Rebellion Against The Tradition: Thought And Practice Of Modern Education In China And In The West

Since modern times, China has been lagged behind western countries in everyaspect and learning from the west has become the main trend in China. Today, withinternational communication increasingly frequent and globalization overwhelming theworld, it has become an unavoidable problem that how we keep our owncharacteristics when actively participating in it. Therefore, it is meaningful for us toabsorb some lessons of history. Through comparing the movement of European andAmerican modern education with the innovation of Chinese education during the1920s' and 1930s', the article analyzes some problems involved in the development ofeducation, such as the relationships between inheritance and innovation, betweeninternational cooperation and own characteristics, between learning and creation, inorder to benefit our modern educational development both in theory and in practice. The contents of the paper go as follows. Beginning with the law of antinomiesbetween universality and particularity of educational development, the article explainsthe feasibility of the study. Then, it analyzes the similarities, differences and thereasons between the two movements. Both of them object to the traditionallyeducational thoughts and measures, have the unified associations or organizations aswell as various schools of thought, pay attention to the combination of theory andpractice, and have had great influence on the education of their own countries and eventhe world. However, their differences are also obvious in some aspects, for example,the ways of educational implement, mechanism of educational operation, educationalaim, subjects of education, methods of education and executor of education. Actually,the phenomenon not only is the result of their different social conditions and culturaltraditions, but also has close relation with the traits of the intellectual taking part in thetwo movements. The comparison is instructive and encourages us to reflect the present education.Education is a complicated project, so its reformation and development must follow itsown laws. Then, five laws should be paid attention to: first, the educationalreformation can only be progressive, and unsuitable to adopt the revolutionary form ofthe hurricane type; second, theory and practice of education have mutual impetus; third,innovation of modern education should not absolutely break away from the traditionbut select its essence; fourth, though it is necessary to communicate with othercountries to develop education, one country should first persist in his owncharacteristics and then blend native education with international education; fifth,educational development is a long course with contention and communication, whichrequires the two sides of contention having broad minds and wide field of visions.