The Unity of Teaching,Learning, and Doing (November 2, 1927) |
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| Abstract: | The unity of teaching, learning, and doing is our school's instructional policy. Our school's foundation stands upon this slogan, and there is no task more important than making this slogan crystal clear. But, strangely enough, I never gave a speech about this theme in my school, and my comrades never expressed serious questions about the slogan. Everyone seemingly believed this to be the daily diet at Hsiao-chuang School, and there was no point in wasting breath discussing it. But recently I ran across two things which made me feel that among our comrades there were some who really did not understand the meaning of our instructional policy. One occurred when I saw one instructor's notes. His activities were divided into three phases, called the teaching phase, the learning phase, and the doing phase. This is the separation of teaching, learning, and doing, not the unity of teaching, learning, and doing. The second occurred when I read an article by a colleague on Hsiaochuang School in Notes on Rural Education Hsiang-chiao tzuhsün]. In it he says, "The extracurricular activities at Hsiaochuang School are the teaching, learning, and doing of agriculture." But, there is no term "extracurricular activities" in the dictionary of the school that unifies teaching, learning, and doing. "Extracurricular activities" is a declaration that life is divorced from curriculum and that teaching, learning, and doing are divorced from one another. This spring Mr. Shen Hung started an education unit for movie performers. On the enrollment announcement it said they used the "teaching," 'learning," and "doing" methods. When I saw the announcement, I felt that Mr. Hung had not completely understood the unity of teaching, learning, and doing. If he had really understood, he certainly would have written the "teaching, learning, and doing" method and certainly would not have written the "teaching," 'learning," and "doing" methods. His misunderstanding is of the same sort as the two misunderstandings mentioned above. Having experienced these two reminders in succession, I felt that unless I talked this matter over thoroughly with everyone beginning with the fundamentals, there might be a really great misunderstanding. If there is misunderstanding in thought, contradictions will inevitably arise when applying the thought. Therefore, it is imperative to discuss this matter at least once. When I came back to the country and saw that teachers here just concerned themselves with teaching and students just concerned themselves with receiving teaching, I knew for sure that there was need for reform. This situation was worse in the universities. The instructors were called professors literally, transmitters of teaching], and everyone thought that to be called "professor" was an honor. Their methods were called pedagogy literally, teaching transmission methods]. It was as if they were using knowledge as a rescue operation. It was at that time that I proposed replacing "teaching transmission" with "teaching and learning." At the Nanking Upper-Level Normal School discussion meeting on educational affairs, I stood at the podium for two hours but could not get it passed, and, as a result, I did not get the title Chairman of Educational Curriculum. But, in 1919, in response to an article in Shih Pao a Shanghai newspaper] by Chiang Monlin, a leader of the new educational tide, I wrote an article on the unity of teaching and learning, advocating that teaching methods ought to be based on learning methods. At this time, the head of education in Soochow approved the use of the teaching-learning method. After the May Fourth Movement, our colleagues at Nanking Upper-Level Normal School became incomparably stronger, so I changed all of the "teaching methods" in the curriculum to "teaching-learning methods." This was the beginning of putting the unity of teaching and learning into practice. Later, when the new education system was promulgated, I went one step further and proposed that as things are done, so they are learned, and as they are learned, so they are taught. Therefore, teaching methods should be based on learning methods and learning methods on doing methods. |
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