Review and prospect of moral education curriculum in primary schools since the founding of New China.
Moral education curriculum is the most important carrier of moral education in primary schools. Reviewing the changes of moral education curriculum in primary schools since the founding of New China 70 years ago, and summarizing the experience of moral education curriculum construction will help to better implement the fundamental task of cultivating people by virtue and cultivate socialist builders and successors.
Four stages of the development of moral education curriculum in primary schools and their characteristics of the times
Before the reform and opening up — —
There is no unified moral education curriculum.
In March, 1952, the Ministry of Education promulgated the Provisional Regulations for Primary Schools (Draft), pointing out that primary education should "give children a comprehensive basic education", in which the purpose of moral education is to make children have good qualities such as patriotism, national morality, honesty, courage, unity, mutual assistance and discipline, and the main content is the "five loves" education of loving the motherland, people, labor, science and public property. In 1953, the State Council issued the Instruction on Rectifying and Improving Primary School Education, and primary school moral education began to emphasize the education of daily behavior norms. The first primary code, published in 1955, put forward specific requirements for the daily behavior norms of primary school students. Generally speaking, from the founding of New China to 1956, moral education in primary schools focused on the cultivation of moral quality and behavior habits, which was more in line with children’s characteristics. However, with the expansion of the "anti-Rightist" struggle in 1957, this situation has undergone great changes.
In April 1958, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held a national conference on education. The meeting pointed out that education is a tool of class struggle and should serve politics and production. In September of the same year, the Instructions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council on Education clearly stated that "the Party’s educational policy is that education serves the politics of the proletariat and combines education with productive labor". Since then, moral education courses have shifted from paying attention to moral education to political education. Jiangsu, Zhejiang and other places took the lead in setting up political courses in primary schools, and then gradually expanded to most parts of the country. At the same time, the Ministry of Education requires primary schools to add a class meeting every week to educate students on current affairs and politics, and the political tendency of moral education in primary schools begins. During the ten-year "Cultural Revolution" that began in 1966, the normal school education order was destroyed and school moral education was completely politicized.
Reform and opening up to the end of the 20th century — —
From political lessons to ideological and moral lessons
Before the reform and opening up, there was no unified national curriculum for moral education in primary schools. In 1978, the Ministry of Education promulgated the "Trial Draft of Full-time Ten-year Primary and Secondary School Teaching Plan", which stipulated that politics classes should be offered in the fourth and fifth grades of primary schools, with two class hours per week, mainly to carry out preliminary communist ideological education and necessary political knowledge education. The unified political course has not changed the political tendency of moral education in primary schools, but it was abolished in 1981, so it can be regarded as a transition. However, it is the first time in New China to explicitly set up a political course in the teaching plan, which is of great institutional significance for moral education to get on the right track.
From April 22 to May 7, 1979, the Ministry of Education held a national symposium on ideological and political education in primary and secondary schools. After the symposium, the Minutes of the National Symposium on Ideological and Political Education in Primary and Secondary Schools were issued, which criticized the formalism and adult practices in moral education and pointed out that "the ideological and political work of primary and secondary school students must proceed from reality, pay attention to the age characteristics of teenagers, be targeted and stress practical results". This has played a positive role in correcting the politicization and adult tendency of primary school political lessons. In March 1981, the Ministry of Education promulgated the "Full-time Five-year Primary School Teaching Plan (Revised Draft)". In the "Explanation on Revising the Teaching Plan of Full-time Five-year Primary School", it is pointed out in particular: "At present, the political lessons in the fourth and fifth grades are divorced from the students’ ideological reality, and the effect is not good. According to the spirit of adhering to the Four Cardinal Principles and strengthening ideological education for young people, the current political class will be changed into an ideological and moral class, with one class hour per week for grades one to five. " From the primary school political lesson in 1978 to the primary school ideological and moral lesson in 1981, this important change has effectively corrected the tendency of politicization and adulthood of primary school moral education, and turned primary school moral education into cultivating students’ moral quality.
In 1982, the Ministry of Education promulgated the "Teaching Outline of Ideological and Moral Courses for Full-time Five-year Primary Schools (Trial Draft)", stating that the purpose of ideological and moral courses for primary school students is to "make primary school students initially have communist moral quality and good behavior habits, and aspire to be workers with ideals, morality, culture and discipline, so as to lay an ideological foundation for training them to be successors of the proletarian cause". Around this goal, the ideological and moral course takes "five loves" (love the motherland, love the people, love labor, love science and love socialism) as its basic content, and combines with the implementation of primary code to educate primary school students on the moral quality and behavior norms that citizens in socialist countries should have, and strives to arrange the teaching content reasonably according to the age characteristics of primary school students. This is the first time that New China has systematically and scientifically constructed the content system of moral education courses in primary schools. Later, according to the requirements of social development and the needs of the situation, the syllabus of ideological and moral course in primary schools (1986), the syllabus of ideological and moral course in full-time primary schools with nine-year compulsory education (preliminary draft) (1990) and the syllabus of ideological and moral course in full-time primary schools with nine-year compulsory education (for trial implementation) (1992) were promulgated successively. Through the continuous revision of the syllabus, the content of ideological and moral course is more in line with the age characteristics of primary school students, and it is more moral enlightenment and life-oriented for primary school students.
In 1994, "Several Opinions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Strengthening and Improving Moral Education in Schools" was promulgated, pointing out that the moral education system in schools should be planned as a whole. To implement this opinion, in 1997, the State Education Commission issued "Curriculum Standards for Ideological and Moral Courses in Primary Schools and Junior High Schools in Nine-year Compulsory Education (Trial)", which is the first time to replace the syllabus with curriculum standards, and to determine the teaching objectives and requirements of moral education courses in primary schools and junior high schools as a whole, plan the teaching content system of ideological and moral courses in primary schools and junior high schools, and complete the task of integrating ideological and moral courses in primary schools with junior high schools.
Compared with the previous syllabus, the curriculum standard of primary school ideological and moral course in 1997 emphasized the cultivation of good moral quality and civilized behavior habits, and highlighted the foundation and extensiveness of moral education. In the form, it emphasizes the hierarchy, stage, continuity, step by step and spiral rise of teaching.
New Curriculum Reform in the 21st Century — —
Offering courses on morality and life, morality and society in stages.
In 2000, the general offices of the General Office of the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council issued the Opinions on Further Strengthening and Improving Moral Education in Primary and Secondary Schools to Adapt to the New Situation, proposing that we should proceed from reality, thoroughly study the current ideological and moral characteristics of students, revise the curriculum standards of ideological and moral courses in primary schools and ideological and political courses in middle schools, further reform and improve the teaching content, and strive to build a moral education curriculum system in primary and secondary schools to meet the needs of development in the 21st century. According to this opinion, the Ministry of Education made necessary revisions to the curriculum standards of ideological and moral education in 1997, and in 2001, it promulgated the Curriculum Standards of Ideological and Moral Education in Primary Schools and Ideological and Political Education in Junior High Schools for Nine-year Compulsory Education (Revised). However, with the start of the new curriculum reform in 2001, the ideological and moral course has been changed into moral and life, moral and society, with new curriculum standards. In 2001, the curriculum standards of ideological and moral education in primary schools only played a transitional role.
In June 2001, the Ministry of Education promulgated the Outline of Basic Education Curriculum Reform (Trial). The "Outline" proposes "to set up a nine-year compulsory education curriculum as a whole". In primary school, comprehensive courses are the main courses, and morality and life are offered in lower grades, while morality and society are offered in middle and high grades. In 2002, the Ministry of Education officially promulgated the Curriculum Standards of Morality and Life in Full-time Compulsory Education (experimental draft) and the Curriculum Standards of Morality and Society in Full-time Compulsory Education (experimental draft).
From ideological and moral course to moral and life, moral and society, these two course standards and ideological and moral course standards have changed greatly in course nature and design ideas. The changed course name emphasizes activity and comprehensiveness more, which is more suitable for the characteristics of primary school students in low and middle grades. Moral and life curriculum is connected with kindergarten curriculum, which is an active comprehensive curriculum based on children’s life and aimed at cultivating children with good moral character, willingness to explore and love life. It is designed according to three axes: children and self, children and society, and children and nature. Morality and Society course is a comprehensive course based on children’s social life and promoting students’ good moral character formation and social development. It focuses on children’s social life, from individual, family, school to community, hometown, motherland and the world, and forms six modules, such as "I am growing", "I am with my family", "I am with my school", "I am Chinese" and "approaching the world". In 2011, the state promulgated the curriculum standards of Morality and Life, Morality and Society (2011 edition), which kept pace with the times in content and reflected the requirements of the times. At this stage, the management of teaching materials is "one syllabus and many books", which is examined and approved by the textbook review Committee of primary and secondary schools of the Ministry of Education.Multiple sets of teaching materials are selected for use at the same time.
Entering a new era — —
Use the unified textbook "Morality and Rule of Law"
On October 23, 2014, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee adopted the Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Several Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Advancing the Rule of Law, which proposed that the rule of law education should be integrated into the national education system, and the rule of law knowledge courses should be set up in primary and secondary schools. To implement this Decision, in June, 2016, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Justice and the National Law Popularization Office jointly issued the Outline of Youth’s Legal Education, requiring timely and corresponding revision of moral education curriculum standards in primary and secondary schools to complete the teaching content required by the outline. Starting from the fall semester of 2016, the state has changed Morality and Life, Morality and Society in primary schools and Ideology and Morality in junior high schools into Morality and Rule of Law, and set up special books on the rule of law in the second volume of grade six and the first volume of grade eight.
On the one hand, the compilation of the textbook Morality and Rule of Law for primary schools is based on the curriculum standards of Morality and Life, Morality and Society and the Outline of Education for Teenagers under the Rule of Law; on the other hand, it is based on the fundamental task of cultivating people in the new era, highlighting the guidance of socialist core values, and strengthening the education of Chinese excellent traditional culture, revolutionary culture, rule of law, national sovereignty awareness and national unity. "Morality and Rule of Law" is compiled by the Ministry of Education, with "one syllabus and one book", reviewed by the National Textbook Committee and used nationwide. Since 2017, the unified textbooks have been used in the first and seventh grades, in the second and eighth grades in 2018, and in the autumn of 2019, all grades will be fully covered. In January 2019, the Ministry of Education initiated the revision of the curriculum standards for compulsory education, and the curriculum standards for Morality and Rule of Law are currently being formulated.
Future-oriented,Constructing the overall moral education curriculum suitable for children
Since the founding of New China 70 years ago, moral education courses in primary schools have grown from scratch, from political lessons to ideological and moral lessons, from ideological and moral lessons to morality and life, morality and society, and then to morality and rule of law in the new era. The course has both a changing side and a constant side. What remains unchanged is the initial intention of moral education curriculum — — To cultivate all-round socialist builders and successors, the contents and organizational forms of moral education have changed, such as from a single political education to paying attention to moral education and then to both morality and law, from instilling political dogma to constructing children’s moral life, from meeting the requirements of society to meeting the common needs of social development and individual development, from "one program with many books", choosing to use one program with one book, and using it in a unified way.
Looking forward to the new era, the development of moral education curriculum in primary schools should achieve four points: first, put the moral education curriculum in primary schools into the overall framework of "the integration of moral education in colleges, middle schools and primary schools" and design the moral education curriculum in primary schools step by step and spirally. Second, take children as the center, construct children’s moral life, including children’s communication life with themselves, others, society, country and the world, transcend individuals and realize the integration of individuals and society. Third, construct the content system of "Great Moral Education" course. Moral education is not only a political course, but also an ideological and moral course. It is a "grand moral education" that includes ideological and political education, moral education, rule of law education, psychological education and traditional culture education. The content of moral education not only has a stable side, but also keeps pace with the times and embodies the times. Fourth, highlight the national will of moral education curriculum. General Secretary of the Supreme Leader pointed out: "Ideological and political course is the key course to implement the fundamental task of Lide Shuren." In the new era, we must adhere to the Party’s overall leadership over the construction of ideological and political courses, make unremitting efforts to cultivate people with Socialism with Chinese characteristics Thought, the supreme leader of the new era, strive to cultivate new people of the times who are responsible for national rejuvenation, and cultivate socialist builders and successors who are fully developed morally, intellectually, physically and artistically.
(The author is distinguished professor, director of the Institute of Moral Education of Nanjing Normal University and Changjiang Scholar of the Ministry of Education)