Tao Xingzhi’s Infant Educational Thoughts And It’s Enlightenment On Current Infant Educational Reform In China

Mr. Tao Xingzhi, the pioneer and founder of infant schooleducation serving for workers and peasants, is a well-knowneducator in modern history of Chinese education. His “LifeEducation Theory”, founded in the middle earlier stage of the lastcentury, has become a distinguished theory，and is being studiedby a host of experts and scholars both at home and abroad. As animportant component of the “Life Education Theory”, his earlychildhood education thoughts and practice not only conformed toChina’s national situation at the time and opened the way for China’s civil preschool education cause, but still has great practicalsignificance in the process of developing preschool education withChinese characteristics in modern China.By using document analysis method、historical method andinvestigation method, this thesis makes comprehensive and in-depthresearch and analysis on the historical background, the ideologicalorigins, foundations and the basic connotation of Mr. Tao Xingzhi’s infant educational thoughts to explore the internal consistencybetween Mr. Tao Xingzhi’s infant educational thoughts and currentpreschool educational reform in China, as well as to draw aconclusion on the practical significance for current preschooleducational reform in China through studying Mr. Tao Xingzhi’sinfant educational thoughts and practice.This thesis is divided into four parts. In Part One, the reasonof research, the significance of the research, the presentsituations of the research, as well as the content and methods of the research are represented. In the second part, the emphases areput on the historical background and the ideological origins of Mr.Tao Xingzhi’s infant educational thoughts on the basis of a briefintroduction to Tao Xingzhi’s life. In Part Three, firstly, theformation process of Tao Xingzhi’s ideas and practical activitiesof early childhood education is summarized, and then stresses arelaid on the basic connotation of Tao’s preschool education thoughtas well as the analysis and evaluation of its innovativeness. Thefollowing points are included: Mr. Tao Xingzhi attached greatimportance to preschool education and put forward the idea ofuniversal preschool education, which offered the theoreticalsupports for the popularization of preschool education at the time.With regard to kindergarten-running orientation, he advocated tocreate a kind of “china-style, money-saving and civilian”kindergartens, propelling the popularization of infant educationthrough increasing the number of preschool children. About theteaching content, he put an emphasis on the children’s physicaland mental coordinated development. He also proposed a teachingmethod of combining teaching, learning and doing as a whole. In theaspect of training teachers, He adopted a system of trainingteachers as their friends to cultivate kindergarten teachersbesides setting up infant normal schools, which helped to open anew way for cultivating infant teachers. In Part Four, combined withcurrent preschool reform practice in China, the practicalsignificance of Mr. Tao Xingzhi’s infant educational thought isdiscussed.