Problems and Countermeasures of Calligraphy Education in Primary and Secondary Schools

First, an overview of calligraphy education in modern primary and secondary schools

Since ancient times, the education of Chinese character cognition and writing has been a compulsory course for students, which is recorded in Zhou Li, Shuo Wen Jie Zi Xu and Liu Tangdian. It is the basic idea of official calligraphy education to emphasize the study of calligraphy and figure, and to respect standardization, neatness and beauty. In the Qing Dynasty, the new academic system influenced by Westernization was strongly promoted by the administrative organs. After 1902, the Articles of Association of imperial academy and the Articles of Association of imperial academy were successively promulgated by the Qing administrative organs.

As you can see, learning calligraphy has been included in the "primary school hall"? In education. For example, in the second chapter of the Constitution of Imperial Primary School promulgated in the 28th year of Guangxu (1902), it was mentioned that there was a course of "learning Chinese characters" in the second grade of senior one primary school, including "regular script, running script and learning Xiao Zhuan". Chapter II of the Constitution for Setting up Higher Primary Schools promulgated in the 29th year of Guangxu (1903) clearly requires that students in higher primary schools must "learn regular script and Mandarin", and the teaching content shall be subject to "China Literature". During the Republic of China, it became a temporary trend to get rid of the old and innovate and absorb western systems and ideas. In this environment, the primary school education system has taken on a brand-new situation, and calligraphy education has been more widely incorporated into new schools. The Ministry of Education, the executive organ of the Republic of China, has detailed regulations on the specific contents and objectives of calligraphy education. For example, the Principles and Curriculum of Primary School Teaching published by the Ministry of Education 19 13 defines the teaching goal of calligraphy as "the calligraphy for daily use and the calligraphy for ordinary writing", and clearly states that "calligraphy teaching is a part of the teaching of' national language'" and "the fonts used in calligraphy are regular script and running script". In middle school, calligraphy teaching has also been included in Chinese class. 1929 and 1932, the Ministry of Education revised junior high school curriculum standards twice, and its specific requirements for calligraphy education were: "Calligraphy instruction: slightly understand the brush, structure and main idea of calligraphy in class, copy large and small characters after class and during holidays, strive for neatness first, beauty second, neat notes and composition books, stop using broken words and give textual research guidance at any time." Judging from the large amount of information available at present, the Ministry of Education, the executive organ of the Republic of China, made a detailed and comprehensive plan for calligraphy courses in primary and secondary schools, whether it was the macro education system layout or the micro teaching content arrangement. It's just a pity that these plans are difficult to implement in an era of political turmoil and national destiny at stake. Its basic idea still continues the idea of ancient calligraphy education, that is, the basic orientation of calligraphy class is to standardize and beautify Chinese characters, and the educational goal is mainly to serve the world. It should be noted that according to the available data, there was no excessive demand for "artistry" in calligraphy classes in primary and secondary schools during the Republic of China, and "neatness" and "beauty" were the main purposes of its education.

Therefore, it is very important for children to write well from an early age. "This instruction has been partially implemented by the Ministry of Education, which has specially issued the Notice on Strengthening Writing Training for Primary School Students. After the issuance of the Notice, the training of writing classes in some areas has been strengthened. However, at that time, the domestic economy was still in the period of recovery and development, and the cultural and educational foundations in various places were mixed, coupled with the lack of sustained and strong policy support from the education administrative department. Therefore, on the whole, the situation of calligraphy education in primary and secondary schools in China in the 1980s and 1990s was not optimistic, and its ice-breaking trip did not set sail until the beginning of the new century.

Second, the introduction of the New Deal of the Ministry of Education

Economic prosperity is an important prerequisite for developing culture and education. 2/kloc-0 At the beginning of the 20th century, before the Ministry of Education officially issued a document, calligraphy classes had been quietly popularized in economically developed areas such as Guangdong and Shanghai, and were promoted locally. The pioneering measures of local success have attracted more and more high-level people's attention and recognition of calligraphy education. After 2009, at the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference Conference, Su Shizhu, Wu Weishan and other members made strong appeals on the issue of "strengthening calligraphy education in primary and secondary schools". The local pilot and the members' proposal have finally been highly valued by the central leadership. At 20 1 1 the fourth session of the 11th CPPCC National Committee, Jia Qinglin clearly pointed out the importance and urgency of vigorously developing "calligraphy art education in primary and secondary schools". Since then, the Ministry of Education has issued a series of guiding documents, putting the instructions of the central leadership into practice. 20 1 1 In August, the Ministry of Education officially issued "Opinions on Developing Calligraphy Education in Primary and Secondary Schools" to the whole country, requiring that a calligraphy class be arranged every week in the curriculum of the third to sixth grades of primary schools. Consistent with this opinion, the Ministry of Education issued the revised version of Chinese Curriculum Standard for Full-time Compulsory Education (referred to as the new curriculum standard) at the beginning of 20 12. In order to explain the calligraphy content in the new curriculum standard in detail, the Calligraphy Education Committee of China Education Association also specially organized experts to discuss and compile the Guiding Outline of Calligraphy Education in Primary and Secondary Schools (referred to as the Guiding Outline). On October 20 13, 13 10, the Ministry of Education officially issued this "Guiding Outline". The "Guiding Outline" plays an important guiding role in the current calligraphy education in primary and secondary schools in China. The Outline clearly expounds the basic ideas, objectives and contents of calligraphy education in primary and secondary schools, as well as the implementation suggestions and requirements, and makes detailed provisions on model calligraphy in calligraphy classes. Reading the Guiding Outline carefully, we can find four basic educational ideas: the basis of calligraphy education in primary and secondary schools is quality education of Chinese characters, strengthening the traditional cultural connotation of calligraphy, attaching importance to the beauty of Chinese character writing, and actively guiding students to experience the beauty of calligraphy. These four ideas are the important theoretical support for our future calligraphy education and teaching activities in primary and secondary schools.

Third, the current problems and solutions of calligraphy education in primary and secondary schools

After the series of documents issued by the Ministry of Education, most primary and secondary schools in China have hired full-time calligraphy teachers and opened calligraphy classes on the existing basis. Compared with the previous two decades, the overall atmosphere of calligraphy education in primary and secondary schools in China has changed greatly, and the atmosphere of attaching importance to calligraphy classes has been popularized throughout the country. At the same time, nearly 100 publishing houses across the country have also carried out the compilation of calligraphy textbooks for primary and secondary schools under the attraction of "policy cake". Such a large-scale textbook compilation is probably unique in the history of calligraphy education in primary and secondary schools. However, through a large number of investigations, we believe that calligraphy education in primary and secondary schools is still in the stage of running-in discussion, so there are some problems objectively in both hardware and software. Solving these problems will have positive significance for future development.

From the hardware point of view, the problems focus on teachers, learning venues, learning materials and so on. Among them, the problem of teachers is the most prominent.

We found that in areas with developed culture and economy, teachers' compliance rate (the number and technical level of in-service teachers) is higher, while in areas with underdeveloped economy and relatively weak cultural background, calligraphy teachers' compliance rate is lower.

To this end, in addition to the support of staffing, some colleges and universities also undertake the heavy responsibility of training primary and secondary school teachers.

For example, since 20 12, the Calligraphy Education Research Center of Capital Normal University has carried out a series of calligraphy teacher training for primary and secondary schools. After many periods of classroom teaching, technical training and theoretical discussion, the professional quality of hundreds of calligraphy teachers has been greatly improved. In addition, the Department of Calligraphy of the School of Art and Media of Beijing Normal University and the Department of Calligraphy of the Central Academy of Fine Arts have also taken corresponding measures and achieved good social benefits. However, objectively speaking, due to the imbalance between talent training and demand brought about by the urgency of the policy issued by the Ministry of Education, the gap of calligraphy teachers in primary and secondary schools will always exist in recent years, which urgently needs the attention of the education administrative department and the calligraphy department of colleges and universities.

Compared with hardware, software problems in calligraphy education in primary and secondary schools are more prominent, involving educational ideas, objectives, ways and methods. From a certain point of view, if the software problem is not solved well, the development prospect of calligraphy in primary and secondary schools will be greatly affected.

On the cognitive level, the problems mainly focus on the following three aspects.

First, the orientation of calligraphy class. To run education well, we must first solve the problem of target orientation: what kind of talents to train? The goal and export of education need to be carefully considered. From the spirit of the guidelines, there is a close relationship between calligraphy class and Chinese class, which also reflects the close relationship between literacy and writing in China traditional culture. In ancient times, the education of "knowledge" and "book" of characters was complete. But today, due to the influence of various external factors in the real environment, the original close relationship between "knowledge" and "book" has been separated. In the process of teaching, we often find a lot of embarrassment between the current Chinese literacy education and traditional calligraphy-the problem of stroke order is very representative. At present, the basic rules of Chinese character stroke order are "horizontal first and vertical", "left first and then pressed", "top down", "outside to inside", "sealed from inside" and "sealed from the middle". The establishment of this order, on the one hand, is mainly rooted in the traditional writing method of Chinese characters, on the other hand, it is also related to the simplified Chinese character scheme announced many times after the founding of New China. Due to the cultural background, most strokes in calligraphy creation are consistent with standardized Chinese characters, but there are some special cases. For example, the words "left" and "right" are standardized as horizontal and then left, while in calligraphy creation, "left" is horizontal and then left, and "right" is left and then left; Another example is the "square" character, the last stroke of standardizing Chinese characters is a horizontal hook, and calligraphy is a curl; Another example is the word "Cheng", which regulates the strokes of Chinese characters as horizontal, while calligraphy is sketching. The above is still regular script, such as cursive script, and the stroke order is more complicated. There are two reasons why the standardization of Chinese characters and calligraphy creation are inconsistent in some strokes. First, in the creation of calligraphy, the traditional spirit of ancient Chinese characters has been well preserved, while the standardization of Chinese characters is much less in this respect; Secondly, in calligraphy creation, artistry is the goal pursued by calligraphers. Therefore, on the basis of observing the beauty of Chinese characters (symmetry and harmony), calligraphers will try their best to show the unique aesthetic feeling of Chinese character writing. Based on this, calligraphy works will be different from standardized Chinese characters in terms of stroke order, stroke shape, stroke gesture and components. Take the parts as an example. There is a word "spring" in Ou Yangxun's "Jiuchenggong Liquan Ming". The "white" part of the word (like the shape of a stone in ancient Chinese characters) has a horizontal line, which is not compatible with the left and right vertical lines, so it is a lonely short horizontal line. This kind of writing is definitely a typo if it appears in the Chinese neologism class. The artistic treatment of Chinese characters is only a problem in the process of "knowing" and "writing", and many variant characters in calligraphy works need to be avoided in the standardized Chinese classroom. Variant characters are a very good material for us to learn Chinese characters and create calligraphy, but it is not necessarily a good thing for calligraphy teaching in primary and secondary schools (especially primary schools). In the investigation, we often hear the calligraphy teacher's "complaint". Why do you have to add a dot under the word "tomb"? Although this point has been explained in the textbook, how many words does it take to make it clear if students ask the question of "extra points" in class? There are also some calligraphy teachers (mainly Chinese teachers) who tell us that Chinese class in the morning is only a standard way to tell students how to write new words, but there are "embarrassing" examples in calligraphy class in the afternoon, which is really a very difficult thing.

In fact, these "embarrassment" can be completely avoided from the educational orientation. The main goal of calligraphy class (especially in primary schools) is to assist and serve Chinese teaching. Through teaching, it is the main task of teaching to let students write standardized and beautiful Chinese characters.

Therefore, we do not advocate exaggerating the artistry and individuality of Chinese writing in calligraphy class, which is also contrary to the spirit of the guiding outline. Based on this, when compiling calligraphy teaching materials or explaining ancient calligraphy examples, we must also closely focus on the basic word list and common word list of literacy and writing teaching in the new curriculum standard of the Ministry of Education. For a large number of variant characters appearing in ancient law posts, it is suggested to use them with caution in teaching. However, calligraphy class is by no means the same as Chinese writing class. The teaching goal of calligraphy course in primary and secondary schools is to give consideration to the artistry of Chinese character writing on the basis of emphasizing the standardized writing of Chinese characters. If a calligraphy teacher only knows the beauty of standardization and rigidity, but not the artistry of Chinese character writing, then his calligraphy class will certainly fail to achieve the teaching goal of giving consideration to both standardization and art-the above-mentioned problems such as the order of strokes and the word "spring" are typical examples.

Second, strengthen the beauty of the model. The guiding outline clearly mentions the requirement of "moderate integration into calligraphy aesthetics" What is "moderation"? In a word, it is the beauty of calligraphy and the beauty of personality. The New Curriculum Standard also mentions the problem of cultivating students' literacy of Chinese characters, which requires "to let students feel the beauty of Chinese characters initially".

Combining these two documents, we can clearly see a train of thought of the Ministry of Education about the beauty of Chinese character writing: from the initial beauty of Chinese character form to the beauty of calligraphy art, and then to the' advanced aesthetics' of calligraphy art, but in practice, we will find some problems, whether it is textbook compilation or specific teaching, mainly in the following two aspects.

First, the understanding of the basic knowledge of Chinese characters really needs to be strengthened. Chinese character literacy is an important part of Chinese literacy. In ancient imperial academy, students had to lay a solid foundation for Shuowen before studying ancient classics seriously. Learning Shuowen can help students understand the beauty of sound and meaning of Chinese characters, which is conducive to their further understanding and research of literature. However, in today's Chinese teaching in primary and secondary schools, a lot of knowledge about traditional Chinese characters is no longer included in Chinese teaching because of the burden reduction and other reasons. Most primary and middle school students are not very clear about the "six books" common sense of Chinese characters, and they also know little about the basic laws and forms of the evolution of Chinese characters. Due to the lack of such basic knowledge of writing, our students naturally cannot accurately understand the physical beauty of Chinese characters. In short, how do they understand and express the artistic beauty of calligraphy? For a simple example, "inch" is a finger in Liu Shu, and the short line as a finger symbol indicates the position of the wrist joint of the right hand. This finger symbol has become a stippling in official script and regular script, but its position still faces the intersection of horizontal and vertical, which is the "physical beauty of Chinese characters".

If students don't have the knowledge of "six books", I'm afraid they can't understand the significance of placing this painting at all. Therefore, we suggest that the basic knowledge of Chinese characters should be properly integrated into the teaching content of calligraphy class.

Secondly, the attention and understanding of the beauty of calligraphy is far from enough. The guiding outline recommended 65,438+03 copying templates and 30 appreciation works, with a very clear purpose. The template of copying emphasizes learning the beauty of calligraphy, while the appreciation of works allows students to experience the beauty of calligraphy. However, if you think about it carefully, there is still room for adding or subtracting 13 copying templates provided by the Guiding Outline. Individual templates are too distinctive in personality, while some calligraphy books with * * * sexual beauty are not listed (such as Yan Zhenqing's Epitaph of Guo). In calligraphy class, students need to master the beauty of calligraphy. We don't expect every student to become a calligrapher in the future, but we must let them know the basic beauty of Chinese character writing. However, in the investigation, we found that teachers' understanding and attention to this kind of sexual beauty are far from enough, both in the compilation of teaching materials and in classroom teaching. Taking textbooks as an example, we all know that systematization and scientificity are the principles that must be followed in compiling textbooks, which refers to the universality and rigor of this subject. However, in many primary and secondary school calligraphy textbooks, there are more or less problems such as insufficient template selection, inconsistent style, and lack of scientific writing language. Even if the textbooks are still like this, we can imagine the teaching situation at the grass-roots level.

Therefore, we suggest that there must be a book similar to the Basic Principles of Chinese Character Writing in subsequent textbooks or teachers' books. With such textbooks, teachers and students will have a solid and comprehensive understanding of the basic aesthetic feeling of Chinese character writing.

Third, explain the individual beauty of calligraphy from a cultural perspective. The individual beauty of calligraphy is the artistic sublimation of * * * sexual beauty, and it can also best show the colorful charm of calligraphy art. Therefore, the Guiding Outline recommends many works for students to enjoy, with the aim of enhancing students' aesthetic experience of the artistic beauty of calligraphy and further enabling them to have a deeper understanding of China traditional culture. In the compilation of teaching materials and specific teaching practice, students must not be told about the strokes and structures of these works. If it is less than this, it is really puzzling for primary and secondary school students who lack calligraphy art practice. In the investigation, we encountered such a thing. A teacher analyzed the artistic beauty of Zhang Qianbei for students, and he explained it very carefully, such as Fang Bi and Zhuopu. These concepts can be understood immediately by the students majoring in calligraphy in colleges and universities, but the middle school students sitting in the classroom are definitely at a loss. They don't know anything about Fang Bi. What are the obstacles to communication between teachers and students? In fact, it is the background difference of professional knowledge. Therefore, we advocate that in order for primary and secondary school students to understand the beauty of calligraphy, we must start with the interpretation of cultural background and let students know that it is precisely because of the influence of cultural factors that the colorful beauty of calligraphy art is formed. This kind of teaching can kill two birds with one stone, which not only solves the problem of students' appreciation of the beauty of calligraphy, but also enriches their traditional cultural accomplishment.

Fourth, the basic model of calligraphy education in primary and secondary schools

According to the spirit of the Guiding Outline and the results of practical investigation, we have the following plans for the basic model of calligraphy education in primary and secondary schools. From grade one to grade two, due to the limitation of students' cognitive level and physiological structure, calligraphy class should be closely linked with Chinese class (which can be taught by Chinese teachers), and writing standardized and beautiful Chinese characters with hard pen is the main task of calligraphy class. The standard characters of the calligraphy class can be found in the Founder Regular Script GBK of Founder Font Library. In the process of teaching, teachers should pay attention to the beauty of Chinese character structure, and can use Mr. Qi Gong's "golden knot method" principle to explain example words, so as to initially cultivate students' writing ability of drawing inferences from others. In terms of homework, teachers can combine idioms that appear in Chinese classes and let students write with hard pen calligraphy. In addition, it is necessary to consider the transition and convergence between grades one and two and grades three and four. Since students need to copy regular script copybooks with brush from the third grade, teachers can add some contents for students in advance, such as introducing the use of brush, the famous copybooks of classic regular script, and the basic methods of copying calligraphy.

The third and fourth grades are also an important transitional stage of calligraphy learning. The "new curriculum standard" stipulates that students in grades three to four should not only "skillfully write block letters with a hard pen, so as to be standardized, correct and tidy, but also copy block letters with a brush." Because of the copying of brush calligraphy, we suggest that qualified schools hire teachers who have graduated from calligraphy as full-time staff. The so-called "writing block letters skillfully with hard pen to be standardized, correct and neat" actually refers to the effective connection with calligraphy classes in Grade One and Grade Two of Senior High School, and its "block letters" can still be based on square block letters. Because there are many new words in the third and fourth grades, students have mastered a large number of commonly used Chinese characters. In teaching, teachers can use the structural rules of Chinese characters to guide students to write beautiful Chinese characters independently, which can increase the workload (for example, from four-character phrases to a paragraph in grade one and grade two). In view of the fact that the new curriculum standard has involved the subject of "copying printed letters with a brush", it is particularly important to choose what kind of copybook to copy as a model essay. From the traditional learning of regular script, most people generally take the calligraphy of Ou Zhao, the four famous regular script writers, as a model for copying. However, we suggest that for the third and fourth grade students, the mode of copying regular script should be based on the beauty of * * *, instead of starting with works with distinctive personality, such as Yu Shinan's Confucius Temple Monument, Yan Zhenqing's Guo Epitaph and Tang Dynasty Classics. In copying steps, it is advocated to start with the detailed simulation of regular script structure, and then gradually increase the understanding of basic brushwork. Because Founder's regular script GBK shows more normative beauty of Chinese characters, once students come into contact with regular script with artistic beauty, they will often question the teacher: Is it normative beauty or artistic beauty? Therefore, in teaching design, teachers must have a clear understanding of the differences between the two, and the explanations to students must also emphasize the differences at the level.

Grade five or six is the advanced stage of calligraphy learning in primary schools.

The new curriculum standard stipulates that students from grade five to grade six "can write regular script with a brush and experience the beauty of Chinese characters in writing." The spirit of understanding is actually explaining two problems: one is to improve students' writing level of regular script, the other is to enable students to have certain aesthetic ability of calligraphy and improve their humanistic quality. In view of this situation, we think that teachers should focus on two things in the calligraphy class of grade five and six. First, students have a certain foundation for the beauty of regular script calligraphy in the third and fourth grades, and they should broaden their horizons in the fifth and sixth grades. According to their own characteristics and the expertise of calligraphy teachers, different schools can determine their main energy to focus on the classic rubbings of regular script. Optional posts mainly include: Jiuchenggong Li Quanming, Huadu Temple Monument, Yanta Sacred Instruction Preface and Guo Epitaph.

Yan Monument, Shence Army Monument, Mysterious Pagoda Monument, Sanmen Monument, Danba Monument and Temple Monument, etc. Different from grade three or four, students in grade five or six should not only copy, but also make initial regular script creation. Calligraphy creation is a further improvement of copying, which can effectively test students' copying ability. The so-called "writing regular script with brush" in the new curriculum standard should include copying and writing regular script, and teachers should gradually teach students the relevant knowledge of calligraphy creation in teaching. Second, students in grades five and six should also have the ability to appreciate the artistic beauty of calligraphy. Teachers should introduce students to the basic methods and ways to appreciate the beauty of regular script, and explain it through specific classic works. In teaching, teachers should also pay attention to cultivating students' ability to feel the beauty of calligraphy, thus improving students' artistic accomplishment and humanistic quality.

The calligraphy education in junior middle school for three years (from grade seven to grade nine) is an extension and expansion of the calligraphy education in primary schools, which mainly focuses on practicing calligraphy fonts, but the three years in junior middle school cannot be limited to this. The "new curriculum standard" mentions that students from grade seven to grade nine can "copy famous calligraphy". Its intention is very clear, that is, to let students learn to copy the famous calligraphy of other fonts except regular script. Of course, it is unrealistic to let students get away with it in just three years, so we think that in the third grade of junior high school, students should be introduced to three fonts closely related to regular script (Tang Kai). This can not only consolidate the regular script training in primary schools, but also expand students' artistic vision. You can learn Wei Bei's calligraphy in the seventh grade, and the recommended work is Yuan Huai's epitaph. In the eighth grade, you need to learn regular script. The recommended work is Zhi Yong's Thousand-character Scripture. In the ninth grade, you can also get in touch with official script. The recommended work is Cao Quanbei. In the study of each classic inscription, teachers should briefly explain the main technical features of this work, and then let students know the basic features of this font. In terms of homework, teachers should adopt a few but precise methods and pay attention to practical results, so as not to fail to achieve the purpose of learning because of short learning time and many learning contents. After three years of calligraphy study in junior high school, the new curriculum standard also mentions the concept of "aesthetic value of calligraphy", which is a cultural issue. Therefore, we advocate not only explaining the artistic beauty of these classic inscriptions to students, but also briefly introducing the cultural factors that produce these aesthetic feelings, such as writing tools, calligraphers' anecdotes, important events in book history and so on. Let students feel the charm of calligraphy art in a relaxed cultural journey.

Verb (abbreviation of verb) conclusion

Calligraphy education in primary and secondary schools is a hot topic at present. Under the background of national cultural strategy, it is of great significance to study its related problems in depth. Faced with such a gratifying situation, our decision-makers and actual operators must have a sense of long-term planning and actively implement the spirit of the guiding outline of the Ministry of Education from a solid, effective and practical perspective. We look forward to taking this opportunity to improve the national writing level in an all-round way, and the writing of Chinese characters will also be presented to the world as a cultural symbol of a country.