Present Life And Possible Life

The great changes in modern Chinese society, have made unprecedented more attention been devoted to the honor and value of every citizen's life. On the other side, just because more and more individuals radiate their new life vigor in the new era, Chinese society has attained unprecedented development In such circumstances, we are more inclined to believe that man has no fixed nature, his existence is a process of creating himself. The life that most embodies man's honor is that the individual comprehends and chooses the developing possibility wisely and create his ideal future out from the reality. That is just the possible life. On the contrary, the present life is what the individual develops according to other's determination or drifts naturally in the flow of life. In the present life, the individual's abundant developing possibility has been hidden, and he is forced to lose or actively abandon the impetus and ability of pursuing the ideal future and remaking the reality; in this way, his honor and value is very difficult to be embodied. Modern China calls for every individual to get rid of different kinds of present life and create his own possible life, to enjoy his honor and to realize his value in the process of taking part in the social reform.In the history background that the Chinese people are gaining more and more honor and value in their life, the students' life state, including their developing state in the compulsory education, has attracted more and more attention; the relevant schooling reforms have also become the discussing topics. The thesis we intend to argue in this systematic research is: it is not only required but also possible that modern Chinese schooling teaches every student to create possible life. The demonstration is as the following.The first is the analysis of the reality of students' life state. Through the investigation into the reality of the students' school life in our country, we find that they are still popularly in the passive state of living. In the field of learning the subjects, the educators consider it as a special epistemological process, and epistcmological tasks are emphasized and become the central aims of classes; accordingly, the knowledge that the students are asked to learn is endowed with too much determination, the students' learning style is confined too strictly to accept the knowledge passively. That makes the students' learning be limited in accepting the existing life of the mankind. In the field of class life, the managerialist deviation that emerged with the class teaching system is still popular. In the bureaucratic type of administration, combining with the teachers' authority, the students have little opportunity to participate the class life democratically; in the process of being inculcated with life meanings, the students have little opportunity to launch activities independently and create their own life, while much of their life contents are kept out of the schooling. So the students have to accept the present life that is predetermined by others, while more real life contents are let alone.The second is the judgment of what should be pursued in schooling. On the basis ofanalyzing the developing tendency of Chinese society, the human being's living style and the relationship between schooling and the students' life, we argue that the modern Chinese schooling should work for teaching the students to create their possible life. The individual's status as subject of society becomes prominent in the process of society transformation in modern China; the determinant value of individual's initiative to his life also becomes prominent in the philosophers' discussion of man's real living style; the requirement for the schooling to help students reform the reality and raise the life quality also becomes prominent in the relevant discussions in history of educational theoretical research. All that suggests us to develop the function of modern Chinese schooling. The schooling should help the students comprehend the developing possi...