Utility,Beauty And Existence Pursuing-on Chinese Education Thoughts Of Xia Mianzun

Xia Mianzun' s pedagogy have a unique standing in Chinese language education in modern China.His ideology of Chinese education the integration of pursuing utility,beauty and existence of the language.While the pursuit of utility is tertiary,,the pursuits of beauty and existence are respectively secondary and primary.In his writings throughout life,there is a clear trajectory in which his scholarship moved from practical to theoretical;from tertiary to primary;from instrumental to humane.He actively pursued the applicability of language while tolerating no utilitarianism.He constructed the science of Chinese language education while infusing and promoting beauty.He attended to the modernization of Chinese language education,while seeking perseverance and grace in humanity.Such scholarship was the sound of excellence that echoed in the era of mediocre and self-interest..On the construction of Chinese language curricula,he adhered to the pedagogy which promoted conformance between identity and experience as the essence of human development.He believed the nature of the discipline which was instrumental,humane,and linguistic in an integrated mix.He emphasized the objectives which balanced between fine-tuned understanding of texts and free expression.Ultimately,he sought a modern individualized and cumulative curriculum thoughts integration of history and reality,education and life,teaching with learning.In a word,his thoughts not only employ the advantages of"child-centered curriculum","society-centered curriculum","discipline-centered curriculum " in the western tradition of curricular theories,,but also included the characteristics of the Chinese context.As for modern Chinese textbooks,it was not only started by Xia Mianzun,but also reached maturity and glamour because of his work.As the spiritual leader of the Kaiming School,the Chinese textbooks compiled under his leadership,such as"Chinese One Hundred and Eight Unit","Talk About the Theory of Writing","Wenxin,Kaiming Chinese Notes",were excellent and been highly praised by scholars throughout times.These textbooks not only emphasized the systematic construction of knowledge,but also pay attention to student psychological needs and cognitive structure;not only focused on how to display the declarative knowledge properly and eloquently,but also on how to tactfully insert operational knowledge in through;not only pursued the optimization and transferability of thinking and experience of teachers,but also resonance of such thinking and experience with students and their applications.These characteristics made his Chinese textbooks capable of bringing out the depth of rational thinking,the warmth of humanities,and demand of identity forming.His textbooks demonstrated not only aesthetic quality of ancient literature anthology,but also the rational character of modern Chinese textbooks.During the period of the Republic of China,the transformation to vernacular from classical Chinese and from traditional education to modern education was at the very beginning stage.In particular,many arguments existed about Chinese reading education Should reading primarily be reading in classical Chinese or vernacular Chinese?Should reading emphasize on application writings or literature?,Should more enhancement be given to silent reading or reading aloud?Should reading be a hobby,a mean,or something else?Should reading be taught with emphasis on understanding,or mesmerizing?so on and so forth.,In face with all those questions,Xia Mianzun took all these questions into account,and formed his own detailed and guiding ideas,Consequently,he developed a philosophy on Chinese reading education that embodied the best lessons of western and Chinese tradition,history and modern times:it integrates education with living experience,emphasizes skill development,nourish multiple existence,as well as interpreting meanings beyond text.Such rich philosophy was a precious spiritual wealth for the modern Chinese reading education.It is noteworthy that his philosophy on Chinese writing education was formed in a historical context where people complained about the poor mastery of Chinese language among their young.Contrasted with other scholars,his thoughts not only had the inclination of integrating into life and serving oneself by writing,but also had the ideas to live aesthetically and be true to oneself without refrains.He paid close attention to questions on how to make students " read more,write more and discuss more",and elaborated on the reasons behind and methods to such objectives.In addition to explore writing skills and define writing standards,,he was very concerned with the development of attitude,feelings and personality of the young generation.In summary,he sought authentic integration of knowledge,emotion,and ideology education,in which writing could be a healthy expression of heart and mind.Thus "make heart and idea sincere,make action-awareness merging became a reflection of his writing education thoughts.As for Xia Mianzun ' s thoughts on Chinese language assessment,we may summarize it as follows:Assessing is to follow the truth and transform it into care.He criticized the phenomenon in assessment of ignoring the times demand and of neglecting the students' knowledge structure,and promoted that assessment serve purposes for student development and life in the future.He cautioned the capriciousness and the autocracy for no good purpose,and encouraged the accuracy and scientific rigor of assessment methods..He detested mechanical memorization of knowledge and aimless training of skills.Instead,he created a concept of multi-purpose assessment that evaluate basic knowledge,skills,attitude,interest,and fundamentally,character development.,and was interested in the test with,He advocated self testing,peer-testing,multi-mode testing,and formative testing in addition to teacher-administered testing.Such diversified testing modes would form dynamic and high-quality assessment,as well as retrospectively contributing to the objective setting and classroom instruction.In summary,his thoughts of Chinese language assessment is not only full of the scientific validity,reliability,distinction degree,but also has the heat,breadth and depth of the humanities.The unique value of Xia Mianzun ' s thoughts,however,has not been taken seriously because of previous shallow interpretation and misreading in the field.Therefore,it is necessary to reform from the bottom and remodel the classical status of his thoughts in Chinese language education.Only by doing so can we guide the practice of Chinese language education more effectively with his Chinese education thoughts.Thus,this paper was one of such efforts.