The Researches On The Characteristics Of Junior High School Students' Moral Learning And The Strategies For Their Moral Education

Morals are the crystallization of human thoughts and human existence. But for morals, not only the individual existence and psychological growth would be hampered, but also the development of the whole human society would be in crisis. For a long time, people have been expecting schools can pass on human virtues to students through moral education. However, the reality is always discouraging. As to this phenomenon, the reasons are various and complicated. The writer of this thesis thinks one of the most important reasons is that school moral education neglects another half of itself –moral learning. Therefore, the thesis is intended to explore the characteristics of junior high school students'moral learning in order to arouse educators'attention and help them animate moral education through readjusting their strategies. The thesis consists of four chapters: The first chapter is the introduction. It first explores the reasons for the predominant place of moral learning in China and, at the same time, emphasizes its importance. Then, a brief review and comments are made on the previous researches of moral learning. The way of research and the layout of the whole thesis are introduced at last. The second chapter is concerned with the definition and interpretation of some key ideas appearing in the thesis. In consideration of the complexity and inclusiveness of the two concepts, "morals"and "moral learning", an analysis is made from the semantic perspective. Based on the nature acquired through the analysis, the denotations of the two concepts are redefined, while the demand of the thesis is taken into account. In the definition of "moral learning", its differences from "knowledge learning"and "skill learning"are stressed so as to pave the way for the research on junior high school students'characteristics of moral learning. The third chapter then analyzes the above-mentioned characteristics from two aspects. One aspect is the characteristic of their age level, from which their moral thinking, moral sentiment, moral behaviors are explored for the sake of distinguishing junior high school students from people of other age levels in moral learning process. The other aspect is on the ground of the epochal characteristics of their moral learning, which differ from those of junior high school students in the past. As to the problems existing in the present moral education, in the fourth chapter, profound consideration and criticism are made according to the age and epochal characteristics of junior high school students in moral learning. Furthermore, four corresponding strategies for moral education are put forth: first, emphasis must be paid to change the outdated intellectually moral education into life moral education; next, importance must be attached to the voluntariness of junior high school students in moral learning in order to lead them in the learning; third, for the promotion of their moral learning, their affection experience must be valued; last, students must be taught to make moral choices for the maintenance of their moral learning while models of moral education are constructed to help them in voluntary learning. The idea running through the thesis is: moral learning is thestarting point and destination of moral education; without moral learning, moral education would be doomed to nothing; moral learning has its own character and characteristics, so it could not be reduced to moral knowledge learning or skill learning; only when the school moral education shows concern over the characteristics of junior high school students in moral learning and leads them in the learning process, could it shoulder the responsibility of helping students to form morals.