View On Love Education

Guided by Marxism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and upholding the correct world outlook, life outlook, the notion of value and of honor or disgrace, this paper, aimed at the overall development of human beings and the harmonious advancement of society, starts with an analysis of love connotation and proceeds to expound on the implication of love education, to delve into the basis of love education, to summarize its content, to explore the possibility of its realization and to pursue the goal of love education and of its sublimation.Love education has seldom been studied systematically in educational theory in actuality due to long negligence in education. Consequently, love education studies merely remains a general proposal and appeal at present, for so far there has been no comprehensive research works devoted to this issue, much less systematic study of its theory and practice. Based on long personal understanding of and repeated considerations on the cause of education, the author of this paper aims to outline some proposals for love education and its studies theoretically, attempting to study from the perspective of humanity, pedagogy and history such key issues as the definition and nature of love and love education in terms of its implication and meaning, its basis, its basic content, the essential requirements for realizing love education as well as the ultimate goal of love education, etc. With reference to the principle of materialism, dialecticality, practicality and historicality of Marxist philosophy, an analysis is made of love from various angles such as the basic properties, the social pattern, the genesis and occurrence as well as the self and overall traits of matters, as a result of which love is defined as an ideological sentiment and appropriate acts of showing universal solicitude for human beings themselves and the world they inhabit on the part of human race while the nature of love is expressed as a universal solicitude merged thoroughly in man's ideological sentiment and corresponding acts. Based on the rich connotation of love, the implication of love education is summarized as the education and cultivation of love in human beings, which is represented as the education in and the cultivation of the healthy love sentiment, the love concept and the noble love conduct. In terms of theory and practice, the meaning of love education lies most essentially in its being conducive to an active command of the discourse right of love, to the construction of the scientific theoretic system of love, to the improvement of the educational theoretic system, to the successful operation of education, to the overall development of human beings as well as to the construction of harmonious society and to the peace and development of the world. Moreover, an attempt is made to probe into the philosophic, historical and cultural, psychological and physiological, and social life basis of love education from the perspective of philosophy, pedagogy, psychology, ethics, literature, art, religion studies as well as from the angles of human ideology, mentality, sentiment, work, life and so on. In line with the object of love, love education can be categorized into the education of showing love for others, for nature and for society. It is opined that the goal of love education can be attained by harboring a correct concept, establishing a scientific theoretic system, optimizing the environment for love education, supplying the means of love education and conducting love education on a holistic basis. It is stressed that the ultimate goal of love education is to realize the enlightenment by education and the sublimation of the internalized love implication, the rational sublimation of the human solicitude of love and the sublimation in practice of the harmonious development of love. Thus an original and initial framework of love education theory, meant to be an organic part of and an important supplement to educational theories, has been established, which seems an innovation in educational theory studies in this sense.Another goal targeted in this paper is to make an appeal that the educational circles in China should, with the guidance of Marxist world outlook and methodology, establish the theoretic system of love education based on Marxism and conduct effective education in and cultivation of love in man so that love—the innate soul of the true, the good and the beautiful—can command and guide man's social life and make the world be refilled with love continuously and be replete with genuine love so as to realize the construction of a harmonious society. It is also anticipated that love education can work with moral education, intellect, physical education, aesthetic education, etc. in joint efforts to construct a more perfect educational system for human beings so as to gradually pursue the optimal educational effects, to attain the ideal aim of education and to train for society talented personnel with overall development in morality, intellect, physique, aesthetics and love.