DOI /s x When Can China Put Tao Xingzhi into Its History? Reading Chu Zhaohui s Multiple Perspectives on Life Education

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1 Front. Educ. China 2014, 9(1): REVIEW ESSAY DOI /s x When Can China Put Tao Xingzhi into Its History? Reading Chu Zhaohui s Multiple Perspectives on Life Education 多维视野中的生活教育 [Multiple perspectives on life education]. 储朝晖 [Chu, Z. H.]. 合肥, 中国 : 安徽教育出版社 [Hefei, China: Anhui Educational Press], pp, (paperback), 34, ISBN: The great educator, the great thinker and the great soldier of democracy and communism, Mr. Tao Xingzhi, (Preface, p. 1) are the official stock phrases used when Tao Xingzhi is mentioned in formal contexts. In this book, we can see these exact phrases in the first line of the preface. This book also quotes the words of political leaders and mentions the usefulness of Tao s thought and practices to educational reform in the real world. For example, the author quoted the phrase learn the magnificent spirit of Tao Xingzhi (Introduction, p. 1) of Wen Jiabao, who was China s prime minister when this book was published, and said Tao s life-education theory is national and scientific, reflecting the modern educational thought and educational philosophy of the people, and there is an internal and mutual logical relationship between his personality, his spirit, educational thought and practices, and the reality of China s educational reform (Introduction, p. 1). This meta-historical way of describing things is commonly found in China. As a commentator, I do not wish to criticize this way of describing Tao Xingzhi. There are three reasons that lie behind this manner of description. The first reason is that historical figures have to be described on the basis of how they have been evaluated by political leaders in the political context of China. The second is that the manner depends on the historic evaluation of Tao himself. While Tao Xingzhi was once evaluated as the great people s educator by such leaders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) as Mao Zedong, he was later thoroughly vilified in the 1950 movie 武训传 [The life of Wu Xun]. Only after the open-door policy was launched in 1978 was his reputation restored. We can say that the evaluation of him has swung between the extremely negative and the extremely positive. As for his students and other persons related to him, enhancing Tao s remarkable contributions is directly concerned with their own historic evaluations. The third reason is that Tao s educational thought, practices

2 128 Review Essay and his character, for some thoughtful researchers, educators and teachers, have been useful in criticizing such realities of the current situation of education as the examination hell and in propelling educational reform in a desired direction. Tao s supporters simply hope that his high minded ideas will be brought back into education such that the happiness of children can be realised and the grounds prepared for genuine educational reform. From the above, we can say that evaluating and using Tao Xingzhi s educational thought and practices is directly connected to criticism of the current situation of educational policy. So, to describe Tao Xingzhi, it becomes necessary for authors, while protecting Tao and themselves politically according to the prevalent political context, to insist on the usefulness of his thought and practices to address the real problems which education has been facing, and at the same time, to criticize the present situation of educational policy and practice. This situation has led to what I would call a meta-historical approach to Tao Xingzhi. Without exception, this book has described the different ways in which Tao s character, thought and practices have been evaluated in different historical periods. Thus Tao s thought and practices had a significant influence on Chinese society before the founding of the People s Republic of China in 1949, when he was evaluated as the great people s educator by the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party. After that, in the period of the Anti-Rightist Movement, he and his collaborators were thoroughly vilified by the extreme left, and after the open-door policy was launched in 1978, his reputation and that of his collaborators was completely restored. Following this, while his character, thought and practices have been given ever higher recognition and respect, China s education has become more and more utilitarian and has been hard pressed to result in any real happiness for children or for people more generally. Facing the challenge of these realities, the author of this volume emphasizes the usefulness of Tao s thought and practices, and the need to struggle to construct a desirable society by using his thought and experiences. In this can be seen their love for the teacher Tao and unsuppressed feeling toward the reality of education, and their readiness to contribute to reforming the present situation of China s education. So, this book mentioned that Tao Xingzhi started his educational movement on the basis of the aim to improve the nature of all people, and his life-education thought has to be evaluated for its nation-wide, lifelong, and full-scale qualities. As I already mentioned, I do not wish to criticize this approach to research. I

3 Review Essay 129 appreciate the readiness of Chinese scholars to start their studies from the reality of Chinese education and bring in Tao s educational thought and practices in ways that support a desirable direction of educational reform. I recognize the value and necessity of this in the Chinese context. For example, this book summarized Tao s thought and extracted the framework of it, with the following phrases: 生活即教育 (life is education, shenghuo ji jiaoyu), 社会即学校 (society is school, shehui ji xuexiao) and 教学做合一 (the unity in teaching, learning and reflective acting (doing), jiao xue zuo heyi). These are central concepts of Tao s thought. Then the author interpreted 生活即教育 as life as education and 社会即学校 as society as school, and created the concept of a field of education ( 教育场, jiaoyu chang), trying to put educational experience into people s daily life and liberate education from the examination hell and the school dominated society. This was to enable the whole society to become a learning society. Also, while Tao pointed out that 做 (doing, zuo), of 教学做合一 (the unity in teaching, learning and reflective acting (doing), jiao xue zuo heyi), means 事 (shi), the author interpreted 事 (shi) as life ( 生活, shenghuo), a 事 (shi) is the people s life in the natural and social environment, so that these teaching ( 教, jiao), learning ( 学, xue) and doing ( 做, zuo), are all a part of shi ( 事 ), and comprise life ( 生活, shenghuo). Here the author insisted that we cannot confine the experience of life, especially the experience of developing ourselves, to the narrow space of the school, but must make the whole of society a broad field of education, so that we can reinvigorate society. Only after this can we protect people, especially children, from being oppressed by education, and enable them to become masters of their own lives through education. We can sense the author s strong sense of mission and wish to become the Tao of present-day China by studying Tao. And on the basis of this standpoint, the author tries to adapt Tao s life-education thought to present Chinese society, and measure the effectiveness of it. The rudimentary experiment to have the relationship among teaching ( 教, jiao), learning ( 学, xue) and doing ( 做, zuo), are seen as a functional one and standardize the way of measuring educational effectiveness is very interesting. However, I see that the adoption of this kind of meta-historic point of view also has its problems. The first one is that, within this framework, we cannot fully understand the process of the development of Tao s personality and his thought. In this

4 130 Review Essay framework, the focus is put on the period that he put his works into action as a thinker and a practitioner, and it has become an issue whether or not his thought and practices are useful for the present situation of China s educational reform. So, the author did not pay attention to the issue of how deeply Tao Xingzhi was influenced by Chinese traditional philosophy and thought in his childhood, and how he was fascinated by Wang Yangming s thought and Christianity in his university student days, and how he studied pragmatist philosophy in his period abroad in America. Furthermore, the author did not explain how these learning experiences influenced his personality and his thought, and how these experiences built the foundation of his life-education thought. For instance, shi ( 事 ), which has been recognized as life ( 生活, shenghuo), by the author, is the concept of a relationship that leads to analyzing one s environment ( 格物, gewu) of Wang Yangming s analyzing the environment and attaining full knowledge ( 格物致知, gewuzhizhi), and Tao understood this concept as the environmental context that shaped the behavior of people and enabled them to become actors. This thought was combined with pragmatism and led him to the experimentalism of William James s psychology. After that, his thought connected itself to Wang Yangming s thought and created the notion of doing ( 做, zuo), that symbolized the existence that could not help working on its object. Shi ( 事 ) means these cycling relationships of the process in which people reach new knowledge and newly recognize the real world and reform it to move towards an ideal world. This concept of the recognition also led to his criticism of Dewey; Tao said we had to put moving before Dewey s notion of feeling difficulties. As for him, people are the existence which could not help moving. Also, Wang Yangming s thought, the philosophy of pragmatism and Christianity fused with one other and had love which Tao emphasized as being liberated from Heaven or God, and being put in the people themselves as their inner natural character. Tao recognized the social relationship where love ( 爱, ai), could not help urging shi ( 事 ), with the movement to urge through love ( 爱, ai), and reconstruct the relationship as doing ( 做, zuo), resulting in what is created by doing ( 做, zuo), producing benefits ( 利, li). This then leads to benefits ( 利, li) being shared among the people as virtue or benevolence ( 善, shan). Tao s concepts of life ( 生活, shenghuo) and society ( 社会, shehui) mean the practice in which people realize virtue or benevolence ( 善, shan). It also means the practice in which people make an effort to reform the real society

5 Review Essay 131 so it comes closer to the ideal society. When we understand Tao s process in developing his thought historically, we can point out the originality of his thought on the basis of interaction between China s traditional philosophy and Western philosophy. Under this framework of analysis, we cannot use Tao s thought and adapt it to the reality of the present educational situation in China directly, but while understanding the historical character of his thought, we can learn a lot from its process of development, and we can then transcend his thought. The second problem that arises out of adopting a meta-historic point of view is that the author did not refer sufficiently to the previous works on Tao Xingzhi in China and the wider world. A large number of research works on Tao Xingzhi have been published in China, as well as elsewhere in the world. Even in Japan, we have some technical and research books on Tao although not many. For instance, Akio Saito began his study on Tao Xingzhi in the early 1950s, and analyzed the process of Tao s identity formation and his influence on society. Saito has many works on Tao, and the masterpiece of his later years is Tou Kouchi Seikatsu Kyoiku Riron no Keisei 1. Recently we have another book on Tao s thought written by Chinese student Li Yan. Its title is Tou Kouchi no Geijutsu Kyoiku-ron: Seikatsu Kyoiku to Geijutsu no Ketsugou 2. This book is based on her Ph.D. dissertation. Tao Xingzhi emphasized that the important points for human existence were a healthy body, the hands of workers, the brain for science, an interest in arts and the spirit of social innovation. Here we can see that Tao recognized that art has a mutual relationship with complete human development, which was also a core concept of Chinese traditional thought. And Tao saw the spirit of social innovation as part of the last stage of human development. This means that art, which might be seen as an expression of human existence completely developed, with the ability to feel beauty and truth as the nature of humans, is the basic order of society and also is the best weapon of resistance against the Western and Japanese powers that were destroying people s humanity in those times. Tao combined this idea of art with the daily life of the people. This is the very character of his thought. We also have Makino s Chugoku Kindai Kyoiku no Shisou-teki Tenkai to Tokushitsu: Tou 1 A. Saito (1983). 陶行知生活教育理論の形成 [The formation of Tao Xingzhi s life-education theory]. 東京, 日本 : 明治図書 [Tokyo, Japan: Meiji Tosho Publishing]. 2 Y. Li (2006). 陶行知の芸術教育論 生活教育と芸術の結合 [A study on Tao Xingzhi s art education thought: The combination of life-education and art]. 東京, 日本 : 東信堂 [Tokyo, Japan: Toshindo Publishing].

6 132 Review Essay Kouchi Seikatsu Kyoiku Shisou no Kenkyu 3. In this book, Makino clarified the character of Tao s life-education thought, showing that it was built on the foundation of the daily life of Chinese people and the situation of real society in the relationship of the mutual influence of Chinese traditional thought and pragmatism, while examining the formation process of Tao s thought historically. I think it is unfortunate that this book does not examine Tao s thought in relation to the broad field of historical analysis and worldwide research, and only focuses on Tao s character, his attitude towards reforming society and his educational thought, and applying them to the reality of society. While the author s intention is understandable, this way of analyzing Tao s thought brings on difficulties in using his ideas to examine the current reality of Chinese education and results in making Tao somehow subordinate to the reality of Chinese society, rather than having the power to criticize the real situation of society. In other words, the historical Tao Xingzhi always has been subordinated to the reality of politics. As a result, Tao always has to be evaluated in relation to the political situation of society and used as a tool to criticize reality in this framework. In this sense, we can say that Tao is used to avoid politicizing education, though the issues are in face very political. As a result Tao s thought cannot have the power to change the real situation of education. When can China put Tao Xingzhi back into its history? Only then will Tao Xingzhi s ideas become a matter of principle in the real sense and have the power to change reality. Atsushi Makino The University of Tokyo makino@p.u-tokyo.ac.jp 3 A. Makino (1993). 中国近代教育の思想的展開と特質 陶行知 生活教育 思想の研究 [The developing process and the character of educational thought in modern China: A study on Tao Xingzhi s life-education thought]. 東京, 日本 : 日本図書センター [Tokyo, Japan: Nihon Tosho Center Publishing].