摘 要

杜威和陶行知都是著名的教育家，两者对于世界教育的发展都做出了极大的贡献。陶行知是杜威的学生，他的教育理论和杜威的理论一脉相承又有所区别。两位教育家都非常注重生活教育，对比研究他们的理论和实践对发展当今的素质教育有极大的借鉴意义。

本文分为五个部分：第一部分是介绍；第二部分从社会背景、理论来源和主要内容三个方面详细介绍了杜威和陶行知的理论并做了对比分析；第三部分介绍了两人著名的教育实践——芝加哥实验学校和晓庄师范并加以对比分析；第四部分根据对二者的理论和实践的对比研究对当代素质教育提出了一些可行性建议；第五部分对论文内容进行了小结。通过这五部分的内容，不仅对杜威和陶行知的教育理论和实践都进行了全面而完整的分析探讨，更对当代的素质教育有了更多思考。

关键词：杜威；陶行知；生活教育理论；教育实践；对比

Abstract

John Dewey and Tao Xingzhi are excellent educators; they both contributed a lot to the development of the pedagogy. Tao was a student of Dewey. He was deeply influenced by Dewey. However, they lived in different situations. Thus, though their theories are closely related, there are lots of differences. The two educators attach much importance on life education, studying their theories is meaningful for promoting quality-oriented education.

There are five parts of this paper. The first part is an introduction. The second part introduces and contrasts the educational theories of John Dewey and Tao Xingzhi from social backgrounds, theoretical origins and main contents. The third part presents and contrasts the famous educational practices——Chicago Experimental School and Xiaozhuang Normal College. The fourth part is the suggestions for contemporary quality-oriented education according to the contrast of their theories and practice. The last part is a conclusion. Through the five parts, not only theories and practice of Tao and Dewey are analyzed in detail, but the contemporary quality-oriented education is reflected.

Key Words: John Dewey, Tao Xingzhi, Life Education Theories, educational practice; comparison

Contents

1 Introduction 1

2 Education theories 3

2.1 Similarities 3

2.1.1 Empathizing social value of education 3

2.1.2 Empathizing the unity of education and life 3

2.1.3 Empathizing the concept of lifelong education 4

2.2 Differences 4

2.2.1 Different backgrounds of education theories 4

2.2.2 Different contents of education theories 7

3 The practice of education 12

3.1 Similarities 12

3.2 Differences 12

3.2.1 The education practice of John Dewey 13

3.2.2 The education practice of Tao Xingzhi 14

4 Suggestions for quality-oriented education 16

4.1 Learning from doing 16

4.2 Combining learning and thinking 16

4.3 Implementing lifelong education concept 17

4.4 Improving teachers' ability 17

4.5 Transforming from teacher-centered to student-centered 17

5 Conclusion 19

References 20

Acknowledgements 21

A Comparison between John Dewey and Tao Xingzhi on Education Theory and Practice

1 Introduction

As the influential educators in the 20th century, John Dewey and Tao Xingzhi, proposed the "Education is life" and "Life is education" ideological and theoretical system respectively. Dewey, as the founder of the educational philosophy of pragmatism and synthesizer, his ideas of education have had significant intellectual impact on the Chinese education sector in half of the 20th century. Dewey advocated education to adapt to the nature of children, child-centered, against the mechanical training, emphasizing learning by doing and then put forward the "Education is life". However, Tao Xingzhi criticized the modern "traditional education" of china and the shortcomings of "westernized education", and he developed his own distinctive ideas of education system life based on Dewey's rational core theory. Its core is "Life is education. These two theories were both "quality-oriented, which against the traditional cram methodology. Although the concept of quality-oriented education has existed in China for more than a decade, the essence of it never seems to be understood. Thus it is of great significance to learn from the theories and practice of the great educationists John Dewey and Tao Xingzhi.

As the pioneer of empiricism, Dewey's educational theories played an important role in America, especially during the education reform in the 20c. Due to the interaction with foreign students, his theories were spread around the world. Invited by his students Tao Xingzhi, Hu Shia and so on, he came to China to give speeches in 1919. Attracted by the May 4th Movement, Dewey decided to prolong his traveling in China. Thus, he stayed in China for more than three years. When Dewey left Beijing, Hushi wrote Mr. Dewey in China, which was published in Eastern Magazine and Republic Daily. Hu Shi remarked, since contacted with western cultural, there was no foreign scholar had such great influence as Mr. Dewey did. Tao Xingzhi learnt and modified his theories according to actual situation of China. Tao's theories were universally accepted do to his successful practice. However, due to the Cultural Revolution, Tao Xingzhi was criticized. Until 1980s, he was recognized by the academy. There were some important books such as The Education theories of John Dewey (1981) and The Education theories of Tao Xingzhi. In the early 20th century, some scholars began the contrastive study between them, such as A Comparison between John Dewey and Tao Xingzhi on Education Theory, written by Hu Jiyuan (2007). With the promotion of quality-oriented education, much attention was paid on the life education, such as The Comparison between Life is education and education is life, written by Liu Jianying (2010). Generally speaking, studies and researches on their theories are rather brief; mainly focus on the theoretical level. In my opinion, it is far from enough if we really want to learn from it to improve the current educational situation in China. What we should do is to look into the education practices and find out their original inspiration. By studying those vivid teaching practice, more findings can be perceived.