Teachers’ Professional Development Based On Practical Reason

With the background of practical orientation in the field of philosophy, educational research, and curriculum and instruction studies, this paper is based on the Marxist practical philosophy, draws from the view points about practical reason of Guorong Yang, Bingshu Wang, Feng Guan and other scholars, try to use the thory practical reason to explain teachers’ professional development, put forward a proposition of practical reason-based, teachers’ professional development.The main study questions include: What is the practical reason? Why should the teacher professional development be based on practical reason? What is the ideal for the professional growth of teachers under the influence of practical reason? What kinds of problems will the teacher professional development based on practical reason face? What is the cause of the problems? What are the realistic routes for the teacher professional development based on practical reason?About the definition of practical reason, the author discussed the two different traditions of practical philosophy. Corresponding to two kinds of practical view, practical reason also has different connotation. Aristotle founded the theory of virtue practice. Generally speaking, the practice is mainly confined to the political and ethical fields in Aristotle’s point of view. Kant basically followed the tradition of this kind of practice philosophy, and connected the practice to the moral sphere. Based on the traditional practical rationality, its connotation is limited to the field of morality, ethics and politics. The tradition of technological practice is derived from Bacon. This tradition has shifted the focus of attention from the moral philosophy to the philosophy of nature, thus expanding the connotation of practice. Practice is no longer just the practice of ethics, but also a technical practice, covering the scientific and production activities. The integrity of human behavior is destroyed by the segmentation of moral practice and technological practice. Marxist view of practice marks the shift of practice orientation from modern philosophy to contemporary philosophy. Based on the integrity of individual, this view of practice transcends the tradition of practical philosophy, treating human practice as a whole by the unification of the making and practice. As a result, the gap is bridged between the man and nature and the communication relationship among people.This thesis adopt Bing-Shu Wang point of view on the structure of practice. Wang proposed to include purpose, method and process as the three elements of the structure of practice. This thesis also draws on Yang Guo-rong point of view on practice reason. According Yang, the internal logic of the practical process is benefit, effectiveness and legitimacy. And three inherent principles of practice reason are goodness, effectiveness and rightness. The thesis draw a conclusion that practical reason consists of three specific forms: value dimension, instrument dimension and communication dimension. We can also say they are three dimension of the practice reason. Three dimensions respectively deal with the problem about human action: "what is good"(goodness), "how to reach good"(effectiveness), "how to make the pursuit of good proper"(legitimacy rightness).With the practical orientation in the fields of philosophy, pedagogy and teacher education, practical rationality is the inner demands of teachers’ professional developmentTeacher professional development is a kind of special practice. Teachers cultivate others and oneself at the same time. So teachers’ development activity is a kind of practice with value in itself. Practical rationality can be a prerequisite and critical reflection for teacher professional development practice. Teachers can adjust the direction of their professional development, enhance the professional character, and pursuit self excellence.In order to make a detailed description of the teacher’s development with the perspective of practical reason, this thesis carried out the description of the three internal dimensions of the practical reason in detail.Value dimension is one of the intrinsic dimensions of practical reason. In the perspective of value dimension, the purpose of teachers’ professional growth is to guide people to perform good deeds. The process of teacher professional development is the process of the formation and continuous improvement of teachers’ value concept. In this process, teachers integrate social expectations and their reasonable demand, taking into account the public interests and self value of life, realize the harmonious development of body and mind. Teachers always aware of the value embodied in professional knowledge and skills, and will not only focus on moving forward in a hurry without paying attention to the direction. Even more important is that from the perspective of value dimension the professional growth of teacher’s emphasis on the subjectivity of the teachers. This reveals that teachers are masters of self growth and development, and the results of teacher development mainly depend on the internal initiatives rather than external force.Instrument dimension(technical rationality) is another dimension of practical reason. In the perspective of instrument dimension, the professional growth of teachers is to find scientific and effective ways to achieve the growth objectives, to search for laws of teachers’ professional development, to effectively acquire and master teachers’ professional knowledge and skills. The instrument dimension dimension of practice rational is a good interpretation of the planning function of practical rational. If the teachers’ professional is compared to a journey, while the value reason is responsible for the direction of the statute of the professional growth of teachers and the ultimate goal, instrument dimension is responsible for the design and selection of route, transportation and schedule.The reason why communication dimension is also one of the intrinsic dimensions of practical reason is the communication essence of teacher’s professional development. Teachers’ professional development cannot be separated from the interaction of teachers and others and teachers’ self association. In the view of communication dimension, teachers’ professional development is the process of improving the communication between the teachers and the people, and the process of the communication ethics and the ability of thinking.To sum up, with the guidance of practical reason, teachers’ development is to explore "what is good of teacher professional development"(goodness of the growth), "How to achieve the good of teacher professional growth"(validness of growth), "how to make the pursuit of goodness of teacher professional development in line with norm"(growing legitimacy).To examine the reality of teacher professional development from the perspective of practical reason, there are many unreasonable phenomena in the teacher’s professional development. According to the three dimensions of practical reason, the unreasonable phenomena are as follows: missing of value dimension, dominance of instrument dimension and weak of communication dimension. About the missing value reason, value dimensions of the development target vests too much on the utilitarian orientation rather than the intrinsic value of teachers’ professional development; To the content of development, professional knowledge and skills gain over due attention and professional ethics value is neglected; The problems existing in the process of development are absence of teachers as subject and missing of subjectivity; To development mode, the purpose of teacher communication became alienation and the meaning lost. The transgression of instrument dimension is the most common problem. The typical symptoms include: due to professionalism the target for the development is to become technical experts. With the efficiency first consciousness, undue attention was paid to excessive control and high efficiency of the development process. Teachers with a hierarchical organization have a one-dimensional life. The status quo of teachers’ interaction exposed their weakness of communicative reason: Marked by the hierarchical order, humanism became the principle of communication; To disparage each other leads to sectarian bias; Not true to the heart cause maladjustment of communication; lack of democratic consciousness cause teachers to do official’s bidding.Overall, the plight of teachers’ professional growth reflects teachers’ practical reason is not perfect. The salient problem is the mismatch among the internal dimensions of practical reason. Based on the historical and cultural context of our country the author makes a multi attribution to the real situation. First, the factor of era, the special background of China in the period of social transformation, China has the problems of modernity, while under the influence of postmodern thoughts.Origin of instrument dimension along with modernity brought the disenchantment at the same time the colonization of reason; The era of change and the influence of the post modern thought lead to the diversification of value, increase the difficulty of value judgment and choice; Some negative factors in the traditional culture is not conducive to rationalization of communication dimension.Teachers are the backbone of the curriculum reform. They determine the success or failure of curriculum reform and their professional development has become a key issue of education reform. Curriculum reform is a profound revolution, appeals for teachers’ changes. Since the curriculum reform began in 2001, teachers’ training has been carried out on a large scale. However, there were some deviations in training, which affected the effect of training. We need to update the training concept, to further improve the training methods and effectiveness. Teacher personal experience and individual personality characteristics also influence the formation and perfection of teachers’ practical rationality, so as to influence teachers’ professional growth.Routes suggestion on the professional development of teachers based on practical reason is as follows: To promote the recovery of teachers’ value dimension through the cultivation of teachers’ value consciousness, critical reflection and thinking; Through the formation of dialectic view on knowledge and skills in order to achieve correction of instrument dimension; Through the construction of learning schools and enriching teachers’ spirit to cultivate communication dimension.