A Study On Teacher Status: From The Perspective Of Chinese And Western Cultural Comparison

Generally speaking,most studies on teacher status are mainly carried out from the perspectives of politics,economy,discipline etc.,and only a few are carried out from cultural perspective.Everyone might agree that teacher is a very important occupation and the status of teacher is supposed to be high.As a matter of fact,teacher status has been in a contradiction of seemingly high but actually low for a long time.Due to various reasons,the status of contemporary Chinese teachers have been neglected and belittled,and far less attention is paid to teachers than to government official,businessman and ‘experts' on the Internet.Teachers work hard,and shoulder great responsibility,but their status are perplexed.The whole society,including the education community,are in lack of a correct understanding of teacher status.Based on this observation,this paper attempts to study the status of teacher from a culture perspective.Through the study of different teacher status in different culture system,this paper intends to reveal that Chinese teachers undertake unique and noble cultural responsibility,helping to relocate the political and economical status of contemporary Chinese teachers.The significance of this paper is to point out the significant cultural basis for the improvement of teacher status.According to this study,several conclusions are drawn.First of all,because of the cultural differences of family-country organization and city-state system,moral and rational culture system,as well as beliefs towards sage and religion,Chinese teachers in Chinese culture system undertake far greater than Western teachers in Western culture system.In traditional Chinese culture,teachers are tied to a very high position,along with the traditional characters “Tian”(heaven),“Di”(the earth),“Jun”(the Emperor)and “Qin”(families).Teachers should not only teach or answer questions,but also explore “Dao”,the core concept in Chinese cultural.Teachers should not only teach people what to do,but also teach them how to be.Teachers are cultural and devotional inheritor.In comparison,since the “religion-priest” system undertakes the responsibility of devotional education in western culture,the pressure of the responsibilities of their secular “school-teacher” system is largely reduced.Yet Chinese teachers play both role of teacher and priest,and their mission is noble and heavy.Secondly,the Chinese nation's dream of great rejuvenation not only includes the dream of economic prosperity,but also the dream of cultural prosperity.This is to mean that teachers should not only play the role of “teacher in science”,but also the “teacher in humanity” and “spiritual guide”.Education is not only an “occupation”,but also a noble “mission”.Teachers should connect the past and future,as well as inherit and innovate.We need not only the western term of ‘teacher',but also the guardian and inheritor of “Dao”.The mission and responsibility of Chinese teachers is of great significance,but the status of teachers can not match their mission and responsibility.Chinese teachers undertake more than western teachers,but their economic and political status is still no better than them.Thirdly,in the process of modernization,there are more and more requirements from Chinese society to Chinese teachers,who are facing more and more work loads.If teachers are asked to take on such significant tasks,they should be given relatively matching status.Based on this,we should start enhancing teacher status from national system and policy,social and media publicity,school governance,respect from parents,teacher selection and training etc..On the bases of interviews,this paper mainly put forward suggestions from three aspects in order to help increase teacher status from internal education system,which are the relationship between school and teacher,the selection and training of teachers and teachers' self-cultivation.