Action is the beginning of knowledge.

Tao Xingzhi

Mr. Yangming said, "knowledge is the beginning of a line, and it is a backlog." I think this is wrong. It should be "knowing is the beginning of a line, knowing is the achievement of a line." Let's start with a child. At first he must have burned his hand before he knew that the fire was hot. He didn't know that the snow was cold until his hands froze. He didn't know that sugar was sweet until he ate it. He didn't know that the stone was hard until he touched it. After basking in the sun several times, he cooked in the kitchen. I didn't know the abstract sweetness until I ate white sugar, brown sugar, sesame sugar, sugarcane and licorice several times. You don't know the abstract hardness until you touch iron, copper and wood several times. Only by scalding your hands and freezing your face can you better understand cold and heat. After eating licorice and then eating coptis, you can better understand the ups and downs. After touching the stone. We can all clearly see that "action is the beginning of knowledge, and knowledge is the success of action". Franklin (2) flew a kite knowing that electricity could be conducted from the sky to the earth. Watt boiled water, and when he saw steam pushing the lid, he knew that steam could also push the machine. Galileo threw balls of different weights on the Leaning Tower of Pisa (3), and he knew that balls of different weights landed at the same time. In these scientific inventions, we can see that "line is the beginning of knowledge, and knowledge is"

Mo Bian (IV) puts forward three kinds of knowledge: first, intimate knowledge, second, heard knowledge, and third, spoken knowledge. Familiar knowledge is acquired personally, that is, from "travel" Smell knowledge is acquired from others, or taught by teachers and friends, or conveyed by books, which can be classified into this category. Oral knowledge is inferred knowledge. At present, the knowledge that ordinary schools attach importance to is only olfactory knowledge. At best, this is inferred from what we have heard. We use "action is the beginning of knowledge" to explain the source of knowledge, not to deny what we have heard and said, but to admit that what we know is the basis of all knowledge. Only when you know and say it yourself can it be effective.

Let's take the speech of the "March 8th Doctrine" as an example. It makes no difference to us to tell a group of young people who have no working experience in a machine factory the truth of working eight hours. We can't really get them without knowing them in person. If one of them has worked in Shanghai cotton mill for a few days or a whole day, he must have a cordial understanding of the significance of the eight-hour work week movement. Someone said, "To understand the eight-hour work, it is necessary to go there so hard." It is not worthwhile to make a mountain out of a molehill. "I think the most economical thing in the world is not the acquisition of this personal knowledge. Modern political and economic problems focus on this kind of life. The personal knowledge gained from this life is tantamount to gaining the key to controlling political and economic problems.

Familiarity with knowledge is a necessary condition for understanding familiarity with knowledge. Here is another example to prove that "speaking knowledge" should also be rooted in "being familiar with knowledge".

Sherlock Holmes has a strange case. His nose is white. After a usurer was killed, there was a bloody handprint on the white wall of his room, which was surprisingly large, 2 feet 8 inches long from the wrist to the tip of the middle finger. When Holmes with a white nose saw this strange handprint, he concluded that the murderer had no palm and it was related to glove accessories. Based on this inference, he found out that Coles, who lived in the glove shop, was the murderer of this case, and the weapon used was

It can be seen that knowledge is rooted in personal knowledge, and it can be seen that "doing is the beginning of knowing, and knowing is the success of doing."

1June 3, 6

[Notes]

(1) This article is a speech at the Yin Meeting of Xiaozhuang Teachers College on June 3rd, 927. The first paragraph was originally published in the Rural Education Newsletter, Volume 2,No. 1928 15, entitled "Doing is the beginning of knowing, and knowing is the end of doing".

Franklin translated Franklin (1706- 1790), an American scientist and inventor of lightning rod.

Galileo galilei (1564- 1642), an Italian physicist and astronomer, is the ancient city of Pisa in western Italy, where the famous leaning tower of Pisa is located.

(4) The topic of Mohist Debate refers to the upper and lower chapters of Jing and Jing Shuo in Mozi.

On May 1 886, workers in Chicago and other places in the United States went on strike and asked them to work eight hours a day, study eight hours and rest eight hours in primary schools, commonly known as the "March Eighth Doctrine".

Innovative education

Tao Xingzhi

Dear students:

My theme today is creative education.

What is creative education? Let me explain the meaning of the word "creation" first. Let me give two examples. Robinson drifted to a desert island, thirsty. During the day, he went to the seaside to drink water with his bare hands, but there was nothing he could do at night. Occasionally, he saw burnt soil as hard as stone by the kitchen stove. He thought that the soft soil would become solid and hard when it burned, so he made it into three bottles. The other two can be filled with water, so that his thirst problem is completely solved. When we analyze this matter, we can find three points: he is drinking in the dark with water in his hand, which is his action; It was also his action that found that the soil became solid and hard after the fire; It was his idea to mold the soil into a bottle, hoping that it would be as strong as burnt soil. As a result, his plan to hold water in the bottle succeeded, and this is the generation of new value. Thought comes from action, and new value comes from thought. This is the process of creation. This example is "the creation of matter". For example, Granny Liu went to the Grand View Garden in a Dream of Red Mansions, and Grandmother Jia later invited two boats. Baoyu and his sisters are walking behind the boat. Hanoi is full of broken lotus leaves, and Baoyu can't row fast enough to catch up with a boat. Baoyu was furious and was about to shovel all the broken lotus leaves. Xue Baochai said, "The servants are very busy now. Let them get rid of them when they are free! " Lin Daiyu said, "I don't like Li Yishan's poems the most in my life. There is only one sentence. Baoyu asked which one it was. "。 Daiyu said, "Leave the lotus leaves to listen to the rain. Baoyu saw that the folded lotus leaf was very useful and stopped shoveling it. "。 In this example, the ship entered the lotus leaf, which is an action; Breaking lotus leaves hinders navigation, which is action; Lin Daiyu put forward Li Yishan's poems, which are thoughts; The broken lotus leaf that Baoyu hated in his heart turned into a lovely natural musical instrument and produced new value. The establishment of this new concept is a kind of "psychological creation".

Now I want to talk about action, action in education. Education in China is now closed, with only thoughts and no actions. Teachers teach dead books, dead people and dead people; Students read dead books, study dead books and study dead books. Therefore, that kind of education is death education, not action education. We know that Mr. Wang Yangming advocates "unity of knowledge and action". He said that "knowledge is the beginning of action, and action is the success of knowledge". What he means is that you must fill your mind with knowledge before you can act. So everyone thinks that school is a place to learn and society is a place to act, as if school and society are indifferent. The result is a group of nerds who only know how to do it. Therefore, Mr. Yang Ming's two sentences can represent China's traditional educational thought for thousands of years. Now I'm going to flip his words. Isn't it still less to do a somersault? So I told him to do a somersault, which means "knowing is the beginning of knowing, and knowing is the success of doing things." For example, Edison invented the light bulb, not for fun, as people told him before. As for his mother telling him to burn people to make the children know better. Therefore, if you want to have knowledge, you have to seek it from action. Knowledge gained without action is unreliable. Someone told you it was white, and it was black. If you don't act, you won't know which is true and which is false. If you dare to act, you will gain real knowledge. What do you get from the book, but tell you what others get. The plagiarism of this knowledge is not the contribution of one's own knowledge. Only when you can act, you will have difficulties, and only when your thoughts solve the difficulties can you acquire real knowledge. Now I will introduce the five steps in Mr. Dewey's Reflectria of Thinking: (1) feel difficult; (two) the difficulty of the review; (3) try to solve it; (4) choose one to try; (5) Try again and again and draw a conclusion. I mean, we should add "action" to "feeling difficult". Because only when it doesn't work, we will find its difficulties and seek solutions to it, so new value will be generated. So I said, action is Laozi, thought is son, and creation is grandson. If you want to have grandchildren, you have to have Laozi and a son first. For example, the farming methods of farmers in China have improved a little for thousands of years, and the rest are conventional and have not been created. There are still many bookworms who can't write books even after reading many books. Therefore, if you want to create, you must do experiments with your hands while using your brain; When you use your hands, you must think with your brain. Using one's hands and brains is the beginning of creative education. Both hands and brain are the purpose of creative education. Mencius said, "Those who are industrious govern the people, and those who are industrious govern the people." This was Mencius' educational thought at that time. Today, this traditional thought has caused a major earthquake, where it gradually collapsed. Recently, I have read many biographies of world-famous scientists, and I feel that inventors use their brains to direct actions and enrich their minds with their experience in action. China called it. And workers don't study and refuse to use their brains. Therefore, they have lived under this traditional custom all their lives. Now we know that great scientists and great inventors have come into being. Both labor education and civilian education are heard from time to time. But as soon as the situation changes, and "reaction" and "doubt" are added, you are in a desperate situation. There are many prestigious educational circles that are unimpeded.

Action education should start at an early age. Children should be allowed to do interesting activities freely and develop their talents. As for our generation, influenced by traditional education since childhood, we have now realized that we have become a monk halfway. Monks who become monks halfway often think of their own homes. For example, people who don't eat opium get sick at the sight of opium, and people who eat opium give up. I was born with the instinct to act, but all the work was done by servants and kind mothers. A little longer, we went to a primary school to study, and Yan Luowang-style teachers sat on it, and we were not allowed to move. Middle school and college courses are boring, fixed there, and you can't move if you want to. Up to now, we have been trying to change our long-term life, but we still can't return to our natural instinct for action. However, action education should start from an early age, because children have not lost their instinct to act, and children are future scientists. If we give children freedom of action, I believe that among thousands of children, there must be a child who is a genius, a creator and an inventor. Edison was a child who liked acting very much when he was a child. At that time, education in the United States was the same as that in China. Primary school teachers forbid children's activities. Edison violated the teacher's instructions and was labeled as a "bad guy". In less than three months, Edison was driven away by the air of "bad guys". Edison's mother didn't believe it. She thinks that her son is not a "bad guy" and "egg" is not "bad". She taught him to study chemistry in the cellar first, then physics, and finally became a famous scientist. Otherwise, his genius would have died long ago. When Newton was born, he was as small as a mouse and weighed only three pounds. When the nurse went to call the doctor, she said unhappily, "When the doctor came, something as big as a mouse had already died." Unexpectedly, that mouse-like thing, which was later a famous scientist, lived to be over eighty years old. It is said that Newton was not clever when he was young.

April 4th is World Children's Day, and China Benevolence Association (III) asked me to write four children's songs:

(1) Little Pangu

I am Xiao Pangu, and I am not afraid of hardship. I want to open a new world and look at my double axe.

② Little Sun Wen.

I am little Sun Wen, and I have revolutionary spirit. I want to defeat imperialism and roll like a ball.

(3) Little Newton

I am little Newton, and people call me an idiot. I will use my mind to ask about nature.

(4) coolies

I am a coolie. I have two hands. I want to build a wealthy society, not a wealthy individual.

We should overthrow traditional education and advocate creative education at the same time. What is his method? We know that in traditional education, they can accommodate forty or fifty people in one classroom. How powerful is the teacher, who can comprehensively improve students at all levels? So there are mistakes in educational methods. Our present method is that the teacher teaches the big apprentice and the big apprentice teaches the little apprentice. After several classes, Mr. Wang found several talented people. Clever big apprentice. In the future, the teacher will teach the big disciples specially, so his spirit can easily push them and knowledge can easily be instilled in their minds. The big apprentice will teach his skills to the little apprentice. The students are very active in seeking knowledge, explaining difficulties and contributing the knowledge they have gained. Teacher Wang just stood by and gave a little guidance. We think this kind of education is action education. Only by taking action can we acquire knowledge. Only with knowledge can we create, and only with creation can we have enthusiastic interest. Therefore, we advocate that "action" is the beginning of education in China and "creation" is the completion of education in China. I once visited a school run by children. I asked them, "Do you teach children?" A child replied, "Yes, but sometimes children teach children." I said, ". Go further than my opinion. " At present, intellectuals under the traditional education in China simply look down on children, farmers and workers. But how powerful are they? Are you capable of driving him away? No way! We should inspire children, farmers and workers to create and save the country with the strength of many people. Let me give you an example to prove that farmers are not weak. I used to run a school. I dug a well next to the school to supply water to the school. One year, the well near the village was drained, and the villagers gathered in the well next to the school to draw water. Later, there was a meeting because of the water panic. At that time, some people advocated taking the well back for their own use. I didn't agree. I said, "Our school is based on society, and social circles should not be shut out of the school. If so, it will be difficult for us to promote agriculture and public education in the future. Since water use is a public matter, it is better to ask the public to solve it together. " So I asked each village to send a representative. There was not much time, and the auditorium was crowded with delegates. Our teacher consciously lived in the position of Kong Ming, and three heads are better than one, so the chairman of Huanglong throne pushed a child of 13 years old. After we briefly talked about several rules of the venue, we formally held the meeting. The meeting that day was wonderful and powerful. At that time, the best person to talk the most was the old woman! All right! Let's listen to an old woman's big theory. She said that people need to sleep, and so does Wells. The well won't let it sleep, and it will have no water to eat all its life. So it was unanimously decided that the well was going to sleep. Rosty Yi is not allowed to wake up the well from 7: 00 pm to 5: 00 pm, and offenders will be fined one yuan for workover. When the old lady finished speaking, another old lady wanted to stand up and speak. The third old lady took her by the arm and said, "Didn't you just say that?" Do you think they can not only be autonomous? So there were many speakers at the meeting, and the order was still orderly. They discussed it for a long time and put forward several schemes: the second is the procedure of pumping water, the first one comes first, and the last one comes later, and the offender is fined 50 cents to repair the well; The third is to dig another well and dig the abandoned well left by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The rich donate more, the poor don't, and the tea shop and tofu shop also donate more. Fourth, Liu Junshi Hou of Fengtian was elected as the supervisory committee, responsible for fines and mediation of disputes. As a result, no large sum of money was fined, because it was decided by the farmers themselves, so everyone could abide by it. You see how powerful the peasants are and how fair and effective their words are. This kind of question is coming. Is it possible for a few people to do it? But beside them, we still need instructions from Kong Minglai, otherwise I'm afraid it will be until now.

Secondly, I would like to talk about: educational organizations in China have not been established yet. We can say it from two aspects: first, schools are schools, and society is society. They think that school is a place to learn and society is a place to act. They say that reading does not forget to save the country, and saving the country does not forget to read. Japanese artillery shells have flown in front of them, saying that reading his books is not enough for this kind of education. Secondly, they already believe that schools can't be divorced from society, so they advocate "school socialization". They want to invite everything in society to school, so they have everything in it: public security bureau, health bureau and city hall. It's like a big vat, which catches fish and raises fish. As a result, the bird couldn't live in the cage and died. Fish cannot live in a fish tank and die. Therefore, this specious education is unnatural, hypocritical, powerless and not creative. What is creative education? That is, "taking society as the school" and "the unity of school and society" are hard to agree with. Society contains the meaning of school, and school contains the meaning of society. We have to tear down the school walls before we can communicate with the society. It is the heart wall in everyone's heart. Everyone has changed their feelings and attitudes from the previous traditional education and liberated the traditional education. In fact, this kind of education is easy to do as long as he makes up his mind to do it. For example, there are many villages near Daxia University, and the people in the villages are sloppy and uneducated. If the school is connected with the village, college students are responsible for creating new villages, and everyone in the village accepts knowledge and forms a lively life. Then unite all the villages in China to form a big China. People's strength can be concentrated, and national disasters can also be divined. By doing this, education was popularized in one year and it was successful. We will train children, farmers and workers from near to far, from small to large. This is the purpose of creative education. China's current education development is unbalanced, but.

Now I want to say that creative education is based on life, that is to say, education can only be obtained in life. Education comes from life. Although books are also tools for seeking knowledge, there are tools and education everywhere in life. Besides, a person can only get a complete education if he has the whole life. For example, there is a son who likes gambling, but his mother quietly reprimands him. He saw his mother gambling in his window, so he gambled elsewhere. Children live a gambling life and receive gambling education, and suddenly become a gambling life. One school objected to my view that "life is education", so I visited their school, which coincided with the meal time. Their food is simply terrible. They invited me to eat at Mr. Wang's table, and I would like to eat with the students. How bad is the students' food? There are only a few pieces of meat on the surface of the bowl. When students don't eat, they have fixed their eyes on the biggest piece. Finished, a bowl of rice has not been finished, but the rice has been eaten. This greedy state has virtually caused many small warlords in the canteen. This school does not include the problem of eating in the scope of education. There are many schools. Mr. Dinner, I'm afraid of myself. Please come in and let's do it together! Our education should not only teach, but also learn to do. Teaching without learning, learning without doing, is called "forgetting three" We should be able to do it, and the highest level of doing it is creation. We should learn, learn from life, only know how to learn but not how to do it, so it is not real learning. If we want to be able to teach, teaching is its place. We should have a complete education, not an education of equal action.

[Notes]

(1) This is the record of Tao Hang's lecture at Shanghai Daxia University. The recorder is Hua. Originally published in the fifth episode of Education Construction in March, 1933.

② Li Yishan (812—about 858) Li Shangyin, a poet in the Tang Dynasty.

The China Charity Association, a charity aimed at improving child care, was established for Zhu.

Ceramic art learning forum