The Pursuit Of Dialogical Self

Influenced by the educational system and the result-orientedness of this society,current education underemphasizes children's long-term development and their construction of “self”.Education has taken the form of knowledge cramming and exam preparing,causing a distance between children and their “selves”.Education has become a tool to help enter higher education and eventually to get jobs,instead of building sound characters for growth.The real education should lead children to get to know and have concerns for themselves,to be open to others and the world around them,to have active exchange of responses between others and themselves,and to seek self-potential and self-completion.This study stems from the educational life of a post-90 s high school student,centers around her exploration of self in educational contexts,and investigates the four research questions as follows:(1)What are the connotations of dialogical self of the high school student?(2)What is the process of their pursuing the dialogical selves?(3)What are the growing characteristics of the post-90s?(4)What are the educational objectives and methods to promote the development of children's dialogical selves?The “self” of an individual is partly constructed by self-explanation.It is a combination of objective and subjective self,connection of inner self and outside world,the merge of self in the past,present and future.Pursuing “self” is the process where one constantly returns to oneself,knows oneself,and discovers self-potential.Education guides children to seek their “self” through contextual dialogues.Thus,this two-and-a-half-year research utilizes methods such as case study,critical discourse analysis,hermeneutic phenomenology,in order to collect materials about self-experience,self-narrative,journals and articles,teacher interviews,parent interviews,and researcher observation.Through thorough description about growth combined with critical discourse analysis using theories about dialogical self,this research brings light to the growth process of teenagers.The first chapter investigates the growth of the case living within school institutions.She seeks freedom and autonomy within regulations,experiences growth from having conflicts with regulations,and gradually moves towards dialogical self.This growth process reveals one connotation of dialogical self is the combination of freedom,autonomy and self-discipline within school institutions.It also reveals the main goal of school management,which is the dialogical guidance of discipline awareness,aesthetic awareness,body awareness and authority awareness.Firstly,she seeks freedom,but could conform to regulations she regards as reasonable.This fact shows the importance of developing discipline awareness.Secondly,she seeks their freedom and beauty within the school regulations.This reveals the educational objective of consistency in inner and outer beauty.Thirdly,to seek her body freedom within activity disciplines,but still showing their reasoning abilities,shows the importance of dialogical guidance to body awareness.Fourthly,she seeks freedom and dialogues in the interactions with teachers,but she shows respect in understanding.This emphasizes the importance of developing authority awareness.The second chapter explores the growth of the case through the course of study.The case searches for suitable study methods through interest and appropriation,searches for diversity of curriculum from expanding self.This process reveals one connotation of dialogical self is the balance of pro-learning,aesthetic and intellectual characters within study life.So the school curriculum aims to be a comprehensive guidance of students' true selves,pro-learning self,aesthetic self and intellectual self.Firstly,the search for the true self is the search for self-value and self-actualization.Secondly,the search for pro-learning self is the development for the desire and ability to learn in curriculum study.Thirdly,the search for aesthetic self is the experience of happiness and beauty.Fourthly,the integrity of curriculum study,examination and ideal is the search for intellectual self.The third chapter explores the growth of the case through the involvement of extra-curricular activities.The case seeks individuality,creativity and sharing character from extra-curricula activities,gets to know and explores self through taking part in creative activities,authentic activities,leisure-like activities and community activities,cultivating personal characteristics,creativity,and quality of sharing,realizing the seek for dialogical self.This process reveals one connotation of dialogical self,the integration of individuality,creativity and sharing character within extra-curriculum activities.Firstly,teenagers develop free individuality and active mental desire from in-school creative activities.Secondly,teenagers achieve the membership of a community and the self-value through participating in real-life practice,thus gaining growth and future career direction.Thirdly,teenagers explore interests,release nature,discover potentials and develop individuality in self-attained leisure-like activities.Fourthly,teenagers develop an active,confident and open-minded personality within the school community and friend group.Individual growth and school education cannot be separated from the influence of family education.The fourth chapter investigates the growth of the case in the environment of family education.The case is influenced by the educational methods of protection,regulation,guidance and dialogue in family,and her growth presents the pursuit for independence as well as love and care,thus approaching her dialogical self.This process of growth reveals one connotation of dialogical self is the coordination of love,independence and dialogue within the family environment.Firstly,she pursues independence and freedom,opposes over-protection from parents and dialogues under parental authority,while seeking for friendly dialogue.Secondly,in the value guidance of coexisting parental regulation and guidance,she shows a conflicting sense of both self-escape and the need for love,gradually forming the competence of love and independence.Independence and love are two important factors in the growth of teenagers,so parents need to be aware that the objective of growth is independence,and love is a good way to guide them towards it.Parents should guide the child to love him/herself and to love others,then to love justice and virtue,and hence approaching dialogical self.The fifth chapter further concludes the findings of the study based on the previous four chapters.The conclusions of this research are as follows:(1)The connotations of dialogical self of high school students: the combination of freedom,autonomy and self-discipline within school institutions;the balance of pro-learning,aesthetic and intellectual characters within study life;the integration of individuality,creativity and sharing character within the extra-curriculum activities;the coordination of love,independence and dialogue within family environment.(2)The pursuing process of dialogical self of high school students: extending outer-self dialogue to develop the social self;returning to the inner-self dialogue to enrich the natural self;making dialogues between natural self and social self to pursue the self-completeness.(3)The characteristic of post-90 s teenagers: the pursuit of freedom and the avoidance of self-discipline,the pursuit of happiness and the avoidance of intellect,the pursuit of self-actualization and the bias toward mainstream values,therefore presenting the dialogical side as well as the un-dialogical side of escaping self-autonomy and responsibility.(4)Based on the characteristics of post-90 s teenagers,dialogical education is the way to realize the dialogical growth of the teenagers.The base is understanding and love.The objective is personality inspiration and value guidance,and the educator's self-positioning is growing up together in the dialogue,thus realizing their dialogical life existence.The concrete educational objectives in each educational context are as follows: the dialogical guidance of students' regulation awareness,body awareness,aesthetic interest and authority awareness in school management;the dialogical guidance of students' true self,pro-learning self,aesthetic self and intellectual self in curriculum instruction;the dialogical guidance of students' individuality and competence in extra-curricula activities;the guidance of teenagers' dialogical ability,independent ability and loving ability in family education.In conclusion,education needs to respect students' self-expression to develop their natural self,as well as guiding their awareness of dialogical growth to develop their social self.On the other hand,the high school students should integrate themselves into the school institution to develop their abilities of social adaption while nurturing their self-development awareness.This constitutes the dialectical development of the educator's dialogical guidance and the individual's dialogical growth.