technology, or to move from technology to arts; to allow the generation of wisdom, or to turn knowledge into wisdom.To critique is to discern and demarcate the origin and termination of something. Being essentially creative, critique is both deconstructive and constructive. It is the generation of thinking, which means the emerging of new meanings. The first connotation of significance generation is that students are not passive receivers of knowledge but active learners. Such a change in the student's status causes a natural change in the teacher's status. The teacher becomes someone who practices wisdom and facilitates learning. Accordingly, the relationship between the teacher and the student turns to be inter-subjective. Corresponding to the inter-subjectivity between the teacher and the student, the process of university teaching is a process of language games of desire, technology and wisdom. Such language games are not something external to the teacher and the student, but something attracts them to join the games and to converse with language. The process of conversation with language is to understand the meaning of language. It is in understanding that significances are generated.As a teaching value, significance generation is not an arbitrary intellectual fabrication, but a practical representation of actual university teaching. No matter it is the microcosmic teaching organization of Peng Fuchun or the macroscopic teaching reform at MIT, university teaching not just allows people to join the games of desire, technology and Tao, but also provides a field for such games. It is during these endless games that significances are generated and university teaching becomes teaching itself.In conclusion, university teaching is meaning generation, i.e., games of desire, technology and Tao. It is in the games that learners become human and university teaching becomes teaching.