Three articles on "Action is the beginning of knowledge, and knowledge is the completion of action"

——My thoughts after reading "Selected Selection of Tao Xing's Famous Chapters"

First few articles Tian and his colleagues once again read Mr. Tao Xingzhi's famous educational articles. One of them was called "Action is the Beginning of Knowledge," which put forward the slogan "Action is the beginning of knowledge, and knowledge is the completion of action." This made me I deeply feel that if a person has never experienced anything from birth to adulthood, how can he have a correct understanding of the world? I once read a report saying that Chinese students can only win the Olympics but not the Nobel Prize. This is because China’s education has always valued students’ knowledge, but often ignored hands-on practice, resulting in the phenomenon of “high scores and low abilities”. Mr. Tao Xingzhi recognized this serious problem early. He proposed that "Action is the beginning of knowledge, and knowledge is the completion of action." Today, I read Mr. Tao Xingzhi’s famous educational article "Action is the Beginning of Knowledge" and found that this educational thought still has strong guiding significance.

The new curriculum standards require that education should be student-centered and promote "autonomous", "cooperative" and "inquiry-based" learning, allowing students to acquire knowledge through personal practice and experience, and learn to apply what they have learned. Knowledge solves practical problems. This is exactly the embodiment of Mr. Tao Xingzhi’s thought that “doing is the beginning of knowledge”. We must gain true knowledge through practice and personal experience.

Some of the knowledge in our textbooks is relatively profound and divorced from students’ reality. Not only is it difficult for students to learn, it also makes them uninteresting. This requires our teachers to take students as the main body, create conditions and atmosphere to the greatest extent, and guide students to experience and comprehend in practice. For example, when teaching "Hands on by Doing and Seeing", many students knew from the text that the scientist Lang Zhiwan was deliberately deceiving the children, but they were also skeptical like the children in the text. At this time, I guided the children to bring fish tanks and water from home in the afternoon if possible, so that the children could watch a student do the experiment with their own eyes. The students understood from the experiment: Irina did it right by doing it herself, and said it well. There are many similar examples. Students gain knowledge through hands-on practice, which greatly arouses their enthusiasm for learning. We need to create more opportunities for students to have personal experiences, so that they can experience the joy of success in their own creations. This is much better than simply obtaining knowledge from teachers.

"Action is the beginning of knowledge." After all, students have insufficient practical experience and little knowledge, so they also need appropriate guidance and explanation from teachers. Only by allowing students to develop actively can talents have diversity. If they all develop mechanically and passively, they will all be the same model in the future without any individuality at all. What is being advocated now is that different people develop differently. I was deeply moved by reading Tao Xingzhi’s famous educational articles again. In Mr. Tao's concise and classic words, an educator's love for education and expectations for students are revealed, which is worthy of our teachers to study and study.

I once heard some colleagues say: Although I am an educator, I absolutely adore foreign education. Foreign education is indeed better than Chinese education." After hearing this, I was very confused and thought Nowadays, the number of Chinese students studying abroad is getting younger and younger. Do we really have to follow the path of worshiping foreigners and favoring foreign countries in education? During this May Day holiday, I carefully read "Tao Xingzhi's Famous Works on Education" and was deeply impressed by it. Inspiration. In fact, some educational concepts currently promoted abroad and some educational concepts proposed in my country's education reform have long been proposed by educator Tao Xingzhi, such as "life education", "teaching in one", "teaching and doing in one", "Creative Education", etc. I deeply regret that if our country had applied Tao Xingzhi's educational philosophy to educational work earlier, perhaps our country's education would have reached a higher level, and there would not have been So many people worship foreign things in education.

Educator Tao Xingzhi is an educator who studied abroad. After having a detailed understanding of Western education, combined with Chinese culture and social reality, he put forward There are many educational concepts that are suitable for our country’s national conditions. I think the following points are the most touching:

First, the unity of teaching

Tao Gong proposed that the unity of teaching must achieve three points: First, the teacher's responsibility is not to teach, but to teach students to learn; second, the method of teaching must be based on the method of learning; third, the teacher must teach and learn at the same time. To learn for the sake of teaching, you must put yourself in the situation and strive to make people understand, and then you will naturally learn. It is particularly clear.

Second, action is the beginning of knowledge

We have always thought that: knowledge is the beginning of action, and action is the fruit of knowledge. But Tao Gong believes that action is the beginning of knowledge. Knowing is achieved by doing. But let’s start with children. They must know that fire is hot only after they have scalded their hands, know that snow is cold only after their hands have been iced, know that sugar is sweet only after eating sugar, and know that sugar is sweet only after touching a stone. Know that stone is hard. "Mobian" puts forward three kinds of knowledge: one is personal knowledge, the other is hearing knowledge, and the third is speaking knowledge. Personal knowledge is obtained personally, hearing knowledge is obtained from others, speaking knowledge It is inferred knowledge. Hearing, knowing and speaking are all rooted in personal knowledge.

3. Life education

Our education must be a life education, which is to provide life The education we need is not a fake education or an education that cultivates nerds. Therefore, our education must be combined with real life and cannot be separated from real life and empty teaching. Life education is the integration of teaching and doing. Tao Gong believes that: the method of teaching It should be based on the method of learning, and the method of learning should be based on the method of doing; if teachers use doing to teach, it is true teaching, and if students use doing to learn, then it is true learning. This is in line with what our curriculum reform proposes: let students do more hands-on operations, and educate life The transformation is consistent.

Four, learn to be a person

Be a whole person, don’t be an incomplete person. There are three things to be a whole person. Three elements: first, to have a healthy body, second, to have an independent mind, and third, to have an independent career. Tao Gong also wrote a vernacular poem to express that people must have an independent career: sweat their own sweat, eat their own food Do your own thing and do it by yourself. Relying on people, heaven and ancestors is not considered a hero.

5. Guide students to study hard

The reason why today’s students are unwilling to study hard , in fact, it is because the school lacks the power of academic inspiration and supervision. Compared with the two forces of influence and supervision, influence is more important. Love to learn is contagious. One person who loves to learn can infect many people to love learning. I want to have students who love to learn. , you must have a teacher who is eager to learn, that is, if you want students to learn well, you must have a teacher who is eager to learn.

From the moment you set foot on the teaching job, you have been influenced by the saying "come with a heart in hand, and leave without a piece of grass" , I recently read "Selected Selection of Tao Xing's Famous Chapters", and I realized that this familiar saying is a reflection of Tao Gong's moral spirit throughout his life. As a latecomer, I feel guilty, because my understanding of Tao Gong is limited to a vague understanding of the "Xiaozhuang Demonstration" I have learned in history; as a teacher, I feel regretful because I devoted myself to education, but I did not know that Tao Gong's educational philosophy has been implemented in history. Now, it will be used for life.

Tao Lao's theory of "knowing by doing" is adapted from Mr. Yangming's "knowledge is the beginning of action, and action is the completion of knowledge." A child doesn't know that fire is hot until it burns his hand; it doesn't know that learning is cold until it freezes its hand; it doesn't know that sugar is sweet until it eats sugar; it doesn't know that rock is hard until it touches a stone. Therefore, it is more accurate to say that "action is the beginning of knowledge, and knowledge is the completion of action."

This book brings together the essence of Mr. Tao Xingzhi’s lifelong teaching research and practice, from various aspects such as "teaching unity", "student autonomy", "creative education", "creative children's education", etc. , which embodies Mr. Tao Xingzhi’s unique educational thoughts of “life is education”, “integration of teaching” and “creative education”, and is still of practical significance to Chinese education in the 21st century.

Mr. Tao Xingzhi’s creative thoughts are mainly reflected in the following aspects: first, the six liberations, namely, mind liberation, hand and foot liberation, body liberation, sensory liberation, time liberation, and language liberation; second, " The third is "unity of learning and doing"; the fourth is "experimentation is creation". The essence of creation is fresh life, living desire, fire-like enthusiasm and inquiry. Interest and creation come from the vitality of life and from life itself. It once again reflects that "action is the beginning of knowledge, and knowledge is the completion of action."

In the article "The Education of Creation", it is written that Robinson Crusoe drifted to a desert island. During the day, he went to the beach to drink water with his hands. When there was no water to drink at night, he came up with the idea of ????making it out of soft soil. The bottle is burned with fire and can be filled with water. This is thought generated by action, and new value generated by thought. In today's school education, there is not much innovation in the true sense. Teachers' teaching methods are not new, and students' learning methods are not new. Therefore, current education needs to cultivate students' creativity. Cultivating creativity requires adequate nutrition, suitable soil, and a good environment. It also requires establishing good habits and teaching students in accordance with their aptitude. Educators should be as tolerant to Edison as Edison's mother, who gave him the basement for experiments when he was fired. We must also tolerate Faraday like Boss Libo and let Faraday achieve brilliant achievements in electricity.

To create children's education, we must first liberate children's time. Today, many schools still sacrifice children's time in exchange for so-called "achievement", which makes children lose the opportunity to learn about life. , develops a tendency to create unintentionally, and by the time he reaches adulthood, even if he has time, he doesn’t know how to unleash his creativity.

Creating children's education also lies in liberating children's minds, so that they can create brilliant achievements by liberating their creativity from their minds.

Educational innovation is not about being new and innovative, but more importantly about teaching students’ abilities. If the teaching content already reflects the requirements in this aspect, but the “cramming” teaching method is still used, there is no such thing as ability. Cultivated. Therefore, "foraging" teaching is innovative teaching and innovative learning. Tao Xingzhi pointed out that in the teaching process, the teacher’s responsibility is not to teach, but to teach students to learn. Teachers should not teach students ready-made problem-solving methods, but should tell students the ideas for solving problems, so that students can use their own brains and repeatedly deliberate in order to obtain the best results. They should also be careful not to let students be like "headless". Teachers should carefully design a series of procedures to guide students to solve problems in the shortest possible time, and by extension, achieve the effect of drawing inferences from one instance and drawing analogies. Teachers are the companions for children to explore the world, students truly become the masters of learning, and the role of teachers has also undergone qualitative changes. Teachers are no longer absolute authorities who have stored countless "standard answers" and know everything. They can easily say "I don't know" to students, but they should add "Let's explore together." Teachers accompany children to discover the world, find answers with them, and mobilize all factors to help children and students discover and understand the world.

For example, when students discover in an experiment that the temperature of water does not change when it boils and assume that the thermometer is broken, the teacher can directly tell the students the correct answer, or give the students a few more thermometers and let them go again. experiment. Mr. Tao can teach us: Why do you say the thermometer is broken? Can you prove it? Teacher guidance is very critical, but the commonly used teaching language should no longer be: I tell you..., you remember..., you have to do this..., you are not allowed to do this...; but often: you What can I do with this? Why are you doing this? Explain to us what you've done and what do you think will happen? Why is what you do different from what they do? Can you do it again? Do you agree with what he said? Why? From this we realize the true meaning of Mr. Tao Xingzhi’s “creative education”.

Rodan said: "Evil is dryness." I want to bloom the flowers of creation, bear the fruits of creation, and propagate the forest of creation. The key is to have a suitable climate and a certain amount of soil, and these conditions must be implemented by all educators.

Based on the above insights, my gain is to allow students to "learn by doing", so that students can learn to face real things, that is, unknown things, new things and unanswered things, respect the facts, and do not falsify. Don't be superstitious about authority. We must encourage students to respect facts and dare to express their own opinions; to be responsible and good at cooperating with others; to be enterprising and willing to solve practical problems in life. While students are learning certain truths about the world, they are also learning how to survive under the requirements of truth to eliminate falsehoods and preserve truths in the process of exploring truth, and use science as the criterion of life. This is also exactly Tao Lao’s educational theory of “thousands of teachings teach people to seek truth, and thousands of studies teach them to be real people.” The times call for educators, and the times also create truly innovative educators.

"Action is the beginning of knowledge, and knowledge is the completion of action." Let us take action. If we cannot be educators with innovative ideas, then we should be educators with innovative ideas!