A Research On Mr. Lv Zuqian's Educational Theories And Teaching Practices

Zuqian Lv is a typical scholar and educator in the Southern Song dynasty.Mr.Lv's great learning handed down in his family has a very long history,which lasted more than 200 years,and dozens of his ancestral families that positively contributed to the ancient Chinese academy were recorded in books of the academic history.Based on the effect and experience from the family,and with his diligence,Mr.Lv had constructed grandios and comprehensive theories of education,which absorbed all kinds of active and constructive thoughts and theories from other peer scholars and educators.At this point, he was uncomparable at the time.In addition,he consciously combined the outstanding elements on education from the traditional Confucian heritage into his own theories,and then made them integrated.In his theory,there is another core concept that is practice.He insisted on the way of learning to practicing,opposed and criticized that kind of bookworms who only know studying mechanically.It is that the tradition had been inherited from Confucius to Hu Yuan(a great educator lived a little earlier than Mr.Lv. On educational thoughts,Mr.Lv had widely and penetratingly communicated with Zhu Xi,Zhang Shi,Chen Liang and Jiuyuan Lu,which were all well-known scholars and educationists on their time,and the communication affected them all sharply and profoundly.The purpose of writing this paper by studying the individual case of such an educationist is to get to the aim that people can find something about the whole educational circumstances of the Southern Sung dynasty and the aftertime from it.Discourse and analysis have mainly been developed in the four parts of the paper.In part 1,Mr.Lv's family educational background and the academic inheritance are briefed, which played an active part in the activities of Lv's building his great educational theories.The Lv Families ground on the academy research always put their academic theories into practice once they held a governmental office.During the long time of the Northern and Southern Sung dynasties,the scholars from the clan of Lv played quite active roles in the history of the ancient Chinese academy.In one word,the families cannot be neglected when research relates to the realm.The characteristics of the Lv Families' are the two points,"learn and absorb wildly from other great points on thoughts",and "be earnest and down-to-earth on activities" which were summarized by some scholars long ago.Briefly,it's called to have a wide insight and be steadfast at work.In part 2,all the components of Mr.Lv's system of the educational theories have been explained and commented.Wholly,his system can be divided into two great sections.One is the education about man's virtue and inner qualities;the other is the education on practical knowledge and talented persons.The two sections are independent but interwoven.One aim of writing this paper is,from the essence of education,to find some causes why Mr.Lv constructed such an educational system.Therefore,the philosophical foundation of his theories,such as the epistemology,the educational teleology,have been detailedly discoursed in the paper.Moreover,there are concrete and systemic analysis and research on his education of training practical and talented persons because this is one of the core elements of his theories.Compared with the modern didactics and theories of teaching,Mr.Lv's theories have been researched profoundly and scientifically.The conclusion is that there are many important elements of Mr.Lv's theories quite similar with their modern counterparts.The very important teaching practices in Mr.Lv's life have been accurately summed up in part 3.Mr.Lv was only 45 years old when he died.Unfortunately,it cannot be called a long life in traditional Chinese notions.However,there is much time nearly one-third of his life which was devoted into teaching practices,although his life is that short.Actually,this period should be one of the most accomplished times of one's life. During this time,he drew up the well-known school regulations which are called THE SCHOOL REGULATIONS OF THE FOURTH YEAR OF QIANDAO(a title of an emperor's reign) and THE SCHOOL REGULATION OF THE FIFTH YEAR OF QIANDAO,in the history of the ancient Chinese schools.He also opened up the SCHOOL OF LIZE,one of the four greatest schools in the Southern Sung dynasty, although it was not formally called LIZE SCHOOL at that time.Furthermore,Mr.Lv compiled a series of teaching materials,such as "DONGLAI BOYI(meaning the extensive comments on many things by himself)","JIN SI LU(the collection of the foundemental thoughts about some important issues by five great thinkers in the Northern Sung dynasty)",which deeply affected the aftertime nearly one thousand years. Extensive learning,steadfast working attitude and the respect to the academic freedom are the most cherished traditions that Mr.Lv left.Some things very important have been concluded in the end of the paper.Through the individual research and comparison on his educational theories and practice,I attempt to find some notions benefit to all the times and some effective didactics and teaching methods.And try to sum up something about the academic foundation that supports Mr. Lv's theories.The characteristics and the core concepts of his theories are also the very things I want to find in the paper.The influence of Zuqian's theories on the educational system,the atmosphere for learning and the social climate of the Southern Sung dynasty and the aftertime have also been tracked through the gathering and arrangement of the detailed documents and materials.With comparison to the conditions and circumstances of the present education,the direct purpose of searching something that can be used as a resource of references from Mr.Lv's theories.