John Dewey, Liang Shuming, and China's Education Reform
Cultivating Individuality
By (author) Huajun Zhang
Publication date:
19 April 2013Length of book:
192 pagesPublisher
Lexington BooksDimensions:
234x161mm6x9"
ISBN-13: 9780739147924
This book explores the central question of how to cultivate a continued sense of self in the radically changing Chinese society, a question that is highly related to the current ongoing educational reform. If education cannot respond to the problem of students’ disconnection from the changing society, learning cannot truly happen in school and the reform will fail. Zhang suggests a philosophy of education that highlights the cultivation of students’ unique but inclusive individuality so that students learn how to nurture their own mind in this profoundly changing society rather than becoming empty and lost. The discussion of this proposed question is inspired by the thoughts of the American pragmatist John Dewey and Chinese Confucian scholar Liang Shuming. It is not the author’s intention to have a pure philosophical discussion, but rather to refer to their philosophies to help answer the practical question of cultivating individuality in an educational setting during this period of China’s modern transition.
This book combines a succinct philosophical stance with practical implications to address China’s modern transition and education reform. The author is driven by a quest for inclusive individuality amidst far-reaching social changes. Readers are invited to engage in the dialogue with Dewey, Liang and the author to consider the tensions between Confucian tradition and westernization, and between individualism and community living. As I read the book I was captivated by the author’s passionate quest, beginning with the discovery of an absence of the self in her own schooling despite her having met all the demands for high achievement. Despite the speed of social, economic, and cultural changes being widely felt, this book has made a valuable contribution to understanding ongoing continuities. . . .[T]he author presents a salient thesis to highlight the critical difference between a self conducted process of being transformed and a self-transformation process. . . .While the book has opened up many avenues for meaningful intellectual and practical journeying, the conclusion has come back to the vision for China’s education reform with a clear critique of the dominant social culture of exclusive success, which undoubtedly carries global significance for the moral development of all educators in our global village.