On Learn To Live Together By Participation

How to enable the young generation to get on well with others has long been a concern of the elder generation and become an educational problem in the context of economic globalization and value pluralization. This paper aims at studying on how schools enable the students to acquire the ability and to form the habit of the common life.It is a common recognition that schools are ideal places for students to learn to live the common life. However, lacking in the atmosphere for the common life, many schools in China cannot manage to play the role well at present. Therefore, in the beginning, this paper analyzes the lack of the common life in Chinese schools and the causes behind the situation, and then tries to find a train of thought and some measures to make up for the lack situation from the existing theories and practice.Then this paper inquires the life styles and the theoretical basis of Dewey School, Summerhill School, Kibuttz High School, Gorki Colony and Dzerzhinsky Commune. The research indicates that these four types of schools are full of the spirits of the democratic life and common life. But they places different emphases in balancing the relationship between individuals and their group. Some schools put emphasis on constructing the democratic life for the student individuals. The individual student is introduced and encouraged to take part in the school matters concerned with themselves, and to acquire the awareness and the ability of the common life in this process. The others stress the construction of the common life for the students' collective. The individual student is instructed to consider the interests of others and the community and to appreciate the happiness of the common life.The Just Community School, the focus of this paper, which takes in the good points of the above four-type schools, is the result from integrating collectivistic education theory and psychology of individual development. This kind of school is based on justice ethics and moral cognitive-developmental psychology and tries to build up a just community by establishing structured democratic administrative organizations, directly participative democratic discussion procedures and collective norms. The research demonstrates that the activities and the atmosphere in the just community not only help to promote the development of students' group consciousness and their ability of democratic participation, but also contribute to developing students' ability of moral reasoning. The just community school provides us with a referential school model in enabling students to learn to live the common life by democratic participation. However, it is hard to succeed in establishing such a school unless all the conditions of school size, school structure, teachers' awareness of democracy and students' ability to participate are met. As a result, it cannot be directly transferred into China without any modification.