Mr. Tao Xingzhi The Man that support Practical Knowledge 陶行知

Mr. Tao Xingzhi

The man who hate bookworm that care only about high scores.

Is your education in your country emphasis only on getting high scores in exams? In my country, everyone memorize tons of facts just for exam. Facts that can easily obtained from google or wikipedia but tested in exams. In the year of 1917, Mr. Tao Xingzhi have against such education. Knowledge and application of knowledge should be closely linked together.

Picture 1: 1917's Mostly Chinese people are poor.

Mr. Tao Xingzhi was living in time when China have just change into from a monarchy country into a democratic country. He feel that a healty democratic country should have two important element. They are a capable leader and the citizen that know to choose the leader. For him, the citizen's mind is the most important one.

Picture 2: Far left is Mr. John Dewey. The rest is famous people which were friends of his.

He graduate from Columbia Unversity. He is a student of John Dewey. John Dewey have a activily against conventional education and support education that teaches pratical knowledge. In order to carry out Mr. John Dewey teaching, he abandon his career as a lecturer and become a common high school teacher.

Picture 3: Chinese Laborer.

During that time, China conventionally discriminate its citizen into two class : the thinker and the laborer. They are deeply influenced by the saying from MengZi

 "劳心者治人，劳力者治于人。——孟子".

It means that the laborer is meant to be govern by the thinker. Hence many people want to be educated and look down on the laborer. Sadly this means that the laborer is a second class citizen. They loss pride and self-esteem.

Picture 4: Advancement in technology in China during that period.

Now people are rushing to memorize facts for exam. We can call them "读死书的书虫" (book worm that blindly reads book).




Contribution

The poor peasant have the hand of the hardworking farmer and a innovative mind. They have the spirit to change the surrounding society.He care about this poor peasant and wanted to help them.

He introduce the concept of practical education or "生活教育". Education and its application should not be separate but fussed together into one single unit.He is given the chance to build a school in a rural area to experiment his theory.

He have once say that "人生为一大事来,做一大事去". Human are born for a purpose and shall spend his life for that purpose.

He way of teaching is not rigidly based on the concept of teacher talk in front while the student sit at the back listen. He go near to the people in the working area and discuss with them problems that will relate to their daily life. It can be mathematical,management stuff and other basic skills.

In his teaching, beauty or "美“ is the highest level in education. Although the student is given only plain porridge and rice due to financial difficulties, they are surrounded by music instrument like violin and piano. This have reduce the desire toward materialistic and they can enjoy the innocent of life itself.




Turning point and miracle

Picture 5: The greatest gift.

In 1930 the Central Plains War broke out as an internal conflict of the Kuomintang. Due to government memorandum to close all school, Mr. Tang XingZhi had been named as a outlaw. He forced to escape.

So now you wondering what will happen to the student in the school, right? They start to form their own study group. The seniors teach the junior all the things that have learn from him. He soon learn about this incident. This is the greatest gift that the student can give to a teacher.

the ultimate aim in teaching is to teach somebody that seek for the truth;

the ultimate aim in learning is to learn to become a real human being.

Fun fact

Picture 6 :Wang YangMing, philosopher who influence Mr. Tao to change his name.

His chinese name is 陶行知. From the inspiration of Wang YangMing;a neo-confucious philosopher,he change he name from zhixing to xingzhi. 行 or xing is action while 知 is knowledge. The changes in the order of his name shows the importance of obtaining knowledge first before action can be carry out.


Referrence
Website:
http://tv.cntv.cn/video/C10366/f10d51bfa55d4070bf6a723b25125056  (main structure of this story)
http://www.glzszx.net/plus/view.php?aid=835  (Picture & Mr. Tao XingZhi)
http://www.cidianwang.com/mingyan/mengzi309.htm (MengZi quotes)
http://bulo.hujiang.com/question/57172//  (Translation)

Famous people that included in the blog:
www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/635432/Wang-Yangming     (Wang Yangming)
https://www.marxists.org/archive/novack/works/1960/x03.htm        (John Dewey)