Li Jilin The Theory and Practice for Children’s Contextualized Learning of Their First Language Translated by Yi Jin ’ The Theory and Practice for Children s Contextualized Learning of Their First Language Li Jilin The Theory and Practice ’ for Children s Contextualized Learning of Their First Language Translated by Yi Jin 123 LiJilin TheJiangsu Institute ofSituation Education Nantong,Jiangsu Province China TranslatedbyYiJin,AssociateProfessor,InstituteofCurriculumandPedagogy,Facultyof Education, Beijing NormalUniversity, Beijing, China,Email: [email protected] ISBN978-3-662-55602-3 ISBN978-3-662-55604-7 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-662-55604-7 JointlypublishedwithEducationalSciencesPublishingHouse TheprinteditionisnotforsaleinChinaMainland.CustomersfromChinaMainlandpleaseorderthe printbookfrom:EducationalSciencesPublishingHouse. 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Neither the publishers nor the authorsortheeditorsgiveawarranty,expressorimplied,withrespecttothematerialcontainedhereinor for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publishers remains neutral with regard to jurisdictionalclaimsinpublishedmapsandinstitutionalaffiliations. Printedonacid-freepaper ThisSpringerimprintispublishedbySpringerNature TheregisteredcompanyisSpringer-VerlagGmbHGermany Theregisteredcompanyaddressis:HeidelbergerPlatz3,14197Berlin,Germany Foreword Children’slearningusuallystartedfrom learning native language.Nativelanguage wasnotonlyinstrumentthatchildrenneededtograsptocommunicatewithothers, but also enriched children’s intelligence and spiritual world. Ms. Li Jilin’s study was about contextualized teaching of native language. In order to fulfill the objectives of Chinese classes to make students get knowledge, competence, and intellectual development, she included or created specific environments or atmo- spheres according to teaching content to inspire students’ enthusiasm to learn, arouse their emotional experiences, help them accept new knowledge and skills quickly and effectively in pleasant teaching atmosphere, and enhance harmonious and all-round psychological development. The traditional Chinese teaching strengthened explanation and analysis of the content of the textbooks and remembering concepts and knowledge. Students’ learningwasmostlyseparatedfromtherealsituationoflife,justaswhatwassaidin ancient time: ‘Both ears were shut to what goes on outside the window, while the whole mind was concentrated on the sages’ books.’ Contextualized teaching made attempts to break the shackles of traditional Chinese teaching by paving a road to mix together the abstract with the concrete, intuition with rationality, and emotion withcognition.Everyone’sdevelopmentwasanoutcomeofinteractionsamongthe nature, the society, and the inner potentials. The contexts that teacher Li Jilin proposedincludedspecificemotionalfeelingsabouttheouterworldratherthanthe environment itself, and settings and atmospheres that students could directly observe and experience, which provided a more realistic condition for interactions between the outer and the inner world. Incontextualized teaching, optimizedcontextswereappliedto provide students rich information and materials for learning, encourage them to connect knowledge and skills with experiences, actively inquire and construct knowledge, think divergently,andmakeuseofknowledgeflexiblytoresolvepracticalproblems.The optimized contexts not only inspired interest and motivation to learn, but also enhanceddevelopmentofbeautifulemotions,makingstudentslearntotreatothers, themselves,andtheenvironmentappropriatelythroughempathy,andthencultivate positive attitude toward life and enrich spiritual world. The context in v vi Foreword contextualized teaching was combination of the emotional environment, the cog- nitive environment, and the behavioral environment, etc., which was beneficial to students’ all-round development as well as personal development. Itwasprovedbypracticesofmanyyearsthatcontextualizedteachingwasanew type of view of Chinese teaching by which good teaching atmospheres could be created, teaching effect and learning quality could be improved, so that it was highly valued by many educators. In2014atthefirstnationalawardsforteachingachievementinbasiceducation, Teacher Li Jilin’s Practical Exploration and Theoretic Research on Contextualized Educationgottheonlyspecialpersonalaward,whichwasapraiseandhonorforher engagementinthisresearchformanyyears.Butinmyopinion,itwasmorevalued that the general significance of contextualized education was widely recognized as much more than a teaching approach in Chinese teaching. Thegeneralobjectivesofeducationshouldbeaddressedinthefirstplaceofeach subjectteachingandmergedintotheprocessesofsubjectteaching.Contextualized teaching embodied the educational purpose for cultivating whole personality by reflecting both uniqueness of the subject of Chinese and the generality of all sub- jects. Teacher Li Jilin’s study was overall, revealing rules and ways for children’s joyful and effective learning in optimized contexts from diverse perspectives. She proposed the theory of law of children’s emotional and thinking development, creatively combined emotional activities with cognitive ones, and constructed the contextualized Chinese learning paradigm linking emotion and cognition and with high teaching effects. The basic principles and models of contextualized education had distinctive characteristics, and there were many original researches having important values to substantially promote children’s healthy development and increase the educational quality. In this sense, contextualized education was a model of integration of theory and practice. Particularly,thespiritsreflectedinherinnovationmightencouragemorepeople to devote themselves to innovative practices. At the beginning, contextualized education was a teaching reform in a subject in a primary school, but the educa- tional ideas, philosophies, and approaches embodied had made wide impact to promote improvement of educational ideas, philosophies, and approaches and provided valuable experiences for other subjects and even education of the whole school.TeacherLiJilindrewamagnificentscrollofeducationalreforminthenew erabased onhersuccessful theoretic study andpractice, which ledthedirection of educational reforms, and had important significance for guiding primary school children’s Chinese learning and reforms and development of basic education. It was especially valuable that Teacher Li Jilin summarized four elements of children’slearningofChinese,i.e.,reality,beauty,emotion,andthinking,fromthe artistic conception theory of classical Chinese literary theory. She creatively made useoftheclassictheoryinmodernprimaryschooleducation,constructingthebasic theory and curriculum model of contextualized education by combining it with modern educational theories such as brain science and science of learning and integrating ancient theories with modern ones, and oriental theories with the Western ones. It was a perfect integration of humanity spirits and scientific spirits, Foreword vii and of the theory and the practice. While inheriting the excellent educational tra- dition of China, it challenged the disadvantages of Chinese traditional education. Reality—traditionaleducationtookestablishingtheauthorityofteachers,having students obey to superior authorities and believe only in what the book says as a prerequisite for the realization of educational tasks. The practice proved that the dialectical relationship between subjectivity and objectivity in educational pro- cesses proposed by contextualized education accorded with objective law. Li Jilin urged that elementary education should give children a real world, taking them to the nature and to experience social life, and presenting a lively and colorful world that they could watch, listen to, touch, and dialogue with. Learning content was linked to reality of life, and a benign interaction was formed between them. The contextsselectedorreprocessedfromtheworldinwhichchildrengrewupprovided the best learning environment making children experience and feel the real world, which benefited their cognitive, emotional, and intellectual development. Starting fromreality,thenrealitywasusedtoinspireintelligence,topursuethebeauty,and to advocate kindness. Beauty—aesthetic education was the aim of education; however, in many schools it was viewed as an item of work rather than the aim of school education. Aestheticeducation was a form offreedom,trying topurifyhuman mindssilently, enrichpeople’sspiritualworld,andformaconsciousrationalpowerbypenetrating such spirits into their inner world and life. The objectives of aesthetic education were not only to foster and improve students’ receptivity, discernment, and cre- ativity, but also to help students to set up beautiful ideals, and develop beautiful virtues and sentiment. The fundamental purpose of aesthetic education was to cultivate children’s mind and personality. There was no lack of beauty in life. In fact, there was no lack of beauty in education but lack of teachers’ conscious, purposeful, and skillful attempts of aesthetic education. Contextualized education put objectives of aesthetic education into conscious educating activities, as an education of creating beauty. Teacher Li Jilin deeply felt the infinite charm and profoundsignificance of beauty for teachingand pointed outtohave beauty asthe soilforcultivatingchildren’sinnovativespirits.Shebelievedthatbeautycouldplay afullrangeofeducationalfunctions,enlighteningintelligence,cultivatingmorality, uplifting the mind, and encouraging expression. She proposed to get rid of the instrumental and abstract rational pressure of subject teaching with beauty, and in the sense of beauty to naturally embody cultural connotation of native language learning.Wheninstrumentalknowledgeandskillsweresetintothebeautifulartistic andculturalcontexts,knowledgebecamelivelyandvivid,sothatchildren’syoung minds were molded, spiritual growth was enhanced, and the vitality of young life and rich beauty of the appearance were publicized. Emotion—Teacher Li Jilin strengthened emotions as the lifeblood of contextu- alizededucation.Whentheteacherguidedchildrentoenterthecontexts,emotional links among students, teachers, and textbooks made them interact and influence each other. She concluded one of the operational elements of contextualized cur- riculum was taking emotion as a bond. Teacher Li Jilin thought highly the edu- catingprocess,especiallystudents’psychologicalexperiencesduringtheeducating viii Foreword process. She thought that if students could maintain good attitudes and form motivation to sustainable development through emotions and beauty, they could develop a good foundation of attainment through the process of accumulation. It was found that the optimized contexts could inspire children’s enthusiasm to form subjective needs to be involved in learning activities, making them feel joys and satisfactionandgetinfluencesinlearningactivities.Duetothefunctionofemotion, students’ confidence was derived from the teacher’s care, expectation, and encouragement and their intellectual activities such as thinking, imagination, and memorywereinthebeststate,sothatcognitionandemotion,learningandtasting, and education and culture were integrated in the curriculum. Thinking—changes of the times and progress of the society made education undertakingfacingmanynewmaladjustmentsandconfusions.Newresearchresults wereemerging,whichmadeusrethinkaboutthepreviousknowledge.Theprocess tocatchtheruleswasaccompaniedtheprocesstoexploretherules.TeacherLiJilin started from the problems common in primary school classrooms such as boring, rote memorization, and high scores with low abilities and tried to find the knot of the matter, during which she felt the lack of educational theory. Based on development of brain science research, she took thinking as the bonding and breakthrough point for applying brain science research results in education, trying to make teaching reforms return to the basic propositions of learning and thinking from learning theories ignoring or parting from thinking. Her study was based on basic intelligence theory of two kinds of thinking, especially strengthening rela- tionshipbetweenimagerythinkingandeducation,whichbrokelimitationofsimply stressing abstract thinking. In addition, she made inquiries in the internal connec- tion mechanism between overall development of thinking and all-round develop- mentoftheperson.Thinkingwasthecoreofcontextualizededucation,andTeacher Li Jilin especially strengthened developing children’s potential intelligence and thoughthighlytheparticularroleofinspiringimaginationfordevelopingchildren’s creativity and power of understanding. Children were guided to combine obser- vation with thinking and with imagination, and deepen emotional feelings by imagination. Therefore, inspiring children’s imagination was an indispensable effective way to develop children’s creativity. Based on 60 years ofteaching experiencesas a Chinese teacher,Li Jilindeeply felt,‘PrimaryschoolChineseclassshouldbecloselyrelatedtothecolorfullifeand helpchildrenviewthelargeworld.Everytextwasproductoftheauthor’semotions and intelligence, telling their love to the life, the career, and all other good things, and their pursuit for noble spirits. The Chinese teacher in primary school should bring children into the vivid contexts that the author described, experiencing and feeling the emotions and ideas between the lines, and planting seeds of truth, kindness,andbeautyinsimpleways.Undoubtedlyitwasanundertakingwithgreat significance and when taking the undertaking, we became happy Chinese teachers of primary schools.’ Educationwasascienceandanart,andmorelikeakindofpractice.TeacherLi Jilinhadherwisdomofeducationstimulatedwithherscientificattainments,artistic conservation,anddeeploveforchildren.Asshesaid,lovecouldproducewisdom. Foreword ix Children’s contextualized learning challenged the disadvantage of traditional edu- cationinChina,lettingstudentsgrowuphappilyandcomprehensively,andleading and promoting reforms of basic education. I respect Teacher Li Jilin very much. She is a true educator. When facing challenges of the times on education, she bravely made attempts to create and answered questions people asked about education. There was hardly easy envi- ronmentorsmoothroadfor educationalinnovationandresearch,sothat itwasthe mostimportantthataneducatorhadfightingspiritsofnever-endingpursuitthatwas differentfromordinarypeople.Thus,educatorswerenotflowersinthegreenhouse, butpetrelsfightingwindandwave.TeacherLiJilin’slifeisaportrayalofthespirit of educators! The unique advantages of contextualized education benefited from her attempts tocombinetheadvancedmoderneducationaltheorieswithChinesenationalculture classics, which impressed contextualized education with mark ofChina. Due to its values and significance, in December 2008 the International Forum of Li Jilin’s SituationalEducationwasheld,wheneducationresearchersfromChina,USA,UK, andJapandiscussedandcommunicatedwitheachother.Someofthemmentioned, ‘situational education was a school of educational thought with Chinese charac- teristics and born and brought up on native soil of China.’ ‘It was a Chinese voice responding to the international education reforms.’ Eight years later today, Teacher Li Jilin’s works are going to be translated into English and distributed globally. I sincerely congratulate and hope Teacher Li Jilin’sthoughtofcontextualizededucationcouldinfluencegenerations ofteachers, makingeducationinChinahavemoreinnovationandcontributemoretoeducation in the world. Tao Xiping Member of China National Education Advisory Committee Honorary president of the World Federation of UNESCO Honorary president of Beijing Federation of Social Science Circles Preface: A Heart Song for Children From contextualized teaching to contextualized education, and then to contextu- alized curriculum, there were three steps of my thirty years exploration and research.Someexpertsandteacherscalledthat‘trilogyofcontextualizededucation’ and suggested to publish a series of books entitled to that. When looking back the long journey, I had lots of thoughts and feelings. There were enough thoughts to expressthroughaseriesofbooks,andthepoeticandartistictitlemademehavethe mind to try. What was reflected in the ‘trilogy’ was my journey of constantly approaching children, listening to their voices, and watching their growth with vitality and energy. I had a chance to record wonderful musical notes from the child’s heart, feeling thechild’semotionalwavesandsprays asamusician touching thebeloved strings, and I made efforts to get the rhythm and guess the child’s dream and longing. The colorful pictures, graceful songs, and sounds of laughter intoxicated me, making me meditate alone for long time and carefully feel the beauty and pureness. Many times, I drew nourishment of life and intelligence and finally saw ‘Flowers in the Field’ germinating, heard ‘the Song of the Lark’ sung, and looked forward to ‘the Paradise of Beauty.’ Day after day and year after year, I was never tired or slack. The Trilogy of ContextualizedEducationwasarecordofmyemotionalandintelligentinteractions withchildrenthatIimmersedin,andthememoriesofmyinnerfeelings,reflections, and harvests of crossing the three steps. When taking up the pen, I often felt that children were in my heart and even had a literary impulse. Professor Gao Wen from East China Normal University made warm praise of contextualized education in my book The Poem of Situation Education: Rooted in the context of Chinese cultural tradition, Focus on THE CHILD. For more than twenty years, completed the trilogy of situation education, With the mark of ‘Constructed in China,’ go to the world. xi