Talk about Zhu Xi’s thoughts and influence

Zhu Xi, a famous educator in the Southern Song Dynasty, loved education all his life. He served as an official for less than fourteen years, but he lectured for fifty years, and he never tired of it. In his later years, "Although the illness spreads to the point where people ask questions about it, the serious illness will go away; if I don't teach for a day, I will feel worried." It is actually rare in the history of ancient Chinese education and can be called "Confucius of the Song Dynasty". His educational thoughts had a great influence on the Song Dynasty, especially his discussions on the purpose and methods of education, which are of reference for today's school education. Zhu Xi believes that teaching students should guide and persuade from a positive aspect and do less. When dealing with the negative work of sex, scholars have a clear understanding of "righteous principles" and "advantage of good principles" and are sincerely convinced. The effect is much greater than the establishment of rules and regulations. Only when students have "reasons" in their hearts can they "determine". Determining what their heart desires is the purpose of learning. The purpose is uncertain and all studies are pointless. At the same time, he clearly marked every word and deed of students on how they should behave in school. He also had strict regulations on clothing, footwear, language and manners, cleaning, reading and writing, and other miscellaneous matters. His main purpose is to guide students to act in accordance with these rules in daily life and use "rules" to develop "square and round" to show a deep understanding of "reasons". Although the "reasons" advocated by Zhu Xi are essentially different from the current moral education in schools, his approach of paying equal attention to active education and prevention of students is worth learning from. At present, among college and middle school students, many students lack ideals. They are all centered on the individual, take the West as an example, and have a standard deviation of right and wrong. What is particularly shocking is the hidden crisis of faith, belief, and trust; the weak patriotism and the growth of national nihilism. The "Year of the Snake storm" and the aftermath of the storm all illustrate this problem. Therefore, the most important thing in school moral education is to educate young students about patriotism and ideals, so that they can truly love our motherland and our party and devote themselves to the noble cause. This generation of young people have been singing songs about loving the Communist Party and socialism since kindergarten. They have received political education in primary and secondary schools, and their test scores are all 80 or 90. But what is the actual situation? This requires us to think deeply. Just instilling concepts and terminology is not enough. We must strive to formulate scientific and effective rules and regulations, which not only guide but also prevent and cure. Only by a two-pronged approach can we achieve good results. ? Zhu Xi asked schools to put moral education first. It is believed that educating students from an early age must start with cleaning, responding to advances and retreats, and performing rituals, music, and archery to cultivate their filial piety, loyalty, and trust, and then teach students to study things, gain knowledge and sincerity, correct their minds, cultivate themselves, manage their families, govern the country, and bring peace to the world. The main purpose of Taoism is to enable students to "understand human ethics." ? In order to achieve this goal, in the educational method, he used "learn extensively, interrogate, think passionately, discern clearly, and practice diligently" as the order of learning. He also proposed that "everyone has his or her own requirements for self-cultivation and dealing with things"; "Words, loyalty, deeds, and sincerity" are the key points for self-cultivation; "Encourage" is the key to dealing with things; "Don't do to others what you don't want others to do, and if you can't do it, ask for others instead" is the key to receiving things. It can be seen that the most important among the educational purposes and methods advocated by Zhu Xi is that schools must put moral education first. Teach students "understanding human ethics" so that etiquette and justice can please their hearts. He inherited the educational methods of Confucius and Mencius, and at the same time integrated the ideas of famous Confucians of the Song Dynasty, and accumulated a lot of experience in his own educational practice. Zhu Xi's method of moral education can be summarized as the following points: First, determination. Zhu Xi believes that ambition is the direction of the heart and is crucial to human growth. Therefore, he requires scholars to first establish lofty aspirations. When people have lofty ambitions, they have a goal to move forward. They can "just move forward without any trouble". If you are not determined, the goal will be unclear and there will be no motivation to move forward. First, you will be respectful. The so-called respect is to cultivate a serious or non-presumptuous moral attitude. That is the attitude of strictly observing etiquette and law. Contain your dissolute heart, be the master of your whole body, and cultivate the ability of self-control. It is to cultivate a cautious and careful moral attitude. It is to cultivate a single-minded or consistent attitude.

The first is preservation. The so-called "cultivation" is the abbreviation of "nurturing one's nature with intention". Zhu Xi believed that everyone has innate goodness, but at the same time they are biased by temperament and obscured by material desires. Therefore, it is necessary to use the effort of "preserving and nourishing" to develop your good nature and discover your original intention.

However, people's "hearts" are mixed with material desires and righteousness. Therefore, Zhu Xi believes that "success and nourishment" only needs to converge this heart and make it settle on righteousness. One is to examine. "Province" means introspection, and "cha" means inspection. "Examination" means frequent self-reflection and inspection. Zhu Xi believes that if a person wants to improve his own moral cultivation, he should "examine himself all the time." Zhu Xi's opinion shows that in his moral education he not only emphasized on preventing the slightest mistakes, but also on correcting mistakes later. One is to practice hard. Zhu Xi attached great importance to "practicing". What he means by "practicing" is to put the learned ethical and moral knowledge into one's own actual actions and transform it into moral behavior. Zhu Xi's opinions have touched on the transformation of moral knowledge into moral action, moral action is guided by moral knowledge, and tests the correctness of moral knowledge. Zhu Xi has always advocated for students that the educational content should not only be holistic, but also It must be systematic and step-by-step. He believes that elementary school is the foundation. If the foundation is not solid, it will be more difficult to fill it in college. Therefore, primary school students should be taught the rules of sweeping, coping, advancing and retreating, etiquette, music, shooting, and counting, and should start with practical exercises to gradually cultivate their virtues. On the contrary, when they grow up and enter university, they will be taught how to do "knowledge" and "principle", and focus on the road of "cultivation, family order, country management, and world peace", so as to stop at perfection. Therefore, he paid special attention to the content of primary school education. In terms of educating students on principles and ideas, he attaches great importance to the implementation of the principle of starting from the shallower to the deeper, from the simple to the complex, and from the bottom up. Ideological and moral education in primary schools and universities should be holistic. Elementary school is the foundation of university, and university is the expansion and in-depth study of elementary school. Although the degree varies, the content is consistent. It is both step-by-step and continuous, so the effect of education will be significantly improved. The pursuit of the supreme natural principles is the goal of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism. To achieve this goal, on the one hand, we must introspect, cultivate our character, and maintain a good mental state; on the other hand, we must also seek externally, study hard, and understand objective things. Zhu Xi's own scholarship lies in "studying principles to know them; practicing them in order to practice them." Therefore, when he teaches students, he also starts from "poor principles" and "sincere practice." "Poor principles" means the principle of "poor knowledge, serving the king, serving fathers and brothers, etc." Therefore, the "poor principles" he advocated can be divided into two aspects: one is to reason based on books; the other is to reason about all abstract things inside and outside books. However, he believes that Qiong Li only completes the work of "eruditeness", "careful thinking", "interrogation" and "clear discrimination" and knows the natural principles of things, which is not enough. Further practice must be done to complete the work of "sincere practice" in order to achieve the purpose of education. As the saying goes, "Knowing but not doing it will lead to a lack of knowledge, no place to settle, and a waste of lectures." Therefore, he believed that "principle" and "practice" must be consistent and inseparable. He attaches great importance to the combination of knowledge and action, which is of positive significance and should be used as a reference in today's school moral education. Practical practice is a traditional virtue in China. Chinese people take morality as the first priority and talent as the supplement. They would rather have virtue without talent than talent without virtue. "If you have talent without virtue, the more talented you are, the more you will be able to help others." This is a question of knowledge and action. Today we teach to educate people and study to be human beings. To sum up, Zhu Xi's teaching thoughts are very rich, and he has come into contact with some basic issues of teaching principles in the teaching process, such as the automaticity of learning, learning and thinking, learning and studying, learning and doing, teaching and learning, knowledge and agreement, etc. etc.; it also involves the purpose, enthusiasm, good start, consolidation, ability, practicality, breadth, expertise, etc. of teaching. He made some efforts to summarize, organize, summarize, and transform the teaching experience and theories accumulated over a long period of time in ancient my country, making them systematized. Many of them are thought-provoking insights and a legacy worth learning from.