Hui Cultural Heritage: A Comparative Study Of Mosque Education And Schooling

Under the background of globalization, the protection and inheritance of traditional ethnic culture have drawn much attention. There are two main channels through education to inherit traditional culture of the Huis: one is the traditional mosque education, another is the education in modern school. Mosque education is Chinese traditional education system for Islam. Because held in the mosque, it is also known as the temple education. Its purpose is to impart the knowledge of Islam religion, to train teachers engaged in religious education and to mobilize people who can hold religious activities. The mosque education both have the traditional sense of the Scripture teaching, and modern sense of inheriting Hui outstanding cultural achievements of modern education, it is fit for the modern social development and the needs of the masses of Hui mosque education. School education has been developed late in areas inhabited by the Hui nationality, almost from the early twentieth Century. Because of the separation of religion and education upheld by modern education, school education no longer imparts relevant contents of ethnic and religious heritage, and temple or mosque education became specialized in religious education institutions, although school education with modern scientific knowledge and cultural education, but it is not to the exclusion of imparting education of outstanding cultural achievements of the national. The school education system of inheritance of modern scientific and cultural knowledge in the Hui Autonomous Region by the National Office inherits the traditional culture of Hui nationality through the local curriculum and school-based curriculum. Based on the multicultural theory of the cultural anthropology and the theory of relationship between education and culture, through the method of historical study and practical investigation, the study makes an in-depth review on the function and the value of both in the national cultural heritage aspects.Through the study of the history of Hui traditional mosque education, it is found that from the development history of mosque education, no matter is the Arabic world mosque education or mosque education in China, the main course is still the religious doctrines, its nature of religious education has not been changed. But as the religious education, it is also developing. In order to meet the needs of the development of modern society and the masses of Hui, mosque education, based on religious education, expands its functions on the cultural heritage. As a heritage of culture of Hui mosque education curriculum is being reformed, mosque education, in addition to religious teachings, brings course of language, philosophy, literature, history, science in its educational institutions, which have a certain openness, which changes with the development of the times. Based on the investigation of mosque education and case study of cultural heritage in Linxia mosque education, it is found that:firstly, the nature of mosque education is still the religious education, which is never changed in history or in reality, and will not be changed; teaching Islamic classics, especially the "the Koran". Secondly, the mosque education contains not only traditional religious doctrines, but also expands to the Arabic, Chinese, computer application, national culture and art, literature and history, which has expanded the function of mosque education from single religious education to the inheritance and development of national culture. Thirdly, the method of mosque education from the past lectures and recitation, has been changed by new methods, because of the reform of teaching method in the curriculum, graduates of primary school and junior high school enter the mosque, learning characteristics have been significantly affected by the characteristics of school education, the mosque began adopting the discussions, lectures, research method on the teaching method, keeping consistent with the curriculum reform of mosque education, which adapted to the needs of the young generation. Finally, the mosque education in order to meet the needs of social development also held special men’s amateur classes, women’s amateur classes, student holiday classes and kindergarten, not only to carry out the religious education and traditional culture education, and also to carry out occupation education. It has combined modern school education with mosque education together in a planned way, for the training of the ethnic areas talents by innovative education mode.The historical study on the development of the modern school education in HuiRegion shows that:modern school education in this area is a cross-cultural education. The new education of Hui, which taking national education as its standards, aims to adapt to the development times. It focuses on the education of the modern scientific and cultural knowledge, striving to cultivate various talents with Muslim cultural traditions to satisfy the needs of society. The enlightenments we got from the history of the development of school education in Hui Region are as follows:Firstly, the Muslim education must combine modern science and technology education that take the Chinese as the carrier with the education of Hui ethnic culture, developing general national education on the basis of traditional culture of the ethnic groups. Secondly, Hui education should inherit Islamic educational theory and practice as well as good experience and traditions of the previous Muslim education. At the same time, it should advances with the times. To facilitate economic development and social prosperity of Hui in Northwest area, great efforts must be took to develop national education to narrow the gap between the overall national education and the Muslim education. The survey of teachers and students at schools in Hui Region shows that generally, they are interested in and proud of their ethnic culture. They are willing to learn their native culture and they want schools to offer courses about their national cultural. Teachers, who insist that the school should heritage the ethnic knowledge, moral knowledge, knowledge of production and living and ethnic art by the local courses, are more rational than the students as regard to the attitude towards traditional culture. Generally speaking, students can not tell knowledge of ethnic religion from the knowledge ethnic and culture. And some of them even advocate that courses in Arabic and of religious contents, which actually ought to be the duty of the mosque, should be offered in schools. As to evaluation of the value of education in schools, teachers think that basic knowledge and skills that lay the foundation for students’further study should be the focus of school education.But the students hold that the value of the school lies in the heritance of the national cultural. While teachers advocate that the learning of some knowledge about the nation and moral cultivation will, to some extent, prompt the development of a religious society, students hold that the content of school education should, on the whole, reflect national culture from moral knowledge, religious knowledge, Arabic, history, literature and other aspects. For the evaluation of teaching methods in schools, both teachers and students insist that teaching methods are changing.The negative evaluation is weakening and the positive evaluation is strengthening. Finally, as to evaluation to the effect of school education, both teachers and students have a positive attitude. They generally think that school education did a good job in terms of basic knowledge heritance, but there’s a lot to be improved as to the heritance of national cultural since some schools haven’t implemented school-based curriculum. Therefore, the task to heritage national cultural is of the most important in the educational reform of school education in ethnic area.On this basis, the study also makes a comparison between the Church education and the modern school education with regard to their objectives, content, methods, and impact. Religious education is apparently the objective of Church education since ancient times. But in the process of Islam got its popularity in China, the objective of Hui Mosque Education was expanded. From its generation to now, the objective of modern school education in Hui Region is to train personnel of various types to meet the needs of this nation. This objective consists with the overall purpose of the modern school education. Based on a social-based the idea, on the one hand, both of them emphasized the development of talent. On the other hand, they underestimated the effective heritance of national culture. As to the contents of education, contents of education by the Church education materials as the classic text of the implementation of education and become the main bearer of the Hui culture. In addition to the Koran, many disciplines including the Hadith, use the new classic textbook. But in the new era, educational materials by the Church face a new test. Materials modern school education in Hui has two systems. One is a system about modern scientific and cultural knowledg, it is mainly the contents of national curriculum. Another system is the local curriculum and school-based curriculum. Mosque education has two main teaching methods:one is the taught by scribes and another one is students as believers.In the context of the examination-oriented education, there are a lot of similarities between the Methods of modern school education and education by the Church. With the conduct of the new curriculum reform, a lot of changes have been taken place in school education. New teaching methods have took shape in basic education,which is of great importance for the highlight of national character and vitality of the school education. As to the impact of education, the essence of education by the Church is a religious education, it is mainly through education of the human spirit to influence people’s life and values.On the one hand, the education of Muslim has a positive impact in terms of national cultural heritance, it formed a diversified mode in line with modern social development and the needs of the masses, and further expanded the positive role of Mosque Education in the heritance of traditional national moral and cultural. On the other hand, in the process of its expansion and extending to the community and family education, Hui Mosque education is bound to have mutual influence with the education of young people. Modern school education in Hui Region has played an active role in the process of modernization of the Hui. In the new context of the times, to expand its influence and play its proper function, it is very important to strengthen the curriculum, the reform of teaching methods, training teachers, campus culture construction.