Wang Yangming’s Thought Of Harmonious Education And Improvement Of Primary And Secondary Education

Wang Yangming is a great educator of the Ming Dynasty in China. His thought ofharmonious education embodies the brillance of humanity, which is in sharp contrast to thefeudal education only emphasizing teachers’ authority. This thesis analyzes the contents of hisharmonious education, and its applicaton to primary school, and middle school education.Wang Yangming’s thought of harmonious education first refleced in its basicpeople-oriented ideas. Firstly, it respects the natural attribute of students, and teaches studentsas a natural human being. It educates students according to the natural development of people.And at the same time, it also emphasizes teaching in accordance with their aptitude. Secondly,it cultivates students’ ability to learn knowledge, and oppose superstition and blind obedienceto authority. Thridly, it emphasizes the reasonable lecutures that can be easily accepted bystudents. Fourthly, it pays attention to all-round development of students, and the teachingcontents of all subjects should be combined properly. Lastly, it pays attention to studentsemotional concerns, and emotional expression.In addition to his people-oriented ideas, he gave moral education the top priority. Hedeems that moral education should comes first, and each student must set their own goal. Inmoral education, he advocates self-criticism, mutual criticism and self-reflection. In itsimplemetation, moral eduction is divided into four stages i.e. invoke awareness, improvepersonality, enlight goal, and guide practice, which is in accordance with our present moraleducation. At the same time, he emphasizes practice, and the untiy of knowledge and practice.He encourages both teachers and students to practice and experience, not to believe thetheories of superstitous books and authority’s speech. With a different point of view than thatof the present, he puts ‘knowledge’ and ‘action’ into one. He thinks these two elements areinseparable. Futermore, Wang Yangming focus on regulating a harmonious relationshipbetween teachers and students. Teaching process is democraticm, and teachers should listen tostudents viewpoints. So both teachers and students can improve a lot from teaching process.At the same time, teachers can organize vaious extracurricular activities, and encouragestudents to join in. And teachers should treat students of all levels equally, and try to guide those stuedents who are falling behind others. The illustration above constitutes systemicthought of harmonious education.With reference to Wany Yangming’s educational thoughts, many areas of primary andsecond education needs to be improved. First, teachers concepts shuld be changed, shiftingthe focus from teacher-oriented to student-oriented. We should also change students concepts,cultivating their abilities to learn independently. Teachers should know each student’s learningability, create students’ portfolio, and teach them according to their personal learning abilities.At the same time, teachers should pay attention to students’ emotional expeirence andemotional expression. In moral education, We shoud carry out the moral education of WangYangming, set the pefection of personality as the top priority, try hard to achieve harmonousunity of morality and personality, strenghten the aessthetic educaiton espacially thosepromoting the untiy of morality and personality. In addition, we should attach importance topractical teaching, stressing students’ participation during the teaching process. Teachers canset in class activities, and ask students to achieve the goals of activities. Finally, to achieve aharmonius relation, we need to have more ineraction in class, to organize various activities,and to create a harmonious teaching atmosphere. As for those who don’t do well school,teachers should help them, inspire them. Wang’s taching thoughts can spread through theabove teaching methods, reaching the goal of harmonious education.